The screen gradually dimmed, then dark light appeared, and the subtitles passed by one after another. The entire screen seemed to be covered with a veil. Then it gradually lit up, and the outlines of mountains, villages, fields...
"Bah, bah, bah!"
The roar of a tractor broke the tranquility, approaching from a distance. An ancient tractor was moving slowly on a winding dirt road at the entrance of the village. A string of incompletely burned black smoke emitted from the long and protruding exhaust pipe.
, together with the mist floating in the mountains in the distance and the smoke above the village, form the layering of the picture.
Behind the tractor was a team of dozens of people, alternating two by two in a uniform manner. Along with the roar of the tractor, singing also began to sound.
"We are walking on the road
High-spirited and high-spirited
Mao Zedong leads the revolutionary team
Overcoming obstacles and rushing forward
Go forward—go forward—
The revolutionary momentum is unstoppable
Go forward—go forward—
…”
This is a long shot, with mountains, canyons, villages, fields, winding roads, and high-spirited teams covering the entire picture.
As the camera slowly zooms in, the majestic singing gradually overshadows the roar of the tractor, full of inspiring power.
In the original version, there is a narration at the beginning, something like "This is an absurd era, many stories have happened, and my story is the most absurd story in this absurd era..." or something like that.
This is a movie, not a TV series. This kind of narration, which is similar to taking off your pants and farting, will undoubtedly greatly reduce the style of the movie. Today's movies will definitely not have this kind of subpar operation, and everything will be left to the audience to slowly taste.
As fifth- and sixth-generation directors such as Guoshi, Tianzhuangzhuang, Zhang Yuan, Jia Kechang, and Wang Xiaoshuai have succeeded each other, and at the same time made their names internationally, senior movie fans are fascinated by what happened in China in the 1960s and 1970s.
Those stories are not unfamiliar.
This is also a way of showing off China's backwardness to please foreign adults, which many people in later generations complained about.
He Xin and Xiaowen were mixed in the team, carrying shovels, holding their heads high, singing inspiring songs loudly, and marching in neat steps...
When the camera turned, a bustling work scene appeared.
This is an era of absurdity, but it is also an era of construction.
In the same long shot, He Xin is very conspicuous and the cart is pushed the fastest!
Of course laziness is also number one...
The two of them slipped away from the group and sat on the ancient city wall at the entrance of the village.
Xiaowen looked confused and said: "Ma Jie, when do you think we can return to the city? I really don't understand what we can do if we stay here every day?"
He Xin greeted the rising sun in the ravine and recited his favorite sentence from "How Steel Was Tempered": "The most precious thing for people is life. Life belongs to people only once. This is how a person's life should be spent.
: When we look back on the past, we will not regret for wasting our years, nor will we be ashamed of being inactive; when he was dying, he..."
Xiaowen was even more confused and interrupted quickly: "You...you said it too deeply. I can't understand it. Just tell me what to do in the next days!"
"..."
He Xin glanced at Xiaowen, how could he know how to live?
The two stood side by side. Xiao Wen was nearly ten centimeters shorter than him. He was thin and insignificant, with a silly look on his face. He was indeed the best candidate to take the blame.
Xiaowen's performance, which is obviously low in IQ and pretends to be stupid, is really good. It's no wonder that Li Lianlian chose him to play the role of the stupid son in "Ocean Paradise".
It's just a pity that the father played by Li Lianlian is too distracting, so if an action star wants to transform and win awards, he has a long way to go. Only people like Fang Shilong who are hard-working, optimistic, persistent, aware of current affairs, and indomitable
, and finally achieve what you want.
Oscar Lifetime Achievement Award! Li Lianlian is still far away!
Just in time, a donkey's braying attracted their attention.
"Hey, a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A man relies on his clothes and a horse relies on its saddle. I heard the ripping sound of my horse!"
The story begins with He Xin's first encounter with a donkey.
He doesn't like donkeys, he just wants to be lazy.
Then he successfully worked as a livestock breeder through ruse.
