How do you rate White Deer Plains?

"White Deer Plains," a sexually enlightened read for Chinese in the 1990s, won the fourth Mao Dun Literature Prize.

Mr. Chen Zhongshi spent six years creating this 500,000-word novel, which has received all kinds of praise and borne all kinds of naysayers, and is described as a huge and bizarre epic literary work.

From its serialization in the Contemporary in 1992 to the present, White Deer Plain has been adapted into several versions, from Qin opera to drama to stage play to movie. Each version demonstrates its unique understanding of the original, yet often sadly lacks the original's grand worldview and rich content.

In 2012, the movie version of "White Deer Plains" was released, and although it carried the expectations of both fans and moviegoers, it seemed that the movie was doomed to fail from the very beginning. 130 million at the box office, and a rating of 6.2 on the Douban website, these cold and icy data have become the proof of the cruelty of the movie.

The 156-minute movie (even with the 54 minutes cut from the film) falls apart against the grandeur of the original, which is more than 500,000 words long. After all, it's a bit overwhelming to try to load a movie equivalent with a storyline that spans a decade from the late Qing Dynasty to the 1970s and 1980s.

Even though director Wang Quan'an tried hard to restore the original's grand story within the "rules," it was not easy to finish the story in the face of its intricate story structure, rich and diverse characters and relationships.

Another factor that makes the movie bland and tasteless is the near-original grime and eroticism of the original.

In the original, Mr. Chen Zhongshi spent a lot of ink presenting a sharp historical and political view and bold sex scenes. This caused great repercussions and controversy in the literary critics at the time. Some people thought the sex scenes in the book could be described as "shocking", and even compared White Deer Plain to Mr. Jia Pingwa's The Wasted City.

Whether it's a view of politics and history, or sexual enlightenment, these still-restrained depictions are in line with the needs of the novel itself, and are in themselves not objectionable. But when it comes to the subject of movies, these elements can be tricky, and even "scary" to talk about.

The movie is to be box office, thousands of hard work, thousands of money to make a movie, if you can not broadcast, it is not for the sacrifice of art, but a waste of resources.

The movie version of the "White Deer Plain" met its Waterloo, a time when the entire film and television industry to "White Deer Plain" this masterpiece deterred, this work seems to have been "hidden" overnight, until 2015, the TV series "White Deer Plain" of the top.

The director who took over the TV version of "White Deer Plain" is Liu Jin, whose last known TV series was the 2014 drama "One Servant, Two Masters," in which the leading man was Zhang Jiayi, who played Bai Jiaxuan.

At first, Liu Jin was reluctant to get his hands on the unmanageable masterpiece, saying that it ("White Deer Plain") was a thunderbolt that would rattle anyone who stepped on it, and he was determined not to step on that thunderbolt. Until Zhang Jiayi read the script of "White Deer Plain" written by Shen Jie, he felt very good and invited Liu Jin to direct the epic masterpiece.

Up to 85 episodes, 94 lead actors, more than 40,000 group actors, 227 days of shooting, a total investment of 230 million ...... These data may not prove that this is a good drama, but at least it can be shown that the crew wants to tell the story clearly. And the first episode aired on Douban took a high score of 9.2, which is also considered to be an affirmation of the work of the drama's creative team.

"I'm full, I'm bloated, I'm the same as the emperor's father."

The TV series puts the audience in the ancient Qin land with the characteristic roughness of Qinqiang.

An unadorned, yellow-colored, wrinkled face in the picture shows us the most original loess slopes.

And the plot gets right to the point: Bai Jiaxuan (Zhang Jiayi), the young master of a wealthy family, offers to marry a girl in exchange for enough grain for three girls, which is supposed to be a "deal" for the young master of a rich family, but the girl cries and makes a scene, and Bai Jiaxuan, who is furious, slams the door and leaves the marriage proposal.

The rich kid's marriage proposal is a matter of convenience, why is Bai Jiaxuan so frustrated?

Married six daughters-in-law, died six houses

The original on Bai Jiaxuan "married six houses, died six houses" reason has a more revealing description, his fifth daughter-in-law had this to say:

"Not only is his life hard, but that thing has a barb with poisonous juice on it, pounding a woman's heart, lungs, liver and flowers all to pieces, and a woman made of iron can't stand the pounding."

While the road to the marriage was bumpy, the old man, Bai Bingde, still insisted on Bai Jiaxuan marrying a daughter-in-law, even if it meant using a year's harvest to get a new daughter-in-law to carry on the family line.

Demolition of the house must also marry a daughter-in-law

And then Bai Jiaxuan on the way to propose marriage to pick up a girl fainted in the snow.

Later, at the birthday banquet of Deer Zilin's father, Deer Taihuan, the girl who picked her up saved face by holding back the wine for Bai Jiaxuan, who had been treated as a laughingstock and had suffered a lot of embarrassment.

