On the evening of October 11, the movie "The Mistake by the River" held its premiere at the 7th Pingyao International Film Festival. The original author Yu Hua, director Wei Shujun, lead star Zhu Yilong, and producer and chief producer Tang Huihui attended the event and had a "no answer" conversation after the screening. Immediately afterwards, during the film festival on October 12, the film held a media meeting in Pingyao. The film will be released nationwide on October 21.

At the premiere, Zhu Yilong, Wei Shujun and Yu Hua talk

The movie "The Mistake by the River" is adapted from Yu Hua's novel of the same name. It tells the story of a bizarre murder involving multiple suspects. The criminal police captain Ma Zhe (played by Zhu Yilong) is constantly teased by the unspeakable truth, and gradually falls into absurdity, uneasiness and tension. I can't tell the difference between a real imaginary moment and a story in my memory.

At the premiere, writer Yu Hua said that after the movie screening, he patted Wei Shujun on the shoulder and shook hands with Zhu Yilong. "I congratulate them. I must thank Zhu Yilong. Zhu Yilong's performance is impeccable. Can you still recognize him as Zhu Yilong? To be honest, the adaptation of the novel "The Mistake by the River" is a trap."

Yu Hua recalled that directors Lu Xiaoya and Zhang Yimou had previously bought the copyright of the novel, but in the end they both left it alone. "(Back then) Zhang Yimou and I discussed it for four or five days but couldn't figure it out. He later switched to filming "Alive"."

Yu Hua believes that Wei Shujun captured the quality of life in the 1990s in which the movie is set, and believes that this is a "detective movie that has never been seen before." "Starting from Hitchcock, this type of movie has a certain formula. But this movie is something new, and our old experience may not necessarily be able to capture its characteristics right away." He said with a smile that this is his first movie. The second time I watched it, “I felt much stronger than the first time I watched it.”

Yu Hua, the author of the original novel, gave a speech

Director Wei Shujun admitted that he did not understand the novel "The Mistake by the River" the first time. "'I don't understand' doesn't mean that I don't understand the literal meaning, but it means that I can clearly see that it is a common 'ingredient', using a simple method ('cooking'), but it presents a different It has the same taste. To some extent, this has caused huge difficulties for our film adaptation." He said that in the script adaptation stage, he found a breakthrough from his previous work "The Story of Yong'an Town", "The director in it was very similar to The screenwriter once said, 'You don't have to understand this movie, you have to feel it.' I was influenced by this clip I had shot before, and the gain was that I had to let go of my expectations of the genre detective novel paradigm. This was very important for my script adaptation. It helps a lot.”

At a media meeting on October 12, Wei Shujun further introduced the script creation process of "The Mistake by the River". "This is the first time I have adapted a novel into a movie. My initial understanding was how to 'translate' the drama in the novel, extract it and slightly adapt it into a movie. After working with another During the discussion with screenwriter Kang Chunlei, we found that it is a parody novel itself, with elements of crime. On the one hand, we need to make the crime in it clear, and on the other hand, we need to make the point of view and taste of the parody It’s a difficult point to take it out. In addition, in this movie, we inevitably have to fight and compete with the audience’s viewing experience of crime genre movies.”

Director Wei Shujun

Starring Zhu Yilong said at the film's premiere that in order to play Ma Zhe's "crazy" state in the film, he went to a mental hospital to experience life. He said that this time the character experience was more about feelings, "How can you present the description of the heart through words so that the audience can feel it? This was the challenge I faced before filming started. Because this is not a film with high explosive conflicts. Conflict scenes don't have many expressive ways of strong rhythm. Therefore, I can't "act" the role of Ma Zhe and design some external performance methods to complete it. This play is completed in sequence, which is very important to me. It is particularly important. Before starting the filming, my weight increased to 160 kilograms, and after filming, it was 140 kilograms. I could only use the physiological changes and reactions during this process to show everything Ma Zhe endured during the entire investigation of the case, using an external method. In a cultural way, he expresses his feelings from inner struggle to absurdity."

Starring Zhu Yilong

The movie "The Mistake on the River" was shot on 16mm film. In this regard, Zhu Yilong said that as a student at Beijing Film Academy, he has always had a film complex. "Although we can also use 'digital transfer' to achieve this effect, I still think that the presentation of that era needs to have some film feelings in it. The noise and occasional out-of-focus may make It feels less refined, but combined with our story, it better presents the style of that era.”