Chapter 58: A Tiny Little Cloud
The male lead actor in the third group of palace drama is precisely Qi Xi. After failing his audition on the set of The Person Who Plants Stars, he successfully brought his talent to the next door.
This is a scene where the young emperor angrily rebukes the officials, but Qi Xi’s majesty is clearly insufficient. During the rebuke, he lacks much emperor image and instead seems exasperated, flying into a rage.
His performance comfort zone is in playing small characters. Making him truly act a role that requires showing off skills, his acting skills are obviously not up to par.
Actors with particularly solid acting skills wouldn’t come to this program either…
Despite this, Qi Xi’s performance still received recognition from a group of judges, not because he is some crown prince, but because his performance is the most upright among all the artists on-site.
Among short people, picking the tallest one, there has to be a positive example.
The film from the set of The Person Who Plants Stars makes a finale appearance, and everyone has been looking forward to it for a long time. It’s also unknown what adaptations Yu Wei exactly made to the movie.
The clip starts with the plot from the initial audition: the male lead, just recovering from a serious illness, drags his fatigued body to work. Yu Wei performs very relaxed, but there is still some fatigue in his eyes and brows.
Acting skills insufficient, using state to make up for it. Yu Wei deliberately stayed up all night to perform this scene…
Although he supplemented for a few days, Yu Wei’s acting skills are still somewhat mediocre—not to the point of breaking immersion, but nothing particularly outstanding either.
A group of professional judges furrow their brows tightly, their moods somewhat complex. In a moment, even if they want to praise, they can’t find points to praise.
Soon, Chi Leying, playing the male lead’s girlfriend, arrives. The two chat idly on the hillside. The female lead has already sensed his choice, so she has been avoiding it.
“I want to stay here.”
This line is the fuse of the contradiction. The female lead feels abandoned, so she goes down the mountain without looking back and leaves. Chi Leying’s acting skills are commendable, at least she performed that helplessness.
Wait, where’s the promised adaptation?
Seeing this, they only then react—didn’t they say there would be adaptations? How has it reached the end, with the lines and plot completely unchanged…
The three mentors, including Qi Yunming, all turn their gazes uniformly toward Lin Yi, wanting to know what medicine she is selling in her gourd.
But before they can open their mouths to ask, the suddenly ringing children’s chorus catches everyone off guard.
The music is wrong.
The soft humming at the beginning seems to have a strange magic. Even though they are eager to figure out what happened, upon hearing the incomparably clear “la la la~”, they are still stunned.
The music in the original film is just an ordinary Irish Folk Song, without so many lofty connotations.
During localization, Yu Wei made many considerations. The reason that scene became a film and television classic lies in the female lead’s relief.
Only one thing can make her relieved: she understands that the male lead is right, and these children are worth becoming the light that is planted.
The meaning of this song is not to bid farewell to the female lead, nor to mourn this relationship; it simply views the world from the children’s perspective.
If it were just a simple send-off, the female lead’s tears would only be sadness and sorrow, far less complex than in the original film.
So Yu Wei chose this Treading Waves, a campus folk song with a rustic breath. Its melody is romantic enough, and the lyrics are simple and plain.
Most importantly, it is indeed a song full of youthful vitality and vigorous energy, with a strong sense of era and rustic breath.
“A small piece of cloud
Slowly drifting over
Please rest your feet
Stop for a while.”
The singing is rubbed by the wind on the high slope and sways over, growing louder and louder. Chi Leying’s back stiffens, then like a puppet, she slowly and difficultly turns her head bit by bit.
They sing without reservation, their voices twisted into one rope, carried by the mountain wind, pushed over with full force.
The pitch is not quite accurate, some rushing the beat, some dragging it out, the voices high and low unevenly, like a flock of untamed little wild sparrows chirping.
This was urgently recorded by Yu Wei and Lin Yi with Beijing’s children’s chorus group. The singing is not that good, but it is precisely this chaotic and headlong sincerity that touches people more.
Intimacy with nature and the children’s unrestrained approach come rushing at them, but to the crowd’s ears, there is always a sense of inexplicable sourness.
That line “stop for a while” seems like the children singing it to them. Adults’ world is always busy and bustling—why not stop?
Just like the female lead in the film—why doesn’t she stay together…
Because adults dare not stop.
“The mountain flowers on the mountain are blooming
I just came up the mountain
It turns out you also came up the mountain
To see the mountain flowers bloom.”
This lyric is actually just simply going up the mountain to see flowers, but in this movie, it is like a soul-stirring question from the male lead to the female lead.
Because the flowers on the mountain have bloomed, he chooses to stay. Didn’t you just go up the mountain too and see them?
In the clip, Chi Leying appropriately sheds two lines of clear tears. Her acting skills can’t compare to the original film at all, but because the song cleverly hits the theme, they directly feel that relief through the screen.
No one understands better than the female lead what the male lead is doing. He wants to wait until the mountain flowers are in full bloom, wants to stay here planting stars, so the female lead cries.
Not because of the sadness and sorrow of breaking up, but that struggle of being unable to have both. But after hearing the children’s free singing, she is still moved, understands and respects the male lead’s choice to devote himself to the great cause.
The film ends amid the “la la~” chanting, with the scene frozen on the camera shot of the male and female leads making eye contact. If the original film is 100 points, then Yu Wei and Chi Leying’s performance is less than 50 points.
But because of this light, gentle song with a touch of sadness, the on-site viewing experience absolutely scores eighty points. They have never felt the charm of music as truly as in this moment.
The tender children’s voices paired with this song form a vivid picture scroll, leading people to appreciate and feel the beauty of nature.
Actually, due to cultural differences, many people can’t feel the emotion of this movie’s final scene, but Yu Wei’s this song successfully lets them appreciate the beauty of the countryside and feel the so-called stars.
Besides, the strong sense of era in this song catches them off guard. Even if they have never heard this song, they clearly feel the weight of memory.
Or perhaps, they just had a dream called growing up…
Newcomer actors don’t feel it deeply, but for the four mentors and the judges, this song reminds them of many things, of their childhood selves.
They remember, they all remember—I am not a beast of burden, I am the flower of the motherland!
Originally they were still thinking about how to praise Yu Wei, but after listening to this song and watching this clip, they don’t know what to say anymore.
When they come back to their senses, they suddenly realize that Yu Wei has solved the problem that has plagued the film circle for over thirty years.
The two songs have no distinction of better or worse, but this Treading Waves is undoubtedly the best choice for localizing the original song.
If one day they become the big villains in the story, hearing this song would also stun them for a few seconds.
