从《木兰诗》到《花木兰》：每个时代自己的女英雄
Mulan, a Most Adaptable Heroine: There’s a Version for Every Era
ROBERT ITO
2020年9月4日
When rumors of a live-action, nonmusical version of “Mulan” began to trickle out a few years ago, many hard-core fans of the 1998 Disney original groused. No big musical numbers and soaring ballads? No Mushu, the wisecracking dragon, or Li Shang, the movie’s clearly conflicted love interest? No “Reflection”? Many felt that the filmmakers were being unfaithful to the Mulan legend — or at least to Disney’s own version of it.
几年前，当制作真人非音乐片版《花木兰》的消息开始传出时，许多1998年迪士尼原版的铁粉都表示不满。没有大排场的音乐剧曲段和高扬的歌谣？没有讲俏皮话的木须龙，也没有李翔这个片中明显的爱情线矛盾点？没有《倒影》？许多人认为这是电影人对《花木兰》传奇——或至少是对迪士尼自己的版本——的不忠。
But Mulan has always been the most adaptable of heroines. Long before fans criticized Disney for taking liberties with their beloved animated heroine, poets, writers, playwrights and filmmakers had been creating scores of wildly different versions of the legendary woman warrior. In some, she’s a hardened army general; in others, she has magical powers; in yet others, she’s a crack shot with a bow. In one animated version, she’s a bug.
但花木兰一直是最易于改编的女英雄。早在粉丝们批评迪士尼随意歪曲他们喜爱的动画女英雄之前，诗人、作家、剧作家和电影人就一直在为这个传奇女战士创作出大量风格迥异的故事。在一些版本中，她是一位刚毅的将军；在另一些版本中，她拥有魔力；还有一些版本里她是个神射手。有一个动画版本里她成了一只小虫子。
Over the centuries, she’s been celebrated in stage plays and operas, in musicals and TV series, in picture books and novels and young-adult fiction. On the big screen, she’s starred in silent movies (“Hua Mulan Joins the Army” from 1927); a gorgeous, full-color musical by the legendary Shaw Brothers (“Lady General Hua Mu-Lan,” 1964); a gritty, action-filled war epic (“Mulan: Rise of a Warrior,” from 2009, with Zhao Wei) — as well as a certain Disney animated movie, featuring a tiny red dragon.
几个世纪以来，她在舞台剧和歌剧、音乐剧和电视剧、绘本、小说和青年题材虚构作品中都得到了赞颂。在大银幕上，她出现在默片里（1927年的《木兰从军》）、传奇的邵氏兄弟出品的华丽全彩音乐片里（1964年的《花木兰》）、在残酷而动作感十足的战争史诗里（2009年赵薇出演的《花木兰》）——也在一部有条红色小龙的迪士尼动画电影里。
In the latest “Mulan,” premiering Sept. 4 on Disney+, the Chinese-American actress Yifei Liu stars in a tale that blends stunning battle sequences (the film’s $200 million budget included a portion for 80 trick riders from Kazakhstan and Mongolia) with a story that makes much of the story’s gender-bending subtexts.
最新一部《花木兰》将于9月4日在Disney+首播，这一由美籍华人女演员刘亦菲主演的作品将精彩的战斗场面（该片预算2亿美元，其中一部分用于拍摄来自哈萨克斯坦和蒙古的80名特技骑手）和充分利用了性别逆转潜台词的故事融合起来。
And while there’s no Mushu (“we really needed Mulan to face her own challenges and make her own decisions,” the director Niki Caro noted), there are several references to the 1998 animated film. There are also nods to various older versions of the story, most notably the “Ballad of Mulan,” the poem from the fifth or sixth century that started it all.
虽然不再有“木须”这一角色（导演尼基·卡罗[Niki Caro]指出，“我们确实需要花木兰自己面对挑战，自己做出决定”），但还是有几处改编参照了1998年的动画电影。片中还有对各种古老版本故事的致敬，最著名的就是《木兰诗》，这首写于五、六世纪的诗歌是这一切创作的起点。
“Ballad of Mulan” is a relatively simple tale, only six stanzas long: Mulan leaves her village to take her infirm father’s place in the emperor’s army. For a dozen years, she serves nobly, all while disguised as a man; in the end, she refuses rewards and honors to return home, where her former comrades learn at long last that, surprise, Mulan is female.
