The 86 th edition of The Journey to the West can be broadcast for another 30 years

Replay it 4000 times and it won’t fall to the altar.

Text | Liao Yizhou

Edit | Zhao Ordinary

Recently, when the glory of the king was opened, "Yungong Xunyin" sounded in the opening animation, and the DNA of netizens in the whole network moved again.

This "National Game" with a cumulative income of over $10 billion in October completed a historic linkage with the 86th edition of "National TV Series" The Journey to the West. Since the project was announced, it has been a frequent visitor to Weibo Hot Search, and every time a new skin goes online, it will also become the focus of discussion.

"the glory of the king" and "Sun Walker" skin

Director Yang Jie died in 2017. At that time, it was generally reported that the TV series had been replayed more than 3,000 times. In the promotional video of the glory of the king, the number became 4,000. Forty years ago, Yang Jie took the The Journey to the West crew for six years, trekked more than 100,000 kilometers, walked through 26 provinces and cities in China, and achieved a legend of the times with only one camera.

In the behind-the-scenes tidbits, several masters were delighted to be able to return to the public’s field of vision by this trendy form of games. Li Shihong, a voice actor in the Monkey King, said: "Unexpectedly, everyone has not forgotten us."

At that moment, the barrage was neatly brushed: "I can’t forget it!"

Journey to the West, or a presumptuous guest usurps the host’s role?

Thirty-five years ago, the first eleven episodes of The Journey to the West were broadcast during the Spring Festival, which caused a sensation in Xian Yi and the whole country, setting a viewing myth of 89.4%. Over the past 35 years, it has filled children’s childhood in winter and summer vacations every year, and its influence has been incalculable because of thousands of replays.

Today’s headlines released a set of data in 2016. The "Top10" of The Journey to the West’s original works respectively correspond to the story of the monkey king, Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon, the three-borrowed banana fan, and the girl country. Without exception, all of them are stories filmed by The Journey to the West in the 86th edition, while the equally wonderful chapters of the original works (the sequel to Journey to the West in 2000) did not enter the top ten.

That year was the Year of the Monkey in the Lunar New Year. In a nostalgic trend, the program "Monkey Play", in which six-year-old children cooperated with Aaron Kwok, caused public dissatisfaction because they missed the CCTV Spring Festival Evening. Even though six-year-old children clarified that they had never been invited by CCTV, "Six-year-old children went to the Spring Festival Evening" and "Six-year-old children’s programs were killed" became hot topics in Weibo. There was no "Six Learning" in that year, and only millions of people jointly called for the Spring Festival Evening to interpret their dreams for the audience.

Not only at home, the 86th edition of The Journey to the West was also famous overseas. It is the first batch of TV dramas exported by New China, which was first broadcast in Southeast Asian countries such as Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand. An article in Reference News mentioned: "In Vietnam, it caused a situation of empty lanes. When the drama was broadcast, even thieves and policemen disappeared from the streets." The score of the play in IMDB is still 8.6, and there are many comments on YouTube, such as "Thanks for enriching my childhood".

However, high status will inevitably bear more scrutiny.When the number of viewers who have seen the 86th edition of The Journey to the West far exceeds the number of readers who have read The Journey to the West’s original works, and the Monkey King, a six-year-old child, is "genuine", the voice of "misinterpreting the original works" has never stopped.

In the 86th edition, The Journey to the West made many adaptations to the original, such as the girl country section in the original, in which the relationship between the Tang Priest and the king was distinct from the beginning, and the TV series added a lot of tender and lingering "affection" meaning, and the Tang Priest’s momentary temptation was widely circulated with the song "Daughter Love".

At the same time, this TV series also added a "beauty filter" to the four masters and apprentices in the original work. Pig Bajie was originally a black wild boar with a "black face, short hair, long beak and big ears", but in the play it became white, fat and lovely, and Tang Priest often showed cowardice, selfishness and other despicable human nature. More contradictions focus on the Monkey King. The appearance of a six-year-old boy can be summarized as "Monkey King", while the Monkey King in the original works is short and ugly.

The Paper’s "Shanghai Book Review" column once published an article saying that "A Chinese Odyssey is closer to the original work than the 86th edition of The Journey to the West", and People’s Literature Publishing House also published an article expressing that "Yang Jie’s version of The Journey to the West is not as close to the original work as Stephen Chow’s", and compared the films such as "Demonizing the Journey to the West" together, saying that "the Monkey King’s cuteness, courage and kindness are completely inconsistent with the cannibalism, ferocity and violence in the original work". As for whether the Monkey King is "cannibalistic", there have been debates in Zhihu and other communities.

