Author: Kong Min (Maja Korbecka)
Translator: Yi Ersan
Proofreading: Qin Tian
Source: easternkicks.com (April 13, 2022)
"Universe Exploration Editorial Department" at Pingyao International Film Festival in 2021 It premiered and won the Fei Mu Honorary Best Film Award. It was not only favored by the judges, but also film critics and audiences were stunned - earlier this year, it also had its European premiere at the 51st Rotterdam International Film Festival .
"Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department" (2021)
After the Rotterdam International Film Festival, we chatted on WeChat for a while, when Kong Dashan was on the set of the sequel to "The Wandering Earth". After the interview, I realized that I was once very close to Wu Jing and .
My Chinese name is Kong Min. We got to know each other immediately because of the fate of the same surname. Of course, the only difference is that I actively joined this big family through learning Chinese and living in a Chinese-speaking country. It soon became apparent to me that some happy coincidence was one of the great themes of our conversation. Kong Dashan discusses his early inspirations, his origins as a director, and the influence of pseudo-documentary practice on his work.
Q: You seem to be very busy recently?
Kong Dashan: Yes, I have been busy with the crew of " The Wandering Earth 2" recently.
Q: Do you feel a lot of work pressure?
Kong Dashan: I'm fine, but the pressure on the director is much greater. I'm the director of Team B, so I'm only in charge of a small part of the shoot.
Q: So it is so
Kong Dashan: I don't know if you have watched "The Wandering Earth"?
asks: Of course, I like this movie very much. But I haven't read the original and Liu Cixin's , so I can't compare it. "The Wandering Earth" is online on Netflix, so there should be a lot of European viewers watching it. Director Guo Fan also made a cameo appearance in "Universe Exploration Editorial Department". The whole scene was very funny, reflecting the process of film production itself to some extent. How did you two meet?
Kong Dashan: We first met ten years ago, when I just graduated from university and made a short film ("The Troubles of Young Mario"), adapted from a very popular cartoon in China " The Adventures of Li Xianji". I don't know if you have heard of it?
"The Adventures of Li Xianji" (2009)
Q: No.
Kong Dashan: I highly recommend you to take a look. At that time, the live-action feature film "The Adventures of Li Xianji" directed by Guo Fan happened to be released in theaters. He happened to see one of my short videos online and we got to know each other. Later, when he was shooting another movie, I became his assistant director. Our relationship is getting better and better. After finishing The Wandering Earth, he asked me if I wanted to make a feature film. At that time, I saw a very interesting news, so I sent him the link. Then I told him I wanted to make a mockumentary based on that news. After reading it, he also thought it was very interesting and encouraged me to write the script.
"The Adventures of Li Xianji" (2011) "The Adventures of Li Xianji" (2011)
Q: What is the news about?
Kong Dashan: A reporter from Shandong TV went to interview a farmer who claimed to have contacted an alien. He told the reporter very seriously and sincerely how he met and dealt with that alien, including using Use the grid trap that usually catches hares to catch this alien. Finally, he opened the freezer at home and showed the reporter the remains of the alien, only to find that it was a cheap alien doll made of silicone .
and the farmer also said that he should protect its body and wait for its alien companion to take it away in a flying saucer ... I believe that all viewers or listeners will think that he is a liar or a lunatic. But he himself is very serious and devoted to this matter. I started to assume - what if everything he said was true? From this idea, I wrote the script.
Q: I think this reverie seems to be some sort of driving force in your film. You have a great sense of humor in adapting one of the most influential texts in classical Chinese fiction, Journey to the West, into a contemporary version. In many scenes, you clearly refer to the image of Tang Sanzang and Monkey King , and Wang Yitong is excellent in playing this Monkey King-inspired character.
Kong Dashan: That's right, and his character is called Sun Yitong—obviously an echo of Monkey King. The male protagonist of the film is Tang Zhijun, which echoes Tang Sanzang.
Q: Wang Yitong's performance surprised me. I have heard of him, and I remember that his work "The Pig Killer" won an award at the first Pingyao International Film Festival in 2017 . But the later feature film version has not been released for a long time. What was the process of the two of you co-writing the screenplay?
