One person was widely perceived to be responsible for fusing the musical styles of traditional Peking Opera and Western orchestral music. Yu Huiyong, a musical prodigy, created the new, richer and mellower sound for the model operas. But he was not one of those suffering artists plucked by Jiang. He was a political climber who curried her favor and later gained the position of culture minister. During the post-revolution investigation, he killed himself, but his contribution to the model operas was never in question.
大家普遍認為有一個人負責融合了傳統京劇的音樂風格和西方的管弦樂風格。他就是于會泳，一個音樂天才，創造了樣板戲新的、更加豐富和圓潤的音樂風格。但他不在那些備受江青折磨的藝術家之列。他是一個逢迎江青喜好的政治新秀，后來還得到了文化部部長的職位。在文化大革命結束后的審查中，他自殺身亡，但他對樣板劇的貢獻將永不會被質疑。

I grew up with these works, so I can sense why people are so attached to them. For most of them, music heard during a certain phase of life would leave an indelible imprint, even bad music. The model operas are stridently ideological. The bad guy would not smile but grimace and the hero did not walk as much as strike heroic poses all the way. Modern audiences can enjoy them as red kitsch as every character seems to be a caricature of him or herself.
我從小是看著這些作品長大的，所以我明白人們為什么對樣板戲如此情有獨鐘。對大多人來說，在人生的某個階段所聽到的音樂會在內心留下不可磨滅的印記，即使是糟糕的音樂。樣板戲具有強烈的意識形態色彩。壞人不會微笑只會扮鬼臉，英雄不會一直保持罷工時的英勇姿勢走路。現代觀眾可以把它們當做俗氣的紅色作品來看，因為每一個角色的表演看起來都像是對角色本身夸張滑稽的演繹。

Artistically, the stories follow the rules of melodrama, with clashes between good and evil as defined by the establishment of the era. They are very easy to digest. There are occasional glimpses, such as the famous trio in Shajiabang with three characters scheming against one another, into the sophistication that went into the making of these works. Yes, much of the top talent of the country worked on them, but they were not given anything resembling a free rein. I believe art should be free, so art created in bondage, to me, does not represent the best from these artists.
從藝術角度來說，樣板戲總體上是遵守通俗劇的套路，正邪分明，便于大眾理解。但某些細節的處理有文人戲的高級和精致，比如《沙家浜》里著名的“智斗”三重唱。是的，這個國家許多頂尖人才都在作品的制作上發揮了才能，但是他們卻并不允許自由發揮。我認為藝術應該是自由的，因此對我而言，在束縛下創造出來的藝術代表不了這些藝術家的最好水平。

I don't think people with fond memories of the operas are the same ones who want to revive or relive the revolution. The former are those in their 60s and 70s who failed to find resonance with later music, and the latter are mostly youngsters who were born after the revolution and want to vent their frustration over what they see today. The model operas are part of China's cultural legacy, an aberration that deserves to be studied rather than blindly idolized.
我不認為那些對樣板劇有美好依戀的人等同于那些想恢復或重溫文化大革命的人。前者是那些在60或70多歲時發現自己無法從后來的音樂中找到共鳴的人，而后者大多數是出生在文化大革命后的年輕人，他們想發泄自己對今天所看到的一些現象的不滿。樣板戲屬于中國文化遺產的一部分，作為一種特殊時代的產物，它值得被研究而不是被盲目崇拜。

What Hong Kong filmmaker Tsui Hark did was a third way out. He took the story of Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy, one of the more popular of the eight, or more accurately, adapted the novel the opera was based on, and made it into a Hollywood-style action movie. The parallels between the so-called genre film and the model opera are evident: Both portray characters in black and white, but the movie is more palatable to modern sensibilities mainly because the main character, Yang Zirong, is now a lone hero with incredible smarts and devil-may-care chutzpah.
香港導演徐克所采用的是第三種方法。他改編了“八個樣板戲”中比較受歡迎的一個劇《智取威虎山》，或者更準確地說，他改編了這個戲的原著小說，把它制作成了好萊塢風格的動作片。這個所謂的類型片和樣板戲的相似之處很明顯：都是通過非黑即白的方式刻畫人物，但這個電影更迎合現代人的口味，主要是因為主角楊子榮，現在是一個有著無比聰明的頭腦和不顧一切的勇氣的孤膽英雄。

Some detractors of the movie say the historical character who became the villain in the opera, and now in the feature version, was actually not that bad. He fought Japanese invaders and was not that reckless with innocent lives. For me, these criticisms are irrelevant. This is not a documentary and a fictional film is not supposed to uncover truth beneath layers of urban myth. Tsui has to make the guy morally reprehensible to justify the raid on him. The bandit chief is still cartoonish, but in a more delicious way than in the opera.
電影的一些評論者說，昔日在樣板戲中成為不折不扣惡棍的歷史人物，現在在這部故事片中變得實際上沒有那么壞。他抗擊日本侵略者，對無辜百姓的性命也并不是那么的毫不在乎。對我來說，這些評論是無關緊要的。這不是一部紀錄片而是一部虛構性的電影，作為后者沒有必要去揭露傳說中的事實。徐必須塑造出一個十分不道德的家伙這樣才能證明對他發動襲擊的正義性。雖然電影對強盜首領的刻畫依然顯得非黑即白，但是這要比樣板劇中的刻畫吸引人多了。

In a sense, Tsui has substituted the old way with the Hollywood method, taking what's useful from the story and enhancing narrative elements that appeal to the young generation. He is not the first Chinese filmmaker to come up with this strategy. But with his success, there will be more efforts to mine the old field of ideological stories for the purpose of pure entertainment.
從某種意義上說，徐用好萊塢的方式代替了舊有的手法，并選取故事中有用的東西加以發揮，還改進了吸引年輕一代觀眾的敘事元素。他并不是第一個采用這種技巧的中國導演。但是隨著他的成功，會有更多的人為了純粹的娛樂目的來挖掘這些舊有的意識形態故事。

（作者：周黎明 中國日報網英語點津 許晶晶 編輯）