曹操：我在中國影視劇中扮演外國人

Every foreigner living in China has his share of China Stories. Jonathan Kos-Read has more than his share. Here’s one: Not long ago, the 43-year-old American actor received a call with an offer to appear in “Ip Man 3,” the third in a series of biopics about Bruce Lee’s martial-arts master. The role was small, but his agent negotiated what Kos-Read considered an “outrageous” amount of money for it, and the producers agreed. Kos-Read was thrilled until he read the script and noticed another part for a foreign actor — a bigger and better role as a mobster named Frank.

每一個在中國生活的外國人，都有自己的“中國故事”。喬納森·科斯-瑞德(Jonathan Kos-Read)的這種故事比常人更多。其中一個是：不久前，這位現(xiàn)年43歲的美國演員接到一個電話，希望他參演《葉問3》。這個系列是關(guān)于李小龍的師父葉問的傳記片。角色很小，但他的經(jīng)紀人給他談了一個在他看來高得“令人發(fā)指”的報酬，制片方同意了。科斯非常激動，直到讀了劇本后，發(fā)現(xiàn)劇中還有一個需要外國演員出演的角色——一個更大更好的角色，是一個名叫弗蘭克的黑幫人物。

This was troubling. Kos-Read, who is known in China only as Cao Cao, is by far the leading foreign actor working in the country today, having appeared in about 100 movies and television programs since his career began in 1999. He is famous throughout the mainland, and his career has been on a steady upward trajectory. Last December he appeared in the action film “Mojin — The Lost Legend,” currently the fifth-highest-grossing movie in Chinese history. Who, Kos-Read wondered, would the producers have cast instead of him?

這有點讓人煩?？扑?瑞德在中國的名字叫“曹操”，自1999年開始當演員以來，他已經(jīng)出演了大約100部影視作品，如今他是中國數(shù)一數(shù)二的外國演員。他在中國大陸是名人，演藝生涯穩(wěn)步上升。去年12月，他出現(xiàn)在動作片《尋龍訣》中，那是中國迄今為止歷史票房第五高的電影?？扑?瑞德想知道，導演不找他演這個弗蘭克，那會找誰呢?

Kos-Read sent panicked texts to the movie’s casting director, but they went unanswered. “I felt threatened,” he told me recently, only half kidding. A few days later, he boarded a plane from Beijing to Shanghai to begin filming. When he showed up to the set, the mystery was solved almost immediately: There, slouching on a stool surrounded by a scrum of people, was the former heavyweight champion of the world Mike Tyson. The retired fighter had been cast, perhaps misguidedly, as Frank. (The Village Voice later described Tyson’s performance in the film as “sadly unimpressive.”) Kos-Read introduced himself and over the next three days developed a bond with Tyson. “He was not at all what I expected,” Kos-Read says. The pair discussed their young daughters, Montessori schools and, inevitably, boxing. They also spoke about self-reinvention, something each man knows quite a bit about.

科斯-瑞德在焦慮不安中給這部影片的選角導演發(fā)了一些短信，但沒有收到回復。“我當時感覺受到了威脅，”不久前，他半真半假地對我說道。幾天后，他登上從北京飛往上海的班機，前去拍攝。到達片場之后，這個謎底幾乎立刻就解開了：前重量級拳王邁克·泰森(Mike Tyson)無精打采地坐在凳子上，旁邊亂哄哄地圍著一圈人。這名退役拳擊選手被選中——或許是受誤導——接演弗蘭克這個角色。(《村聲》[The Village Voice]雜志后來說泰森在這部影片中的表演“令人遺憾地平庸”。)科斯-瑞德做了自我介紹，在接下來的三天里，他和泰森走得很近。“他跟我之前想的完全不一樣，”科斯-瑞德說。兩人談?wù)撟约耗暧椎呐畠?、蒙特梭利學校，以及必然少不了的拳擊。他們也說到重塑自我，這東西好像每個男人都很懂。

“Ip Man 3” went on to gross $115 million at the box office in China, with more than half of that coming on the opening weekend. China’s booming movie market grew by nearly 50 percent last year and is expected to surpass North America’s as the largest in the world by next year. These days, Hollywood studios hardly greenlight a blockbuster without first asking, “How will this play in China?” The rewards are too vast. “Furious 7,” for example, earned $390 million in China — more than it made in the United States — and was for a time the highest-grossing film ever in the country.

