The legendary classic drama "Legend of the New White Lady" was filmed in 1992, premiered in Taiwan province on November 15 of that year, and was introduced by CCTV on February 1, 1993, which set off a ratings boom from the first episode.
The most legendary thing is that in 2004, 11 years later, CCTV once again rebroadcast the TV series, and actually managed to win the channel's annual ratings champion that year, which is really the lyrics of the song: invincibility is how lonely.
In retrospect, for the "Legend of the New White Lady" to be so sought after in the mainland, even the director and producer of the year in Taiwan Province of China were surprised, after all, although this drama is the annual drama of Taiwan TV, but after all, the filming and production is a little bit rushed, and now the audience can still be found in the drama of poles and air conditioners, these penetrating shots.
In fact, if you take a closer look at "The Legend of the New White Woman," you'll find even more loopholes, such as geographic confusion and contradictions, as well as errors in the continuity between previous and previous episodes.
If you take a closer look at the show, you'll find even more interesting points, such as the obvious problem of paragraphing in the narrative style of the show, and the suspicion of watering down the later episodes.
One of the major reasons for all these problems is that "The Legend of the New White Lady" has had four successive screenwriters*** Five screenwriters were involved in the creation of the script for the show, namely Gong Min, Zhao Wenchuan, Fang Wenlan, He Qi and Xia Zuhui. Among them, Xia Zuhui and He Qi are also the directors of the play.
The key problem is that most of the time these five writers don't sit down together and discuss the writing, but rather they change the writers every 10 or so episodes for various reasons, which is not common in the history of TV drama writing. After all, "The Legend of the New White Lady" is not a unit drama like "Editor's Tale," which has a coherent story.
Some people then joked that "Legend of the New White Lady" is a classic TV drama in which the screenwriter wrote A, the actors understood it as B, the director directed it as C, and the audience watched it as D.
That's right, it's really a miracle that a 50-episode TV series with four screenwriter changes and five screenwriters relaying to complete the creation can still become a classic in the end.
The matter of changing scriptwriters has to start from the beginning:
I. Preparation period
In March 1992, the senior management of Taiwan TV decided to use "The Legend of the White Snake" as the blueprint to shoot the annual drama, and in April, the producers found Mr. Hsia Cho-Hui to serve as the director, and then Mr. Hsia Cho-Hui found the famous Taiwanese screenwriter, Mr. Gung-Min, to serve as the scriptwriter of the drama.
One of the reasons why "The Legend of the New White Lady" will feature the one-two punch of Huangmei singing is because of the influence of the island's then-popular "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai". On the other hand, Xia Zuhui, who is himself a master of the huangmei tune, said he adopted the tune because he wanted to pay tribute to the great director Li Hanxiang, who collaborated on the movie "Dream of the Golden Jade and Red Mansion" back in the day.
The male and female protagonists took a bit of a beating, and Zhao Yazhi was originally cast as Bai Suzhen at the beginning, but she had to accompany her children to take the exams, so she declined. Xia Zuhui turned to Pan Yingzhi, but Pan Yingzhi was physically ill and could not act. In the end, she was promised leave to accompany her child's exams, and only then was the role finalized.
It was hard to find an actor to play Xu Xian, but the actor had to be gentle and a bit of a wimp, and he had to be a wife-favorite. There was no reliable actor in the male cast, and the crew decided to find an actress to play the opposite role. At first, Xia Zuhui was looking for Brigitte Lin, after all, she is good at counter-starring, and just red, and Xia Zuhui cooperation. However, because of the high cost of the film plus the lack of schedule, the crew had to give up.
Ha finally set his sights on Yip Tong, who had an outstanding performance in Beyond the Sea, and Zhao Yazhi also welcomed Yip Tong's role as Xu Xian, so Yip Tong and Zhao Yazhi's match made in heaven was reached.
According to the production rules of Taiwanese TV dramas, "The Legend of the New White Lady" was confirmed to be filmed for 30 episodes, with five episodes broadcast weekly, and the later episodes could be filmed as they were broadcast after the start of shooting.
