After Daniel Wu graduated from the University of Oregon in 1997, he traveled around Hong Kong for three months on a limited budget. Close to the end of his trip, he was in a bar when he was randomly approached to be in a TV commercial. He said yes and it changed his life.
1997年吳彥祖從美國俄勒岡大學畢業后，在香港窮游了三個月。旅行快要結束時，他在一家酒吧喝酒，偶然被問到是否愿意拍電視廣告，他答應了。從此，他的命運發生了改變。

“What I had planned for myself in life is not what it ended up being,” Wu recently told Speakeasy from Los Angeles.
吳彥祖最近在接受洛杉磯的“Speakeasy”網站采訪時表示：“生活并沒有按我計劃的那樣上演。”

Sixty-plus films later, Wu is a big movie star in Hong Kong and Chinese mainland. He’s done romantic comedies, action thrillers, art-house films and martial arts films. And now, starting this Sunday, Wu will star in his first American TV series, AMC’s new dystopian Kung Fu show “Into the Badlands.” He originally signed on to be an executive producer but like his fateful trip to that bar nearly two decades ago, things ended up changing. “I’m not a spring chicken any more,” he says. “I had my peak and [AMC was] asking me to come back out of retirement.”
拍了60多部電影后，吳彥祖成為紅遍香港和內地的電影明星。他拍過浪漫喜劇和動作驚悚片，還拍過文藝片和武俠片。現在，從星期日開始，吳彥祖將在他的首部美劇——美國經典電影頻道（AMC）的反烏托邦功夫劇《荒蕪之地》——中擔任主演。當初簽約時他是執行制片人，但就像20年前決定他命運的那次旅行一樣，命運再次發生了改變。他說，“我已不再年輕，雖然曾有過演藝巔峰，但我打算退休了。而AMC公司希望我能回歸。”

Wu became interested in martial arts after his grandfather took him to see a Jet Li’s first movie,1982’s “The Shaolin Temple.” It was a hard sell to get his mother on board, but eventually she came around and he got an instructor. “I was a hyperactive kid and my mom thought I was going to get into school yard fights if I learned a couple moves.”
1982年，吳彥祖的爺爺帶他去看李連杰的第一部電影《少林寺》后，他就喜歡上了武術。說服母親讓他習武很難，但她最終還是改變主意答應了，吳彥祖也因此有了一個武術教練。“我那時很淘氣，所以母親怕我學會了幾個武打動作，就會在學校里打架。”

In “Into the Badlands,” Wu plays Sunny, a hitman of sorts who has no problem killing for his master. It’s a world where no guns exist and there’s a distinct caste system. The feel is dark and gloomy, with an element of fantasy thrown into the mix. Sunny continues the anti-hero path that many characters in AMC shows take, but with a twist. Instead of going from good guy to bad guy, it’s the opposite. “The series is about him coming out of this darkness,” Wu says.
在《荒蕪之地》里，他扮演的“桑尼”是個武藝高超的職業殺手，連他師父都不是他的對手。那個世界沒有槍，有的是明顯的等級差別。該劇彌漫著黑暗和陰郁的氣氛，有一絲魔幻色彩。就像許多AMC電視劇的主角一樣，桑尼繼續走在反英雄的道路上。但這部劇也有不同——主角不是從好人變成壞人，相反，他是從壞人變成好人。吳彥祖說，“這部劇講述了他如何棄暗投明。”

Part of Wu’s concern about signing on as the lead actor stems from the show’s intense fight scenes. In a kung fu movie, it can take weeks to shoot one fight scene. “Into theBadlands” had to turn around an episode in eight days, fight scenes included. The first season is just six episodes and 12 fights. Wu is in 11.
關于擔任該劇的主演，吳彥祖有些擔心的是劇中激烈的打斗戲。在功夫電影中，拍攝一場打斗就會花去數周時間。而《荒蕪之地》8天就要拍完一集，包括打戲。第一季有6集，12場打戲。其中吳彥祖要拍11場打戲。

Training for “Into the Badlands” was intense. He started six months prior to shooting, doing lots of yoga to keep limber and flexible. He ran a lot, too, and had to learn how to fight with two swords.
拍《荒蕪之地》前，吳彥祖接受了密集的培訓。開拍前6個月，他做了大量瑜伽，以便保持身體的柔韌度和靈活性。他也加強跑步訓練，并練習雙劍功夫。

The show also had two shooting units operating at the same time, which is a bit unusual. One was for the dramatic scenes and one for the fight scenes. Wu was often doubling up on days, going to both shoots. “In my 20s, it was easy,” he says. “In your 40s, it’s a lot more challenging. You have to look at it like you’re an actor but you’re also a professional athlete. You have to train.”
與其它拍攝不同的是，該劇有兩個拍攝組同時運作。一個用于戲劇場景，一個用于武打場景。吳彥祖通常連續幾天有很多場打戲，要兼顧兩個鏡頭。他說，“在我20多歲時，高強度的打戲并不難。現在40歲了，這對我是個不小的挑戰。你必須要看鏡頭，就像你是一個演員，但同時你也是專業運動員。你必須加強訓練。”

AMC decided to get into the kung fu genre to fill a void in the TV landscape. “The challenge was doing something true to the genre,” says Joel Stillerman, president of original programming at the network. “There’s a very simple style of storytelling [in classic Kung-fu films]. We tried to embrace that.”
AMC公司決定拍攝功夫劇，以彌補該類劇在電視劇領域的空缺。公司網絡原創節目負責人喬爾·史帝勒曼表示：“我們面臨的挑戰就是要在這方面做到力求真實。傳統功夫電影敘事風格簡單，我們會保留這種風格。”

Wu thinks “Into the Badlands” stays true to the kung fu genre while also pushing it forward. He didn’t want to do a reboot of something, and he hopes the storylines and characters resonate more with the audience than the cool action sequences do.
吳彥祖認為《荒蕪之地》還原了真正的功夫，同時又有所突破。他不想在這部劇里重復自己以前的打戲模式，他希望該片的故事情節、角色能比只追求功夫酷炫的片子更能引發觀眾的共鳴。

“It can’t be just a martial arts show,” he says. “That’s a very narrow niche. Just like what ‘The Walking Dead’ did for the zombie genre, you have to elevate it to another level so an audience can get into it. It’s not zombies chomping on people. We’ve seen that since the ‘60s. It’s the same thing with us. We’re trying to create a really compelling story, around the martial arts.”
他說：“這不僅是個武打劇，那是狹隘的理解。就像《行尸走肉》為僵尸劇所做的突破一樣，你必須將電視劇提升至新的高度，觀眾才能被吸引。不能只是僵尸吃人，那是上世紀60年代以來的老套路了。我們這個片子也是一樣。不僅是功夫，我們還希望創造出真正引人入勝的故事情節。”

Vocabulary
reboot：重新啟動；再發動
resonate：共鳴
compelling：激發興趣的

英文來源：每日郵報
譯者：鄭纖
審校&編輯：杜娟