The dialogue that follows is absurd and interesting, reflecting the characteristics of that era:
"Actually, the two donkeys, Hei Liu and Hei Qi, have poor family backgrounds. Going back a few generations, their great-great-grandfather was raised by Gao Jiucai's family, the big landowner in the village. They ate well and drank spicy food all day long, and lived in a stable with all kinds of food.
Building a wall of fire is much more comfortable than the poor and lower-middle peasants like us..."
"But we should also give the Black Five a chance to start a new life!"
"Hei Liu is a natural breeding donkey!"
At this time, there was a burst of laughter from the audience.
"A Tale of Two Donkeys" is actually a light comedy in a strict sense.
The beginning of this film is a bit similar to the "Little Tailor" filmed by He Xin before. It is also about being sent from the city to the countryside for labor training and receiving re-education from the lower-middle peasants; the young people are also full of confusion. And then in a difficult environment
Slowly growing up little by little.
It's just that the theme of "The Little Tailor" is love, while "The Tale of Two Donkeys" is a fable.
"The Little Seamstress" was very popular when it premiered in Cannes. The box office in France exceeded 2 million euros, making it a relatively high-grossing foreign literary film. It then represented France in the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film.
Of course, these and the original works of "The Little Seamstress" were the best-selling novels in France at that time, which was also a very important reason.
Oh, let me add that the box office of "The Little Seamstress" in North America was US$700,000, which exceeded the box office of "The Promise" in North America.
This does not include the income from DVD and TV rights.
Now MK2 wants to buy out the global distribution rights of "A Tale of Two Donkeys". Xiao Douding is referring to the box office performance of "The Little Tailor" that year. Currently, he and MK2 are engaged in a tug-of-war around the range of 1 million euros to 1.5 million euros.
.
Of course, you can also dismantle the software, such as MK2, obtain the European copyright, and then find someone to sell it to North America, Asia, Europe, etc. You may get more money. But this operation is very troublesome, and you may not be able to find the right one.
After all, MK2 is a mature literary and artistic film production and distribution company. It enjoys a high reputation internationally in terms of brand and communication. Cooperating with such a company saves worry and effort.
Xinhao Media has now reached a strategic cooperation agreement with Bona in China. There should be such partners overseas. At present, MK2 seems to be relatively reliable.
He Xin didn't laugh. He had watched the film many times. He paid more attention to the reaction of the audience. For example, the laughter of the foreigners now might be because they were laughing at the ignorance and backwardness of the Chinese people in that era. Just like "The Little Tailor" back then.
Chief Nakamura didn't even recognize the alarm clock, which was astonishing to them.
Don't talk about whether it is black or not, in that ridiculous era, the gap between us and developed countries was so big. Just like now we look at the country of Dajin in the north, the country of Asan in the west, and even the country of Citigroup across the Pacific Ocean.
The plot progressed to the point where He Xin wanted to hit Hei Liu and let him pull the cart, and then Hei Liu ran to Captain Dalian to complain.
So He Xin was severely punished:
"How can you let Black Six work? Its job is to breed, not to work!"
"It's exhausted, can you afford to pay for it?"
"Don't say you are an educated youth, even ten of you can't compare with Hei Liu's contribution!"
“Today’s work points have been deducted!”
A few lines of dialogue are very characteristic of the times. Everything has been contributed, and people are not as good as animals. In a sense, Hei Liu is the same as his ancestors. He eats and drinks spicy food all day long, and there are so many spicy things.
A female donkey is much more comfortable waiting for her to be pampered than a repressed and miserable educated youth.
He Xin dragged Hei Liu back to the livestock shed in frustration, but Hei Liu nonchalantly snorted and flirted with a maroon mare in the neighboring stall, wagging its tail.
Congratulations filled my heart:
"What's wrong with asking you to do some work? Why am I wronging you? If you don't work hard, will you be worthy of the eggs you eat? And you are teasing other lesbians. They are horses, not donkeys. You are not the same species!"
