追憶鄧永鏘

When I first went to Hong Kong 25 years ago, I came as a lover of Hong Kong Cinema, especially martial arts movies. I met my friend and colleague, Bey Logan, who is a walking encyclopedia of that genre. I also met many other incredible people like Jackie Chan, John Woo, and the great producer Peter Lam. It was just an extraordinary group, but of all these people, no one stood out more than Sir David Tang (who wasn’t a “Sir” at the time).

25年前第一次來香港時，我的身份是一名香港電影發(fā)燒友，尤其喜歡功夫片。我遇到了好友兼同事貝•羅根(Bey Logan)，他是關于功夫片的一本行走的百科全書。我還遇見了許多大名鼎鼎的人物，如成龍(Jackie Chan)、吳宇森(John Woo)以及著名制片人林建岳(Peter Lam)。這是不同尋常的一群人，但在所有這些人中，沒有人比鄧永鏘爵士(Sir David Tang，當時還未獲封爵士)更讓我印象深刻。

I first met David at his restaurant the China Club because one of my best friends in life, Giuseppe Cipriani, owned the restaurant just below it on the top floors of a skyscraper. That’s how space works in Hong Kong — you can’t have a restaurant on the ground floor.

我第一次見到鄧永鏘是在他位于一幢摩天大樓頂層的“中國會”(China Club)餐廳，因為我最好的朋友之一朱塞佩•奇普里亞尼(Giuseppe Cipriani)開的餐廳恰好在其下一層。這就是空間在香港的運用——你很難在一樓開餐廳。

It was love at first sight with David. What a rascal, rogue, and imperial gentleman who had no tolerance for bullshit whatsoever. “Opinionated” is a word we think of when someone makes a salty political comment and David was one of the most politically incorrect human beings I have ever met. As the producer of The Producers on Broadway, I told Mel Brooks right after a run through, “that is the most politically incorrect theatre I’ve ever see”. Mel responded: “That’s the idea!” And in the same spirit, that was David’s idea about life. He suffered no fools gladly and called everything as he saw it.

我對鄧永鏘“一見鐘情”。他是一位對蠢話毫不留情的紳士，顯得無賴、惡劣又霸道。當有人做出粗俗的政治評論時，我們想到的是“固執(zhí)己見”(opinionated)一詞，而鄧永鏘是我見過的“政治上最不正確”的人士之一。作為百老匯(Broadway)音樂劇《金牌制片人》(The Producers)的監(jiān)制，我在一次排練一結束就對梅爾•布魯克斯(Mel Brooks)說：“這是我所見過的政治上最不正確的戲劇”。梅爾回答說：“你說對了!”同樣地，這就是鄧永鏘對生活的看法。他絕不容忍蠢人，從來都直言不諱。

One of my personal stories about David was when I got into trouble making the film Shanghai. It starred, among others, Gong Li, Ken Watanabe, and John Cusack. We were about to start production after having cleared every jurisdiction possible to shoot in Shanghai. But the Chinese government said they had made a mistake because they didn’t realise Ken Watanabe’s character was Japanese and felt he was too sympathetic to Gong Li’s character in the end, especially for a soldier during the second world war.

關于鄧永鏘，我親身經(jīng)歷的一個故事是在拍攝電影《諜海風云》(Shanghai)時遇到麻煩的時候。該片的主演包括鞏俐、渡邊謙(Ken Watanabe)、約翰•庫薩克(John Cusack)等人。在通過所有在上海拍攝的審批之后，我們即將開機。但中國政府稱，他們出現(xiàn)一個失誤，因為他們沒有意識到渡邊謙飾演的角色是日本人，而且覺得他在結尾對鞏俐飾演的角色太過于同情，尤其對于二戰(zhàn)期間的一名士兵而言。

The government asked us to change the ending. But to change it would have changed the whole fibre of Hossein Amini’s brilliant script. I called Hossein and the director, Mikael Hafstrom, and we couldn’t understand why they’d do that to us.

中國政府要求我們修改影片結局。但如果改了結局，就意味著改了侯賽因•阿米尼(Hossein Amini)精彩劇本的整個結構。我打電話給侯賽因和導演米凱爾•哈弗斯特羅姆(Mikael Hafstrom)，我們不明白他們?yōu)槭裁匆@么做。

I gave David a call to explain the situation and, after he made a few calls, he encouraged me to stick to my principles and said he’d help any way he could — he even stood up to mainland China on our behalf. He then assured me if we left Shanghai there was architecture in London very similar to 1940s Shanghai and we could shoot our exteriors for the government scenes there (it was a spy thriller) and do the big action scenes in Thailand.

