Film Evaluation of Legend of the Mountain

1977 is a key point in Hu Jinquan. He married the writer Zhong Ling, and soon announced that he would go to South Korea to start shooting two films, Empty Shan Yu and Legend of the Mountain. 1978 was selected as one of the top five directors in the British international film guide. However, he was supposed to be at the peak of his career, but suddenly suffered a serious setback because of 1979' s two consecutive box office failures, which seriously affected his future film creation career. In particular, The Legend of the Mountain has been edited into many different versions, some of which are even fragmented, which seriously deviates from the author's original intention, which undoubtedly makes Hu Jinquan extremely sad. The main reason for the commercial failure of The Legend of Mountain Residence is the negative atmosphere of pessimism and seclusion that pervades the film from beginning to end.

Today, "The List of Gods" is the product of Hu Jinquan's extremely inflated personal will, a finely crafted and ingenious work of art, and an unqualified product of popular culture that completely deviates from the rules of film production-it cannot be included in a certain established genre, and it has opened a gap with Hu Jinquan's past chivalrous classics.

1. Love of Yin and Yang: Text Interdependence and Symphony.

Before the creation of The Condor Heroes, Hu Jinquan had already produced two well-received films, The Storm in the Spring Pavilion and The Martyr's Picture. However, judging from the shape after its completion, it has more similarities in creative ideas and artistic techniques than the early female Xia. This may be because Summer won the Cannes Technical Award in 1975 and was re-edited and re-released in Taiwan Province Province in 1976, which made me feel very excited. Mountain, like Chivalrous Man, is based on ancient literature and has undergone a lot of editing. Its prototype "Xishan Ghost Cave" was stored in the popular novel "Jing Ben" in the Song and Yuan Dynasties, and was later incorporated into the Warning Story edited by Feng Menglong in the Ming Dynasty, renamed as "Ghost Cave and Taoist Cave". Surnames such as Le Niang in the Mountain and Wang Po are all directly from the original works, and the hero is also the last child, but his identity has changed from a teacher to a scribe who copied the magic scriptures for the temple, and the location has also moved directly from the bustling streets of Lin 'an to the desolate tunpu in the frontier fortress. It is in this isolated environment that the fantasy journey of Confucian scholar He Yunqing slowly unfolds.

Like Xia, the film begins with a walking paragraph, which is considered to be the most stylish visual label. Walking often means how difficult the road ahead of life is, and the arduous course of meditation and enlightenment is also a self-reference for personal artistic creation (in order to shoot "Mountain", Hu's film crew almost traveled all over Korea to collect scenery and visited many ancient temples that are inaccessible and hidden deep in the mountains). This kind of life experience immersed in mountains and rivers has strengthened mountain walking as never before. From the viewpoint of He Yunqing, the magnificence and charm of nature drifted out of the main narrative line of the film and became the real protagonist in the first 20 minutes of the film. What is particularly commendable is that the beauty of mountains and rivers has reached a tacit understanding with camera movements and audience perspectives. Zhong Ling, a screenwriter, once pointed out in the article "Ghostly, Aesthetic Feeling and Culture" that Hu Jinquan, as a calligrapher and ink painter, often used the way that the painter looked at the hand scroll when expressing the scenery. "A scholar treks long distances in the nature on the screen. Most of him appears from the left side of the screen and walks to the right. At this time, the magnificent scenery is presented to the audience in the horizontal direction with the movement of the scholar. " Like many ink paintings, the characters in Mountain often belong to nature in composition and live in a distant corner, but it makes the whole picture invisible and vivid. In addition, the technique of "making something out of nothing" in Chinese painting is also widely used in movies. How did Yun Qing see the famous scenery of Zhuang at first sight: the mountain stream is flowing, the wind and fog are misty, and the woman in white plays the flute in the distance. The voice is beautiful and charming, which is fantastic and fascinating.

