Chapter 36: It Doesn't Feel Difficult
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Ordinarily, newcomers joining a production do not need to make a point of paying their respects to the veterans...
This isn’t Korea!
Still, there’s nothing wrong with paying your respects. A polite greeting is enough, and most of the veterans will respond...
Everyone comes to the set to work. A harmonious atmosphere brings prosperity, after all!
More importantly, Shen Yan was fluent in Cantonese. Many of the actors in The Weaver Girl at the End of the World had come from Hong Kong: Liu Songren, Zheng Peipei, Chen Xiuwen...
The first two needed no introduction. Chen Xiuwen had started out at Asia Television, made her name at TVB, and appeared in several productions supervised by Li Guoli, including The Unbound Woman and Farewell, My Wife. Later, when Li Guoli moved north, she followed and filmed two productions there, appearing in The Young Warriors as She Saihua and starring in The Great Fortune of the Red and the White.
Oh, right. The Great Fortune of the Red and the White was her final work before retirement.
After that, she rarely acted again.
There were also Tao Huimin and Dai Chunrong...
All were veteran performers!
After My Fair Princess finished airing, Dai Chunrong went on to film My Fair Princess II and The Brilliant Life of Pigsy...
While filming those two productions, she even needed someone to protect her whenever she went to the restroom...
Because there really were people who wanted to beat her up!
The production had deliberately arranged “a dozen or twenty young men holding long poles, standing shoulder to shoulder... for fear that excited viewers might resort to extreme behavior.”
Still, after chatting with her for a few moments, Shen Yan found her quite warm. She was nothing like a great villain.
He also spoke with Zheng Peipei for a while longer, since she played Fang Ning’s mother in the series...
Shen Yan had read the memoir Zheng Peipei wrote at the age of seventy, Looking Back with a Smile: Seventy Years. Reading it had left him feeling rather heavy-hearted...
There was also a curious little episode: Eileen Chang had been her romantic rival.
The two had originally been close friends. Zheng Peipei had a boyfriend of five years, the immensely popular actor Yueh Hua. Eileen Chang took a liking to him, intervened in their relationship, and married him.
That was why Zheng Peipei hurriedly married a Taiwanese businessman and emigrated to the United States.
Life in America did not treat her well. She wrote Yueh Hua a letter complaining about her circumstances, but Eileen Chang discovered it and sent it straight to a newspaper. After that, problems arose in Zheng’s marriage.
Yueh Hua flew into a rage and divorced her outright!
...
Acting...
was simply a matter of maintaining an exchange with one’s scene partner within the context of lines one had memorized—treating every sentence the other person said as though one were hearing it for the first time, reacting to it, and only then delivering one’s own line...
Shen Yan was still in the stage of accumulating skill, so his reactions retained plenty of freshness.
As luck would have it, Fang Ning was an immature young man.
The role did not require much deliberate design, either.
What people called the accumulation of skill was the point at which acting entered the realm of “practice makes perfect.” Once one employed polished “technique,” the inner conflict and turbulence could be greatly reduced...
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This was the most superficial form of the representational school: memorizing every expression and taking it out whenever needed...
Most TVB actors worked this way. It was an assembly line, after all!
That was why they often struggled to adapt when they came to the mainland to film.
When joining a large production, the first things one had to learn were the equipment and the details of blocking, because mainland filming conditions were completely incomparable to those in Hong Kong!
Shen Yan acted well and almost never wasted a shot...
Apart from being scolded once on his first day because he had failed to find his mark for the camera, everything afterward went smoothly.
His handling of emotion was simply a little off...
The emotional register of the entire series was heightened. He could not be too restrained or overly true to everyday life.
That was something he could correct by watching and learning more.
Still, he quietly complained to Dai Chunrong, “Auntie Dai... why do I feel that the director’s standards are a little low?”
“You were filming a production directed by Zhang Li before this. That was a serious drama. Ours is what they call an idol drama. As long as you’re not outrageously bad, they’ll generally let you pass...”