Kong Dashan: I first saw the short film "The Pig Killer" on the Internet, and I liked it very much at that time. I think I must meet Wang Yitong himself one day. I went to participate in the Pingyao Film Festival in 2017. At that time, Wang Yitong's feature film project was shortlisted for the "Film in Development Project" (WIP). I saw the screening of the feature-length version of "The Pig Killer" on the film festival schedule, decided to watch it, and still liked it very much after watching it. At that time, I went to Pingyao with my classmates, and I found out later that he and Wang Yitong were friends in high school.
He said to me: "I know this director, I can introduce you two." But they have not been in touch for many years, so he has no idea how to contact Wang Yitong. Coincidentally, the two bumped into each other in the toilet, and they exchanged contact information. As soon as I met him later, I told him that I really liked his movies and was a fan. And when he heard that I was studying Beijing Film Academy , he said: "I really like a short film made by Nortel very much." Finally, he found out that the short film he mentioned was actually made by me! Surprise and excitement: Turns out we knew about each other long before we met.
Q: Sounds like fate.
Kong Dashan: Yes, this kind of coincidence is amazing. Right when we met, I was about to start writing the script for Space Exploration Editorial. Before Wang Yitong returned to Chengdu, I briefly chatted with him about the project. After a year, my efficiency was a bit low, and I only wrote about 10,000 words. Suddenly one day, Wang Yitong said, "I'm very interested in your story, how about we write the script together?" I immediately agreed and I was very happy. In fact, I have always wanted to ask him to cooperate, but I have no courage. Since he offered it, of course I'd love to. During this period, I went back and forth between Beijing and Chengdu many times to write scripts with him. We even went to the mountains of Sichuan together, especially Daliang Mountain , to find inspiration. The entire script took about two years.
Q: When writing the script, were you inspired by any sci-fi movies or sci-fi magazines? I heard that the Chinese title of the film "Universe Exploration Editorial Department" (Translator's Note: The English title of this film is Journey to the West, literally translated as "西游记") is a nod to the classic Chinese magazine " flying saucer" popular in the 90s. A tribute to Exploring .
Kong Dashan: Actually, I never read the magazine "Flying Saucer Exploration" when I was young. Maybe I've seen it, but I don't have any concrete impressions.In the 90s, there were many similar magazines in China, about exploring outer space, the unknown and the mysterious, and there were also many programs and newspapers about mysterious or supernatural events. Of course I also like these publications, they satisfy children's curiosity. But what I used to read as a kid was a magazine called The Reader, because my dad bought it a lot. I didn't have much choice but to flip through whatever magazines I had at home. My father only read magazines devoted to culture and literature, without any sci-fi elements in them.
Q: In the 90s, sci-fi still seemed to be seen as a popular genre, and the stereotyped divide between high and low culture was prevalent. So what I'm curious about is how did you become interested in film in the first place?
Kong Dashan: When I was a teenager, I really didn't like to read books, I preferred to read novels and movies. In the new millennium, the Internet is not very developed, so I often rent DVDs and VCDs. Back then I saw movies primarily as an entertainment consumer product. I just love watching movies, but never thought I'd be a filmmaker one day. After graduating from high school, I faced a problem: I wanted to go to college, but my cultural grades were poor. So I can only choose an art major and pass the art test to be admitted to the university. I rarely went to class for three years in high school, and spent most of my time playing in the band. In the early 2010s, the enrollment scale of film and television majors expanded significantly, so I felt that I had a good chance of being admitted to a university.
I like watching movies, so I took film school and as my goal, and then began to consciously look for some movies outside the mainstream. I started watching art films, and at that time I realized the richness of film history and the diversity of film languages, and the different types of stories dazzled me. In the past, I only watched , Hollywood, and mainstream Hong Kong movies, and thought that only these were good movies. When I started studying film, I realized that there are still many great film directors in the world. From then on, I felt that I could also be a filmmaker if given the chance.