Everything is emotional. He Yunqing witnessed this scene and went on his way again. The theme of love music in the film began to connect in time, indicating that the scholar who originally wanted to find a clean place to copy classics could not escape the net of worldly lust after all. Soon, with the development of the story, He Yunqing fell into a love triangle with two female ghosts, Le Niang and Zhuang Evian, and fell into a conspiracy to learn from the scriptures. When Hu Jinquan describes the love between him and his two daughters, it is worth pondering to deal with the difference between music and painting. After he married Le Niang, he indulged in the pleasure of sleeping in a high wall and deep house all day. While expressing their physical pleasure, Hu Jinquan used many symbolic techniques (such as blazing sunshine, unrestrained flowers, mating insects and koi fish at the bottom of the pool) to strengthen the vitality of agitation and excitement; However, when he got to know Evian, they went to the back hill to collect hangover herbs, but it was another beautiful and refined natural scene-smoke, clouds, strange rocks, rapids and beautiful trees sandwiched between them. The communication between them is more spiritual. We should pay attention to the fact that the music that sets off these two paragraphs is actually the same love theme, but it is completely different in emotional color: the first paragraph is played with the symphony of western orchestra and piano, which is warm and rhythmic; The latter paragraph is played by a folk band with a slow and subtle rhythm (the music is often covered by the sound of streams). In addition to the variation of the same theme, in the middle of the previous paragraph, Hu Jinquan suddenly inserted a colorful chapter composed of 13 short shots, accompanied by the squeal and proud laughter of the female ghost. This fateful scene reminds people of the same artistic treatment at the beginning of "Summer" (this film also stars and, but their relationship is completely different from that in "Shan Jutu").

Therefore, on the narrative ideographic level, in addition to relying on grand and superb photography skills, the composer Wu Dajiang's soundtrack is also a very prominent highlight in The Legend of Mountain Living. Just like the relationship between David Henry Hwang and Tsui Hark, the relationship between Wu Dajiang and Hu Jinquan has already gone beyond the general partnership, and his music and pictures are intertwined harmoniously, explaining each other's definitions. Moreover, compared with their early cooperation (such as Longmen Inn in the 1960s), the techniques and functions of music in The Legend of Mountain Residence are much more important. This is not only an important practice of China's music symphonization after the mid-1970s, but also an earlier successful practice of China's music symphonization (also known as "Westernized China Music"), which was created by Wu Dajiang in 1975. From 65438 to 0977, Wu returned to Hong Kong to establish the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, taking "China Music Symphony" as the artistic route of the orchestra. In the next 20 years, this concept has been hotly debated by people in the music industry. The Legend of Mountain Residence is the most successful practice of symphonizing Chinese music in film soundtrack. Huan Yan, who was defeated by Wu at the end of 1979, and The Story of a Small Town by Weng Qingxi won the 16 Golden Horse Award for best soundtrack. More importantly, in The Legend of the Mountain, music partially replaced Hu Jinquan's famous function of interpreting martial arts moves with editing skills. For example, in the climax scene in the first half of the film, that is, when Ming-tsai Wu plays a monk and a musician playing drums, the music gradually enters from sparse drums. With the increasingly fierce battle between the two, more and more percussion elements (including money drums, pot drums, lion drums, large and medium cymbals, small gongs, military gongs, bangzi, etc. ) gradually converge. In this period of about 10 minutes, music has broken through the traditional artistic mission and brought the audience a more concrete sense than a picture with abstract rhythm. Hu Jinquan and Wu Dajiang "co-directed" this amazing "Ghost Symphony", which is really a world-class master.

2. Untitled Poetry: Hu Jinquan's Zen Machine and Crisis

In The Legend of the Mountain, Hu Jinquan described his only content "lust" (more accurately, it should be "love prison") with a very slow and long pace, and its technique has aroused the discussion of many researchers. For example, in the above-mentioned passionate drama between He Yunqing and Le Niang, "excessive symbolism is embarrassing", and Huang also pointed out that the narrative of "The Legend of Mountain Living" is not enough to keep the audience's interest, and the film is "lost in too rich gimmicks and rich scenery scenes, or in Disney-style purely decorative natural scenes, such as spiders preying, carp paddling or birds". In The Legend of the Mountain, Hu Jinquan seems to intentionally emphasize the Taoist view of the coexistence of Yin and Yang. In fact, the interpretation of Tao has been involved in many films after Come and Have a Drink with me, but it has never been as prominent and stylized as the legend of mountain residence. In the story of a ghost Taoist cave, the role of Evian Village did not exist. Hu Jinquan joined this role, and gave it an antagonistic relationship with Le Niang in visual presentation. For example, Zhong Ling said, "Evian is soft and cheerful; In terms of clothes, Evian wears white or blue clothes, and Le Niang wears red or bright yellow. The symbolic meaning of their clothes is self-evident. " At the same time, it is reflected in the color given by music. He and Evian are both beautiful and refined, while Le Niang is rich in color. But from a certain point of view, these two women are unified, and they have formed a relationship with the Confucian scholar He Yunqing in The Dead. Therefore, when fierce conflicts broke out between them, they could only break the original peaceful drama layout.

