Huayu: Starting with Xiang Yu, the Hegemon of Western Chu

On the third day of filming, we filmed a scene that silenced the entire crew.

My first meal after being released from prison.

The scene is a small noodle shop by the roadside.

This is a real noodle shop, not a makeshift one.

The shop owner was a local. He was initially quite happy to hear that a film crew wanted to use his shop for filming, but when he saw Chen Mo walking in wearing an old cotton-padded coat, he paused for a moment and whispered to the production assistant, "Is this an actor? He looks like he just came out of there."

Where "inside" is, everyone knows without me having to say it.

Chen Mo sat in the corner of the noodle shop.

He ordered a bowl of plain noodles.

The noodles have been served.

It was steaming hot, with white vapor rising from it.

The soup in the bowl was clear, the noodles were thin and white, and a few scallions floated on top.

very common.

It's so common that you can find it in any noodle shop.

But Chen Mo's gaze as he looked at the bowl of noodles was unusual.

He stared at it for a long time.

After a while, even the extras who brought the noodles started to feel uncomfortable, wondering if there was something wrong with the bowl of noodles.

Then Chen Mo picked up his chopsticks.

I picked up a noodle.

Put it in your mouth.

I chewed it twice.

Stopped.

His expression underwent a very subtle change in that instant.

So subtle that it's almost imperceptible to the naked eye unless you're watching a monitor.

He got burned.

But his reaction was not the conditioned reflex of a normal person who gets burned, making a hissing sound.

Rather, it is a sluggish, delayed response.

It was as if his mouth and tongue received the "hot" signal, but his brain took two seconds to process it.

Because he hadn't eaten anything hot for twelve years.

The food in prison is always lukewarm.

His mouth had forgotten what "hot" felt like.

Those two seconds of hesitation were the smallest, most inconspicuous, yet most real mark that twelve years of time left on a person's body.

Then he continued eating.

They ate very slowly.

Chew each bite for a long time.

It's not about appreciating.

It's about relearning.

Relearn the simplest thing in the world: "eat a bowl of hot noodles".

He paused halfway through his meal.

I put down my chopsticks and looked at the half-bowl of noodles left in the bowl.

Her eyes were slightly red.

It only went viral for a second.

Then things returned to normal.

He picked up his chopsticks again and continued eating.

After finishing the last mouthful of soup, he put down the bowl and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

He took a few crumpled coins out of his pocket and placed them on the table.

He stood up and left.

There wasn't a single line of dialogue in the entire play.

He didn't say a single word from beginning to end.

But everyone felt they had heard a lot.

I heard twelve years of loneliness.

I could hear the temperature of a bowl of hot noodles.

I heard a man's suppressed sobs.

"Card."

Zhou Mu took off his glasses.

He didn't wipe the lenses.

He simply held his glasses in his hand and closed his eyes.

After about five seconds, he put his glasses back on and said three words to the assistant director.

"One take."

The assistant director nodded without saying anything.

He followed Zhou Mu for fifteen years.

Zhou Mu's films have been completed in one take, which can be counted on two hands.

This is the seventh time.

The noodle shop owner poked his head out of the kitchen, looked at Chen Mo's retreating figure as he walked out the door, and said something to the person next to him.

"Is this young man a real actor or did he actually come from inside? I almost called the police just now."

Filming has entered its second week.

The snow has finally fallen in Northeast China.

Overnight, the entire town turned white.

Chen Mo stood by the hotel window and watched the snow for a while.

The script says: It was snowing on the day Meng Chuan returned to his hometown after being released from prison.

This is the scene we're filming today.

Meng Chuan returned to his hometown.

The street where he grew up, the row of old bungalows, has been demolished.

Instead, a commercial building under construction stands there, its reinforced concrete frame rising from the snow like a giant skeleton.

Chen Mo stood in front of that building.

The wind was strong, and snowflakes hit his face; he squinted.

His expression remained unchanged.

Just standing.

Standing motionless.

It's like a tree transplanted to unfamiliar land, its roots not yet firmly planted, unsure of which direction to grow in.

He stood there for a long time.