《葉問3》在中國的票房總收入達到1.15億美元，多半來自上映的那個周末。中國繁榮的電影市場去年增長了近50%，明年有望超過北美成為世界上最大的電影市場。如今，好萊塢的電影公司在大片開拍之前都要先問“它在中國會有怎樣的表現(xiàn)”，不然不會綠燈放行。回報太豐厚了。比如，《速度與激情7》(Furious 7)在中國賺了3.9億美元，高于它在美國的票房，一度成為中國史上票房最高的影片。

And just as Hollywood has begun to crack the market, Chinese cinema has come into its own. In recent years, Chinese studios have started shifting away from the agitprop that defined their cinematic output for generations and are instead focusing on genres that draw viewers to theaters in any country: action, adventure, comedy. In February, a sci-fi comedy called “The Mermaid” became the highest-grossing movie ever in China within 12 days of its release, earning more than $430 million. Increasingly, Chinese cinemagoers are opting to buy tickets for movies made specifically for them — like those in the “Ip Man” series — not those that pander to them or lecture them. It is in this sort of film that Kos-Read has finally had the chance to act, rather than portray a stand-in for Western imperiousness. If the Hollywood studios really want to understand how to succeed in China, Kos-Read’s journey makes for a kind of accidental guide.

就在好萊塢開始打開這個市場之時，中國電影也開始繁榮起來。近些年，中國的電影公司開始從宣傳鼓動類影片(這類片子曾主導數(shù)代中國影壇)轉(zhuǎn)向在任何一個國家都能吸引觀眾的類型：動作片、冒險片和喜劇片。今年2月，科幻喜劇片《美人魚》(The Mermaid)在上映12天后成為中國歷史票房最高的影片，超過4.3億美元。越來越多的中國觀眾選擇去電影院購票觀看專門為他們制作的電影，比如《葉問》系列，而不是那些一味討好或教育他們的影片。在這種影片中，科斯-瑞德終于有機會去表演，而不是作為西方專橫霸道形象的替代品。如果好萊塢的電影公司真的想知道如何在中國取得成功，那么科斯-瑞德的經(jīng)歷意外地成了一種指南。

In January, I met Kos-Read at Beijing Capital International Airport to accompany him on a trip to Yiwu, a trading city in Zhejiang Province, 165 miles from Shanghai. From there we would take a van to Hengdian World Studios, the biggest back lot in the world, where he was filming a new TV series.

今年1月，我在北京首都國際機場與科斯-瑞德碰頭，跟他一起去義烏。義烏是浙江省的一個貿(mào)易城市，距離上海165英里。我們從那里坐車去橫店影視城，這是世界上最大的露天片場，他在那里拍攝一部新電視劇。

Kos-Read was tired. He had flown in a few days before from the Bay Area, where his wife and two young daughters live; the actor now splits time between the United States and China, which he has called home for almost two decades. Kos-Read has wavy brown hair, a thick beard streaked with gray and the kind of broad face that looks good on camera. He curses a lot and often wears a look of deep contemplation that borders on exasperation. As we boarded the plane for our 10:30 p.m. flight, he sported a huge calf-length black parka, which he wears on set — Chinese sets are notoriously frigid in the wintertime — and carried a heavy backpack filled mostly with equipment for photography, a personal hobby. The airplane was only half full. Kos-Read lumbered through the center aisle until he reached the last row, where he heaved his backpack onto a seat and plopped down into another as if he were claiming a spot on a long-distance bus.

科斯-瑞德顯得很疲憊。幾天前他剛從舊金山灣區(qū)飛到中國，他的妻子和兩個年幼的女兒住在那里。這位演員現(xiàn)在在美中之間來回跑，他以中國為家已有近20年時間?？扑?瑞德有著卷曲的棕色頭發(fā)，夾雜著灰須的濃密胡子，以及一張上鏡的寬臉。他愛說臟話，經(jīng)常露出一副陷入深思、近乎惱怒的神情。晚上10點半我們登機時，他穿著一件長及腿肚的黑色沖鋒衣，在片場他就穿這個——中國的片場在冬天特別寒冷——背著一個沉重的雙肩包，里面主要裝著攝影器材，那是他的個人愛好。飛機上只坐了一半人。科斯-瑞德吃力地沿著中間的通道走到最后一排，把背包扔到一個座位上，然后重重地坐到另一個座位上，仿佛是在長途汽車上搶座。

During the two-hour flight, Kos-Read drank a few cans of Yanjing Beer and discussed his role in last year’s “Mojin.” In the film, he plays a lawyer to a cult leader. After the first act, he turns into a zombie. It was by far the biggest project of his career, with by far the biggest stars, and it increased his already-formidable exposure in China by degrees of magnitude. On our plane, a flight attendant recognized him from the film. (In California, by contrast, he is basically anonymous outside of Chinatowns.) Kos-Read was happy for the opportunity to appear in such a large movie but was disappointed with his performance, which he believes was adequate but not excellent. “In a lot of TV shows, you just have to spit out the lines, really. But in a big movie, you’ve really got to be good,” he told me. “In my first big movie, I stepped up into the big leagues and hit a single.”

