Chapter 51 Where does "New Three Kingdoms" put public emotion

Deng Hongwei Deng Hongwei, born in 1972 in Xiangshui, Jiangsu Province, winner of the Golden Sparrow Award for Chinese Small Novels, was listed as a writer by the China Fiction Society in 2005, and has published a collection of short stories "Flying Straw Hat" and "Big Fish Crossing the River".Currently working in a bank in Yancheng. "Xu You and Cao Cao are old classmates. The two of them studied at the same desk when they were young. If there is any delicious food, we can share it, and if there is any fun thing to play with. The relationship between the two is very close. Xu You likes to be called Cao Cao." "A Man", "A Man" is Cao Cao's nickname. The two often talk about their ambitions together. Xu You said, I want to be a prefect, and manage a state and county well. Cao Cao said, I want to be a prime minister, Govern a country. Cao Cao jokingly called Xu You the prefect, and Cao Cao asked Xu You to call him the prime minister. But Xu You still called him A Man. Cao Cao said, why don’t you call me the prime minister? Xu You said embarrassingly, my name is You have already called me a man, and you can’t change it for a while. Cao Cao smiled and said, then you can still call me a man.”

The above text is excerpted from Deng Hongwei's short novel "Classmates". This novel won the 2001-2002 Best Work Award of "Short Fiction Selected Journal", and was also selected as a model essay into the PEP course specimen. Deng Hongwei has created nearly a hundred novels on the theme of the Three Kingdoms, most of which are based on historical figures, especially the alternative lives of small people, such as "Classmates", "Zou Shi", "Hu Cheer", "Lu Bu", "Yu Jin" and so on.Therefore, he is known as the person who "rewritten the Three Kingdoms".

The stories of the Three Kingdoms written by Deng Hongwei are to re-examine and interpret the vivid faces of the "Three Kingdoms Era" from the perspective of modern people, and to find the causal relationship of "character is destiny" among the numerous clues. Deng Hongwei's love for the Three Kingdoms comes from his father, who was a simple elementary school teacher. As long as he can remember, his father often told him some "Three Kingdoms stories".In the summer vacation of the fifth grade, Deng Hongwei bought a copy with the money he saved from picking up scraps.

Many years later, Deng Hongwei worked as a bank employee in the county.It was at that time that he created the "Three Kingdoms Series Novels". How would such a "Three Kingdoms expert" feel after watching the movie "Red Cliff"?In fact, Deng Hongwei has never dared to watch "Red Cliff", "I love the Three Kingdoms very much. I am afraid that it is really a bad movie. Watching it will damage the Three Kingdoms in my mind!" But by chance, he held a meeting in Nanjing and organized a collective The activity is to watch "Red Cliff". Liu: You have watched the movie "Red Cliff". Are the characters of the Three Kingdoms portrayed by John Woo satisfactory?

Deng: There is no character I am most satisfied with. If I have to insist, I think Cao Cao's portrayal is not bad.Cao Cao has always been the image of a traitor in the eyes of the public, but Wu Yusen gave us a life-like Cao Cao. He can joke with the generals and talk and laugh happily. Waging a war, and being fond of a woman's portrait, made him step down from the altar of a politician and become a normal person with flesh and blood.Of course, this is a replica of the Trojan War in the West.But if you take a closer look, you can still understand it.Cao Cao in history had many women, such as Mrs. Liu, Mrs. Ding, Mrs. Bian, Zou, etc. This man likes women, but he is a politician after all, so he should not be too fond of women. For example, after capturing Wancheng, Zhang Xiu's aunt, Zou, could be accepted and surrendered, and finally turned against Zhang Xiu because of this.This point, Cao Cao should be ill-considered.Therefore, politicians are also human beings, and it is not impossible to be a little impulsive and make mistakes. Many characters in "Red Cliff" are failures. Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Xiao Qiao, and Sun Shangxiang are all ridiculous. They are far from the characters of the Three Kingdoms in our minds. The change of these characters makes the film's aesthetic taste plummet.

Liu: Wu Yusen subverted the traditional Three Kingdoms, which subversion in "Red Cliff" succeeded? Deng: Nothing really convinced me.However, there is one scene that left a deep impression on me, that is the scene where Zhou Yu corrects the flute for the child.This is a Zhou Yu that conforms to history, and can also play a role in relieving the war.It is not impossible to subvert the traditional Three Kingdoms, but there must be a degree and it must be acceptable.At the same time, be cautious.The plots in it are too superficial.It is better not to change it, and it is not good to change it.The various forms of Three Kingdoms that we have seen, such as storytelling (Yuan Kuocheng version, Shan Tianfang version, Lian Liru version), TV dramas in 1984, have not been greatly changed, and they are basically faithful to the original works, so they are relatively successful. No big objections.

