追忆邓永锵

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年前第一次来香港时，我的身份是一名香港电影发烧友，尤其喜欢功夫片。我遇到了好友兼同事贝•罗根(Bey Logan)，他是关于功夫片的一本行走的百科全书。我还遇见了许多大名鼎鼎的人物，如成龙(Jackie Chan)、吴宇森(John Woo)以及著名制片人林建岳(Peter Lam)。这是不同寻常的一群人，但在所有这些人中，没有人比邓永锵爵士(Sir David Tang，当时还未获封爵士)更让我印象深刻。

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.

我第一次见到邓永锵是在他位于一幢摩天大楼顶层的“中国会”(China Club)餐厅，因为我最好的朋友之一朱塞佩•奇普里亚尼(Giuseppe Cipriani)开的餐厅恰好在其下一层。这就是空间在香港的运用——你很难在一楼开餐厅。

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.

我对邓永锵“一见钟情”。他是一位对蠢话毫不留情的绅士，显得无赖、恶劣又霸道。当有人做出粗俗的政治评论时，我们想到的是“固执己见”(opinionated)一词，而邓永锵是我见过的“政治上最不正确”的人士之一。作为百老汇(Broadway)音乐剧《金牌制片人》(The Producers)的监制，我在一次排练一结束就对梅尔•布鲁克斯(Mel Brooks)说：“这是我所见过的政治上最不正确的戏剧”。梅尔回答说：“你说对了!”同样地，这就是邓永锵对生活的看法。他绝不容忍蠢人，从来都直言不讳。

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.

关于邓永锵，我亲身经历的一个故事是在拍摄电影《谍海风云》(Shanghai)时遇到麻烦的时候。该片的主演包括巩俐、渡边谦(Ken Watanabe)、约翰•库萨克(John Cusack)等人。在通过所有在上海拍摄的审批之后，我们即将开机。但中国政府称，他们出现一个失误，因为他们没有意识到渡边谦饰演的角色是日本人，而且觉得他在结尾对巩俐饰演的角色太过于同情，尤其对于二战期间的一名士兵而言。

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.

中国政府要求我们修改影片结局。但如果改了结局，就意味着改了侯赛因•阿米尼(Hossein Amini)精彩剧本的整个结构。我打电话给侯赛因和导演米凯尔•哈弗斯特罗姆(Mikael Hafstrom)，我们不明白他们为什么要这么做。

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.

我给邓永锵打电话解释当时的情况，他在打了几个电话后鼓励我坚持自己的原则，并表示会尽其所能提供帮助——他甚至代表我们向内地政府抗议。然后，他让我放心，如果我们不在上海拍摄，伦敦有与上世纪40年代上海非常相似的建筑，我们可以在那里为政府场景拍摄外景(这是一部谍战悬疑片)，在泰国拍摄大的动作场面。

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.

我们的预算从2800万美元暴涨至5000万美元，但在使用多少资金让这部电影好看的问题上，邓永锵是正确的。有一个令人惊叹的场景，一场周润发(Chow Yun-fat)枪战中的时装秀，这是我最喜欢的动作场景之一，邓永锵特别费心地为这场戏准备了所有的服装。

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.

邓永锵不仅没有为准备时装向我们收费，他还来到泰国，亲自监督各种事宜。拍摄电影期间，每当我在中国遇到政治上的麻烦，邓永锵总是向我伸出援手，成为我的指路明灯。他就是这样一个出类拔萃的人。

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”.

他最喜欢的“外交”手段是为立场相左的人士举办奢华晚宴。他有一位特别漂亮的妻子露西(Lucy)，是个典型的英国人。他们多次招待过我和妻子乔治娜(Georgina)。他对朋友忠诚得有点过了头，不断地借出钱财，或者像他所言，“免费奉上”。

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，他对敌人说的话是我听过最粗鄙的。虽然人们认为我很粗鲁，但我从没说过我听到的邓永锵说过的一些话。甚至连水手都没听过这些话。

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.

了解他就会爱他，出乎意料的是，他在弥留之际邀请我这周去他的餐厅，想见朋友们最后一面。我打电话给他，说这是一个妙计，是个拍电影的好点子——一个男人假装自己快死了，召集朋友开一个派对，然后告诉他们真相。但这不是一场恶作剧，尽管我们都希望它是。

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.

他告诉我，他有30个左右对自己生命有意义的朋友，他希望举办最后一场绝妙的、充满乐趣的晚宴。他坚持要乔治娜和我都来参加——你怎么能拒绝呢?但现在他离开了我们，那场晚宴再也无法实现。

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，我们很快将一起追思他，而且无论他魂归何方，我相信我们大多数人都将追随他的足迹。他的记忆和活力将继续让世人着迷。谨向他的家人和众多友人致以最深切的慰问。这是一个声名显赫的群体——从帮派分子到部长、摇滚明星、电影明星、名厨和才华横溢的艺术家——邓永锵对生活有独特的品味。

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.

当迈克尔•科达(Michael Korda)撰写关于叔叔亚历山大•科达爵士(Sir Alexander Korda)的书时，他称之为《陶醉的生活》(Charmed Lives)。虽然邓永锵63岁就离开了我们，但他陶醉了每个人的生活。

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

哈维•温斯坦(Harvey Weinstein)是一名美国电影制片人、米拉麦克斯影业(Miramax Films)联合创始人