A Study Of The Adaptation Of Ming And Qing Novels In Shaw Brothers (Hong Kong) Films

The adaptation of Ming and Qing novels in Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)films is a very important part in Chinese famous film adaption.This kind of creation not only yields many great writings,but also works out a lot of excellent works on Hong Kong film evolution.Shaw brothers film studio,which played a great role in Hong Kong film of the latter 20~thh century,shoot many films based on Ming and Qing novels and invested a lot of money on these films.This article's study object is The movies adaptation from Ming and Qing novels and makes a specific analysis on this cultural phenomenon.Introduction part mainly makes a point on the study significance of Ming and Qing novels'film adaption by Shaw brothers film studio,and sorts out the study circumstance from these two levels which are the Hong Kong film adaption of Ming and Qing novels and Shaw brothers film studio.The first chapter discusses the movies adapted from the novel“the Three Countries''produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”.The movie“Diao Chan'',reappeared the plot“Wang Yun killing Dong Zhuo through“honey—trap”involved Diao Chan from the novel“the Three Countries''.The movie characterized the image of Diao Chan and strengthened Diao Chan'spirit of dedication for country and people and repainted Diao Chan'track of destiny,which reflected patriotism appeared in Li Han Hsiang'movies.“The Weird Man”,adapted from the plot“Yu Ji was killed”from the novel“the Three Countries”.The movie reflected the style of swordsman movies,reflected the aesthetic characteristics of the post-modernism culture.The second chapter discusses the movies adapted from the novel“Water Margin''produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”.The movie“Yan Xi jiao''and“Pan Jin lian”characterized images of Yan Po xi and Pan Jin lian in the novel“Water Margin''for postive characters in the means of opera.The movie“Wu Song''strenghthened colour of tradition family of the image of Wu Song and humanity of Pan Jin lian.Zhang Che brought out conspicously the images of heroes in the process of the rebuilding for plots from original work,the evasion on potential negative factors from“Water Margin''heroes and the negative characterization.The movies reflected the producers of the movies unique explanation on these classical literature characters.The third chapter discusses the movies adapted from the novel“A Dream of Red Mansion''produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”.The movie“A Dream of Red Mansion”and“Jin Yu Liang Yuan A Dream of Red Mansion”adopted the adapting way blending“condense”original work and“excerpt”from original work together to made love tragedy of Jia Bao yu and Lin Dai yu and the quiet and refined manners and talent of Lin Dai yu bring out conspicuously.The movie“A Spring Dream of Red Mansion”adapted some plots in the novel“A Dream of Red Mansion”and made erotic content bring out conspicuously.The moives reflected lots of features of movies adapted from“A Spring Dream of Red Mansion”in Hong Kong and the effect of commercial quality of film to adaptation on Ming and Qing novels.The fourth chapter discusses the movies adapted from the novel“Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio''produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”.The movie“The Enchanting Shadow''characterized images of Nie Xiaoqian and Ning Caichen reasonably and creatively by the adding and strengthening of female talent for Nie Xiaoqian and the ascension of patriotism for Ning Caichen.The movie“Hu Gui Xi Chun''not only parodied on the model“love because of talents”from“Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio'',but also admonished people about morality through well-meaning satire about human weakness.The movies adapted from the novel“Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio''produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”reflected the effect of traditional cultural ideas to the movie producers and the social and cultural context in which the Hong Kong movies made the comic adaption on“Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio''in 1970s.The fifth chapter discusses the movies adapted from the novel“San Xia WuYi''produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”.The movie“Qi Xia WuYi''and“ChongXiaoLou”characterized the images of BaiYutang,ZhanZhao and plots involved them in the original work and strengthenthed suspense of plots of the original work.The plots of three movies were excerpted from the original works and the three movies attached importance to characterization of swordman.At the same time,the three movies reflected the stage characteristics and development process of swordman films produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”through Ming and Qing novels as the vehicle.The sixth chapter discusses the movies adapted from the novel“The pilgrimage to the west''“Jing Ping Mei”and“XingShiHengYan”produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”.The movies adapted from the novel“The pilgrimage to the west''produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”strengthened the negative facets of women in the novel“The Pilgrimage to the West''and implicitly reflected erotic meaning of images of women.The movie“Golden Lotus”and“Illicit Desire”diluted the shortcomings of women in“Jing Ping Mei”and gave prominence to their tragic love and spirit of revolt and moral enlightenment consciouessness of“Jing Ping Mei”and gave the implicit presentation for the sexual content of“Jing Ping Mei”and reflected the worldly affairs of“Jing Ping Mei”through traditional folk customs and market sentiments.The movie“The Comedy of Mismatches”adapted from the novel from“XingShiHengYan”reconstructed the plots of the original work and made legendary and comedic of plots of the original work bring out conspicuously and made the plots of the original work complied with the watching need of moviegoers by means of Huangmei Opera singing.The seventh chapter discusses characters and plots in Ming and Qing novels how to be adapted by the movies produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”and