As a person who has just published a monograph on the social history of guangdong lion inheritance, before the release of "Lion Boy", I received messages from relatives and friends from all sides, I don't know whether I was afraid of missing this movie on the theme of waking lion, or wanted me to first identify whether it was worth a movie ticket.
After finishing the movie with a complicated "sense of responsibility", I opened the chat software to find my sister and sent a question: "Have you heard that the lion dance has Optimus Prime?" Shi Jie's reply was also a question: "I only know that the Transformers have Optimus Prime, and the Optimus Prime of the Lion Dance refers to the high pole?" ”
Unlike my social organization research, which focuses on the inheritance of waking lions, Shimei has been doing intangible cultural heritage records and promotion work in Guangzhou and surrounding areas for a long time, and has won the trust of different genres of lion awakening masters, and is the person I know who knows the most about the current situation of lion inheritance. So I think that if she doesn't know, then the setting of this "Optimus Prime" in the film can basically be considered fictional.
From the point of view of a folklorist, I must say that fiction is not a problem. Many of the folklore phenomena and related knowledge that we now regard as "authentic" and "common sense" are constantly being built up today, and of course they can continue to be constructed. For example, the well-known "Foshan Huang Feihong" is a constructed concept. But even from a constructive point of view, "The Lion Boy" still has too many details that cannot stand up to scrutiny.
Poster of "The Lion Boy"
Realistic landscapes and distorted spatio-temporal backgrounds
The theme of the film", "Sick Cat Becomes Male Lion", is unfolded through the story of three low-level teenagers who are "laughed at, bullied, and trampled on their feet like mud" (the protagonist Ah Juan). Among them, As a left-behind child, Ah Juan's greatest wish is to reunite with her parents, and since her parents cannot go home, she will go to Guangzhou where her parents work to participate in the lion dance conference, which is the basis for the development of the story. The very realistic landscape, accents, soundtrack, interludes, vegetation and the year of the lion dance all together form the time and space background of the film.
The producer said at an audience meeting that the entire creative team had gone to Guangdong to collect style, and judging from the visual effects presented in the film, it should have indeed achieved the purpose of collecting style. Perhaps many viewers have been touched by the kapok blooming in the film, the sheepshoe armor in the background of the three teenagers practicing, the banana tree arching against the Buddha statue, the straight fallen feather fir on the side of the road, the apple woman who fell on the ground with bright red fruits, all of which are common vegetation in Lingnan villages, plus the green brick houses with high and low levels, which constitute a rural landscape that is very close to the real even in the eyes of Cantonese people. The film does not explain where the "Chen Family Village" is in Guangdong, but the Sankey fish pond that often appears in the distant scene exposes its geographical location and makes the time and space background of the whole film lose its foothold.
As an artificial land and water ecosystem in the estuary of the Pearl River, the Jitang system began to appear in the late Ming and early Qing dynasties, mainly distributed in the South China Sea, Shunde, Zhongshan, Panyu and Dongguan. In particular, the checkerboard-shaped Sanji fish pond in the film, the main distribution area is in the Nanhai and Shunde districts of Foshan City, which basically coincides with the formation age or the traditional distribution area of the waking lion. But the problem is that these lands are rich in the direction, and from a historical point of view, the Awakening Lion and Sankey Fish Pond are the products of the industrial and commercial development of the Pearl River Delta since the Ming and Qing dynasties. After the reform and opening up, this is also one of the earliest areas for economic development, in 2005, when the story of the film takes place, foshan's GDP even exceeded the total annual GDP of some mainland provinces, not as seen in the film, which is an agricultural area with a huge gap with the metropolis under the dual structure of urban and rural areas. Even considering that there are poor families in rich areas, there may be middle-aged couples who leave the elderly and children to work in Guangzhou, but the distance between the towns in the Pearl River Delta is very close, and it is very convenient for land and water transportation, Foshan and Guangzhou have been "guests buying and selling several times in the Qing Dynasty", and at the end of the 1980s, there was a highway connecting the two places, and it was difficult to imagine that it was impossible to go home for the New Year.