Bai Jiaxuan's response to the girl is to marry her. The girl's name is Xiancao (Qin Hailu), Bai Jiaxuan's seventh wife.

This is how men and women in the Northwest express their feelings, implicitly and directly.

Liu Jin is a perfectionist, as evidenced by the movie-like quality of the images.

The sky and wild landscape

The ancient and rustic ancestral halls and pagodas

The oil painting texture of the actors' faces

Even a bowl of oil splattered noodle has the flavor of "China on the Tip of the Tongue".

Seriousness is contagious, and the director's seriousness is equally reflected in the entire crew.

Because of the role of farmers, the crew asked the actors to bring their own farmers, the actors not only need to be stationed in the Shaanxi countryside a month ahead of time to eat with the local farmers, but also to experience farm work. When the TV series started shooting, everyone got a tan and lost ten pounds.

In order to make the costumes on the actors fit the identity of the farmers, the crew spent two months to make the costumes old so that they would give off an earthy flavor.

Back to the actors' roles, visionary Zhang Jiayi is playing the lead role of Bai Jiaxuan in the drama this time.

Being a native of Shaanxi, Zhang is familiar with the novel "White Deer Plains," and with his ability to play anyone if he wants to, all the audience has to do is to quietly observe how Zhang brings out the dual character of Bai Jiaxuan's benevolence and determination.

Mr. Chen Zhongshi's Bai Jiaxuan is an authentic practitioner of Confucianism, who bears almost the entire load of traditional culture. Although he did not receive a theoretical and systematic education in Confucianism, the illiterate patriarch, who was always respectful of his people and the harvest, completely integrated the principles of benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom and trust into his daily life, and set an example for the villagers with his exemplary behavior.

But being benevolent is not the same as being modest and tolerant in all matters. When encountering people and things that violate the clan's ethical rules, Bai Jiaxuan shows absolute coldness and obstinacy, and his refusal to let Heiwa, who came home with a small woman, enter the ancestral hall is not just a matter of concern that he is not a homebody, but also that he is not worthy of the name and the title. He refused to allow Heiwa to enter the ancestral hall with his little woman, not only because he was concerned about "not being a housewife", but also because his name was not right and his words were not true, and he beat the adulterer Xiaowen in spite of his wife's and mother's objections, and despite the kneeling advice of the clan's elders, Deer Zilin, because he had violated the rules of the clan and insulted his forefathers. If Mr. Leng said, "You are colder than I am" to interpret Bai Jiaxuan's words is not superficial, I prefer to understand him as a person who is principled and sticks to his own views without being moved by others. In this way, coldness is also a great state of cultivation.

Qin Hailu plays Bai Jiaxuan's seventh daughter-in-law, Xiancao.

The original story explains that "Bai Jiaxuan later took pride in the fact that he had married seven women in his life," and that the deaths of the first six did not make Xiancao fearful, and that she did not follow in their footsteps, but instead gave birth to four children for Bai Jiaxuan, breaking the "spell. "The movie is a great example of this.

The movie version of "White Deer Plain" stills

If Wang Quan'an hard to film the movie version of "White Deer Plain" into "Tian Xiao'e incest history", and ignored the important role of Xiancao, then this time Liu Jin is considered to be for the original and Xiancao "revenge".

It is worth mentioning that this is Qin Hailu's first post-partum drama, for which she lost 30 pounds.

Lu Zilin is played by He Bing.

Truthfully, many people were convinced when they saw He Bing in this role. He is too suitable to play this kind of both kind and cunning little chicken thief. In his speech and demeanor, he is a god.

One of the more unexpected characters in the drama is Tian Xiaoe, played by Li Qin.

Tian Xiaoe in the original story is a woman in transition between a traditional woman and a new type of woman. Although she comes from a family of scholars, she is not a peaceful woman by nature, and it can be said that her degeneration triggered the disaster of the White Deer Plains.

Li Qin, who is well known to the audience for her portrayal of teenager Xue Baochai in Li Shaohong's "Dream of Red Mansions," is perhaps the most interesting thing the audience wants to see, as she is able to portray one of Tian Xiaoe's complex characters in three dimensions. We look forward to her performance.

While avoiding the "In the Name of the People" wave, the TV version of "White Deer Plains" has caught the "Ode to Joy 2" wave, which is a bit of a backward step in terms of luck. Compared to the popular "Ode to Joy 2", the relatively heavy "White Deer Plains" has naturally become a "niche drama". The production is excellent, the intention is profound, and the plot is dramatic, which are the attributes of a good work, but it can't be fully recognized by the audience. What the audience wants seems to be just an easy moment to pass the time.

No matter how the ratings of "White Deer Plains" are, a good work always needs to be praised and supported. This is not only for the sake of a TV drama itself, but also for the healthy development of China's TV drama industry.