In essence, the 86th edition of The Journey to the West is also the product of a specific era.Its adaptation purpose completely conforms to the interpretation of novels by mainstream literary circles at that time:Full of romantic fantasies, praising rebellious mythical heroes. The TV series also "eliminates the weeds and saves the seeds", amplifying these parts that are in line with the "original spirit".

Chinese people’s feelings about traveling to the west are, to a great extent, feelings about the 86-edition TV series. On the level of "popularizing famous works", it has obviously taken the lead, but it is undeniable that without this version of TV series, many viewers will not think of paying attention to the original work.

A camera, a journey to the west.

The 86th edition of The Journey to the West’s filming road is also an out-and-out "learning from the classics". Yang Jie wrote in his autobiography: In people’s eyes, people of our time may be "idiots".

In the original work, there are both Yaochi Wonderland and the eerie demon cave. In order to put the beautiful scenery of mountains and rivers and humanistic architecture into the play, Yang Jie conducted a 63-day national landscape picking. When we arrived in Zhangjiajie, which had not been developed into a scenic spot at that time and was named "Shangyong", the mud road was slippery in the rain, and the van that the group took almost fell from the corner into the cliff.

Yang Jie once recalled,"The hardest part is stunts, which is an era when I don’t know what stunts are."There is only one Sony 300P split camera and only one machine in the whole crew, which means that the lenses of different positions have to be compensated by the "stupid way" of stacking times.

In the past six years, Yang Jie’s husband, Wang Chongqiu, went to the porthole to take pictures of the blue sky and the sea of clouds every time he flew. Some of these precious materials should be used as separate shots, while others should be used as the background of the key image. There was no professional photographic rail car, so Wang Chongqiu borrowed a bicycle from the crowd to replace it. There was no elevator, so he used three pillars as a seesaw to build one. The scene of "Underwater Dragon Palace" was created by the fish tank blocking the camera.

Blue screen keying relies on an imported ADO special effects machine, but when it is actually used, the crew found that it only bought hardware and didn’t buy supporting software, so it could not achieve three-dimensional effect. The software costs 50,000 dollars, far exceeding the budget, so many characters in special effects scenes in this version of The Journey to the West are "paper people".

Only the problem of funds can’t be overcome by hard work or clever thinking.When the 14th episode of "Hong Haier War" was filmed, the crew was plunged into economic crisis. The leader in charge said to Yang Jie, "Let’s make an ending." Yang Jie refused with the determination of "success or death" and filmed while raising money. The fundraising didn’t go well. In the end, Li Hongchang, the deputy director of production (who plays the role of black fox essence and centipede essence, etc.), raised 3 million yuan from the Eleventh Engineering Bureau of the Ministry of Railways, but in the end, it was reduced by 5 episodes and only 25 episodes were filmed.

Yang Jie’s salary for filming an episode by himself was 90 yuan. "Monkeys and Pig were 80, and Friar Sand was 60, so there was only a little reward." In Yang Jie’s memory, at that time, everyone didn’t talk about remuneration, regardless of time, and there was a record of working continuously for 23 hours. When traveling back and forth in more than 20 cities across the country, several wagons have to be moved by themselves, including four masters and apprentices.

The crew has a 30-cent night meal fee, which needs to be received after 11 pm. "When I eat at night, I said that I should add two bottles of beer to each table, and they all cheered. People at that time were very cute. "

In 2014, Han Han spent 100,000 yuan on The Journey to the West’s episode Daughter’s Love. It was the first time that Xu Jingqing and Yang Jie knew that there were still copyright fees, and they each took 30,000 yuan.Yang Jie said to Xu Jingqing, "Old Xu, this is the first time I have got such a high fee and so much money."

"Everyone is rushing to’ shoot a classic goal’." Xun Hao, deputy director, said, "No one will shoot TV series like this anymore."

A "sealed" westward journey

In this way, the 86th edition of The Journey to the West stands high on the historical coordinates, and the latecomers look up and approach, but no one can climb it.

The original challenger is itself. In 1998, Yang Jie applied to CCTV, and someone in the former crew had passed away. Otherwise, the five episodes that were cut off would be permanently lost. Yang Weiguang, then the director, agreed to shoot, and suggested that it was not only possible to shoot five episodes, so the script of Journey to the West was expanded to 15 episodes.