Liu: What kind of Three Kingdoms does Wu Yusen want to tell about?Did he do it? Deng: John Woo seems to want to make a feature film. He once said that "Red Cliff" is his dream about the feelings of the Chinese homeland. He hopes to let the West understand China better through this film.But he seems to be afraid that Westerners will not understand, so he discarded many wonderful chapters, fabricated some nonsensical plots, overly Westernized and entertained the film, and finally let the West understand only a superficial Chinese history, the essence of the Three Kingdoms But nothing was expressed.In fact, the current "Red Cliff" should be a commercial blockbuster, because it has a more obvious entertainment tendency, and it is very simple entertainment.For such a large film, there should be some people like the history of the Three Kingdoms and literary consultants to check it, so that some mistakes can be avoided.

Liu: Your novel is also rewriting the Three Kingdoms, so what is the difference between you and John Woo? Deng: What I write is somewhere between history and jokes.I am more pursuing the truth of historical figures, capturing their details, paying attention to the interrelationship of their personalities, fate, emotions and other contingency and inevitability factors, and making the characters and stories closer to reality and the public, easy to read, durable, Not jerky, that is, on the one hand, it has the weight of history, and on the other hand, it is the observation of reality.The two complement each other and cannot be separated.It's not impossible to change the Three Kingdoms, to innovate or reinterpret some plots, but it must be adapted reasonably according to the character and fate of the characters, and it must not be changed too casually.Because the Three Kingdoms has its unique cultural environment and historical value, which cannot be replaced by any era.The Three Kingdoms are the Three Kingdoms, and the characters of the Three Kingdoms are still rooted in the soil of the Three Kingdoms, and cannot be tampered with at will.Rewriting the Three Kingdoms requires rigor and a good grasp of a degree, that is, the degree of history and jokes.

Wu Yusen didn't grasp this level well, the revision was too shallow, and the connotation was not changed. It was divorced from Romance of the Three Kingdoms or Romance, and also divorced from the audience. Therefore, those who understand the Three Kingdoms will not buy it, and those who do not understand the Three Kingdoms will not buy it either. Liu: What is its position among the four great classics? Deng: From the artistic point of view of novels, they are actually inferior to the other three novels.The Three Kingdoms is too realistic, focusing on grand narratives, and not digging enough details and characters.For future generations to learn the skills of writing novels, I am afraid that they should read more. These three books can teach you how to describe emotions, portray characters, and imagine.But the Three Kingdoms has the essence of traditional Chinese culture, and has a unique view of history and values.This is irreplaceable by the other three.I prefer Three Kingdoms.

Liu: The Three Kingdoms fever that has formed in recent years seems to be the most vital work among the four great classics.Where is the charm of the Three Kingdoms? Deng: The charm of the Three Kingdoms lies in its grand narrative and its traditional cultural value orientation.Although it writes about war, three points will be returned to Jin, and the final unification will entrust the working people's good wishes for reunification, opposition to war, and yearning for peace.In addition, many characters in it, such as Liu Bei, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, etc., are the incarnations of Mingjun, virtuous ministers and good generals, and representatives of loyalty. They have the spiritual pursuit entrusted by the Chinese people, so they can live in the hearts of the people for a long time.Furthermore, the Three Kingdoms are rich in content and profound in meaning. Different people have different value orientations. Businessmen, soldiers, literati, people of all walks of life can see a different kind of "Three Kingdoms", so they can last for a long time.

