The day a blockbuster was born
The seeds for a groundbreaking Chinese TV period drama that recently celebrated the 30th anniversary of its first broadcast were sown on distant shores
When Wang Fulin visited London it was not Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, black taxis or red doubledecker buses that left the deepest impression on him. Instead, as he flew home to China, the picture fixed in his mind was a very Chinese red.
It was 1979, and Wang had just spent several days in the British capital with a delegation of the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television of China. They had visited the BBC at a time when the series Downton Abbey was still years away from even being an idea on a storyboard, but when the British broadcaster had already made a worldwide reputation for itself with its TV period dramas.
One of those was the 1967 adaptation of the John Galsworthy novel The Forsyte Saga, which ran in 26 parts and was broadcast all over the world, and of which Sarah Crompton of the Daily Telegraph in London has said: “It was not the first literary adaptation on TV, but it was longer and more ambitious than anything screened before, and it has come to represent every value and standard to which British TV has aspired ever since.”
So when the filmmaker Wang visited the BBC that day, the idea that occurred to him was essentially this: “If the British can do it, why can’t we?”
Wang says now: “They had adapted many world classic novels into TV series, and I wondered why we could not do the same with Chinese classics and have them shown worldwide.”
What Wang specifically had in mind was the dazzling story and dozens of complex characters that make up the 18th-century novel Dream of the Red Chamber by Cao Xueqin. The novel is considered one of China’s Four Great Classical Novels, alongside Water Margin by Shi Nai’an, Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, both written in the 14th century, and Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en, written in the 16th century.
Dream of the Red Chamber chronicles the downfall of the Jia family during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) against the backdrop of the country’s social and political upheavals.
Earlier in his career Wang, now 86, had directed the nine-episode TV series Di Ying Shi Ba Nian, or 18 Years of the Enemy Camp, about Chinese Communist Party soldiers. The series came out in 1980, the first TV series made on the Chinese mainland.
“At that time, unlike Chinese film, which started in 1905, China’s TV series production was in its infancy,” Wang says. “When I proposed making a TV series based on Dream of the Red Chamber I ran into a lot of opposition.”
He spent two years organizing auditions, searching for film locations and preparing scripts, and no expense would be spared in its making.
Whereas a typical Chinese TV series in those days cost 10,000 yuan to make, Dream
ern opera and theatrical drama. These adaptations have often stirred passionate debate among those in the know, in particular about which is the most authentic.
In 2010 the director Li Shaohong remade a 50-episode television series of Dream of the Red Chamber with the same title. Though the move gained a lot of interest, including public auditions that turned into a televised contest, it remains eclipsed by the 1987 version.
Ouyang, who was born and grew up in Chengdu, Sichuan province, became an actor of the prestigious Emei Film Studio in the province when he was 14. However, it was not until six years later that he would be given his big chance, one that Wang offered him, to play Jia Baoyu.
“Jia Baoyu was the only role I played in my career and, fortunately, audiences remember me for it,” Ouyang says.
He even underwent chin reconstruction to look more like the Jia Baoyu depicted in the novel.
Ouyang says the success was a double-edged sword.
“Even though I have directed many TV series myself since, it is for my role as Jia Baoyu that I am remembered.”
Li Yaozong, 65, who filmed the series, and who was present at auditions, says: “Of course, though Cao graphically described the main characters in his novel, nobody could say exactly how they looked. It was just a feeling, and that was very hard to capture.
“The actor for each of the leading roles was chosen by a panel, such as the director and scriptwriter. That’s why it took such a long time to finally decide on each one.”
As for the training, all the actors learned calligraphy, read traditional Chinese poems and studied the novel of Dream of the Red Chamber under the guidance of experts.
Liu Qing, 23, was introduced to the novel by her aunt when she was 6, but did not quite understand the novel until she read it again in middle school, she says.
“The 1987 TV series brought these characters in the novel vividly to life,” says Liu, editor for a publishing company in Beijing.
“I remember that each episode begins with two giant stones, symbolizing Jia Baoyu and Lin Daiyu. I had many questions about the novel, and the performances of the actors inspired me to use my imagination and search for answers.”
Li Huiqun, a professor at the Institute of Communication Studies at China Communication University in Beijing, conducts courses there on Dream of Red Chamber that began running in 2008. They cover traditional Chinese culture, including poems and etiquette, that figure in the novel.
In 1984 Da Guan Yuan, or Grand View Garden, was built in Beijing, as the main shooting spot of the 1987 TV series. With more than 40 Qing Dynasty-styled pavilions, bridges, courtyards, and buildings, the garden, covering 12.5 hectares, opened to visitors after the series was filmed.
It is also the location of Beijing Red Mansion Culture and Art Museum, which exhibits photos and costumes of the 1987 TV series.