Just as Hu Jinquan can make the lens simulate the charm of the viewer's paintings, the interaction between Yin and Yang is not only reflected in the superficial symbol setting, but also deeply rooted in the highly skilled editing skills, which is the most prominent value of Hu Jinquan's Legend of Mountain Living. Let's take an episode in which a monk learns to play drums from a Taoist priest. This 5-minute paragraph can be roughly divided into the following 12 sections:

He copied the big handprint;

(2) Buddhism and Taoism achieve * * * knowledge;

(3) Why and Le Niang feed fish;

(4) Monks and Taoists play chess;

5] Why do you want to play chess with Le Niang?

[6] Taoist lost chess and promised to teach drumming to close the door to get things;

(7) How to open the cupboard door and put away the manuscript;

Eager to open the door;

(9) Taoists become drums and monks become drums;

⑽ He played with Le Niang and Xiao Qing;

⑾ Taoist priests teach cymbals to monks;

⑿ Why do you want to copy the big handprint?

This short period, starting with copying classics and ending with copying classics, is self-contained. It contains all kinds of yin-yang oppositions, such as secularism and Zen, happiness and crisis, victory and failure, opening and closing, big and small, harming people and saving people. All these things are merged into one furnace through exquisite paragraph editing techniques, and the link between them is the western secret book "The Big Handprint" which communicates the two worlds. Throughout the film, from He Linhai to the end of the same scene, the drum section and the whole film formed a concentric structure.

This is the ambition of Shan Hai Jing, because Hu Jinquan wants to show his attitude towards Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. Obviously, Hu Jinquan is very worried about the Confucianism that advocates joining the WTO. Just like He Yunqing in the film, he was possessed by a ghost, and his skills of changing his mind were limited, and he almost died of lust. However, Hu Jinquan agreed with Taoist cosmology and Buddhist empty mirror to save the soul. I even think that he is not only expressing the "legend" of communication between man and ghost through The Legend of Mountain Residence, but simply believing and agreeing with the principle of Yin and Yang. Everything he does in the film is basically for inaction. At that time, many viewers were confused after watching Legend of the Mountain, and did not understand what the "central idea" (theme) of the film wanted to express. Hu Jinquan replied that the film had no theme. This reminds me of the last comment in "One Hole Ghost, One Taoist, Destroy Demons": "All demons are bent on their own way, how dare they touch people? Evil is judged from the heart, and the ghost cave in Xishan has already turned over. " If you want to avoid the harm of ghosts, the key lies in "Juechen", and everything is empty. It seems that although Hu Jinquan and Zhong Ling made a lot of adaptations to the original story when they created the script, their core spirit remains unchanged. "Untitled" (or "empty") is to understand the mystery of Zen in The Legend of Mountain Living.