Liu: Who is your favorite character in Three Kingdoms? Deng: I like a little man, Jia Xu, the counselor of Wei.This man is very wise. Although he is not as famous as other counselors such as Zhuge Liang, Guo Jia, and Xun's uncles and nephews, this character has a three-dimensional image.His personality characteristics, life trajectory, and mental journey have strong research value.He protected several masters and did some outrageous things, but in the end he stabilized and died well.If you pull him over to study, you can write a long novel. The "New Three Kingdoms" TV series has been on the air for almost half of the time, and the criticism from the audience continues unabated. "New Three Kingdoms" was destined to be scolded from the very beginning, but I didn't expect to be scolded so harshly. I think that "New Three Kingdoms" was scolded mainly because its creators miscalculated the audience's appreciation level. For thousands of years, the stories of the Three Kingdoms have been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.The audience has very deep feelings for this masterpiece.From comic strips to storytelling, to operas, to the old version of the Three Kingdoms TV series, the creators are very cautious, so they have all achieved success and received unanimous praise.This is inseparable from their taking care of public sentiment and being faithful to the original.So, is it necessary to be faithful to the original when filming "Three Kingdoms"?I don't think so.We hope to see a brand new "Three Kingdoms".The question is, how to change it?change what?Judging from the "New Three Kingdoms" episodes that have been watched, the adaptation is quite strong, but the changes are too random, the places that should be changed have not been changed, and the places that should not have been changed have been changed.A very elegant thing is made vulgar. The first is the plot aspect.Plots can be recreated and recombined.The key is to create it reasonably and combine it wonderfully. "New Three Kingdoms" was unsuccessful in plot adaptation, mainly reflected in three aspects: First, the classic parts of the original "Three Kingdoms" were changed to be unclassic.For example, warming wine and chopping Hua Xiong.In the original work, Zhan Huaxiong uses fictitious writing methods, without a single description of the fighting on the battlefield, but uses a lot of pen and ink to describe the demeanor and performance of the princes in the tent, which seems very reserved, which is what critics have always strongly praised. In the Three Kingdoms, it is the most artistic passage about fighting.The old version of Three Kingdoms inherited this feature, and used a large number of pictures to render it to the extreme, and achieved very good results.When it came to "New Three Kingdoms", the shooting was very realistic, completely destroying the original artistic aesthetic.Green plums boiled in wine and talk about heroes, both the original and the old version are very subtle, and the scenes are also grand, but "New Three Kingdoms" is very straightforward.The battle of Guandu focuses on showing the determination and struggle of the two coaches.Yuan Shao had many loyal and intelligent people, and they all offered good advice to Yuan Shao, but Yuan Shao didn't listen, and it was precisely because of this that the tragedy of Yuan Shao's character became more prominent.However, the new version takes so long to describe the fight on the frontal battlefield, and then uses a large number of scenes to show the battles between Tian Feng, Xu You, Guo Tu, etc., sometimes it is a gentleman, and sometimes it is a villain, the layers are chaotic, and it loses its appeal.The second is to force some nonsensical things into it at will.Cao Cao had already fled the capital, but he wanted Lu Bu to search Wang Yun's mansion, and arranged for him to meet Diao Chan for the first time.I am not against Lu Bu and Diao Chan meeting in advance, I am against making their meeting in advance so fake. In order to make up for the lack of Sun Wu's weak role in the original work, "New Three Kingdoms" arranged for Sun Quan to appear in advance as a child prodigy.This is a good thing, but it is also because the scenes are arranged too bluntly and falsely so that people can't help laughing.The third is to delete some wonderful plots at will.It took less than a minute for Taoyuan to become sworn brothers, which was not as long as Cao Cao's time to urinate.Such important chapters as Zhan Puyang, Zhan Wancheng, Bowangpo, and Lianhuanji were completely discarded. The second is to change the characters at will.In recent years, the research on the Three Kingdoms has been in-depth and the thinking has been broadened. The characters of the Three Kingdoms are no longer isolated in the past, but multi-faceted. "New Three Kingdoms" can be used for reference to make it more full and three-dimensional.Not so.Many plump and bright characters in the original book have been changed to be plain in the new version.Cao Cao, that is a politician, military strategist, and writer. Under Chen Jianbin's interpretation, why does he look more and more like a rogue bandit mountain king? How did such a temperament endow "Guan Canghai" and "Duan Ge Xing"?Zhang Fei should be a brave and invincible general who is also cute and forthright. His words in "New Three Kingdoms" are rude and illogical, and he becomes a mixture of Li Kui and Ba Jie.Tian Feng, very insightful in politics and military affairs, has the characteristic of committing crimes just now. In the new version, he is just a bum, adding to Yuan Shao's troubles and giving him some wrong decisions, making his suicide very pale.There are too many places to change characters at will.It's fine if the reform is good, the key is to make the reform more superficial and unreasonable.The second is to randomly add characters.When Wenjiu killed Huaxiong, he added Liu Sandao, and when Sun Jian returned to Jiangdong, he added Fan Jin's next letter, both of which were posted on the Internet as jokes.Can