《木兰诗》是一个相对简单的故事，只有六段：花木兰离开她的村庄，代替衰老的父亲进入皇家军队。在十几年时间里，她恪尽职守，一直伪装成男人；最后，她拒绝奖励和荣誉回到家乡，在那里，她的老战友们才终于惊讶地发现，花木兰是个女人。
The poem ends with an image of two rabbits (“how can you tell the female from the male?”) running alongside each other — a scene replicated in the new movie.
这首诗以两只兔子（“安能辨我是雄雌？”）一起奔跑的意象结尾——这一场景也出现在了这部新电影中。
“Any time there was an image from the ballad, I wanted to bring it to the film,” Caro said. “Obviously, a lot of the international audience might not know the ballad, but for the ones who do, it’s nice.”
“任何时候，只要有来自民谣里的意象，我都想把它带到电影里，”卡罗说。“显然，很多国际观众可能不知道这首诗，但是对于知道的人来说，这会是很棒的编排。”
After the original poem, subsequent versions of the Mulan story added plotlines and details to flesh out the tale. In the 16th-century play “The Heroine Mulan Goes to War in Her Father’s Place,” she has bound feet. “At the time, women in the upper classes would bind their feet, and the playwright wanted to make sure Mulan was seen as the ideal icon of femininity,” said Lan Dong, author of “Mulan’s Legend and Legacy in China and the United States” and an English professor at the University of Illinois Springfield. “She had to be perfect.”
在原诗之后，花木兰故事的后续版本增加了情节和细节，使故事更加丰满。在16世纪的戏剧《雌木兰替父从军》中，她裹了小脚。“那时候上层社会的女性会裹脚，这位剧作家想确保花木兰被视为女性气质的理想象征，”《花木兰在中国和美国的传奇和遗产》(Mulan’s Legend and Legacy in China and the United States)一书的作者、伊利诺伊大学斯普林菲尔德分校的英语教授董兰（音）表示。“她必须是完美的。”
In the 1695 novel “The Romance of Sui and Tang Dynasties,” Mulan meets a fellow female warrior who becomes her sworn sister; in the end, Mulan takes her own life when the Khan summons her to be his concubine. “Many versions emphasize her virtue,” Professor Dong said. “Even after all those years and everything she’s put herself through, she kept herself untouched.”
在1695年的小说《隋唐演义》中，花木兰遇到了另一位女战士，两人成了结拜姐妹；故事最后，当被可汗召唤做妾时，花木兰结束了自己的生命。“许多版本的故事强调她的品德，”董兰说。“即使在那么多年里经历了那么多事，她仍然要保守贞洁。”
The screen adaptations further expand the legend. In the 1939 Chinese film “Mulan Joins the Army,” the heroine is a skilled hunter, fighter and eventually, general; the film ends with Mulan as a blushing bride.
荧幕上的改变进一步拓展了她的传奇。在1939年的中文电影《木兰从军》中，女主角成为一名熟练的猎手、武士，最终当上了将军；影片结尾，花木兰则成了一个害羞的新娘。
The Huangmei opera film “Lady General Hua Mu-Lan” is perhaps the most exuberant of the pre-Disney bunch. In addition to flashy combat sequences, vibrant costumes and hot-potato-style drinking games (during which Mulan gets blotto), the movie features singing galore. Everybody sings, about everything imaginable: Dad’s asthma; the importance of filial piety; gender roles and the unequal division of labor in the home; those “reckless and pushy” barbarians invading our homeland, and so on.
黄梅戏电影《花木兰》可能是迪士尼改编前最精彩的一部作品。除了华丽的战斗场面，鲜艳的服装设计和“击鼓传花”式的喝酒游戏（花木兰在其中烂醉如泥），这部电影还包含了大量唱段。每个人都在唱，唱一切你能想到的东西：爸爸的哮喘；孝道的重要性；家庭中的性别角色和不平等的劳动分工；那些侵略我们家园的“蛮不讲理”的野蛮人等等。
When the Disney filmmakers first started work on the latest Mulan story, they turned to a range of versions for inspiration. There was the original ballad, of course, as well as regional variations, which they examined with the help of advisers from China. They looked at plays and films, including the drama with Zhao Wei. “We dug in fairly deeply to look at the arc of the story,” said Jason Reed, one of the producers, “to see what elements had stayed consistent over time, and which elements had been tailored to fit the time and the medium that the story was being retold in.”