在兩小時的飛行中，科斯-瑞德喝了幾罐燕京啤酒，談起他在去年上映的影片《尋龍訣》中的角色。他在片中飾演一位邪教領(lǐng)袖的律師。在第一幕之后，他變成了僵尸。到目前為止，那部電影是他職業(yè)生涯中最大的項目，合作的明星也是最大牌的。從量級上說，那部影片提高了他在中國本就很高的知名度。飛機上的一位乘務(wù)員認出了他，知道他參演了那部影片(相比之下，在加利福尼亞州，幾乎沒人認識他——除了在唐人街)。科斯-瑞德很高興有機會參演這樣一部大片，不過他對自己的表演感到失望，他認為自己的表演差強人意，算不上精彩。“在很多電視劇中，你真的只用說臺詞就好了。但是在一部大片中，你真的得很棒才行，”他對我說道。“我第一次參演大片，就進入了大聯(lián)盟，而且還打出了一壘打。”

Still, acting in one of the biggest Chinese blockbusters of all time is a long way from where Kos-Read began. Raised in Torrance, Calif., he attended an arts high school, where he got interested in acting. He went on to study film and molecular biology at New York University. There, he took a Mandarin course and became determined to master the language. He moved to Beijing in 1997 and drifted, living for a period in a student dorm and forcing himself to speak nothing but Mandarin for a three-month stretch. “Like everybody else, I arrived and bummed around for two years, not knowing what I was going to do, trying to do a bunch of things, failing,” he says. “Teaching English.”

不過，科斯-瑞德熬了很長時間，才得以參演中國最重要的一部大片。他在加州托蘭斯長大，上的是藝術(shù)高中，他在那里迷上了表演。后來他在紐約大學(New York University)學習電影和分子生物學。他還選修了中文，并且下定決心掌握這門語言。1997年他搬到北京，開始漂泊，有一段時間住在學生宿舍里，有三個月時間強迫自己只說中文。“和其他人一樣，我來了后閑混了兩年，不知道自己要干什么，做過許多嘗試，全都失敗了，”他說道。“還教過英語。”

Not long after he arrived, he began dating a Chinese woman named Li Zhiyin, a finance major in college who later became his wife. On one of their early dates, he picked up an English-language listings magazine and saw an ad seeking a foreign actor for a Chinese movie. Kos-Read had never lost his love for performing, and he thought it could be fun to act in China. He auditioned and got the part, which was supposed to pay the equivalent of about $400 for three months of work. In the movie, called “Mei Shi Zhao Shi” (“Looking for Trouble”), Kos-Read plays an American documentary filmmaker following around a group of disillusioned bohemians. He says it took the producers two years to pay him. But two weeks after the movie wrapped, he landed three months of work on a Chinese soap opera.

到中國之后不久，他開始跟一個叫李之茵的中國女人約會，當時她在大學里學金融，后來成了他的妻子。在他們剛開始約會時，有一次他隨手拿起一本以英文出版的活動信息類雜志，看到一則某中國電影尋找外國演員的廣告?？扑?瑞德從未失去對表演的熱愛，他覺得在中國表演應該挺有趣的。他去面試，得到了那個角色，三個月的報酬大約是400美元。那部電影名叫《沒事找事》，科斯-瑞德在片中飾演一名美國紀錄片導演，跟拍一群幻想破滅的放蕩不羈的文化人。他說，制片方兩年后才給他報酬。不過，那部電影殺青兩周后，他在一部中國的連續(xù)劇中得到一份三個月的工作。

There were only a handful of foreign actors working in China at the time, and Kos-Read quickly realized he offered filmmakers there a rare combination of traits. He spoke good Mandarin, was a decent actor and had a look that many Chinese consider typically “American”: six feet tall, square jaw, blue eyes. He was able to make a living in the industry, but his early roles weren’t great. At that stage of his career, most filmmakers still had limited exposure to foreigners and foreign cultures, and his early parts tended to reflect Chinese stereotypes of Westerners. He rarely played bad guys, because there are very few American villains in Chinese movies (those roles tend to go to the woeful cohort of Japanese actors working in China). Instead, Kos-Read was often typecast as a “dumb guy,” he says. Most frequently, he was an arrogant foreign businessman who falls for a local beauty, only to be spurned as she inevitably makes the virtuous choice to stay with her Chinese suitor. Sometimes he played the foreign friend whose presence onscreen is intended to make the main character seem more worldly; Kos-Read dubbed another stock character “the fool,” an arrogant Westerner whose disdain for China is, by the end of the movie, transformed into admiration.

