The original *Life Is Beautiful* was an Italian film.
Set in a small Italian town, its male lead is a restaurant waiter who falls in love with a wealthy young woman. Naturally humorous and witty in his antics, he wins her heart, and she marries him and bears his child despite her family's objections, leading to a happy married life.
Yet good fortune never lasts. Because the protagonist is Jewish, the Nazis round up him and their young son and send them to a concentration camp, while the mother voluntarily enters the camp as well.
To shield his child's innocent spirit from harm, the father lies, telling him that everything is just a game, and invents a set of rules: no crying, no asking for Mommy, no whining for treats...
Every day, they can earn points. Once they reach a thousand, the prize will be a real tank.
Through it all, he does everything in his power to protect the boy.
Then, on the eve of liberation, he is killed by the Nazis, while his wife and child survive.
The film won numerous accolades, including the Oscars for Best Actor and Best Foreign Language Film, as well as the Cannes Grand Prix. Beyond its outstanding quality, anyone in the know understood that its Jewish themes were a major reason for its popularity in Europe and America.
*Life Is Beautiful* debuted in 1997, while *Schindler's List* came out in 1993.
By the 1990s, Jewish influence had largely completed its consolidation over American mass media, widely propagating the narrative of "I am the victim, and the whole world owes us." When did such stories first become widespread in China?
Mostly starting in the nineties, through publications like *Reader* and *Yilin*, which frequently featured heartwarming little anecdotes.
For example, tales claimed that in every Jewish household, mothers would drop honey onto books for their children to lick, teaching them that books are as sweet as honey, supposedly illustrating Jewish wisdom, intelligence, and love of reading, and so forth...
Yet this was the early 1980s!
The Soviet Union had only held its massive military exercises the previous year, the American Black Panther Party had just disbanded this year, and that media reach had not yet extended nearly so far.
Truth be told, if one scrutinized it closely, *Life Is Beautiful* succeeded primarily on the strength of its premise and characterization; its realistic details were riddled with glaring holes. The concentration camp was immaculate, the barracks were clean, everyone had all four limbs intact without signs of torture or abuse, and there was no trace of rampant disease...
Moreover, the male lead could even play a symphonic recording over the camp's loudspeaker system without facing any punishment afterward.
How could that ever happen?
Yet if one nitpicked these details, the entire movie would fall apart, because realism contradicted its premise. The foundational design of *Life Is Beautiful* was to tell its story through comedy, depicting Nazi cruelty only indirectly.
The single direct visual representation of slaughter was when the protagonist stumbled upon an actual mountain of corpses.
In Chen Qi's adaptation of *Life Is Beautiful*, he shifted the setting to Shanghai, turned the Jews into Chinese citizens, changed the Nazis into Japanese invaders, and expanded the wife's role so that husband and wife worked together to protect their child.
He could well imagine the ideological shock this screenplay would deliver to some of the veteran comrades.
* * *
"All right, everyone's here. Let's begin the meeting!"
Chen Huangmei presided over the gathering, stating, "Today, we're continuing our discussion of the script for *Life Is Beautiful*. In our earlier sessions, everyone debated heatedly and voiced their own views. Now that the creator is back, we'd all like to hear what the person directly involved has to say.
"Xiao Chen, why don't you share your thoughts first?"
"I only returned yesterday and haven't prepared thoroughly," Chen Qi said. "I'd like to hear the opinions of the experts here first."
"That works too. Why don't the rest of you speak first, then?"
"..."
After a brief silence, a theorist whom Chen Qi did not recognize pushed up his glasses and began, "To begin with, the characters in this script are drawn with great detail, the narrative touches are thorough, and the emotional resonance is very strong. It is quite well done.
"However, the overall tone seems rather skewed. I don't understand what kind of mindset leads someone to depict life in a concentration camp through the format of a game. It lacks seriousness entirely!
"Everyone knows what concentration camps were: places where the Japanese invaders imprisoned prisoners of war and our party's revolutionary martyrs, soaked with the blood of our heroes. It must be treated with solemnity, not turned into something lighthearted or humorous. It lacks basic dignity and a sense of historical responsibility."
"I agree with that view!"
Immediately, another man chimed in. "In recent years, our domestic film industry has seen a rising tide of purely commercial entertainment films, and various studios have ramped up investments in wuxia films. Just look at the productions from the first quarter—things like *Invincible Dual Kicks* and *Kyoto Ball Heroes*. They sold plenty of prints, but what artistic contribution did they make?
"Comrade Chen Qi, I'm not targeting you personally!
"Everyone recognizes the achievements of *Tai Chi* in earning foreign exchange through exports. But I believe entertainment films are entertainment films, and serious films are serious films. One must never approach a serious subject with the attitude of making an entertainment flick!"
"Yes, that's well said!"
This sentiment drew a chorus of agreement around the table.
Both men were openly opposed, though there were also attendees who supported Chen Qi. Even among those who backed him, however, they felt *Life Is Beautiful* was too lightweight, expressing their reservations more tactfully.
"I've read it several times," another participant offered. "I think the first half is relaxed, natural, and rich with the flavor of everyday life. It's exceptional, and could easily be adapted into a standalone movie on its own. Just tell the story of how the man and woman fall in love, marry, and have a child, followed by the Japanese invasion, the family's separation amid the chaos, and their eventual reunion after enduring hardships. That would definitely make a fine film.
"If the second half must be kept, that works too—make one of them an underground Communist operative who endures brutal torture with heroic defiance and is ultimately killed, but successfully delivers vital intelligence. See how much better that would showcase the sacrificial spirit of our revolutionary forebears!"
"Like *The Eternal Wave*!"
"Yes, exactly, that's the very movie I had in mind!"
"We've made countless anti-Japanese war films. When it's time to be serious, one must be serious."
In short, two main camps formed in the room: one outright opposed the script, while the other hoped to revise it by inserting conventional episodes of heroic martyrdom.
Just then, another voice spoke up. "Comrade Xiao Chen's assignment is to earn foreign exchange through exports, which means his film is intended to be sent abroad. Our anti-Japanese war films have always screened domestically or circulated within the socialist bloc.
"If we enter this into European festivals or similar venues, showing it to the Western world and to the Japanese, could that be somewhat inappropriate?
"After all, we are currently advocating Sino-Japanese friendship. What if it harms international relations?"
The speaker paused, then emphasized, "Don't misinterpret my point, comrades. I'm merely suggesting that sending this kind of film abroad for exhibition might not be advisable."
"..."
Chen Huangmei had been listening in silence, glancing at Chen Qi's reactions from time to time. He genuinely wanted to hear the young man explain his thoughts in person; reading the script on paper was inevitably somewhat one-dimensional.
Chen Qi, meanwhile, fixed his gaze on the man who had just spoken.
The older comrades' objections stemmed, at most, from ideological limitations, but babbling about Sino-Japanese friendship and damaging international relations was pure nonsense. And the man had couched it in evasive, timid language, not even daring to state his stance openly.
Chen Qi felt a wave of helplessness.
Changing people's mindsets was terribly difficult, especially with veteran comrades like these. He felt that even if he explained, they might not understand at all.
Still, he wanted to give it a try. Gathering his thoughts, he spoke up: "I understand all of your points. Allow me to speak on my creative intent, as well as the positive impact *Life Is Beautiful* could bring us internationally..."
Chapter 299