After Zhang Yimou watched Wind Man 's " Shadow Warrior ", he wanted to make a story about a "stand-in" in ancient China. "Shadow" was originally inspired by Zhu Sujin 's "Three Kingdoms·Jingzhou", and the story is more straightforward. The original script of "Shadow" has nothing to do with the "stand-in". About half a year to a year after the establishment of the project, the theme of "substitute" was determined. In the final story, the history of the "Three Kingdoms" is emptied
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In the second half of 2013, when Chao Deng was filming " The Breakup Guru " in Mauritius , Liu Tianchi called Chao Deng and told him that there was an electric Shadow in preparation, a story adapted from "Three Kingdoms", not a stand-in and a shadow son. The story later came to an end, and it was decided in 2016
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After Zhang Yimou had the script, he started to choose actors. Since the electric shadow looks like a Shakespearean tragic drama story in the end, the actors required by the director have to pass the sound, stage, shape, and appearance. They are all actors who can act. If you want to speak standard Mandarin, you need to be able to perform. The actor who came to Zhengfan'er. Zhang Yimou has watched Chao Deng's movie Shadows, and thinks that he has strong tension and shaping ability in acting in a serious drama, and he is good at acting in a serious manner, so he chose Chao Deng according to his ability. The heroine Xiao Ai was finalized. At the beginning, it was not Sun Li. The crew wanted to find other actors, but they could not make the trip due to schedule and other issues. Finally, Zhang Yimou thought of Chao Deng’s wife Sun Li, considering the complicated couple in the film. Relationship, Zhang Yimou believes that couples will have an advantage in tacit understanding
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