當時，中國只有少量外國演員，科斯-瑞德很快意識到，對片方來說，難得的是他身上結(jié)合了好幾種品質(zhì)。他普通話說得很好，演得也不錯，長相符合很多中國人心目中典型美國人的樣子：六英尺高，方下巴，藍眼睛。他能以這個行業(yè)為生，但早期的角色都不太好。在他事業(yè)的那個階段，大部分中國電影制作人對外國人和外國文化的了解依然很有限，他早期的角色往往反映出中國人對西方人的刻板印象。他很少演壞人，因為在中國電影中美國人很少是壞人(壞人大多是由一群在中國工作的悲催的日本演員來演)。相反，科斯-瑞德經(jīng)常飾演“傻乎乎的家伙”(他的原話)。他最常演的是愛上中國美女的傲慢的外國商人，但最后都是被甩，因為女方必然會做出正義的選擇，與中國的求婚者在一起。有時他飾演主角的外國朋友，他的出現(xiàn)只是為了讓主角顯得更高大上;科斯-瑞德還飾演另一個老套的角色，他稱之為“傻子”，也就是傲慢的西方人，到影片末尾，這個角色對中國的鄙視會轉(zhuǎn)化為敬佩。

When he was studying Mandarin at N.Y.U., Kos-Read adopted a Chinese moniker, as many language students do. He took his, Cao Cao, from a historical general who is also a central character in one of the country’s most revered classical novels, “Romance of the Three Kingdoms.” Like a Chinese King Arthur or Davy Crockett, the original Cao Cao exists in fact and fiction and in between. Kos-Read chose the name because it was easy to remember and because he liked that Cao Cao was a wise, self-reliant man. Years later, the decision would prove wise indeed. To his Chinese audience, it showed that the American, despite his loutish onscreen personae, took an interest in their history and culture.

科斯-瑞德在紐約大學學中文時給自己起了個中文名字，很多學外語的學生都這樣做。曹操這個名字來自中國歷史上的一位軍事家，他也是中國很受推崇的古典小說《三國演義》里的一個中心人物。和亞瑟王(King Arthur)或戴維·克羅克特(Davy Crockett)一樣，曹操既存在于現(xiàn)實中，也存在于小說中，以至于關(guān)于他的現(xiàn)實和虛構(gòu)交織在了一起，難以分清?？扑?瑞德選擇這個名字是因為它很好記，而且他喜歡曹操的聰明和自立。這個決定在多年后會被證明相當明智。在中國觀眾看來，它表明，這個美國人雖然在電影電視中飾演愚鈍的角色，但他對中國的歷史和文化感興趣。

Kos-Read acted in film and television for almost a decade before he truly found fame. Before the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, he landed his own segment on a Chinese news program called “Sunday.” Dubbed “Cao Cao Lai Le” (“Here Comes Cao Cao”), the weekly reality bit was designed to help increase the show’s ratings and give it a more international flavor by allowing Chinese viewers to experience their country anew through a foreigner’s eyes. The segment eventually devolved into Kos-Read more or less being goofy in front of the camera and enlisting Chinese people to cut loose with him. In one episode, for example, he trains to be a Hooters girl. (In China, the chain is known as “American Owl Restaurant.”) The show was enormously popular, and soon Kos-Read was being recognized on the street. “One of the reasons I liked ‘Cao Cao Lai Le’ — it was me,” he says. “Instead of playing stupid stereotypes on TV and in movies, I could go out and be me. It’s my personal prejudice that I’m more interesting than the characters I play.”

科斯-瑞德演了近10年的電影和電視劇后才真正成名。在2008年北京奧運會前，他在一檔名為《第七日》的中文新聞節(jié)目中有了自己的節(jié)目環(huán)節(jié)，叫《曹操來了》。這是一個真人秀節(jié)目，每周一期，設(shè)計的目的是幫助提升欄目的收視率，并用讓中國觀眾通過一個外國人的眼睛重新感受自己的國家這種方式，來讓節(jié)目更國際化。這個節(jié)目最后退化成了科斯-瑞德或多或少地在鏡頭前舉止滑稽愚蠢，請中國人和他一起放開束縛。比如，在其中一集中，他接受了在Hooters當女服務(wù)員的培訓。(在中國，該連鎖被叫做“美國貓頭鷹餐廳”。)該節(jié)目大受歡迎。很快，便有路人會認出科斯-瑞德。“我喜歡《曹操來了》的原因之一是，那就是我，”他說。“不是在電視和電影里扮演那些愚蠢的模式化角色，我能做我自己。我個人認為，我比我演的那些角色更有趣。”

In 2009, Kos-Read began writing a column called “Token White Guy” for an expat publication, Talk Magazine, in which he chronicled his on- and off-screen adventures. He wrote about the time an acquaintance enlisted him to act in an ad campaign, Kos-Read’s first. His friend told him the product was “some sort of medicine.” Then, Kos-Read showed up on set and read his line, which was written in English: “Do you want to be thicker, longer and harder? Then be like Cao Cao and use Strong Balls Hormone.” (He dropped the ad.) He wrote about the time he was cast to play an English Jew who falls in love with a prostitute and, riddled with guilt, drops to his knees and prays for forgiveness — from Jesus. And the time a Chinese magazine wrote a multi­page, entirely fictitious profile of him, and then emailed him a copy.