adding this character and these plots promote the development of the plot?cannot.Only increase the smile.The third is to delete important people.Many important characters in the original work have been deleted without a trace.Jia Xu, a very distinctive character, didn't mention a single word.There is only one Xun in two Xun.Dian Wei, the brave champion of the three armies, is gone.Although Guo Jia appeared later, he was as expressionless as a puppet.In fact, many characters in the original work are outlined in thick lines, which gives "New Three Kingdoms" a very large space for excavation.It's a pity that "New Three Kingdoms" did not cherish these resources. The too casual design of the lines is another fatal point of "New Three Kingdoms".The language style of the original work is "the text is not very deep, and the words are not very vulgar", and the dialogue between the characters is concise, concise and full of momentum.The old version of Three Kingdoms retained this style. Although some places were a bit jerky, the audience was happy to accept it. "New Three Kingdoms" redesigned the lines on the basis of subverting the original work, and almost completely used the vernacular, which really turned off the appetite of the audience. Not only that, but the lines designed in "New Three Kingdoms" are full of mistakes and upside down, which is intolerable.Dong Zhuo called himself our family, making people think he was a eunuch.The small school made a fortune and shouted that it was a disaster, and it felt like it was on the way to learn scriptures in the West.Zhang Fei yelled, the eldest brother is the leader, and the second brother is the deputy leader, as if he is in the mountains and rivers of Liang.The waiter took each master's son one bite at a time, making people feel like they were in the palace of the Qing Dynasty.Dong Zhuo said to Wang Yun, Wang Yun, you are a treasure in the golden house.Gongsun Zan said to Cao Cao that no one in the world does not know the king.Cao Cao said that life is a hero, and death is a ghost."Warming Wine and Cutting Huaxiong", which is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, is inexplicably unanimous in the "New Three Kingdoms" "Cupping Wine and Killing Huaxiong".Whether it is affected by the "drinking wine releases military power".As a classic masterpiece and an epic blockbuster, it has attracted much attention, and there are so many fallacies, it is really misleading.We can see the extremely irresponsible attitude of the main creators: the screenwriter didn't think about it at all, the actors didn't use their brains, and the director turned a blind eye.The actor's lines are also extremely long-winded. The scheming hero Liu Bei and the treacherous Cao Cao, as soon as the two meet, they start to have their hearts out, and the long and long confessions greatly damage the image of the characters.In fact, for these characters, only one look and one expression is enough for the audience to understand, why bother to talk so much nonsense and completely treat the audience as fools.In fact, it is only the director who is stupid, and the audience understands everything.The lines designed by the silly director can completely fool the audience who originally understood. There are still many unsatisfactory things in "New Three Kingdoms", and due to space limitations, I will not mention them one by one.What is the reason for these mistakes?It is that they miscalculated the audience's appreciation level and seriously ignored the public sentiment.The reason for ignoring public sentiment is that the main creators do not have enough affection for the Three Kingdoms.The reason for not having enough emotions is that their level is limited, their judgment is limited, and they don't understand the Three Kingdoms at all.First of all, the screenwriter does not understand the Three Kingdoms.He didn't know the history and content of the Three Kingdoms, nor did he have any feelings.If he had feelings, he would not tamper with the classic characters and details at will, but add those details that are far away from the theme and character.The second is that the director does not understand the Three Kingdoms.Director Gao Xixi is a very talented director, but he doesn't understand "Three Kingdoms", so when he was interviewed by the media, he was able to refer to Cao Cao's "Duan Ge Xing" as "Duan Xing Ge".He made a serious mistake in the judgment of the concept of "New Three Kingdoms", and his aesthetic taste was seriously deviated.He interpreted "The New Three Kingdoms" in the way of a romantic drama, of course it was thankless.The third is that the actors do not understand the Three Kingdoms. Most of the actors in "New Three Kingdoms" are youth idols.Whether they have read the Three Kingdoms is still a question mark.It is simply difficult for them who lack cultural background to understand the heavy roles of the Three Kingdoms with a youthful attitude.Therefore, the eyes of Lu Bu, the number one hero of the Three Kingdoms, are always so affectionate; although the bully Sun Ce speaks in a rough voice, he still looks like a white-faced scholar; Zhang Fei can only be like Li Kui, and Diao Chan can only be like a village girl.Chen Jianbin can only be full of banditry and has no cultural connotation.With the joint efforts of the screenwriter, director, and actors, "New Three Kingdoms", which took five years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, is presented to the audience as a mediocre work that has been criticized.This makes people wonder what they have been busy with for five years?It cost more than 100 million yuan, where did it go? Even if it takes a few months to polish the details and smooth the lines.Or spend hundreds of thousands, find a few history experts and literature experts to check the pulse, "consult", or even find some Three Kingdoms fans to ask sincerely, it may be another world. But no.As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars were wiped out in an instant, and an "epic masterpiece" was all jokes.