"Do you know you're wrong?"
Hei Liu cooperated and showed a weird smile...
Sure enough, you get what you pay for. Hei Liu's smile and the crow's feet next to the donkey's eyes when he smiles are particularly lifelike. Some viewers even exclaimed in surprise.
He Xin looked at Diao Yinan who was sitting next to him and looked at each other with a proud smile. A movie needs the finishing touch, and the finishing touch of "A Tale of Two Donkeys" is undoubtedly the realistic donkey smile and crow's feet.
This is the combination of technology and literature and art.
"Damn it, you're such a beast. You've gone crazy. Do you think you're Sun Wukong?"
He Xin became angry, picked up the whip and threw it down, and Hei Liu was crippled!
If they are useless, they will naturally lose the generous treatment of breeding donkeys, and they can't do their jobs well. In the era of only contribution, the final outcome of Heiliu can only be to be skinned and eaten.
Very realistic!
Then comes the climax of the film, where Hei Liu’s younger brother Hei Qi launches a series of revenge against He Xin. Foreigners are particularly happy to see this section. Every time they see He Xin deflated, the whole audience bursts into laughter, and there are even
applause.
Especially after he and Tong Yali stole the forbidden fruit by the stream and were dragged by Hei Qi for a parade, they were particularly happy. There were two scenes in which Diao Yinan felt very proud. One was a long shot of the boat on the donkey cart.
The play is very beautiful among the vast mountains, rivers and streams.
In fact, this kind of thing is leftover from European directors, and it doesn't cause any trouble. However, the dream sequence interspersed in it makes foreigners marvel, and it is very contemporary.
Because of the beginning of the story, He Xin often holds a copy of "How Steel Was Tempered" and constantly uses the classic quotations about how people should spend their lives to inspire themselves. The sweet feeling after He Xin and Tong Yali secretly ate the forbidden fruit
In a sweet dream, He Xin dreamed that he was wearing a revolutionary uniform, and his beloved girl was waiting for him in a wooden house in the forest like Katyusha, and the two of them danced happily together.
There is also a section in the original version where Ma Jie couldn't bear it anymore and was about to kill Hei Qi in the dark. There was a long dialogue about Hei Qi. He was a man and a donkey, he was serious and he was laughing. It was very misplaced and humorous. But in the whole play,
It seems very deliberate, as if it is humorous for the sake of humor, which does not fit in with the theme of resistance.
Yes, the theme of A Tale of Two Donkeys is resistance. On the surface, it seems that donkeys are rebelling against people, but at the same time, it is not the rebellion of Ma Jie, played by He Xin, against the system of that era.
Just like at the end of the film, he threw away the book of dreams interspersed throughout the play and represented a generation of people by the creek. He just wanted to end it with Black Seven regardless of the constraints of the system.
In the last scene, heavy snow was falling. Ma Jie opened the door and saw Hei Qi still standing in the heavy snow, with only a gray-brown skeleton left on his body. This skeleton was still emitting wisps of hard blue smoke, looking like
It was like metal, standing stiffly in the snow.
A close-up, He Xin's face is expressionless, looking past Hei Qi's skeleton into the distance, his eyes full of confusion...
Three lines of eye-catching large characters suddenly popped up on the screen, in Chinese, English and Italian.
“No animals were harmed in the making of this film!”
This is very important, especially in Western society, and means political correctness.
Immediately, a long list of credits began to scroll on the screen, and the lights suddenly lit up. It was as if a group of people were suddenly exposed in the theater, frozen with various expressions, as if a world had been transformed in an instant.
"Hua Hua Hua..."
Applause suddenly burst out, and then the entire audience stood up and clapped their hands vigorously.
Diao Yinan was in a panic. It was probably his first time experiencing such a scene, and he was at a loss for a moment. Fortunately, He Xin, who was sitting next to him, pulled him up while standing up.
He quickly stood up, followed He Xin's example, turned around and waved to the enthusiastic audience in the auditorium.