When did Hu Jinquan become so obsessed with Zen? According to himself, when filming Woman, he was inspired by an old gentleman who believed in Buddhism. "Zen can only be understood, but not expressed", so Hu Jinquan's efforts in the second half of his life are to transform his ideas into film language and "inject them into the film". Since Hu Jinquan himself said that his films can only enlighten but not explain, the author no longer obsesses about the theme of The Legend of Mountain Living. But what is certain is that the pursuit of "emptiness" has greatly influenced the characterization and performance skills of this film, which makes it obviously different from any previous films of Hu. First of all, Hu Jinquan completely gave up the traditional opera flavor elements that made him famous. For example, the inn drama in Come and Have a Drink with me, and The Storm of Yingchunge (deeply influenced by Beijing Opera) no longer appears in The Legend of Mountain Residence; Secondly, Hu Jinquan weakened the widely acclaimed action editing method (some functions were replaced by music), and "Legend of the Mountain" became his "only movie that does not aim at action movies"; Most importantly, Hu Jinquan gave up the definition of moral legitimacy of characters. In the past, the audience knew at least at a glance the loyalty and treachery of the characters in Hu's martial arts films. However, when filming The Legend of the Mountain, Hu Jinquan reflected on it. He believes that China's narrative has always been biased towards "preaching" and "preaching", which is embodied in the characters as "simplification"-"Good people do good deeds; What bad people do is bad. This may have a deep relationship with the facial makeup of China's traditional drama, which is not only the tradition of dividing roles by makeup, but also means that "what suits one's own mind is good;" "Things that don't suit you are not good. There is no difference in essence. " For this, I think Hu Jinquan's courage is very commendable, but it will also pose a severe challenge to those who regard movies as popular entertainment products. In order to pursue Zen, Hu Jinquan introduced a disturbing historical nihilism into The Legend of Mountain Residence, which laid the groundwork for the commercial fiasco in the early film.

3. South: Re-evaluation of Hu Jinquan's author consciousness.

Zhong Ling once summarized the characteristics of China's ghost stories as "human beauty", which probably means that ghosts in China are often infected with human temperament and behavior. The specific performance is: female ghosts often appear as beautiful women, or enchanting, or delicate and touching, easily tempted to fall in love with human beings, and even give birth to children for human beings. However, anyone who has seen The Mountain will find that Hu Jinquan's handling method is very "inhuman". Especially in the duel at the end of the film, when He Yunqing throws a string of magical beeswax beads and makes several loud noises, both Le Niang, Wang Po and Xiaoqing who want to harm him, and the monks, Evian and Cui who have been protecting him all die without exception! Compared with the treatment in Ghost Story (1987), Nie Hening, though separated by Yin and Yang, can't be together, at least reserved a compensatory ending for her, so that she can rest in peace and be reincarnated in her next life. However, in order to pursue personal spiritual perfection, Hu Jinquan asked the audience to "dust off" with him and cut off their lust. The result can be imagined. As Huang said: "In the movie, there is no answer-not even a glimmer of hope and comfort. What the audience came to the theater to see was not the triumph of justice over evil, but at least the values we hoped for: justice, loyalty and sacrifice. Hu Jinquan resolutely accepted the cruel reality, which gave his films a philosophical and almost sealed sense of perfection, but it came at a price. "

No Hu Jinquan film has so many derivative versions of The Mountain (which seems to reflect the publisher's confusion from one side). The full-length film is 183 minutes, but the first screening in Taiwan Province province is 1 15 minutes; Hong Kong International Film Festival 1998 retrospective showed a 25-minute version of/KLOC-0, which was said to have been edited by Hu himself. Since then, the DVD released in Japan has been 1 17 minutes. On the back cover, Hu is called "Hong Kong's" and Heshan is his "highest masterpiece". For mainland researchers, the complete version of Mountain is hard to find for a long time. Fortunately, a DVD was released in Taiwan Province in 2009, and the author got his wish. 1 12-minute short version is mainly different from the full version in that it shortens the walking part at the beginning (there is no sea and sky, the cliff stands quietly, and I saw Evian's three times reduced to two times), deletes the first fight between monks and musicians (that is, the above-mentioned Ghost Symphony), and deletes Xiaoqing's attack on Yunqing and Evian in the middle. Delete a grotto with a ghost's past life memory (Sun Yue's scene is completely missing), delete the plot that Le Niang killed a Taoist priest and was tried in the underworld, and delete many details, etc. But the most unbearable thing is that the abridged version removes the plot setting of "Conan Yimeng" at the end of the full version (the audience will find that He Yunqing's "The Legend of Mountain Living" seems to be a "dream" in the end, just indicating "no", which makes the circular closed structure of the film unable to justify itself. In this regard, although Hu Jinquan was furious, he was helpless.

