Like Father,Like Son

ＬｉｋｅＦａｔｈｅｒ，ＬｉｋｅＳｏｎ作者：ＺｈｏｕＨａｏｈａｏ来源：《文化交流》2008年第05期Lu Tianming is a prominent novelist best known for his latest fiction works focused on the subject of government anti-corruption campaigns. Working at a national center for creating television dramas since the 1980s, he has become a very successful playwright. He has penned many television blockbusters.His son Lu Chuan is probably better known than his father. He has established as a film director with his two sensational films: “The Missing Gun” and “Mountain Patrol: Kekexili”, the latter winning him some international recognition.Lu Tianming was born in Kunming and grew up in Shanghai. His father died when he was ten. When widespread food shortage hit the country in 1958, many urban residents were urged and organized to leave cities and settle down in rural areas. The 14-year-old Lu Tianming had just graduated from junior high school. Inflamed by the call to go to countryside, he chose not to go to senior high school in Shanghai and signed up for going to a village in nearby Anhui Province.The three years in the village were a physical torture. His health deteriorated seriously and he became extremely thin and weak. A roommate infected him with tuberculosis. He coughed blood and had to be sent back to Shanghai to convalesce. Miraculously, he recovered and got a job in the community administration. As he worked as a deputy secretary of the youth league in the community, he got back his precious residence registration as a Shanghai resident and was about to be employed as a government official when the state issued another call for youths to go to frontiers. He signed up again. This time he was sent to Xinjiang.Lu Chuan was born in Xinjiang on February 8, 1970. In 1973, Lu Tianming finished his first major literary work: a drama script entitled “Great Youthful Expectations”. The drama was about how urban youths adjusted to the frontier life. It was the first drama during the Cultural Revolution about the uprooted young people trying to find themselves again and it was the only one chosen to represent Xinjiang at a national drama festival.The drama was so successful that the China Central Broadcast Troupe offered Lu Tianming a job in Beijing in 1975. Lu did not jump at the godsend opportunity. He said he needed a week to consider the offer and if he was to go to Beijing, he wanted other three residence registrations so that he could move the family of four to Beijing. His terms were accepted and he was employed. Although the work in Beijing meant that the couple earned less and therefore led a life with less food and other material things, Lu Tianming began to write prolifically in the 1980s. His novels established him as a prominent writer.Lu Chuan began to feel the pull of literature at the age of 16. After watching some excellent films directed by Zhang Yimou and Chen Kaige, he yearned to be a movie director himself. In 1989 Lu Chuan graduated from senior high school and was about to choose a college major. He talked with his father in the hope that Lu Tianming would talk to some people and get him into the Beijing Film Academy. But the father thought it not a good idea for his son to study film directing, believing firmly that a senior school graduate could only learn the basics of cinematography at the academy and that without a profound knowledge and understanding of real life, he would not be able to be a good director. But the father did not say no directly. He asked a young female film director to give his son an audition, hoping that his son would give up after finding out how difficult it was. Unable to rise to the request to improvise a short performance, the shy young man failed the audition. So to the secrete delight of his father, he went to a normal college and studied English. Upon graduation, he became a translator at a ministry in Beijing.But the dream of becoming a film director persisted. One day one he passed by the film academy. It was a year after his college graduation. Acting upon impulse, he decided to take a look at the dream sanctuary. When he was about to leave the small campus after a quick tour, he spotted a notice in the public bulletin board near the entrance to the college gate. The notice listed terms for enrolling into a graduate course in film direction. To his ecstasy, he qualified and all he needed to do was to wait for a year before he was able to take the entrance examination.The next year saw him cram up on important courses. This time, his father neither objected nor approved. Lu Tianming had a good friend working as the dean of the film direction department at the film academy. The father did not ask the friend to help the junior.Quite by accident the dean found out about Lu Chu an and called Lu Tianming, asking why Lu Tianming hadn’t called him. Lu Tianming replied, “If my son is qualified, there is no need for me to make such a call. And if he is not qualified, no calls could get him through.” It was true. At that time, a candid ate needed to face dozens of judges in a series of tough interviews. No one could help under such circumstances and Lu Tianming believed that art would not be art if it needed such help from others.After passing all the tests and interviews, Lu Chuan was matriculated as the very top student that year.Upon graduation, Lu Chuan became a director with Beijing Film Studio. He was idle for two years: the studio had more than 70 directors and there were only less than twenty films made a year at the studio during these years. Most directors had no film to make. Lu almost despaired.Then Lu Chuan ran into “The Missing Gun”, a short story by Fan Yiping. Lu was so excited by its cinematic possibilities that he adapted it to a script within ten days. While still polishing the script, he began to seek investors. Jiang Wen, a big film star, agreed to star in the film.This helped Lu Chuan to find investment. His first film was a success.The father did not congratulate the son on the initial success. He said that consistence was important for a new film director to establish his reputation and that his reputation as a first-class director would be firm only if he could repeat the first success.The son began to write “Mountain Patrol: Kekexili”. It was the most difficult film he has made. He rewrote the script several times. His friend, a representative of the Columbia Film Studio, died in a car accident on his way to visit the shooting crew. Kekexili in Tibet was a living hell for making a film. Lu Chuan and the art director rode their car into a bog one day on a field study; fortunately and miraculously, they were able to find a solar-powered telephone booth in the wilderness before the sun set and temperature dropped to subzero. They were saved. His hair fell and he became partially bold during the 120 days the film was made in Tibet. The film was a huge success at home and abroad. □。