So long that Zhou Mu, behind the monitor, began to hesitate about whether to call "cut."

Then Chen Mo made a move.

He walked to a nearby old wall that hadn't been completely demolished yet.

There is a scratch on the wall.

Those were pre-carved by the props team, simulating the height measurement marks used when Meng Chuan was a child.

But Chen Mo's change in expression when he saw the scratch was not an act.

His gaze changed from "bewildered" to "recognized".

It's like someone searching through a pile of ruins and suddenly finding an old childhood toy.

He reached out and slowly moved his fingers up along the scratch.

The line that had been moved to the highest point stopped.

The line was about 1.6 meters high.

That's Meng Chuan's height when he was fifteen.

He is now 1.78 meters tall.

That line couldn't reach him.

But he could reach the line.

His finger paused on that line for three seconds.

three seconds.

Then he put his hand down.

Turn around.

gone.

As he left, snowflakes fell on his shoulders, one by one, without him shaking them off.

His figure grew smaller and smaller as he walked through the snow.

It gets smaller and smaller as you walk.

Until it becomes a black dot.

"Card."

When Zhou Mu said this word, his voice went a little hoarse.

No one applauded on set.

It's not because it's bad.

It's because nobody's in the mood to applaud.

Everyone was struck by those three seconds of "finger stopping on the scratch".

What happened in those three seconds?

The sound of a boy laughing as he measures his height on the wall.

There was a mother nagging as she made marks with a pen nearby.

There is all the evidence that a home once existed.

And now, the wall is going to be torn down.

Even this scratch can't be preserved.

The stagehand wiped his eyes, pretending that snowflakes had gotten into them.

The person next to him patted him on the shoulder.

"Stop pretending, I cried too."

Zhou Mu sat behind the monitor, pulling his scarf up to cover half of his face.

He never showed his emotions on set.

But today he needs a scarf to help him.

The most difficult scene in the entire film.

Filming took place in the fourth week.

Meng Chuan found his daughter.

Meng Chuan named his daughter Meng Xiaoxue. She was born while it was snowing.

Xiaoxue was eight years old when Meng Chuan went to prison.

Xiaoxue is now twenty years old.

She had long ago changed her stepfather's surname and was now called Zhao Xiaoxue.

I studied accounting at university in the provincial capital.

A very ordinary girl who wouldn't attract any attention in a crowd.

She was unaware that her biological father had been released from prison.

She had no idea that a man had walked two thousand kilometers through the snow to find her.

The two met at a coffee shop.

It was after Meng Chuan found out through various means that his daughter was studying in this city that he "bumped into" her at a coffee shop near her school.

The actress who plays Xiaoxue is a 22-year-old young woman named Lin Xiaotang, who is a senior at the Central Academy of Drama.

Zhou Mu chose her for a simple reason: she had an "ordinary" face.

Not ugly, but not stunning either.

It's the kind of face you'd see on a university campus, the most ordinary kind of girl's face.

But her eyes were very bright.

Zhou Mu felt that Xiaoxue should have eyes like those.

Before filming this scene, Zhou Mu called Chen Mo and Lin Xiaotang aside separately and gave each of them a task.

He said to Chen Mo, "You are not her father. You are a stranger. You must speak to her like a stranger. But your eyes cannot lie."

He said to Lin Xiaotang, "You don't know who's sitting across from you. You only know that he says he's your mother's 'old friend.' You have no feelings for him. But you should watch his eyes."

The two sat on either side of a small table in the cafe.

There were two cups of coffee in between.

Chen Mo looked at Lin Xiaotang.

He stared at it for a long time.

There was so much in that look.

There was affection, guilt, and an urge to reach out and touch her cheek, but also restraint because "I must hold back because I am not worthy."

The weight of twelve years of longing is condensed into a single moment.

But his expression was calm.

It was as calm as a glass of water without a ripple.

All the ripples are beneath the surface.

"What are you to my mother?" Lin Xiaotang asked.

"Old friend," Chen Mo said.

"What kind of old friend?"

"A long time ago. When your mother was still young."

"She has never mentioned you to me."

"Yeah. We haven't been in touch for a long time."