Restart the first episode of filming "Love Broken Black River", and choose Miyun Reservoir on the outskirts of Beijing. CCTV provided several mobile camera positions, and transferred two large cranes and a sprinkler. Compared with the hardships of filming version 86, the capital and technical conditions of the crew have been significantly improved. Yang Weiguang attached great importance to the sequel, and specially invited Cao Rong, the best action director of the Golden Horse Award in 1997, as the martial arts finger of this drama. In this episode, Cao Rong made a guest appearance in Prince Muang, the son of the West Sea Dragon King, which planted a seed for another controversial TV series in the future.

However, after the whole drama Journey to the West was broadcast during the Spring Festival in 2000, the response was mediocre, far from the grand occasion of that year. Yang Jie herself admits that the make-up is far from as simple as she imagined, and the final rendering effect is "far worse than the 86 version".

The makeup of the characters in Journey to the West is not exquisite enough and is also criticized.

There are different opinions on the reasons. Many fans have compared the two editions, pointing out that the level of Journey to the West has declined in aspects such as role makeup and lens scheduling. Even the theme song with high popularity, "Just captured several demons and surrendered several demons", is lower in artistic conception than the 86 edition, "Don’t boast that all monsters are scared, don’t mention dangerous mountains and evil waters."

Some media once asked Yang Jie, "Is it because the appreciation taste of the people has changed after 17 years, and the director’s thinking still stays in the past?" Yang Jie only said that "the story is no worse than before, but the character has not developed."

In the past 35 years, there have been two TV series filmed by The Journey to the West Quanben in the Mainland. In 2010, 52 episodes of The Journey to the West Douban filmed by Zhejiang TV Station scored only 5.7, which was not very meaningful. In 2012, Zhang Jizhong’s 60 episodes of "new journey to the west" took the road of "restoring the original work", but it was still not recognized by the audience because it wanted to make it too comprehensive and could not avoid the director’s personal "bootleg".Once compared, the 86 th edition was further pushed to the altar.

"Journey to the West" is an exception. In 1999, a businessman in Xi ‘an took a loan of 15 million yuan and a 20,000-word script to ask him to be a director. The original six-year-old boy temporarily refused to perform, so Cao Rong had to take the lead and said to the makeup artist at two o’clock in the morning, "Why don’t you let me try?" Cao Rong kept his eyes closed for fear of being laughed at during makeup, and only after taking the makeup photo did he find "OK", and a facial paralysis version of "Fight over Buddha" was born.

In addition to being unable to express his face because of makeup, Cao Rong knew that if he followed the same example, "No performance can beat a six-year-old child", he decided on the performance strategy of "three-point monkey, seven-point man", which was more in line with the steady changes after the Monkey King became a Buddha.

After the first edition of the 20,000-word story was changed into a script, it couldn’t support 30 groups at all, and it didn’t last long enough after the whole drama was filmed. However, the number of episodes is the boss’s rigid requirement. Cao Rong cut the action drama for half a year, "Try to slow down here, speed up there, or repeat some places", and was forced to create a "ancestor of ghosts and animals".

In Cao Rong’s memory, when The Journey to the West was broadcast, some people liked to jump on the street, while others scolded them. No one expected that it would become popular again because of "facial paralysis" and "ghost animals" several years later. At the end of 2019, Cao Rong moved to bilibili and began to re-edit "Journey to the West". A large number of viewers salvaged this TV series from their childhood memories, recalling that its plot was actually quite wonderful besides the stunt, and even many viewers really thought it was the story experienced by four apprentices after the westward journey.

However, the filming process and the red-hot process of Journey to the West are full of accidents, which can be recognized by the audience because its story frame has been divorced from The Journey to the West’s ontology, not to mention the impact on the 86 TV series.

Classic works like The Journey to the West,The audience can actually accept being unconventional without destroying the essence.The Biography of Journey to the West is a microcosm, and the movie A Chinese Odyssey, the online biography of Wukong, the animation The Return of the Great Sage, and the game Black Myth: Wukong have their own fans.But at the same time, once Zhu Yu is in the front, everyone’s tolerance threshold for "remake and destroy classics" has always been extremely low.With the passage of time, the 86th edition of The Journey to the West, which has been bearing the memory of several generations, has been almost stamped with an untouchable historical seal.

The Story of Wukong took a subversive route earlier in the Mainland.

Objectively speaking, the TV series 35 years ago will not be perfect, and there are also basic problems such as unstable supporting actors and rough special effects technology. In Yang Jie’s words, "everyone forgave it."

The 86th edition of The Journey to the West is a myth created in the era of "concentrating on doing great things". After 35 years of reinforcement, it is even more indestructible. Yang Jie once said that some works will surpass her The Journey to the West, but it is only a matter of time.

In a later interview, she added a note to this sentence: "But I don’t know if it goes on like this today."

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