2009年，科斯-瑞德開始為一本面向外籍人士的刊物Talk Magazine撰寫一個名為“Token White Guy”的專欄。在專欄里，他記述了自己在屏幕內(nèi)外的生活。他寫到了一個熟人請他拍廣告的經(jīng)歷。那是他的第一支廣告。他那個朋友告訴他，產(chǎn)品是“某種藥物”。然后，科斯-瑞德便出現(xiàn)在拍攝現(xiàn)場，閱讀自己的臺詞。臺詞是用英文寫的：“想更粗、更長、更硬嗎?那就像曹操一樣，使用壯陽激素吧。”(他放棄了那個廣告。)他還記述了自己被選中扮演英國的一個猶太人的故事。那個猶太人愛上了一個妓女，充滿罪惡感的他跪著祈求饒恕，而對象居然是耶穌。還有一次，一本中文雜志寫了一篇介紹他的文章，還通過電子郵件給他發(fā)送了樣刊。文章洋洋灑灑好幾頁，但全部都是杜撰的。

“Cao Cao Lai Le” ran for about three years before the struggling “Sunday” dropped it (“Sunday” soon went off the air as well), but it led to better roles in film and TV and a long line of travel-show hosting gigs, which took him to virtually every region of China — from the deserts of the west to the grasslands of the north to the hilly metropolis of Chongqing.

《曹操來了》播出了大約三年，后被處境艱難的《第七日》砍掉(很快，《第七日》也停播了)，但它讓科斯-瑞德獲得了更好的電影和電視角色，和一長串的旅游節(jié)目主持工作。因為這些工作，他幾乎去到了中國每一個地區(qū)——從西部的沙漠到北部的草原，再到山城重慶。

Hengdian World Studios is sprawling and surreal, covering 8,000 acres and featuring a one-to-one scale model of Beijing’s Forbidden City. “You walk around, and you can’t tell the difference,” Kos-Read told me as we drove past the complex on the way to the set the next morning. Around the lot, different shows were being filmed. Tourists are allowed on set for 199 yuan ($30) per person, and groups of them were huddled around as filming took place. It offered a considerably different experience from the one you might encounter at a Universal Studios theme park. “Instead of ‘Jaws,’ it’s, like, killing Japanese or hanging out with the emperor’s concubines,” Kos-Read said.

橫店影視城是個龐大而離奇的地方，占地8000英畝，其中一比一原樣復制的北京故宮是主要建筑。第二天早上開車去拍攝現(xiàn)場的路上，我們正好經(jīng)過那里?？扑?瑞德對我說，“你可以四處走走，根本看不出區(qū)別。”在那附近有幾部戲正在拍攝。游客每人花199元便可進入片場。拍攝過程中，現(xiàn)場圍聚了一群又一群的游客。這里給人的體驗，和在環(huán)球影城(Universal Studios)主題公園是有很大不同的。“不是像《大白鯊》(Jaws)那樣的驚悚電影，而是殺日本人，或是和皇帝的妃嬪消磨時間，”科斯-瑞德說。

China’s film industry has long been focused on propaganda-laden historical epics, hence the need for a full-size Forbidden City replica. Even as China became a global superpower in the late 20th century, big-budget Chinese movies were, by and large, treacly, patriotic fare. And though tastes were shifting, the studios used their connections with the government to ensure their own films succeeded. In 2010, for example, the behemoth state-owned studio and distributor China Film Group pulled “Avatar” from 1,628 screens and replaced it with its own film, a Confucius biopic starring Chow Yun Fat.

中國電影業(yè)長期以充滿宣傳意味的歷史劇為主，也因此才需要原樣復制故宮。即便20世紀末中國已成為全球性的超級大國，大制作的中國影片總體上依然是令人膩煩的愛國主義作品。并且盡管觀眾的口味在不斷變化，影視公司仍能利用與政府的關(guān)系，確保自己的影片成功。比如2010年，國有的影視制作和發(fā)行巨頭中國電影集團將《阿凡達》(Avatar)從1628塊銀幕上撤下，換上了自己的電影——一部講述孔子生平的傳記片，由周潤發(fā)主演。

These days, movies and television shows are still often historical in nature, but they’re less overtly nationalistic and more focused on pure entertainment. Kos-Read was in Hengdian to film a period show with the English title “Knight’s Glove.” In it, he plays the British ambassador to China, a close friend of the Chinese lead. The story surrounds a search for a lost treasure, and on this day the crew was filming the pair’s reunion after years spent apart. The scene was filmed at the entrance to a building made to look like the British Embassy. Cheap-looking plastic Union Jacks fluttered outside in the breeze. Inside, the building was numbingly cold, as Kos-Read had warned; there was no insulation or heating. Russian extras in wool military outfits carried fake rifles and shuffled from side to side trying to keep warm. In between shots, Kos-Read donned his parka and applied heating pads called Nuan Baobao (“Warm Little Buddies”) to his stomach, lower back and feet. There was no coffee or tea; at one point some cast and crew members were handed plastic cups of warm water.