That is to say, the local landscape symbols in the film that seem to be very realistic alone, once they constitute the whole of time and space, are neither in line with historical logic nor with the reality of the situation, and these details are distorted as an organic part of the story background.
Guangdong lion awakening performance
Awakening lion and martial arts
Compared with the distorted details, the main problem is probably that the main creative team seems to equate the guangdong lion with the folk art in the general impression. Wanting art but not being able to eat, or giving up art for a living, became the main contradiction in the film. In fact, contrary to the setting in the film, the lion dance does not conflict with making a living, and the lion dancer does not need to lay down the lion's head because of surrender to life, and live a mediocre and boring life, because the lion is not a tool for making a living. Most of China's folk arts are based on folk artists who have performed in various places to make a living, or farmers who use them as a sideline business in the agricultural leisure period as the main inheritance force. However, the awakening lion is passed down by laborers who have their own duties. This point should be said to start with the martial arts hall that inherits the awakening lion.
From the Qing Dynasty to the Republic of China, Guangdong can be described as a number of martial arts, but the main function of these martial arts is not to practice martial arts, behind them is the Laborers' Organization Xijiaxing since the Qing Dynasty, which actually plays the role of a mutual aid network for workers.
If you want to elaborate on the background of the emergence of the West Family Trip, it will become a paper. Simply put, in the early Qing Dynasty, Guangzhou, as the empire's only treaty port, and Foshan as a hub for domestic trade, together constituted the industrial and commercial center of the Pearl River Delta and became a reservoir of surplus labor. During this period, the rapid population growth of coastal provinces such as Guangdong and Fujian led to land and grain shortages, and the policy of dividing the land into acres liberated peasants from the shackles of land. It can be said that these people, like Ah Juan's parents and later Ah Juan, were migrant workers at that time. These "migrant workers" who have left their hometowns have lost the geo-kinship support of their villages and clans, and have sold their labor force for a living in the city, but the employment relationship with their employers cannot be guaranteed, so they naturally need to join or form non-blood organizations to reintegrate themselves into a social network that can be accurately positioned. In this way, in Guangzhou, Foshan, Hong Kong, Macao and other Cantonese dialect areas with developed industry and commerce, the owner of the industry association formed by the employer and the west family line composed of laborers appeared.
There is no historical data that can explain why xijiaxing is associated with the martial arts hall, but a large number of historical materials tell us that most of the martial arts halls at that time were related to more than one guild, and the laborers of different guilds would have corresponding pavilions if they wanted to learn martial arts in their spare time. For example, Huang Feihong's earliest martial arts hall was funded by the copper and iron shop in Guangzhou, and his first apprentice Liang Kuan was originally an apprentice of the blacksmith shop. In the surrounding agricultural areas of Guangzhou and Foshan, many villages also have lion societies with the names of "so-and-so hall" and "so-and-so society", most of which are peripheral organizations of martial arts. The Awakening Lion is inherited from such martial arts halls and its peripheral lion societies.
This characteristic of the practice and inheritance of laborers who learn martial arts after work ensures that there will be no conflict between the lion dance and the livelihood. Celebrities like Huang Feihong have been engaged in watching the field for people and escorting goods. Liang Kuan did not resign from his job as a blacksmith shop until he became successful in his art career and worked as an assistant at the Martial Arts Hall. Founded in the Qing Dynasty during the Guangxu Dynasty, Foshan Hongsheng Martial Arts Museum, including ancestral halls and branch halls, including a total of 13, affiliated lion society Luo Chung Society has members from all walks of life 2,000 or 3,000 people, its second generation of head Chen Sheng is a copper foil worker, once because of the decline of the copper foil industry, life can not continue to go to Hong Kong to rely on the master and disciple. Another of Chen's disciples, Li Su, was a broom master, the first disciple, Qian Weifang, was a construction worker, and among the apprentices were bamboo craftsmen and barbers. After the founding of New China, the function of Xijiaxing was replaced by trade unions, martial arts halls ceased to exist in the interior, the Workers' Lion Association became the main inheritance organization of Guangzhou Lion Awakening, and President Zhao Jihong was a construction worker and was seconded to the Municipal Federation of Trade Unions to oversee the workers' lion awakening activities in Guangzhou. There is no such organization in Foshan, and the masters who originally belonged to the various martial arts halls go to the factories and the lion societies in each village to teach the awakening of lions.