Chen Mo's voice was flat, and he spoke very slowly.

There is a pause between each sentence.

Those pauses weren't from thinking of lines.

It's about enduring.

Resist the urge to say, "I am your father."

Resist the urge to say, "When you were little, you loved it when I lifted you up high."

I resisted the urge to say, "It was snowing the day you were born, and I stood outside the delivery room freezing for four hours."

All those words were stuck in my throat.

But he didn't say a single word.

Because he felt he wasn't qualified.

Why should someone who has been absent from his daughter's life for twelve years suddenly appear and say "I am your father"?

He could only glance at her from afar in the most restrained way.

We confirmed that she is alive, healthy, and attending school.

enough.

Towards the end of the performance, Lin Xiaotang has a line: "Uncle, can you tell me your name?"

The standard response to this line should be "Meng Chuan" or a pseudonym.

But Chen Mo did not follow the script.

He looked into Lin Xiaotang's eyes and remained silent for a long time.

Then he said something that wasn't in the script.

"You look like your mother."

Three seconds of silence.

Lin Xiaotang's tears suddenly fell.

This reaction was not what she expected.

She didn't know why she was crying.

According to the character's setting, Xiaoxue shouldn't know that the person opposite her is her father at this stage, and she shouldn't have such a strong emotional reaction.

But she just couldn't control herself.

The tone of that comment, "You look like your mother," was too harsh.

It was so heavy that her body reacted before her brain did.

Normally, the director would yell "cut" and then reshoot.

But Chen Mo didn't give Zhou Mu that chance.

He saw Lin Xiaotang cry, and his expression changed slightly.

The word "restraint" has turned into "panic".

That kind of panic wasn't Meng Chuan's panic.

It is a father's instinctive and uncontrollable heartache after seeing his daughter cry.

But he immediately suppressed that feeling of heartache.

Because he "is not" her father.

He was just "an old friend".

Therefore, he cannot feel sorry for her.

He doesn't deserve our sympathy.

He turned his head slightly, pretending to look out the window.

It's snowing outside the window.

His hand, which was under the table, clenched into a fist.

The knuckles are turning white.

"Card."

Zhou Mu's voice rang out after a long time.

The film set was eerily quiet.

Zhou Mu took off his glasses, wiped them, and put them back on.

Then he said something to the assistant director.

"Keep this one. No reshoots."

The assistant director whispered a reminder to him, "But Lin Xiaotang's emotional reaction is wrong. Xiaoxue shouldn't be like this at this stage..."

"Chen Mo caught the parts that were wrong for her," Zhou Mu interrupted him. "And the way he caught them was better than what I wrote in the script."

The assistant director fell silent.

He followed Zhou Mu for fifteen years.

The number of times Zhou Mu said "It's better than what I wrote" can be counted on one hand.

Lin Xiaotang sat in the chair, still wiping away tears.

She came over to find Chen Mo.

"Brother Chen Mo, I'm sorry, I couldn't control myself just now, I shouldn't have cried at that time."

Chen Mo looked at her and smiled.

"You're right to cry."

"But Xiaoxue shouldn't be in the script..."

"The script is static. People are dynamic," Chen Mo said. "You cried, which means that at that moment you believed Meng Chuan was Xiao Xue's father. This belief wasn't something the script told you; it was something you felt yourself. If you felt it, then you're right."

Lin Xiaotang looked at him, her eyes reddening again.

But this time I didn't cry.

She simply nodded.

"Thank you."

"What are you thanking me for? We're partners." Chen Mo patted her shoulder. "Don't be nervous for the next round, just go with your gut feeling."

After saying that, he turned and left.

I walked back to the rest area, sat down, and opened my notebook.

I wrote a line on today's page.

"'You look like your mother.' Six words. They carry more weight than a thousand words."

Then I closed the notebook and closed my eyes for a while.

He needs to shut down his computer.

Pull Meng Chuan out of his body.

Go back to being Chen Mo.

He remembered what Chen Daomin had said in the teahouse.

"When filming, I'm the character. The moment the camera stops rolling, I'm myself again."

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.

Meng Chuan is gone.

Chen Mo is back.