如今，影視作品相當一部分仍然是歷史劇的性質(zhì)，但它們不再那么公開地宣揚民族主義，更注重純粹的娛樂。接受采訪時，科斯-瑞德正在橫店拍攝一部英文名為《Knight’s Glove》的古裝劇。在劇中，他扮演英國駐華大使，是中國主角的摯友。故事圍繞尋找丟失的寶物展開。這一天，工作人員拍攝的是兩人分別多年后的重逢。拍攝是在一棟做成英國大使館模樣的建筑門前進行的。屋外，看上去很廉價的塑料英國國旗在微風中飄揚。屋子里面，正如科斯-瑞德警告過的那樣，冷得刺骨。房子沒有做隔熱層，也沒有取暖設(shè)施。穿著羊毛軍大衣的俄羅斯臨時演員挎著假槍，正來回踱步取暖。拍攝間隙，科斯-瑞德穿上自己的沖鋒衣，在腰、腹和腳上貼上一種叫“暖寶寶”的加熱貼。現(xiàn)場沒有咖啡或茶，有人一度給一些演員和工作人員遞上了用塑料杯子裝的熱水。

Because the Chinese government allows only 34 foreign movies to enter the market per year, and the officials’ criteria for selection are mysterious, many American studios have sought to lessen the uncertainty by co-producing films with Chinese firms, thereby sidestepping the import rules (which apply only when a movie’s producers want a share of the box-office receipts, which is to say they apply, effectively, to all major Hollywood films). And yet few co-productions have achieved anything resembling commercial or critical success. Not only have studios struggled to find ways to appeal to both audiences, they’ve also struggled to work well together on set. This is at least in part because of the collision of two vastly different moviemaking cultures. Whereas Hollywood film sets have rather rigid, union-determined rules, Chinese sets are decidedly unsystematic, ad hoc, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants operations. (I once reported on a film whose special-effects guy was also in charge of payroll.) On this set, there were dozens of people, mostly young men, standing around in the cold who didn’t seem to have any job at all. It’s exactly these sorts of differences that have made Chinese-American co-productions so difficult, and those problems follow them to the box office.

由于中國政府一年只允許34部外國電影進入中國市場，并且官方的挑選標準又很神秘，很多美國電影制作公司都試圖通過與中國公司合作拍片的方式，來降低不確定性。這么做可以避開進口規(guī)定(只適用于電影的制作方想要參與票房收入分成的情況，也就是它們實際上適用于所有好萊塢大片)。但鮮有合拍片稱得上在商業(yè)或口碑上取得了成功。合作的電影制作公司不僅難以找到能同時取悅中外觀眾的途徑，也難以在片場很好地合作。這在一定程度上是因為兩種截然不同的電影制作文化之間的沖突。好萊塢電影的片場有著相當嚴格的、由工會決定的規(guī)則，中國的片場采取的顯然是雜亂無章、即興發(fā)揮、跟著感覺走的運作。(我曾經(jīng)報道過一部電影，它的特效工作人員同時負責工資發(fā)放。)在這部影片的拍攝現(xiàn)場有幾十人，大部分都是年輕男性。在寒冷的天氣里，他們就站在四周，似乎根本無事可做。正是這些差異導致中美合作拍片難度很大，這些問題還一直延伸到了票房上。

Hollywood can also stack the deck somewhat by pandering to Chinese audiences, but that comes at a cost: It grants enormous leverage to the Communist Party over how China is portrayed. Chinese censors have forced studios to cut scenes that they believed made China look weak. A 2015 report by the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission offered an enlightening selection of anecdotes: In “Skyfall,” Chinese audiences never saw James Bond kill a Chinese security guard, as he does in the original edit; in “Mission: Impossible III,” censors cut a scene shot in Shanghai that showed garments drying on a clothesline; “Men in Black 3” had a scene removed that showed secret agents using a memory-erasing tool, leading some to speculate that the censors didn’t want to invite the allusion to censorship.

好萊塢也會因為想要迎合中國觀眾，去耍一些伎倆，但這是要付出代價的：在如何描繪中國上允許共產(chǎn)黨擁有很大的發(fā)言權(quán)。中國的審查者會逼迫電影制作公司刪減一些場景。他們認為那些場景有損中國的形象。美中經(jīng)濟安全審查委員會(U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission)2015年的一份報告挑選了一些有啟發(fā)性的軼事：在《007：大破天幕殺機》(Skyfall)中，中國觀眾從未看到原版中詹姆斯·邦德(James Bond)殺死一名中國保安的場景;在《碟中諜3》(Mission: Impossible III)中，審查人員刪除了在上海拍攝的一個晾衣繩上掛滿衣服的鏡頭;《黑衣人3》(Men in Black 3)中特工使用記憶消除工具的鏡頭也被剪掉了，此舉促使一些人猜測，審查者是不希望讓人聯(lián)想到審查制。

Often censors don’t even have to get involved, as studios have begun self-censoring their films to avoid the hassle. “Red Dawn” is perhaps the most infamous case. The 1984 original is about a guerrilla uprising against a Soviet invasion of America; in the 2012 remake, screenwriters updated the movie by casting China as the aggressor. MGM executives realized their error too late, and unwilling to risk offending the censors, they reportedly spent around $1 million in postproduction recasting North Korea as the invader.

