China Entertainment 1997

Although he and Zhang Dabeard argued a lot and had many opinions about "The Swordsman", Cao Xuan still obeyed the instructions when filming.

There weren't many scenes shot on the first day, it was mainly about getting the leading actors in shape.

Cao Xuan was dressed in coarse cloth and ancient clothes. He had long hair without a crown. Instead, he had a ponytail-like bun on the middle and back of his head, leaving a few strands of thin hair on his temples.

As I said before, Zhang Jizhong's version of "The Swordsman" is generally more realistic, and the same is true for Fu Huadao.

Many of the costumes and makeup are mainly simple and real, with a few high-ranking ones being more ornate. The middle and lower classes are all made of coarse linen or other ordinary clothing materials, and the bottom class may even be dressed in rags and tatters.

What stands out is the taste of Jianghu.

This move is actually very risky, because in the 1980s and 1990s, many versions of Jin Yong dramas were produced in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the characters in them were not only glamorous, but at least clean and tidy.

As a result, you looked so "shabby" and looked tacky, and many people criticized you for this.

But in fact, from the perspective of the original work alone, Zhang Jizhong's way of serving is very sophisticated, at least more sophisticated than those in Hong Kong and Taiwan dramas.

The costumes, costumes and makeup of Hong Kong and Taiwan dramas represented by TVB are all mixed from the Qin Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty, with at most slight changes, including weapons and props.

Not to mention the exterior scenes, that is, the styling is awesome, the men are handsome, the women are exquisite and beautiful, and the actors perform stably, which is why they have received numerous praises.

In "Swordsman", Zhang Jizhong gave each character a specially customized costume according to the character's characteristics and plot.

Cao Xuan and Linghu Chong are the few, with more than a dozen costumes. Ren Yingying has the most costumes, with more than 30 costumes, and many costume manuscripts to spare.

The props are also very careful. Not to mention, the weapons of the protagonists are all specially made. Even the Five Mountains Sword Sect has made distinctions. There are even corresponding "Five Mountains Sword Techniques" designed for the swords.

The plot and actors may not be able to be helped, but in terms of costumes, music, camera, scenery, etc., you can definitely believe in the strength of CCTV.

Many of the behind-the-scenes staff members of the "Swordsman" crew are from "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" and "Water Margin".

Even in terms of the strength behind the scenes, "Swordsman" can be said to be the best Jin Yong drama in history.

After filming this drama, Zhang Bearded left CCTV, and CCTV stopped filming martial arts. "The Swordsman", a martial arts drama full of Jianghu artistic conception, became a masterpiece.

Because of this, Cao Xuan listened to the makeup artist's instructions very honestly, and only made one suggestion, which was not to wear the small band on his forehead. He always felt that it was ugly.

Apart from that, Cao Xuan was quite cooperative, and the stylist also made some subtle adjustments based on his appearance.

When Cao Xuan walked out of the dressing room, although he was wearing coarse linen clothes, he had a handsome appearance and uninhibited behavior, and his movements were as free and easy as a young hero.

Even Zhang Dabeard, who had been choked by Cao Xuan before, had to admit that Cao Xuan was Linghu Chong with the best image and temperament among the many actors he tried on.

Compared with him, Huang Lei is too elegant and delicate, Li Yapeng is a bit dull and simple, Hu Jun is too rough and heroic, and Shao Bing and Zhou Jie are slightly inferior in appearance.

The most important thing is that Cao Xuan's famous position is here, even if he is unhappy with his big beard, he has to follow him.

Cao Xuan's appearance is pleasant, and the heroine Xu Qing is also good.

Ignoring the original work, just analyzing the characters in the play, her eyes are clear and agile, her appearance is fair and delicate, she has the heroic spirit of a demon sect saint, but also the delicacy of a daughter.

I have to say that among the Beijing goddesses, Xu Qing is considered the best in terms of looks alone.

Today, she is not as full of mature woman charm as in "The Righteous One", but she has the smoothness of a young woman and the tenderness of a girl at the same time, which can be said to be the peak of her charm.

But precisely because of this, many original writers are dissatisfied.

On the one hand, this version of Ren Yingying has many scenes and she becomes a eldest sister. On the other hand, Xu Qing is too "old". Miss Ren is a pretty girl in the original work, but her mind is more mature than her peers.

The two acted in two scenes, both of which were transitional scenes. Although they had not yet established a tacit understanding, there were no mistakes and overall it went smoothly.

After finishing the play, Cao Xuan and Zhang Dabeard went to the screenwriter to discuss changing the script.

There are three main screenwriters of "The Swordsman", Jin Yong is a nominal screenwriter, and the other two are Zhou Kai and Chen Yuxin.

The former is a veteran and one of the screenwriters of CCTV's "Romance of the Three Kingdoms".

The latter is not bad at all, and is better at real-life crime themes. His more famous work is the "Starscream" series about female crime themes.

He also participated in the screenwriting work of "Conquer" and "Icebreaker", which became popular with many villains.

Zhou Kai is older, and the screenwriters he works with are Chen Yuxin and several intern screenwriters. When he heard that the play was to be changed, he had no objections and had long been used to it.

However, what made them more gratified was that Cao Xuan did not give random orders, but fully referred to their opinions, combined with the original work, and made certain modifications within the framework of not affecting the entire script.

Chen Yuxin had also worked with several groups. As soon as he heard Cao Xuan's request, he knew that he had met someone who was really studying the script.

