Behind-the-scenes Production of Romance of the Three Kingdoms

After the filming of A Dream of Red Mansions is completed, CCTV's next plan is to put the masterpiece Romance of the Three Kingdoms on the screen. In mid-1987, TV workers Dai Linfeng and Ruan Ruolin, historians Liu Shide and Feng Qiyong, storyteller Yuan Feng, producer of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and producer Ren Dahui of A Dream of Red Mansions held a meeting and decided on a plan to adapt the Three Kingdoms. However, it was soon reported that Fujian TV Station, film artist Sun Daolin and even Japanese film and television circles were all preparing to shoot the "Three Kingdoms", so CCTV suspended the filming plan. Due to various reasons, the shooting work of each family failed to start as scheduled, and CCTV restarted the plan to shoot the Three Kingdoms.

In July p>1989, Wang Fulin was appointed as the general director of the TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In June 199, the "Three Kingdoms" leading group was established. In August, the script creation meeting was held and the screenwriter group was established. The crew reached an understanding: fully respecting the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and referring to the valuable historical materials in the History of the Three Kingdoms, the 12 chapters of the novel were adapted into an 8-episode script (finally edited into 84 episodes), and the big framework consisted of five parts: competing with each other, the battle at Chibi, the three-legged struggle, the war in the south and the war in the north, and the return of three points to Jin. By December 15, 199, 76 episodes of literary plays had been completed, and the first draft was completed soon. The leading group specially organized a script discussion group to discuss the script repeatedly. After several drafts of the script, the red book was finalized on December 3, 1991. In fact, the scriptwriters of Romance of the Three Kingdoms are stationed at the same time as the main creative staff, working at the same time, and modifying the script is also cross-shooting.

From mid-August to early October, 199, actor selection Li Faceng and Gu Fengli visited Beiying, Bayi Factory, Beijing People's Art, Qingyi, Children's Art, General Political Department, Air Administration and other units, and determined the first batch of 78 candidates. The director group successively selected and watched the video materials of actors sent from all over the country, and sent three deputy directors to look for actors everywhere. The selection of actors lasted for nearly 1 months and ended at the end of May 1991. After the role was basically determined, the crew held an actor's class in Beijing in July 1991. Six experts taught the actors, including the background of the Three Kingdoms, etiquette and customs in the Han Dynasty, ancient wars and laws, and the adaptation of classical works. In the class, the general director Wang Fulin talked about the director's overall idea. He proposed that the adaptation purpose of the TV series is: on the Daguan Festival, it basically conforms to the original Romance of the Three Kingdoms; According to the needs of TV series, some necessary artistic processing is carried out; Respect the ideological tendency of "supporting Liu and opposing Cao" in the original work, and highlight the values of "advocating benevolent government and opposing tyranny"; Praise the loyalty of the heroes of the Three Kingdoms. The production of Romance of the Three Kingdoms adopted the mode of "the general director grasps the keynote and unifies the style-five directors are responsible for the specific shooting-the general director is responsible for the post-production". It was officially started in March 1991, and after nearly three years of shooting, it was finished in January 1994 and officially premiered in October 1994.

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms has a total investment of 17 million yuan, of which nearly 1 million yuan was used to build a shooting base, and 7 million yuan was directly put into shooting. The crew set up two largest studios in China at that time in Zhuozhou, each with an area of 1,2 square meters, and the two studios cost about 4 million yuan. The "San'guo City" in Wuxi and the "Tang Cheng" built for the TV series "Tang Minghuang" in the same period cost about 2 million yuan; The "Han City Wall", "Street" and "Tongquetai" in Zhuozhou cost about 3 million yuan. More than 1, kinds of clothes and more than 3, sets cost about 5 million yuan. There are nearly 7, props, costing about 7 million yuan; * * * cost more than 1 million yuan. The two major film and television bases in Zhuozhou and Wuxi are still serving the film and television crews.

The crew used unprecedented manpower, material resources and financial resources, and only used extras to reach more than 4, person-times. Among them, the "Battle of Guandu" filmed in June 1992 used the troops of a division of the People's Liberation Army, which cost about 4, yuan; When shooting "Burning Red Cliff", the crew used nine cameras and a helicopter to shoot simultaneously from three directions, namely, water, land and air, used 72 ships, and the fire burned more than 5 cars of firewood and more than 2 tons of gasoline and diesel, and invited more than 3, extras to take part in the shooting. During the filming, the five crews also traveled to more than ten provinces, cities and autonomous regions, including Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Sichuan, Ningxia, Gansu, Qinghai, Tibet, Jiangsu, Hubei and Yunnan.