Gong Min finished the 30-episode outline and wrote the scripts for the first few episodes. The crew immediately went to the mainland to shoot exteriors around Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and in one **** two weeks they finished shooting some important exteriors such as West Lake, Leifeng Pagoda (which is actually in the Jixing Temple in Nanjing), and Suzhou Gardens, while all the rest of the filming and production was done in Taiwan.
The Gong Min period
Gong Min's contribution to "The Legend of the New White Lady" was significant, as he wrote the outline and the script for the first seven episodes, and he also scripted the eighth and later twentieth and twenty-eighth episodes.
It can be said that Gong Min set the tone and foundation for "The Legend of the New White Lady," as he wrote the script alone from episode 1 until Bai Suzhen saves Xu Xian, who is scared to death. This part of the drama is also considered one of the most fascinating passages of the entire series, and the hot ratings of "Legend of the New White Lady" started with Gong Min.
Gong Min's style in this part of the drama is very euphemistic and lyrical, with a gentle and soft tempo, and the overall atmosphere and individual performances of the two leads fit perfectly. The contrast between Bai Suzhen's intelligence and generosity and Xu Xian's infatuation and stupidity can be said to have attracted a lot of fans.
However, after writing the 7th episode, Gong Min had a conflict with the senior executives of NTTV, and he chose to quit the show.
As for why Gong Min quit the show, on the one hand, there is the reason why the TV executives asked for more episodes. Seeing that the ratings were hot, the TV executives decided to ask for 20 more episodes on top of the original 30 episodes. For this kind of pure commercial wild watering practice, the big screenwriters are generally not like, produce conflict is normal.
On the other hand, the author's personal guess is that perhaps there is also a difference of opinion between Gong Min and the cast and crew about the grand finale of "The Legend of the New White Snake". Although "Legend of the White Snake" has several ending versions in folklore and novels, most of the endings are about becoming immortal and Buddha. From the way Gonmin wrote the first 7 episodes, we can surmise that the odds are that he wanted Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian to become an ordinary mortal couple.
Three, Zhao Wenchuan period
"New White Lady Legend" from the 8th episode by Zhao Wenchuan took over the screenplay, he began to write Bai Suzhen help Mrs. Chen Lun to give birth to a child, and then the plot enters a relatively "blood" state, until the 20th episode of the Jinshan Temple fight.
In Zhao Wenchuan's writing, Bai Suzhen began to "do whatever it takes" to raise Xu Xian's personal reputation, such as letting an old beggar woman eat cranes and then save her life, which is actually a bit of a contradiction in terms of the plot and Bai Suzhen's previous persona.
What's more, it's the theft of treasure from the Liang Wangfu, and in order for Xu Xian to "show off" in front of his peers, he instructed Qing to steal the treasure, which led to a long period of the drama centered around the Liang Wangfu's sadistic storyline. This kind of design of stealing other people's things to help her husband show off his wealth is not something that Gong Min's Bai Suzhen could do.
Another place where Zhao Wenchuan "modified" Gongmin's setting was Fa Hai, who, although unlike Gongmin's writing, was a normal monk. But in Zhao Wenchuan's writing, Fa Hai becomes a villain who takes personal revenge and even speaks out of turn.
So Zhao Wenchuan's "Legend of the New White Lady," though enjoyable in its conflicts, is a far cry from Gonmin, whose approach is more in line with the choices of the average TV drama screenwriter, but still a bit far from the mood pursued by the big screenwriters.
Of course, it's a matter of opinion, and if you don't count the plot holes and collapsing personas, Zhao Wenchuan's Bai Suzhen is a better fighter, Xu Xian is a bit more ballsy, and the plot seems to have more ups and downs.
Four: Fang Wenlan's period
Starting from the 20th episode, Zhao Wenchuan quit to write modern fashion dramas, and Fang Wenlan took over the scriptwriting of The Legend of the New White Lady.
Episode 20 has a richer plot, and the screenwriting was actually done by three people; the Jinshan Temple fight was wrapped up by Zhao Wenchuan, the Broken Bridge meeting was done by Gong Min, and the return to her sister's brother-in-law's house in Qiantang after the Broken Bridge was taken over by Fong Wenlan, who was supposed to have started from the time she met Zhang Yutang specifically.