So, how to evaluate Hu Jinquan and his works? When there are different answers, they seem to stand from different angles. As far as researchers are concerned, the vast majority regard him as an immortal film writer and master of art, which is often bittersweet from the perspective of investors and producers. For example, Yung-Fong Sha, the boss of the Taiwan Federation who once invested in Longmen Inn and Nvxia, complained in his memoirs that Hu Jinquan completely ignored the production rules of the film industry, which was time-consuming and cost-consuming, and even regarded breach of contract as a routine. It was not brave enough; But at the same time, he also admitted that it was Hu Jinquan who made the name "Federation" shine in history, so although there was constant friction in the cooperation, he did not regret it after walking through Qian Fan. Hu Shuru, the producer of "Empty Mountain Spirit Rain", also said: "When Luo and I were looking for a movie, it was out of reverence for him; Knowing that he will overspend and work overtime is also a strong support and no restraint. He just wants to return a wish and make a good movie ... Director Hu's insistence on ideals and his demand for perfection are rare among domestic directors. From the producer's point of view, if you don't know much about it and have enough financial resources, you can't wait to find him to make a movie. " Actually, that's it. Objectively speaking, The Legend of the Mountain, which was born in 1978, is Hu Jinquan's "last masterpiece" and a symbol of his spiritual perfection. Since then, although he has made several films, he has never been able to control them freely. In his later years, he spent almost ten years of his life in confusion, self-pity and ambition.

I think those who regard Hu Jinquan as a film author have no problem, but they need to be emphasized in two dimensions. Because the film style is not uniform, at least "Mountain" is an anomaly different from the past, which is why it is not often discussed by academic circles like "Come and have a drink with me" and "Summer". First of all, I think what Hu Jinquan has always done is not a simple artistic expression, but an "old literati" style that pursues purity and perfection. He had the opportunity to start filming The History of Tears and Blood of South China University of Technology a long time ago, but he always wanted to raise more funds to make the film perform better. Therefore, he not only missed the opportunity, but also sacrificed his marriage with Zhong Ling. His apprentice, Ming-tsai Wu, also invested in Yin and Yang King. He said, "Our idea is that since we asked him to make a film, we should absolutely trust and support him. Maybe some of his skills are out of date, but we can't ask him to imitate others' skills. For example, Tsui Hark's quick way of editing pictures is definitely not director Hu's style. "No matter how the movie trend changes, Hu Jinquan" stands still ",and his stubborn and perfect old-school style still drives him to go on the narrower and narrower movie road. Just like "The Legend of the Mountain" doesn't sell well, but it is passed down from generation to generation.

Secondly, this is the hometown complex that Hu Jinquan's films can never get rid of. It is not unreasonable for the Japanese to call him "Kurosawa of Hong Kong", because his photography skills have quite the shadow of stealing Miyagawa; Baudville also pointed out that Hu Jinquan's editing skills basically followed the classic experience of Hollywood (except some experimental attempts). Amazingly, when he incorporated the above skills into his works, everything suddenly became "China's", not only the history, music, mirror language and opening subtitles, but also the narrative rhythm and movie-watching process of the film became a unique experience of nationalization. Many times, this unique experience comes not from Hong Kong, but from the mainland, or rather from his hometown of Beijing. For example, Wang Po in The Legend of Closing a Mountain is both evil and harmonious, full of the flavor of Beijing movies, which makes people feel very cordial. We need to admit that Hu Jinquan's emphasis on individual discrete experience must have aggravated his confusion and loneliness in the late 1970s, when Hong Kong's local consciousness rose and Mandarin films declined. Just like He Yunqing, who walked alone in the mountains, inadvertently experienced a wonderful spring and autumn dream. When he woke up, no one knew about it and could not hear his voice, so he had to pat the dust on his body and move on. There is no doubt that Hu Jinquan was a lonely decision, but it was this lonely decision that made him the forerunner of China film art in the 20th century immortal.

-Shadan's Master's Confusion: The Legend of Mountain Residence and the Spiritual World In my opinion, Director Hu has been trying to express an atmosphere or a philosophy, and his works are still relatively introverted. He hopes to have more space for the audience to think for themselves. Just as The Legend of Mountain Residence is a serial story, he wrote it in a serial way. Is it true or not? How many things have happened in life, looking back, you can't tell the truth from the truth.