我給鄧永鏘打電話解釋當時的情況，他在打了幾個電話后鼓勵我堅持自己的原則，并表示會盡其所能提供幫助——他甚至代表我們向內地政府抗議。然后，他讓我放心，如果我們不在上海拍攝，倫敦有與上世紀40年代上海非常相似的建筑，我們可以在那里為政府場景拍攝外景(這是一部諜戰(zhàn)懸疑片)，在泰國拍攝大的動作場面。

We had a $28m budget that ballooned to $50m, but David was right on the money about how to make the movie look good. He even went out of his way to set up all the costumes for this amazing scene in which a fashion show takes place in the middle of a gunfight with Chow Yun-fat — it’s one of my favourite action scenes.

我們的預算從2800萬美元暴漲至5000萬美元，但在使用多少資金讓這部電影好看的問題上，鄧永鏘是正確的。有一個令人驚嘆的場景，一場周潤發(fā)(Chow Yun-fat)槍戰(zhàn)中的時裝秀，這是我最喜歡的動作場景之一，鄧永鏘特別費心地為這場戲準備了所有的服裝。

Not only didn’t David charge us for setting up the fashion costumes but he also came to Thailand and supervised everything himself. Whenever there were politics to be navigated in China while I was making a film, David was always there as a helping hand and guiding light. That’s the kind of class act he was.

鄧永鏘不僅沒有為準備時裝向我們收費，他還來到泰國，親自監(jiān)督各種事宜。拍攝電影期間，每當我在中國遇到政治上的麻煩，鄧永鏘總是向我伸出援手，成為我的指路明燈。他就是這樣一個出類拔萃的人。

His favourite means of diplomacy was to throw lavish dinner parties for people on the opposite side. He had the most beautiful wife, Lucy, who was British to her core. They hosted me and my wife Georgina many times. He was loyal to his friends to a fault, constantly loaning out money, or as he said, “giving it away”.

他最喜歡的“外交”手段是為立場相左的人士舉辦奢華晚宴。他有一位特別漂亮的妻子露西(Lucy)，是個典型的英國人。他們多次招待過我和妻子喬治娜(Georgina)。他對朋友忠誠得有點過了頭，不斷地借出錢財，或者像他所言，“免費奉上”。

But boy he had the nastiest voice I’ve ever heard to his enemies. As tough as people think I am, I’ve never said some of the words I heard David say. Sailors haven’t even heard these words.

但好家伙，他對敵人說的話是我聽過最粗鄙的。雖然人們認為我很粗魯，但我從沒說過我聽到的鄧永鏘說過的一些話。甚至連水手都沒聽過這些話。

To know him was to love him, and ironically he sent me an invitation to come to his restaurant next week because he was dying and wanted to see his friends one last time. I called him and said it was a fantastic ruse and a great idea for a movie — a man pretends he’s dying and throws a party for his friends just to tell them off. But it wasn’t a ruse, though we both wished it were.

了解他就會愛他，出乎意料的是，他在彌留之際邀請我這周去他的餐廳，想見朋友們最后一面。我打電話給他，說這是一個妙計，是個拍電影的好點子——一個男人假裝自己快死了，召集朋友開一個派對，然后告訴他們真相。但這不是一場惡作劇，盡管我們都希望它是。

He told me he had 30 or so friends in his life that meant something and wanted to have one last fabulous, fun-filled dinner. He insisted that Georgina and I come — how could you say no to that? But now he has passed away and we never had that dinner.

他告訴我，他有30個左右對自己生命有意義的朋友，他希望舉辦最后一場絕妙的、充滿樂趣的晚宴。他堅持要喬治娜和我都來參加——你怎么能拒絕呢?但現(xiàn)在他離開了我們，那場晚宴再也無法實現(xiàn)。

I know we’ll all celebrate him together shortly and wherever he ends up I’m sure most of us will follow. His memory and life force continue to enchant and my dearest condolences go out to his family and great array of friends. And that is one illustrious group — from gangsters to ministers, rock stars and movie stars, fabulous chefs and brilliant artists, David Tang had a taste for life.

我知道，我們很快將一起追思他，而且無論他魂歸何方，我相信我們大多數(shù)人都將追隨他的足跡。他的記憶和活力將繼續(xù)讓世人著迷。謹向他的家人和眾多友人致以最深切的慰問。這是一個聲名顯赫的群體——從幫派分子到部長、搖滾明星、電影明星、名廚和才華橫溢的藝術家——鄧永鏘對生活有獨特的品味。

When Michael Korda wrote a book about his uncle Sir Alexander Korda, he called it Charmed Lives. Even though David passed at 63, he charmed everyone else’s life.

當邁克爾•科達(Michael Korda)撰寫關于叔叔亞歷山大•科達爵士(Sir Alexander Korda)的書時，他稱之為《陶醉的生活》(Charmed Lives)。雖然鄧永鏘63歲就離開了我們，但他陶醉了每個人的生活。

Harvey Weinstein is an American film producer and co-founder of film studio Miramax

哈維•溫斯坦(Harvey Weinstein)是一名美國電影制片人、米拉麥克斯影業(yè)(Miramax Films)聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人