Shen Yan hesitated, but finally said, “But I noticed that none of them were crying just now...”
“They can always shoot a long shot!”
Oh. The scene they had just filmed had been emotionally intense.
Tao Qianqian, the senior disciple of Splendid Workshop, had been sent into the palace by her parents to serve as a palace maid, while continuing to work as a weaver. A group of people had come to see her off...
They had all grown up together since childhood and shared a deep bond.
By all rights, the pain of parting should have been heartbreaking. At the very least, there ought to have been tears or something...
Shen Yan had taken a look. Hardly anyone had actually shed a tear. They all looked quite sorrowful, but that was about it.
Then the director had simply approved the scene!
Shen Yan was genuinely astonished. They were letting that pass?
“Different genres call for different standards from the director... but that doesn’t mean you can slack off!”
“How could I possibly slack off?”
“All right, drink some herbal heatstroke medicine. It’s my scene now!”
Dai Chunrong played the owner of Rainbow Cloud Workshop, a rival to the Splendid Workshop where the protagonists worked. At the World’s Number One Weaving Competition, she had also flattered the examiner, causing Splendid Workshop to place second.
She was one of the early antagonists.
As a matter of fact, after My Fair Princess, Dai Chunrong had hardly ever played a positive character.
This was one of the predicaments actors faced: once you became famous for playing a certain type of role, a steady stream of similar roles would come looking for you.
From a producer’s perspective, it was the quickest way to choose actors.
As for the actor’s own thoughts—ideas like “I’m capable of so much more”—those were not within the producer’s considerations.
Whether you had greater potential was none of their concern.
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Dai Chunrong went off to film her scene, while Shen Yan picked up a bottle of herbal heatstroke medicine and downed it in one go.
The weather was oppressively hot.
Herbal heatstroke medicine was essential protection against summer heat.
The production had prepared a whole supply of it, and Shen Yan had to drink some too. Wearing a long robe in the height of summer was simply stifling!
He took out Wuxia Edition and began reading.
Starting the previous month, Wuxia Edition had begun serializing, alongside Lotus Tower, Shi Weihanshan’s Mountains and Rivers.
Mountains and Rivers was the concluding work in the General Ming series.
He had heard that, toward the end of writing the book, Shi Weihanshan had vomited blood and been hospitalized. He dictated the rest of the content himself while someone else transcribed it, which had affected the quality of the work.
The General Ming series was genuinely quite good. The main sequence consisted of The Bow That Stole Heaven, The Arrow That Replaced the Sun, The Summit, and Mountains and Rivers. The side stories were The Wave-Breaking Awl, The Soul-Stealing Shadow, and The Blade That Shattered the Void.
Among them, The Summit could absolutely be considered a masterpiece.
The hidden-weapon king, Lin Qing!
But by the time of Mountains and Rivers, the protagonist had changed... Lin Qing had died in The Summit.
Shen Yan was in the middle of reading when a voice suddenly sounded behind him.
“What are you doing?”
“Reading a novel. Shishi, want a bottle?”
Shen Yan handed over a bottle of herbal heatstroke medicine. Liu Shishi looked at it with undisguised distaste.
“I have my own. And remember to call me Sister Shishi...”
“All right, Shishi...”
“Why aren’t you reading the script?”
“I can’t spend every minute of every day reading the script...”
As he spoke, he handed her the magazine. “Do you want to read it?”
Liu Shishi took it and glanced at the cover.
“Wuxia Edition... Is it a martial-arts story?”
“Exactly!”
“You really have a lot of free time... You’re actually reading martial-arts novels!”
Shen Yan offered a defense. “It’s an advance copy. The publisher mailed it to me...”
“An advance copy?” Liu Shishi asked curiously. “Why would the publisher send one to you?”
Shen Yan answered with complete candor. “Because something I wrote was published in it!”
“Which story?”
“Lotus Tower...” Shen Yan flipped to the main text for her. “This one!”
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