Q: "Universe Exploration Editorial Department" really reflects the duality of the film education you received, it is a perfect combination of art films and genre films. There are elements of adventure and sci-fi, but on the other hand there is also a focus on the art form and film history. Besides the news you mentioned earlier, was there any other reason that drove you to use the tools and aesthetics of a documentary to shoot Cosmic Exploration Editorial?
Kong Dashan: In 2015, I was admitted to Directing Department of Beijing Film Academy. On the first day of school, the instructor assigned us a task of shooting a pseudo-documentary. In the past ten years, this has been a very important teaching content of Beijing Film Academy at the master's level. I think the practice of shooting pseudo-documentary helps to better arrange the story and control the unity of content and form. The pseudo-documentary approach can be a great exercise tool. Even if I don't make such movies in the future, other styles and modes of movies will definitely need a solid storytelling to support a specific movie language and worldview. So from then on, I consciously made pseudo-documents.
I don't know if you have seen one of my previous short films, a literary film about suffocating people ("The Future Tense of the Legal System"), it was filmed in the form of a news report. There is still a stereotype in the minds of ordinary viewers-literary films are slow and boring, so I have stretched this idea to the extreme. The film faked the form of a news report—some audience was "suffocated" because they watched a literary film in a movie theater, so a new law was introduced to prohibit everyone from making such movies. But there are still some people who continue to shoot literary films secretly. This news is narrated from the perspective of the police, who went to arrest these criminals who made literary films.
Q: "Cosmos Exploration Editorial Department" has brought me a lot of surprises, because I have never seen a Chinese pseudo-documentary before.
Kong Dashan: There are indeed very few films of this type in China. In 2016, there was a similar horror movie called "The Bewitched". Have you heard of it?
asks: Oh, I remembered! It participated in the FIRST youth film exhibition at the time.
Kong Dashan: Most Chinese fake documentaries use horror themes. But I wanted to try the sci-fi genre.
"The Evil" (2016)
Q: When preparing for "Cosmic Exploration Editorial Department", did you watch some old Chinese science fiction films?
Kong Dashan: Of course, most of them are movies from the 1980s. The most famous of these is probably " thunderbolt beibei " (1988). But to be honest, I think the pinnacle of Chinese sci-fi cinema, in terms of concept and style, is Misplacement (1986) directed by Huang Jianxin. When I saw this movie, I was amazed at how avant-garde and shocking Chinese sci-fi movies and Chinese movies in general were in the 80s.
Q: I really like the black humor and surreal sense of "Misalignment"! The story of the film is actually very simple, but I think Huang Jianxin reflected many elements of China in the 80s in a thought-provoking way in his early films.
Kong Dashan: In fact, he is using the expressionist style to create realistic criticism. "Displacement" is not like many other sci-fi movies-relying on special effects to show visual spectacle, but the story is not well prepared and developed, which often makes the film extremely boring and forgettable. In Huang Jianxin's film, however, the visual style and storyline are strong. "Dislocation" can be said to be an intellectual science fiction film. I think it's amazing to be able to make a movie like this in China in the 80s.
"Misplacement" (1986)
Q: "Cosmos Exploration Editorial Department" premiered at the Pingyao International Film Festival in 2021. What was the audience feedback at that time?
Kong Dashan: It's pretty good. The audience didn't seem to expect to see this type of movie on the last day of the film festival. They were pleasantly surprised.
Q: On Douban , I saw that you are currently preparing to adapt Liu Cixin's novel "Micro Era", which will star Wu Jing. What are your plans for the near future?
Kong Dashan: I just want to rest now (laughs). In fact, the information on Douban is fake, it should be an entry added by netizens themselves on Douban. But what is particularly interesting is that during the filming of "The Wandering Earth 2", I could see Wu Jing every day. I showed him the screenshot of this entry, and I said, "Brother Jing, I don't know why, the netizens have already agreed that you have agreed to play the leading actor in my next movie." He replied, "Okay, then we will listen Netizens, no problem" (laughs).
Q: Looks like the audience has made the decision for you (laughs).
Kong Dashan: Yes, this is the voice of the masses.
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