Respecting the original work with a distinct theme

The TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms has successfully demonstrated the essence of the original work and the historical features of the Three Kingdoms period by taking the weeds and removing the complexity and simplifying it on the basis of respecting the original work. The well-known passages in the original works and the well-known storyline all make the audience admire, sigh, regret and cry with the development of the storyline, either with majestic momentum, magnificent scenes or lyrical artistic conception and vivid details. Understand the philosophy of life with the evolution of the fate of the characters and the tragic ending. (Comment by Zhou Jinhua)

The director of TV series firmly grasps the basic ideological tendency of "supporting Liu and opposing Cao" in the original work, retains the inherent ideological essence of the people in the original work, and explores the meaning of the play in many ways. In addition, the comments on the history of the Three Kingdoms period, the reappearance of the spirit of the Three Kingdoms period, the exposure of the rulers and the dark society, the sympathy for the people's sufferings, and the desire for a wise monarch and a wise man and a peaceful reunification of the country have all been clearly reflected in TV dramas. (Comment by Zhang Zongwei)

Exquisite performance and vivid characters

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms has made great achievements in shaping characters. Not only do all kinds of characters have clear positions, but also the main characters are vivid and colorful. (Movie Network Review) TV plays have successfully created a series of vivid characters: Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Sun Quan, Zhuge Liang, Guan Yu, Zhang Fei, Zhou Yu, Huang Zhong, Zhao Yun and Jiang Wei. The original author deified and exaggerated some characters, and even covered them with feudal superstition. The TV series reduced them to human beings, making them not only superior heroes, but also ordinary people's joys and sorrows. Coupled with the wonderful creation of actors, the main characters in the play were more authentic and lifelike. (Comment by Zhou Jinhua)

High artistic achievement and strong sense of history

The TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms is well-made and unique in conception. The cultural atmosphere in the play is extremely penetrating and the majestic atmosphere seems to be natural, which makes people marvel. (Film Network Review)

The director pursues a bold, vigorous, Gu Zhuo and tragic artistic style from the grasp of the whole drama, the characterization, the beautiful dance design, the creation of music and lyrics and the creation of historical atmosphere. This aesthetic style is consistent with the aesthetic style of the Eastern Han Dynasty and the Three Kingdoms period. The TV series Romance of the Three Kingdoms properly embodies this aesthetic style. The dialogue adopts the plain classical Chinese in the original, which keeps the refined, vivid and vivid dialogue language of the original, and is also in harmony with the artistic style of the whole play. The music style is simple, elegant and dignified, which is integrated with the style of the whole play. The lyrics are profound and elegant, with the charm of five-character poems of Yuefu in Han and Wei Dynasties and the flavor of life philosophy. (Comment by Zhou Jinhua)

Art, clothing, makeup modeling, lighting, props, and the overall editing have all made great efforts in the "TV" of the original work. The creation of historical atmosphere and the design of scenes have added a heavy sense of history. (Zeng Qingrui's comments) The war scenes are not satisfactory

For the battle of thousands of troops and horses, the director paid attention to the arrangement and change of the battle position, the way of command and communication, and so on, and filmed the decisive battle scenes of several major battles with great momentum; There are also many fighting scenes that are mediocre, lacking in characteristics and even sloppy; As for many fighting scenes, only the generals fought, but many soldiers just waved flags and shouted, which was not in line with the reality of ancient wars, because they were constrained by the original novel. Generally speaking, the war scenes not only surpass the novel, but also fail to fully convey the charm of the novel. (Comment by Shen Bojun)

Scenes of immediate engagement can be described as everywhere, but those that really play brilliantly are rare. Relatively speaking, the fierce battle between Zhang Fei and Ma Chao in the 52nd episode of "Seizing Xichuan" is quite real, tense and beautiful. It's a pity that most of the designs that start immediately appear to be inflexible and slow-paced, which can't stimulate people's passion for viewing. (Comment by Zhong Yibing)

Some plots are not adapted properly

The hard work of the arranger makes the plot twists and turns reasonable and colorful, the characters are full of flesh and blood, and the artistic appeal surpasses the novel and achieves great success. However, in some places, it is relatively thin and not appealing for the adaptors to simply interpret the plot of the novel in TV language. (Comment by Shen Bojun)

The over-emphasis on "realism" in style makes the play not fully express the ethereal and romantic legendary style of the original work, such as the battle between the three British and Lyu3 bu4, the beating of Hua Xiong with warm wine, and the beating of six generals through five customs, which is not as vivid as the original work. (Comment by Zhang Zongwei)

Actors change too frequently

Some roles in TV dramas are even important. Changing actors several times affects the mood of the audience. Zhao Yun is one of the generals of the Five Tigers in Shu Han, but three actors are used in the TV series. The second actor is younger than the first one, and the audience often wonders if this is Zhao Yun. Lu Su in Dongwu was a loyal elder. The first actor was very successful, but it was also changed. It was difficult for the audience to connect the two Lu Su. There are also roles such as Wei Yan and Jiang Wei, and the same is true. Later actors may not be inferior to the former, but once they are replaced, the audience's impression of the role will be blurred. (Deng Chudong comments)