The screenwriting community has a habit of ending a story with whoever started it, so the screenwriter for both the Broken Bridge meeting and the re-meeting scenes is Gong Min. And Zhao Wenchuan's name will also appear in the closing episodes of "The Legend of the New White Lady," because he started the scene in the Liang Wangfu and he's the one who will finish the ending of the Liang Wangfu.
Starting with Xu Xian Bai Suzhen returning to her sister's brother-in-law's house with Xiao Qing, viewers will again be treated to a big husband-and-wife relationship scene plus witty family drama.
From here until Xu Shilin meets the newly transformed Hu Meiniang, this part is all scripted by Fang Wenlan.
In this section, Fong did an excellent job of scripting several key sequences according to Gong Min's outline, such as Bai Suzhen's subjugation to the Leifeng Pagoda, which of course was also scripted by Gong Min.
Fang not only carried on Gong Min's first seven episodes stylistically, but also took care of two important tokens of Gong Min's writing, the gold hairpin and the umbrella. This part of her episode was equally emotional and made the audience shed the most tears.
The key point is that Gong Min accomplished the image of Bai Suzhen as a virtuous wife, while Fang Wenlan accomplished the image of Bai Niangzi as a good mother. The image of Bai Suzhen is enriched and rounded off by Fang Wenlan's writing.
In addition to this, Fang Wenlan also corrected Fa Hai and made him return to the image of a virtuous monk again. It should be noted that her screenplay is very much like Gonmin's in terms of style and plotting, even though she doesn't have a big personal touch.
As for why Fang Wenlan also quit in the middle, I guess it probably has something to do with the design of the grand finale as well.
Fang Wenlan's writing focuses on Xiao Qing's closed-door practice to prepare for her revenge, and she also creates the character of Qi Baoshan and makes him fall in love with Li Bilian. At the same time, Fang also introduces Hu Meniang, who is not the harmful fox spirit of folklore, but a rabbit spirit who is ready to fall in love with Xu Shilin.
So I guess the grand finale Fang Wenlan had in mind should be similar to Gong Min's, with Bai Suzhen Xu Xian reuniting, Xu Shilin and Hu Meiniang becoming a couple, Li Bilian marrying the loyal and reliable Qi Baoshan, while Xiao Qing succeeds in her revenge by customs into the crab shell and so on.
Perhaps such a grand finale setup was not recognized by the NTTV executives, so the writers were changed again.
Fifth, Ho Ki period
Ho Ki and Hsia Cho-Hui were both directors of "The Legend of the New White Lady", and both of them had the ability to write and adapt scripts.
Ho Ki was faced with a dangerous "mess" when she took over the scriptwriting role, as she had to change the direction of Fang Wenlan's storyline while continuing Gong Min's outline, and to top it all off, she had to fulfill the task of watering down the script given to her by the TV executives.
According to Gong Min's 30-episode outline design, Bai Suzhen was subdued by the Leifeng Pagoda in 28 episodes, and the 29th and 30th episodes were to complete the scenes of Xu Shilin's success in the examination and the rescue of his mother from the pagoda. Instead, the Taiwan TV executives want to add 20 episodes in the middle, so the pressure can be imagined.
Fang Wenlan started the show with a few episodes, and it was quite difficult for Ho Ki to take over and not only carry on but even subvert it, and then find his own way to continue.
So we see some people "angry" design, Xiao Qing is not easy to retreat for 16 years to practice kung fu return, the audience was full of confidence in her, the result of the He Qi pen Xiao Qing and was killed by the Fahai seconds, I feel that 16 years of kung fu for nothing, before the fight, but now it is still a crushing defeat.
It is said that many viewers in Taiwan Province of that year, when they saw Xiao Qing brittle defeat to Fa Hai, they all cursed, the next episode of the ratings immediately dropped two points, in Taiwan Province of the three major stations of the prime-time slot, the ratings dropped two points is a big event.
