The basic information of the film Half-Life was produced by Oriental Film Production Co., Ltd. 1997. The film is adapted from Eileen Chang's novel Eighteen Springs, directed by Xu Anhua and starring Li Ming, Jacklyn Wu, Anita Mui and Ge You.
The film is set in Shanghai in the11930s, and mainly tells the story of a couple played by Dawn and Jacklyn Wu who were tortured by fate because of unknown experiences in their lives in a conservative era.
In the 1930s, introverted Shen (Dawn) and Gu (Gu) worked in the same factory, and they had feelings. When he lost his father in his early years, his family life was maintained by his sister Manlu as a dancer. Zhang Yujin (Wang) first fell in love with Gu Manlu (Anita Mui) and later pursued his sister. Later, Manlu abandoned her lover, became a prostitute, and finally married Zhu (Ge You), a married speculator. Shi Jun's mother arranged for him to marry his cousin Shi, but Shi Jun didn't like her. Cui Zhi has a crush on her cousin Xu (Huang Lei). In order to keep his position, barren Lu set a trap to be raped. Manlu asked Man Zhen to accompany her after giving birth. That night, drunken Cai Hong defiled Man Zhen. Manlu tried to persuade Man Zhen to marry Cai Hong and put Man Zhen under house arrest. Man Zhen gave birth to a son for her sister and brother-in-law, which ruined her love. Shi Jun lost Man Zhen and his father died of illness. Under the arrangement of his family, he married Cui Zhi (Wu Chenjun), a rich girl. When Man Zhen gave birth to a baby in the hospital, she finally found a chance to escape. She immediately inquired about Shi Jun, and later learned that he was married and didn't go to Shi Jun again. After her sister died, she also married Zhu. Ten years later, Shi Jun and Man Zhen met again. When Shi Jun wanted to get back together, Man Zhen said that love was over and everyone could not go back.
The film "Half-Life" is produced behind the scenes, and the novel "Half-Life" is very long. There are several families in the story: Shen family, Jia family and Jia family. There are many old people in every family. This book uses a lot of pen and ink to describe the mood of the elderly. Director Xu Anhua thought that these audiences would not be interested, so the film deleted a third of the novel.
Xu Anhua's description of Shanghai nostalgia in 1930s and 1940s is very concise. The camera position and moving frame are restrained, and the wide viewing space is rarely used. Attic, carriage, aisle, and narrow view create the feeling of being trapped and pressed from beginning to end.
Production company
Oriental Film Production Co., Ltd. [China Hongkong]
Tianshan Film Studio [China]
Issuing company
Longchuang International Film Co., Ltd. [United States]
Oriental Film Distribution Co., Ltd. [China Hongkong]
Compared with the novel, the film Fate of Half-Life focuses on the entanglement between Man Zhen and Yu Jin, which reduces the complexity of the characters, but makes their characters clearer. The use of close-ups weakens the emotional communication between characters. As an expression of delicate feelings in women's world, Xu Anhua shows the helplessness of reality and the eternity of memories, suggesting the theme of desolation of life, the lack of love and the sigh of changing personal destiny in the great era. This is the second union between Xu Anhua and Zhang Ailing after a lapse of 13 years, before Love in a Fallen City.
The style of the film is like a novel, exquisite, sharp and keen, observing things very carefully. This film has a good box office in Hong Kong. The ending of Eileen Chang's original novel Eighteen Springs describes that after eighteen years of tortuous love, the hero and heroine, regardless of their own families, went to participate in the northeast construction when the country was just liberated, turning grief into indifference. Xu Anhua's The Fate of Half-Life now makes this sad story complete with a fateful ending? Desolate? The theme of.
The director of "Half-Life Destiny" rarely uses a wide framing space, which can accommodate all the characteristics of the characters in the story: calmness in chaos, conformity without accurate goals, no great sadness, and no happy gray emotions. In such an environment, all the joys and sorrows are restrained within a very small limit, and it is absolutely impossible to make public.
There are many interesting places in Half-Life, such as the realism produced by the live soundtrack recording and the distant sense of obsolescence produced by recalling the past. What is most worth mentioning is Jacklyn Wu's performance, and the role of Man Zhen is tailor-made for her. There is no exaggerated expression, except affectation, which is purely a simple and implicit essence. This is the real beauty.
News related to the movie Half-Life, from June 6th to June 8th, from Hong Kong? A multimedia musical "Half-Life" jointly produced by the icosahedron and Shanghai Theatre Arts Center will travel all the way from Hong Kong, Singapore and Macau to Shanghai, where the story takes place, and will be staged in Shanghai Cultural Square for three times. In the interview, director Mathias Woo told reporters that he made a version of a play ten years ago and did it again this time, because he wanted to work with a team of pure Shanghai actors. It is a major feature of this new version to express it in the multimedia way that he is good at. Half-life is Zhang Ailing's first complete novel. There are too many literary works adapted from novels. 1997 The Xu Anhua film version starring Jacklyn Wu and Liming is a classic. Liao Fan, the winner of the New Berlin Film Festival, also became attached to the 2005 drama version of Half-Life, which was co-directed by Hong Kong directors Mathias Woo and Lin Yihua and played by Rene Liu. Ten years later, Mathias Woo re-directed a new version starring actors from Shanghai Theatre Arts Center.
It is worth mentioning that multi-stage cross-border viewing will provide the audience with a brand-new stage clock viewing experience. Beautiful live singing, Jin, a representative descendant of Suzhou Pingtan, partnered with Yu Qun, an outstanding Pingtan artist, to create Tanci. For the mixture of various elements, Mathias Woo said. There should be many different elements on the stage of modern drama. I do this type of multimedia drama to dramatize Zhang Ailing's words. Moreover, going to the theater itself should be a multimedia experience, and I am also looking forward to the response of the Shanghai audience. ?