迪士尼电影制作人第一次开始制作最新的木兰故事时，他们从多个版本中寻找灵感，当然也在中国顾问帮助下研究了最初的民间诗歌和不同地区的变体。他们观看各种戏剧和电影，包括赵薇参演的影片。“我们相当深入地挖掘这个故事的叙事弧，”制片人之一杰森·里德(Jason Reed)说，“看看哪些元素随着时间的推移保持一致，哪些元素被量身定制，以适应故事重述的时代和媒介。”
In many tellings, Mulan is a skilled fighter before joining the army. The animated version portrayed Mulan as a novice (before that hummable boot-camp sequence makes a “man” out of her), but in the latest outing, we learn that Mulan has been trained by her dad from the time she was a girl.
在很多叙事中，木兰在参军之前就已经是一名武艺高强的战士。动画版将木兰刻画成新手（之后是那段哼唱的新兵营戏份，将她塑造成一个“男人”），但在最新的版本里，我们了解到，木兰从她还是个女孩的时候就接受了父亲的训练。
Another central theme in the legend is filial piety, with Mulan getting her parents’ blessing before heading off to war. Filial piety also dictates that she return home to her parents after her tours of duty are over. Her cross-dressing is forgiven (there was a war on, after all), as long as she resumes her proper place as a daughter and wife, postwar. “That’s why, despite her transgressions, she was put on a pedestal even in premodern China,” Professor Dong said. “She’s breaking the rules without threatening the system.”
这个传说的另一个核心主题是孝顺，木兰在出征前得到了父母的祝福。孝道也决定了她在兵役结束后回到父母身边。只要她在战后能恢复女儿和妻子的正常身份，她的女扮男装就能得到原谅（毕竟是在打仗）。 “所以尽管她有过错，但即使在旧时代的中国，她也受人尊崇，”董兰说。“她在没有威胁到整个体制的情况下打破了规则。”
In both Disney movies, Mulan sneaks off under cover of darkness, hardly the obedient daughter. The new one, however, further tweaks the Mulan legend, even as it plays up the virtue of filial piety in ways unexplored in the animated original. “In every previous version we could find, she always ends up coming back and just returning to her old life, and we thought that that was not a satisfying ending for her journey,” said Amanda Silver, who co-wrote the screenplay with Rick Jaffa (they share credit with Lauren Hynek and Elizabeth Martin).
在这两部迪士尼电影中，木兰都是在黑暗掩护下偷偷溜走的，这可算不上什么听话的女儿。不过，新版进一步调整了木兰的传说，以动画原片未有的方式烘托孝道的美德。“在所有我们能找到的以前的版本中，她最后回来，总是回到旧日的生活里去，我们认为对她的旅程来说，这不是一个令人满意的结局，”与里克·贾法(Rick Jaffa)共同编写剧本的阿曼达·西尔弗(Amanda Silver)说。（编剧还包括劳伦·海尼克[Lauren Hynek]和伊丽莎白·马丁[Elizabeth Martin]。）
Silver and Jaffa were particularly inspired by the ballad’s emotion and scope. (“It very succinctly talks about what she goes through in battle,” Silver said.) But the animated original was always one of their primary inspirations, and you can see nods, and more than nods, throughout.
西尔弗和贾法特别受到民间诗歌的情感与空间的启发。（“它非常简洁地讲述了她在战斗中的经历，”西尔弗说。）但动画原作一直是他们的主要灵感之一，从头至尾，你可以看到许多致敬，而且不止是致敬。
Everyone involved in the new movie had favorite scenes and elements from the Disney original, things they had to have in this latest effort. Jaffa loved the sequence where the soldiers discuss their ideal woman, although in this go-round, he said, “we thought it was super important to tell that more clearly from Mulan’s point of view.”