If it corresponds to the characters in the movie, the salted fish qiang who owns a shop is probably similar to Li Su, the owner of the broomstick, and according to the current statement, he is self-employed, and it is very unreasonable to give up the lion dance for life. And seriously, salted fish is not cheap, can be made into a professional salted fish in the taste of Nan fanshun, more than one patron waiting for delivery, salted fish strong business scale, I am afraid it is not Li Su such a small workshop owner can compare.
The awakening lion of change
Like most folk customs, waking lions are constantly changing, and the current waking lions, whether in appearance or dance, are undoubtedly very different from the times in which Huang Feihong, Chen Sheng, and others lived. Two of the most important changes are concentrated in the film. These two changes, one is the competitiveness of the waking lion, and the other is that the waking lion has become a cultural symbol shared by the whole country because of the "Huang Feihong" series of movies produced by Xu Ke.
The so-called "Wen Wu first, Wu Wu second", guangdong awakening lion based on taolu martial arts originally has competitive characteristics, but the judgment of merit and inferiority is based on the experience of the teacher. True competitiveness began in the 1980s, when the first set of rules for the lion race was introduced in 1986 and became the prototype of the current rules for the lion race. In 1995, the International Dragon and Lion Federation was established in Hong Kong, and two years later moved to Beijing, and soon the Dragon and Lion Movement was brought under the management of the national system. In 2002, the "International Dragon and Lion Dance Competition Rules and Adjudication Law" was promulgated and implemented, and after several revisions, a very detailed scoring system was formed.
Since then, the awakening lion, under the name of "Southern Lion", has officially become a difficult aesthetic competition, and circling and jumping on the pile has become the most important skill of lion dance, completely out of the foundation of martial arts. Therefore, Ah Juan and his little friends do not need to start from the basic skills of martial arts, as long as they practice their physical fitness and repeatedly practice the necessary motor skills to participate in the lion awakening conference. In fact, this is the basic practice method of competitive lion dance now. When commenting on the physical conditions of the three people, Salty Fish Qiang said that Ah Juan's thin and small size is suitable for lion dance heads, and A cat's good balance ability is suitable for lion dance tails, which is precisely the selection principle of competitive lion dance athletes. What's more interesting is that the balance training of the three people in the film, such as carrying salted fish weights, carrying sandbag weights, sit-ups and stepping on empty paint buckets, is almost a local version of the training program listed in the Dragon lion sports coach training handout. However, the appearance of the lion dance conference that the lions fighting around has little to do with the competitiveness of waking up the lions. Its inspiration is obviously from Xu Ke's "Huang Feihong's Lion King Battle".
Lion King Battle poster
As for the second change, it is a far more competitive and complex topic. Wong Fei Hung films have been released as early as 1949 and have produced more than 100 films so far, more than 60 of which were starred by Kwan Tak Hing in the 1950s. Due to the deep involvement of Huang Feihong's descendants in the production, this stage of Huang Feihong's films is more like a group of Cantonese people who have been locked up in Hong Kong by the border and cannot return to their hometown, and their efforts to reproduce their local memories can be seen everywhere on the screen.