Temporarily putting aside his prejudice against "drama tyrants", he began to seriously discuss the feasibility of script revision with Cao Xuan.

Zhang Dabeard also followed the discussion, but many of his ideas were always aimed at "catching people's attention". Several screenwriters were embarrassed to say clearly that Cao Xuan was not afraid of him and complained directly, which made Zhang Dabeard angrily.

In fact, even though the two of them didn't seem to deal with each other very well, they were actually quite familiar with each other in private. Lao Zhang was either really angry or just a bit embarrassed.

Besides Cao Xuan, who couldn't help complaining about his random changes to the plot, he also respected Zhang Beard in other aspects.

In the original "Water Margin" Ximen Qing, Lao Zhang was kind enough to recommend Cao Xuan.

The two have this old friendship and are tolerant of each other.

During the previous debate over changing the play, Lao Zhang was so angry that he slammed the table. When he came out, he didn't say to outsiders that Cao Xuan was not at all wrong. Cao Xuan did what he needed to do in private. In front of the media, he boasted about Lao Zhang and praised him. Representatives of mainland producers.

The two of them made a tacit understanding to divide all arguments into business matters and not affect their private feelings.

Of course, this is only for now. Cao Xuan still has a lot of thoughts in his stomach, otherwise Lao Zhang will directly explode.

If things don't work out, we'll have to make a last-minute change.

The prerequisite is that they can be replaced. Cao Xuan was appointed by the leader and is a popular king. To put it bluntly, the two of them are really incompatible, so it is uncertain who to replace.

However, Cao Xuan didn't want it to get to that point, so he planned to boil the frog in warm water and slowly "torture" Lao Zhang.

………

Since "The Swordsman" has found two directors, it must be shot separately.

The crew structure is very similar to the original "Water Margin" model, which is divided into two crews, the literary and martial arts crew.

Huang Jianzhong was in charge of the literary drama, and Yuan Bin was in charge of the martial arts. For some big scenes, the two teams jointly filmed them together.

After the civil and military groups, the two groups were further subdivided. The two directors mainly filmed the starring roles, and the remaining supporting roles were filmed by assistants such as Kang Honglei and Zhao Jian.

After the separation of the civil and martial arts groups, Cao Xuan and Xu Qing, the male and female protagonists, also began to switch roles. In the past few days, he went to the martial arts group, and she went to the literary group, each taking on the leading role.

After the two people's rivalry scenes, they will gather together and shoot according to the ownership of the civil and military scenes.

The advantage of this shooting mode is that it progresses quickly and saves time. The disadvantage is that the male and female protagonists are separated, which makes it difficult to cultivate a tacit understanding, and it is difficult to guarantee the actual shooting status.

It stands to reason that actors can communicate with each other in private.

But Cao Xuan often had to go to the screenwriter team. The other two people had too heavy roles, especially those who were filming martial arts scenes. They were physically and mentally exhausted after filming every day, and the time and energy could not support the two of them before they finished the work and talked nonsense.

So I can only give up for the time being and wait until the shooting task becomes easier to find a way.

After Cao Xuan joined the cast, apart from filming a few scenes with Qu Yang and Ren Yingying, his main antagonist in the early stages was Yi Lin.

The actor who plays Yilin is called Chen Lifeng. He is not very famous. His most famous role is Yilin in this version of "The Swordsman".

In order to take a good picture of this pretty nun, this person shaved off all his hair in one go, which to a certain extent was considered an act of ugliness.

Not just her, almost all the nuns from the Hengshan sect have shaved their heads. For girls who love beauty, it is a huge sacrifice.

In the play, Yilin is a simple and innocent girl who misses her brother Linghu every day.

But off-screen, Chen Lifeng is eight years older than Cao Xuan, and with Xu Qing, who is six years older than Cao Xuan, Cao Xuan, the Chong brother/Linghu brother, is under a lot of pressure.

The original Li Yapeng was born in 1971 and was nearly 30 years old when he performed this scene, so he was a good match for Xu Qing and the others.

But now it is Cao Xuan, who is not yet 25 years old, and the age gap with the actress is somewhat highlighted.

The director also discussed with the makeup artist whether to make Cao Xuan's makeup look more mature. Later, he decided to leave Cao Xuan alone and let the two actresses be as tender as possible.

It's not like the crew didn't think about changing people. Xu Qing couldn't be replaced, but Chen Lifeng had no problem.

But then we found several young actresses who met the requirements, but most of them were not up to par with their acting skills and couldn't portray Yilin's innocence. They could barely perform, and they were unwilling to shave their hair.

After all, if your hair is shaved, it will take a year or two to recover. Although you can wear a wig, it will delay a lot of things.

So even for this, it is worth giving a thumbs up to dedicated actresses like Chen Lifeng.

A total of nearly ten versions of "The Swordsman" were filmed. Only three of the actresses Yilin had their heads shaved. The others either wore hats to cover up, or simply changed the setting of all nuns of the Hengshan sect.

There are also those who directly changed the character's background. Yilin is Dongfang Bubai's sister, and the two sisters fell in love with Linghu Chong at the same time.

Jin Yong didn't take the dead girl to court, he was really arrogant...

Chen Lifeng and Cao Xuan work well together, but they are relatively introverted and don't like to talk much. When they are not filming, they like to wear headphones and listen to their Walkman.

Cao Xuan once took a look at Chen Lifeng's tape and didn't find his own songs. Instead, he saw a lot of albums by Na Young and Im Hyun Ki.

Good guy, there is a rival fan hidden beside me!

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