the effect of commercial quality of film to adaptation on Ming and Qing novels.The movies adopted“excerpt”,“concentration”and“blends”to adapt plots of original works.The characters in the Ming and Qing novels were characterized with swordsmen,comic and opera ways and some characters in the novels were characterized humanly especially for women in the original works.The adaptation for the characters and plots was closely related with specificity of characters and plots of the original works and the effect of commercial quality of film and image of character and the subject consciousness of directors of the movies.The movies were effected by commercial quality of film art.On one hand,the producer of movies choose the tortuous plots of original works to adapt and made violent and erotic content bring out conspicuously in order to make more money.On the other hand,they integrated the movies into genre films which resulted to make characters in the original works become the flat characters.The eighth chapter discusses Zhang Che and Li Han Hsiang,the famous director of “Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”and their adaptation for the Ming and Qing novels.Zhang Che'adaptation on plots and characters for Ming and Qing novels rooted from“masculine aesthetics of movie”and made characters'spiritual quality of sacrifice theirselves in the original works bring out conspicuously.Li Han Hsiang admonished people about morality and looked closely at women from the original works rationally when he adapted Ming and Qing novels.Their creative consciousness effected their adaptation for novels of Ming and Qing dynasties and their movies adapted from Ming and Qing novels reflected their“author”consciousness for film.The ninth chapter discusses the similarities and differences between film recreation and literary recreation on Ming and Qing novels take Li Han hsiang's works and Robert van Gulik's works for example.There are lots of similarity on characterization of complicated humanity,present of traditional culture and reflecting of the dialectical thoughts between film recreation and literary recreation on Ming and Qing novels.There are lots of differences on concrete objects recreated,recreating vehicle reduction and expanding for the original works and reflecting of the dialectical thoughts between film recreation and literary recreation on Ming and Qing novels.The adaptation of Ming and Qing novels in Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)films had important impact for the same adaptation after that and had the important position in the whole history of the adaptation of Ming and Qing novels.The tenth chapter discusses influence of the adaptation of Ming and Qing novels in Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)films including to compare the movies adapted from Ming and Qing novels produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”with the movies adapted from novels of Ming and Qing dynasties in the post-“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”time and to compare the movies adapted from Ming and Qing novels produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”with the movies adapted from Ming and Qing novels produced in Chinese mainland and historical position of the adaptation of Ming and Qing novels in Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)films.Both the movies adapted on Ming and Qing novels by Hong Kong Shaw Brothers Studio and the movies adapted on tMing and Qing novels produced in Hong Kong in1990s made a great adaption to the original plots which manifested original novel's positive mental value in brotherhood theme,and embodied prominent features of genre film.Meanwhile Ming and Qing novels by Hong Kong Shaw Brothers Studio projected the director's creating main body consciousness distinctively.At the same time,other Hong Kong movies based on Ming and Qing novels in last 90s lacked of this kind of consciousness.The former emphasized exquisite martial art action,but the later one paid attention to the fast cutting in camera shots which can strengthened the visual impaction.The differences of them were related with the adapters'creative subject ideas and the environments of the film production.the movies adapted on Ming and Qing novels by Hong Kong Shaw Brothers Studio and the movies adapted on Ming and Qing novels produced in Chinese mainland in1980s made love theme of original works bring out conspicuously,strengthened tortuousness on plots of original works and created marvelous spectacle in the movies with the help of odd plots from original works.At the same time,the movies adapted on Ming and Qing novels produced by Shaw Brothers Studio made more differences on plots of original works than that of Chinese mainland in 1980s and attached importance to reflect persuasion of original works and mix the adaptations and genre films production.The movies adapted on Ming and Qing novels produced by film artists of Chinese mainland in 1980s kept close to plots of original works and attached importance to reflect critical spirit of original works for feudal ruling class,the genre films of Chinese mainland were immature in 1980s.The differences of them were related with the adapters'creative subject ideas and the environments of the film production.The discussion chapter summarizes the adaptation of Ming and Qing novels in Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)films.The adaptation offered lots of experiences in making a great combination of commercial film model and Ming and Qing novels adaption and the exploration on film shooting technology of adaptation rational analyze mentally and critical inheriting awareness that was held by film director for the following art practice.the movies adapted from Ming and Qing novels produced by“Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)Limited Company”almost supported basic creating structure of Ming and Qing novels adaption by themselves when the adaptation were at low ebb period in Chinese mainland and Taiwan.In other words,the adaptation of Ming and Qing novels in Shaw Brothers(Hong Kong)films was the real important progress on film adaption for Ming and Qing novels.