According to Ho Ki herself, she writes stage dramas with more dedication, sometimes writing a one-act play for a month, and TV dramas are basically one episode a day, written on the first day and printed the next day to hand over to the actors, and then started shooting on the same day. As a result, there are some logical and geographical loopholes in her writing. For example, Xu Shilin is rushing to take the examination, he walks for a day and then stays in a dark store, but Xu Jiao Rong wakes up in the middle of the night to wake up Li Gong Fu, who then goes to find Qi Baoshan, and then the two of them catch up with Xu Shilin before the sun comes up. It feels like Xu Shilin didn't go very far this day by boat and on the road.
Additionally, Ho Ki created some meaningless characters for the sake of watering down, such as the Ninth Master, the Second Grandmother and Xiang Qiao, as well as a couple of martial arts masters who fought with Qi Baoshan. It can't be helped that 20 episodes is too much pressure.
Of course, we can't ignore He Qi's role, after all, it's really difficult for her to carry on and make the plot turn around as well as inject water. Moreover, there are a couple of great moments in her writing, such as when Bai Suzhen came out of the pagoda to save Xu Shilin, which I'm sure made a lot of people cry.
Ho Ki has another important job, she assisted Fang Wenlan to complete the portrayal of the Golden Cymbal Falcon and the ending, the character's biggest role is to whitewash Hu Meiniang, in the novel Hu Meiniang in the body of all the evil transferred to the Golden Cymbal Falcon. The love scene between Hu Meniang and Xu Shilin is even more touching.
White Suzhen and Xu Xian are husband and wife, and Hu Meiniang and Xu Shilin are in love, two leads, four characters, quite perfect. He Qi, of course, deserves a lot of credit.
Ho Ki can't even look her up on the Internet, as she is now known as He Jiping, whose screenwriting credits include "New Dragon Inn," "Flying Swords of Dragon Gate," "Bullet - Road," "The First Floor of the World," and "Wickedness" among others.
It should be said that she is a very skillful screenwriter, and it is indeed difficult to take over the job of "The Legend of the New White Lady" halfway through the movie.
Sixth, Xia Zuhui period
In the "Legend of the New White Lady" into the final stage, director Xia Zuhui also joined the screenwriters, due to the last few episodes of the play involves a large number of characters, many of the characters of the ending need to be completed by the original screenwriters, and therefore his name is always juxtaposed with other screenwriters.
Ha Zuhui's main job as a scriptwriter, besides continuing to inject water, was to introduce the plot normally into the grand finale. Therefore Hu Meiniang had to die and having her reincarnated as a normal human being was considered a happy ending.
Li Bilian must marry Xu Shilin, and Xu Shilin must accept it even if he is not happy. As for Qi Baoshan, who was designed by Fang Wenlan, let him continue to be a single dog.
Fa Hai continues his image as a virtuous monk, and the sad ending of the Liang Wang Fu house can't affect him. And even if Bai Suzhen comes out of the tower, she can't become an ordinary couple with Xu Xian, the two of them only have three days of conjugal bond, and then she must bring Xiaoqing and Fa Hai as well as become an immortal and cultivate the right fruit.
I believe that many viewers see this ending will be a little depressed, why Fa Hai got what he wanted, why Bai Suzhen and Xu Xian can not return to the first 7 episodes of the kind of loving couple's life, become immortal and become a Buddha is so important? This and the two have been in the relationship towards the inconsistent ah, not should be only envious of lovebirds not envious of immortal?
There's no way around it, because this grand finale is the one that fits most folk novels, and it's also the most secure one.
Anyway, "Legend of the New White Lady" went through so many twists and turns and ended up being a classic TV series.
On the one hand, the drama has a good base, a base that includes folklore as well as Gongmin's outline and his brilliant beginning. On the other hand, of course, the personal charisma and acting skills of the main actors such as Zhao Yazhi, Ye Tong as well as Maggie Chan are also indispensable. If a few other people had acted in the show, the show would have collapsed just from the back-and-forth of changing scriptwriters.
Of course, there's one more person who can't be forgotten, Zuo Hongyuan, who wrote all the interludes for "The Legend of the New White Lady".
Come on: a thousand years waiting for the first time, I have no regrets ah ah, who is in the ear, said ......