With the formation of the local cultural elite and the middle class, Hong Kong culture developed independently in the 1970s from the mother's womb of Guangdong culture, and Wong Fei Hung's films gradually lost their market until they were picked up by Xu Ke in 1991 and promoted to the whole country. Xu Ke completely abandoned the jianghu logic of the early Huang Feihong films from reality, although the film has a large number of Cantonese cultural symbols, including the awakening lion, but the folklore here is constructed and shown to others. As a colorful symbol, the awakening lion is used dazzlingly and excitingly by Xu Ke, who is good at controlling large scenes, and with the release of the film nationwide, it quickly surpasses the original inheritance area and becomes a cultural symbol shared by the Chinese people. It can be said that without Xu Ke's cultural reconstruction of waking lions, it is likely that there would be no movie "Lion Boy". In addition to the lion dance conference and bamboo frame green picking, it is easy to see the shadow of Xu Ke's film, more importantly, it has prepared a national audience base for films with the theme of waking up the lion, a local culture.
However, the main creative team that got the impression of waking lion from Xu Ke obviously lacked understanding of waking lion itself. Guangdong Awakening Lion is passed down in the martial arts hall, and each martial arts hall has its own cultivation of fists, which are passed down from master to apprentice, and the source is extremely heavy. Because of this, the shape, gestures and footwork of the lion are based on different schools of martial arts, the back of the lion's head will write the names of the martial arts and fists, and the drums are divided into several types according to different genres. Therefore, as in the film, the protagonist's lion drummer accidentally walks away, and the other lions play the drum together is theoretically unlikely. Of course, the role of the lion drum is heavily despised throughout the film. The lion drum is not an instrument used to accompany or render the atmosphere during the lion dance, the drum beat controls the pace and beat of the lion dance, and cannot be replaced by two sugar cane to beat the belly. If according to tradition, the lion drum is also one of the highlights of the lion dance, and the key moment is applauded by the master himself, which is in line with the basic logic of guangdong lion awakening, and can also achieve the purpose of mobilizing the audience's emotions. In my opinion, even if the need for tension in the film's plot is fully considered, this arrangement in the film is more regrettable.
The traditional lion head with genre and group names written on the back of the head is photographed by Peng Weiwen
Because of the depth of the research object, it must be admitted that I watched this film with a critical attitude. Most of the time, I can imagine the old lion dancers shaking their heads in anger, but in the end I was moved. The lion's roar, which is repeatedly emphasized in the film, is not in the mind of my research subjects? I think there must be. As "migrant workers", they, like Ah Juan, live in hardship, and there is almost no hope in a society where the upward passage is not open to ordinary people. However, when they put on the lion's head and put on the lion quilt, the romance and courage in their hearts must have also been awakened, inspiring them to leap to the invisible Optimus Prime in their lives.
In the Xinhai Revolution, it was Li Su, the small workshop owner, who led his brothers to attack foshan's Qianzong Yamen; when the great revolutionary storm swept through southern Guangdong, liang Guihua, a barber who was in charge of transporting weapons before the Guangzhou uprising, was Liang Guihua, a barber who learned martial arts at the Hongsheng Martial Arts Museum; Liu Jialiang, who began to participate in the earliest Huang Feihong film production from the age of more than ten years old, and grew up to become the greatest action director in the history of Chinese cinema with his own wisdom and persistence, is the fourth generation of Huang Feihong. There are many more names like this, and there are more people who have not even left their names. The awakening lion itself cannot open the ascending passage for anyone, but for those who seem to be moving forward in the dark night, and do not know how long it will take before dawn, it may be like a candle in their hands, at least so that they will not be swallowed up by the darkness, know that there are partners around them, and believe that there is still a road in front of them.
Hopefully, that's the way it is.
Finally, there is one more thing that is particularly disappointing about this film: the main body of the folklore of waking up the lion is completely absent. I watched it twice, both watching the end credits carefully, and didn't find a single person or group associated with waking lions. It is still a pity to choose the awakening lion as the theme, but not to give those who are still committed to inheriting the awakening lion any opportunity to speak. If there were them, at least they wouldn't make the mistake of exposing the lion's head to the torrential rain. The awakening lion is obviously a double lion, but there are many episodes of only one person dancing the lion's head, and this avoidable mistake is even more outrageous, which is a pity.