通常審查機構(gòu)甚至不用參與，因為電影制作公司已經(jīng)開始對影片進行自我審查，以避免麻煩。《赤色黎明》(Red Dawn)或許是最有名的例子。1984年上映的老版講述的是一場反抗蘇聯(lián)入侵美國的游擊起義。2012年翻拍時，編劇更新了劇情，把侵略者的角色改成了中國。米高梅電影公司(MGM)的高管意識到錯誤時已經(jīng)太晚了，不愿冒險觸怒中國審查者的他們據(jù)說在后期制作中花了大約100萬美元，把入侵者改成了朝鮮。

Despite the breadth of roles he has played in China, Kos-Read is passed over for most co-productions. Hollywood producers want to bring in their own talent, he says. And once, Chinese producers told him that because of the ubiquity with which he appears in Chinese cinema and television, he would make their production seem too local. He has acted in only two East-West movies: a deep-sea epic funded by a Chinese billionaire with a predominantly foreign cast, and a bigfoot movie shot in Shennongjia, a mountainous region in Hubei Province, where there have been hundreds of purported bigfoot sightings. Each film was plagued with on-set dysfunction, and neither has been released.

盡管在中國扮演過各種各樣的角色，但大部分合拍片都不考慮科斯-瑞德。他說，好萊塢的制片方想用自己的人。有一次，中國制片方對他說，因為他的身影在中國的影視作品中隨處可見，使他們的作品看上去太本土化。他只參演過兩部東西合拍影片：一部是深海題材的史詩片，由中國的一名億萬富翁投資，演員大部分是外國人，另一部是在湖北山區(qū)神農(nóng)架拍攝的一部野人題材的電影，那里有過成百上千次據(jù)稱看到野人的報告。每部影片都在拍攝現(xiàn)場頻頻出問題。迄今為止，兩部影片均未發(fā)行。

Kos-Read says that the reason most co-productions fail is as much about the chaos on the Chinese side as it is the arrogance on the Hollywood side. “They come here and say, ‘We’re from Hollywood, we know better and whatever it is that you think is the right way to do it, it’s by definition not,’ ” he says. “You come in with an attitude like that, you will have a lot of problems. You will misunderstand the kind of stories they want to see.”

科斯-瑞德說，大部分合拍片都以失敗告終的原因，中方的混亂和好萊塢的傲慢各占一半。“他們來到中國說，‘我們是從好萊塢來的，我們更在行，你們認為是對的東西，必定就是錯的，’”他說。“如果帶著那種態(tài)度過來，就會遇到很多問題。你對他們想看到哪種故事就會有誤會。”

And as Chinese filmmakers have figured out what sorts of stories Chinese audiences really want to see, the nature of Kos-Read’s work has changed for the better. Although his part in “Knight’s Glove” wasn’t groundbreaking, he is now often cast in increasingly complex parts.

隨著中國電影人弄明白了中國觀眾真正想看的故事，科斯-瑞德的工作性質(zhì)發(fā)生了好轉(zhuǎn)。盡管他在《Knight’s Glove》的角色并不具有開創(chuàng)性，但現(xiàn)在，他經(jīng)常會扮演越來越復雜的角色。

After the morning’s shoot, we drove across the lot to film another scene. In the back of the van, Kos-Read scrolled through photos on his phone of some of the roles he has played over the last two years, each with a distinct facial-hair style. They included: an American engineer who worked on the first locomotive in China; Gen. Douglas MacArthur; an “[expletive] lawyer”; a World War II radio announcer; a hip-hop dancer; a wisdom-dispensing alcoholic barfly; a Mafia boss; an antiquities expert; a sleazy Russian lounge lizard; a cowboy; a bisexual fashion designer; and a French detective.

上午的拍攝結(jié)束后，我們開車穿過影視城，去拍攝另一個場景。在面包車的后座上，科斯-瑞德在手機上翻看他過去兩年里扮演過的一些角色的照片，全都留著特征鮮明的胡須，其中包括：在中國首個火車頭上工作的美國機師、道格拉斯·麥克阿瑟(Douglas MacArthur)將軍、一名“[臟話]律師”、二戰(zhàn)期間的電臺播音員、嘻哈舞者、妙語連珠的酒吧醉漢、黑幫老大、古董專家、不務(wù)正業(yè)的俄羅斯花花公子、牛仔、雙性戀時裝設(shè)計師和法國偵探。

Kos-Read believes the growing variety of roles for foreign actors like him is a result of more Chinese exposure to outsiders. “There are more foreign actors now,” he says. “Chinese know some foreigners. So they write more interesting characters. I’m lucky because I usually get to do the better stuff.”