-Zhang Aijia's chivalrous romance is still there.

Hu Jinquan's films have beautiful pictures and enough rhythm, but they are not good enough. Being a film critic is really comfortable. Not enough left and right. ) Sometimes it gets on my nerves. Don't disturb him. ) His films are made faster than other directors of his generation. (The shooting speed is super slow, hehe! I like the legend of his mountain that there are ghosts during the day. ) Very special expression.

-Sanmao's term homework report "Give you a horse" and "V. My favorite drama category"

In the films directed by Hu Jinquan, ghosts are people, which are interesting and lovely. He fully expressed China's correct concept of ghosts. He created Evian in Zhang Aijia, which is so pure and comforting that even ghosts can fascinate people. Therefore, I don't think "The Legend of Mountain Residence" is a ghost film. Through ghosts, it expresses the greedy side of human nature, the irresistible fate and the unsolvable love. Although Hu Jinquan didn't give us an answer, I believe that his exquisite composition and smooth splicing can best show the tragic beauty and romantic world of ghosts, and his world outlook is also cast in it.

-Preface to Lin Qingxuan's Legend of Mountain Residence.

I couldn't get in at first because the film language was already the language of the 1970s, but when I slowly got in, I felt that it was very complete in aesthetics, and I was deeply impressed by the overall atmosphere and restraint in action.

-Jia's concept of supernatural love, the cognitive framework of westerners is completely different from that of China people. Therefore, for China people, the story of ghosts falling in love in Shan Hai Jing is considered natural, but it is puzzling for westerners. The audience in China thinks that the scholar is stupid enough, but he thinks that Evian is human, but he can be invisible, which is an acceptable idea. As for the western audience, they will find this ghost love story incredible, and the hero is really stupid. Those ghosts are trying to steal his classics, so obviously, he can't see them at all. In addition, many plots in the film are related to the specific cultural traditions of China, which western audiences are afraid and unable to understand.

Although Legend of the Mountain didn't win the European and American Film Festival Award, western film festivals are scrambling to invite this film to participate in the European and American Film Festival, as follows: London, England (1979), Edinburgh, Scotland (1979), Vienna, Austria (1979) and Sydney, Australia (/kloc-0). International film festivals such as Adelaide (1980) and Thessaloniki, as well as the 28th Han Meng Film Festival (1979) and Toronto Film Festival. This film was also shown on TV in West Germany. Why do western film screening units and audiences like this incomprehensible film so much? At least there are some bright spots that attract them:

One is pure vision, pure film art; On the other hand, it is symbolic and primitive.

For example, there is a hermit in a literati painting, and there is also a male viewer, that is, a scholar, in a scene of a beauty by a stream; But unlike literati painting, there is a woman in the center of the picture, which has become the focus of male audience. It can be regarded as a symbol of Taoist yin, that is, a symbol of femininity, and also a symbol of human inner self and subconscious. In a series of scenes in Beauty by the River, the scholar and the beauty did not speak, but used pure film language. With the method of film editing, this beautiful woman in white suddenly disappeared and melted into the foggy scenery. This film language can be understood as the human subconscious has been integrated into the primitive nature. Then the next shot is the scholar entering the mirror, followed by a close-up of his upper body, and then opened with a telescope. We don't know how to see the scholar standing by the misty mountain stream looking for beauty, and the place where he stood happened to be the place where the woman in white stood. The language of this film can symbolize that people's self-awareness can be strong, but they realize that nature is mysterious and people are infinitely insignificant in nature. Moreover, this kind of jumping shows that both the beauty and the scholar are standing in the same place by the water, and shows the two relationships between man and nature-subconscious and consciousness-which form a dialogue with each other.

Perhaps it is precisely because of the rich symbolic significance contained in scenes like Beauty by the River that we can firmly grasp the minds of the audience, and both the eastern and western audiences will use their imagination to understand it more or less.

-Zhong Ling, former professor of the Department of Foreign Languages of Sun Yat-sen University, dean of the Faculty of Arts, and dean of the Faculty of Arts of Hong Kong Baptist University, on Hu Jinquan's The Legend of Mountain Living.