所有参与这部新电影的人都有在迪士尼原动画中最喜欢的场景和元素，这些都是他们一定要加到新片里去的。贾法很喜欢士兵们讨论他们理想女人的那一段，不过他说，在新片中，“我们认为从木兰的角度更清楚地讲述这一点是非常重要的。”
For Caro, it was the matchmaker scene, in which Mulan comically and spectacularly fails her “good wife” test, and the avalanche, a key battle scene in the original. “With all the technology at our disposal, of course we were going to do that,” she said.
卡罗最喜欢红娘那场戏，木兰滑稽而又精彩地未能通过“好妻子”的考验；还有原片中至关重要的雪崩战斗场景。“我们掌握了那么多技术，当然要拍这场戏，”她说。
And this being an action epic, there’s much more fighting than in the original, particularly by Mulan. The film has the look and feel of Zhang Yimou’s wuxia epics (think: “Hero” and “House of Flying Daggers”), with flowing robes and flashing swords, soldiers running across rooftops and sprinting up walls. Popular veterans of his films (Gong Li, Donnie Yen, Jet Li) even have starring roles. “I was hugely inspired by his work,” Caro said. (“The Disney brand is that you can’t actually show violence,” she noted, so there are no wuxia-style disembowelments or spurting arcs of blood.)
作为一部动作史诗，片中的打戏比动画原版多得多，尤其是木兰的打斗。这部影片有着张艺谋武侠史诗的风貌（想想《英雄》和《十面埋伏》），长袍飘逸，宝剑闪耀，士兵们在屋顶穿梭，在墙壁上奔跑。张艺谋片中那些受欢迎的老面孔（巩俐、甄子丹、李连杰）甚至也在这部影片中出演角色。“他的作品给了我巨大的启发，”卡罗说。（“迪士尼品牌的规则是，你不能真的展示暴力，”她说，所以这部片子里没有武侠式的开膛破肚或鲜血四溅。）
Not only did we have to see Mulan fight, said Caro, we had to see her fight as a woman — hence, all those shots of Yifei Liu sans body-concealing armor, her long flowing hair unrestrained by hat or helmet. “In this version, what she learns is that she won’t be truly powerful until she’s herself, until she accepts the power she has as a young woman,” Caro added.
我们不仅要看木兰打斗，卡罗说，我们还要看她作为一个女人打斗——所以在很多镜头里，刘亦菲没有身穿遮盖身体的盔甲，飘逸的长发也没有帽子或头盔的束缚。“在这个版本里，她学到的是，除非她成为自己，接受自己作为一个年轻女人所拥有的力量，否则她不会真正强大起来，”卡罗还说。
The film also added characters like Gong Li’s shape-shifting sorceress, a striking counterpoint to Mulan’s trussed-up soldier. There’s also enough longing looks and scenes of unrequited love to satisfy the most fervent fan of rom-coms. “I love the gender fluidity that’s inherent in the story,” Caro said. “And there’s a scene between Mulan and Gong Li’s character that’s literally directed like a love scene. It’s all conscious, and yet the movie can also live for a general audience quite happily.”
影片中还加入了一些角色，比如巩俐饰演的千变万化的女巫师，与木兰身穿铠甲的士兵形象形成鲜明对比。还有许多充满憧憬的眼神与单恋的场景，足以让最狂热的爱情片粉丝满意。“我喜欢这个故事里固有的性别灵活性，”卡罗说。“而木兰和巩俐扮演的角色之间有一场戏，导演起来简直就像爱情戏。这一切都是有意识的，然而这部电影也可以让普通观众看得相当快乐。”
How will this version play to fans of the original — whether the ballad or the Disney animated one? “I know we’re not going to please everybody,” Caro said. “But I do think there’s a reason that the story has been so resonant and relevant for, what, over 1,300 years? And telling it in live action, my hope was that I would make it possible for everybody, including those who were so protective of the animation, to enjoy her again in a new way.”
这个版本会让原作的粉丝有何感受呢——无论是民间诗歌还是迪士尼动画？“我知道我们不会让所有人都满意，”卡罗说。“但我确实认为，1300多年来，这个故事之所以如此有意义，如此引人共鸣，是有原因的。在拍真人电影的时候，我希望我能让所有人，包括那些一直对动画原版呵护有加的人，再次以一种新的方式来欣赏她。”