科斯-瑞德認為，現(xiàn)在有越來越多樣化的角色可以供他這樣的外國演員出演，這是中國向外界進一步開放的結(jié)果。“如今有了更多的外國演員，”他說。“中國人了解一些外國人。所以他們寫出了更有趣的角色。我很幸運，因為我通常有更好的角色可以扮演。”

This trend is likely to continue. The money coming from Chinese producers, and the spending power of Chinese audiences, is simply too great to ignore, and anyone venturing to China from Hollywood — whether producer, actor or cameraman — has to learn how to play by Chinese rules. That means adapting stories to the changing desires of film fans, and learning how to cooperate on China’s less regimented movie sets. Hollywood pros may be arrogant, says Jonathan Landreth, editor of the website China Film Insider, who has been covering the Chinese entertainment industry for more than a decade, but “in the melding of minds between China and Hollywood, there’s been a tipping in the balance of power. So much money is driving these productions that the folks in Hollywood have to listen.”

這種趨勢很可能會延續(xù)下去。中國的制作方撒的錢太多，中國觀眾的消費能力太大，實在不容忽視，任何從好萊塢到中國拓展的人——無論是制片人、演員還是攝影師——都必須學會如何遵守中國的游戲規(guī)則。這意味著適應影迷不斷變化的口味，學習如何在中國不那么成系統(tǒng)的電影體系中展開合作。“中國底片”網(wǎng)站(China Film Insider)編輯林嘉瑞(Jonathan Landreth)報道中國娛樂產(chǎn)業(yè)已經(jīng)十多年，他說好萊塢的專業(yè)人士可能是很傲慢，但“中國人和好萊塢合作的時候，在權(quán)力平衡中存在一種傾斜。這些制作背后有這么多錢，好萊塢的人不得不聽。”

In the afternoon, the director of “Knight’s Glove,” a young man with bleached blond hair, recruited me to play an extra in a scene with Kos-Read. I would be a driver. I wondered aloud who was supposed to have played the driver, but no one answered, and instead I was shepherded outside to a wardrobe truck and outfitted in a World War I-era military uniform with a Brodie helmet.

《Knight’s Glove》的導演是一個頭發(fā)漂成金色的年輕男子。下午的時候，他招募我跑龍?zhí)祝谝粋€場景中和科斯-瑞德配戲。我演一名司機。我詢問，本來由誰扮演司機，但沒有人回答，結(jié)果我被領(lǐng)到外面的一輛服裝車里，換上了一戰(zhàn)時的軍事制服，戴上一頂布羅迪式鋼盔。

As I dressed in the truck, Kos-Read approached with a Chinese crew member and said, “They asked me to make sure you knew that they weren’t actually going to pay you or anything.” I laughed. As absurd as it may seem to be yanked from the sidelines in an instant and thrown in front of the camera, this kind of thing happens with surprising regularity for foreigners in China, and moments like these become the kind of China Stories that keep people like Kos-Read around for so long.

我在卡車上換衣服時，科斯-瑞德與劇組里的一個中國人走過來說，“他們讓我告訴你，他們不會付錢給你。”我笑起來。突然從場邊被抓去扮演一個影視角色，這似乎非?；恼Q，但對于在中國的外國人來說，這樣的事情驚人地常見。這些時刻成了一種“中國故事”，讓那些像科斯-瑞德一樣的人在這里待了這么久。

We filmed four or five takes of a short scene in the car. I pretended to drive, yanking the steering wheel back and forth with the kind of comical exaggeration you might see in “The Andy Griffith Show.” Two cameras glided on a track and crane outside the car while Kos-Read, sitting in the back, and a young Russian actor, who sat beside me, exchanged a few lines of dialogue. The Russian had until recently been a student in Jinhua, a nearby city, but was now trying his hand at an acting career. Maybe it would have worked out for him had he started a decade and a half ago, like Kos-Read, but his performance didn’t bode well. He struggled with the lines; his English was wooden, the delivery stilted.

我們在車里拍了一場短短的戲，反復拍了四五條。我假裝開車，來回轉(zhuǎn)動方向盤，帶點滑稽的夸張，就好像在《安迪·格里菲斯秀》(The Andy Griffith Show)里表演那樣。車外的軌道和吊臂上有兩臺攝像機，科斯-瑞德坐在后座上，一名年輕的俄羅斯演員坐在我旁邊，戲里有幾句對話。這個俄羅斯人不久前在附近的金華市讀書，現(xiàn)在則在試水演藝事業(yè)。如果他在15年前嘗試這一行，就像科斯-瑞德那樣，可能還有希望，但是他演得不怎么樣。他說臺詞很費力，他的英語很蹩腳，他的表演很呆板。

Kos-Read, on the other hand, naturally eased into character as soon as they started rolling. He said his lines in a British accent, smoothly and barely above a whisper, looking out the window as the camera swept by.

而科斯-瑞德則一開拍就輕松進入了角色。他用英國口音流暢地講著臺詞，在攝像機劃過之時，一邊喃喃低語，一邊望向窗外。