A Handful of Dried Noodles
(Digital) 一把挂面

Introduction to the Creative Ideas of the Theme Music and Theme Song of the Film A Handful of Dried Noodles

The film tells the whole life story of Zhang Jiagen, the inheritor of Chinese traditional handmade hollow fine dried noodle, who was struggling with his fat. In these later years. He has taught the method of making the hollow fine dried noodle which is passed down from generation to generation to the whole village.

1. Theme Song and Theme Music:

Theme song and theme music of the film derives from the Shanxi folk song Missing Your Kiss in My Heart. The original folk song is in the musical type of Xintianyou (a folk music style from Shaanxi, China) and minor mode of Shang, mainly represented by two lines of lyrics with approximately the same melody. It seems too thin and simple to be copied as the theme song. Therefore, the composer Murat Sherizat changed it into four phrases of “A+B” verse and refrain based on the original piece. The melody has also gone through another creation. With the music techniques of polyphony, key changes and harmony, the combination of national instrument and orchestral music, the magnificent theme music was composed elaborately. Based on such theme music, the theme song Worshiping Heaven and Earth with Three-strand Noodles was recomposed as well. The lyrics “Fine dried noodles have tied down two hearts” and “Worshiping heaven and earth with three-strand noodles” are two important plots in the story. The lyrics “The day seems like a year when the clouds floating on the sky from the mountain top, the pain seems to be unbearable when missing someone” were composed according to a characteristic mountain top in the film – Wanguagua mountain (in Northern Shaanxi localism, “Wanguagua” means the bottom of a bowl, and here it is used to describe the shape of the mountain as an upside-down porcelain bowl). “Bow to heaven and earth with three fine dried noodles, I can let go of my parents before giving up on you” shows profoundly the traits of characters of men and women on the loess land that they dare to love with extreme grief and happiness.

2. Interlude No Retail for Dry Noodles
The melody of this song derives from Northern Shaanxi folk song The Difficult Ploughman, while the lyrics have been created completely based on the plots of this film. The song is in four sections with each section having two phrases adopting the analogy pattern of Xintianyou style. For example, the first phrase starts with “The stinging plants on the river bank, the wormwoods on the wet farmland, (You) you come as soon as I think of you” shows the heroin’s inward expectations for hero and verbal promise. The second phrase comes up with that “But you didn’t come in the appointed day, You’re coming when I have to feed up the baby”, expressing tactfully the heroin’s modest complaint for the hero comes not at the proper time. The third phrase: “Both hands to knead the dough while one hand to fetch the dough. Pay at the whole price if you want to eat the noodles” describes the scene the heroin is busy cooking for the hero, and the fourth phrase “The noodles are empty while the heart is sincere. The handful of noodles shall be sold together” indicates the “sincere heart” of heroin in comparison with the “hollow noodle”, and she swears to be with the hero like “a bundle of noodles” “bound together” tightly and not “for retail”, implying the oath of love of “being together in life and death”. The four phrases, changing and concluding, highly summarize a vivid and touching love story. The lyrics are composed in rigorous structure, have the same rhythm from beginning to end, show affected pathos and are too wonderful for words.

3. Interlude Keep Following

This is an original song and the lyrics are in “A+B” pattern.

The first half reads: “You leisurely grind the wheat, while I slowly knead the dough. We shall get along slowly and casually; You leisurely pull, when I gently hang. We can tie up together tightly”. The lyrics start with the methods of making dried noodles, making a comparison between noodles and men and presuming love with noodles, and demonstrating the attitude toward life of man and wife making dried noodles. The second half says: “Hang up the noodles and season the sour soup, follow up tightly and closely; No matter how tall the mountain is and how long the river will be, we will be together whatever it’s hard and difficult” further intensify their views of life and love of “sharing happiness and woe and staying together in life and death”.

Music of this song is the original work of composed by Kazakhstan composer Murat Sherizat. The melody is in the pattern of love song of youth, which is characterized by being humorous and carefree, shows the sense of rhythm with fashionable musical instruments like hand drum, flute, percussion, and so on, and completely coincides with the film scenario of first date of the hero Young Gengen and the heroin Maiden Xiuxiu, well pushing the story forward.

4. Postlude Hanging Out the Dry Noodles of Zhangjiashan

The song takes the melody of Northern Shaanxi folk song The Ditty of Wine as its main frame and has an expansion in the section of refrain, so the meaning of the entire song is richer and more tensive. The first half:

Pick up your long pole;
the fine dried noodles of Mount Zhangjia, yo, come out.
(Yi-mo-na-hu-hi)
The same water and the same noodles,
(Yah-ho-hi)
The same handicraft has been passed down.
(Yi-mo-na-hu-hi)

Set up the pot,
cook the fine dried noodle.
(Yi-mo-na-hu-hi)
Bring up that aged bowl,
(Yi-mo-na-hu-hi)
treat all the friends in the same way.
(Yi-mo-na-hu-hi)

As postlude, the song plays the part of summarizing the story and sublimating the theme.

Refrain:
The good man on the other side of the river in the opposite,
standing on the cliff in the opposite, The good man in the opposite, please come over,
show your technique,
blow your suona horn,
sing your folk songs,
beat your waist drum,
Do the perform the yangko dance,
turn around with your face,
stretch out your hands,
come over, come over.
Treat you with a handful of fine dried noodles, Yi-hu-hi!

At the end of the film, hundreds of Zhangjiajie villagers gathered together in the court of dry noodle successor Zhang Jiagen’s (Gengen) cave dwelling, bidding farewell to Gengen who lived to death and chose “not to eat any more”. The successor of the third generation Shuanshuan cooks a plentiful of dry noodles in a big pot, and each village has a coarse porcelain bowl in hand and surround the big pot, waiting for Shuanshuan to “fill the bowl with noodles”, which implies the dry noodle master Zhang Jiagen has agreed to impart the exclusive techniques of making dry noodles to the villagers, so that they can “make a living”, highlighted Zhang Jiagen’s noble sentiment of returning to his homeland and showing gratitude for his hometown with his exclusive techniques.

5. Northern Shaanxi Storytelling Dry Noodle Producers of Zhangjiashan (lyrics omitted)

Northern Shaanxi storytelling shows appearance in the film for four times for transition of plots, playing the part of completing the entire structure and making supplement to the plots, commenting on the story and sublimating the theme.

6. The interlude Song of Farmhand is a Northern Shaanxi folk song and is mainly to set off the background by contrast.

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Director: Shan Shi
Writer: Liu Yuzhu
Producer: Zhang Jing
Music Director: Murat Sherizat
Leading Cast: Zhou Jinping, Li Lei, Qiao Zihan
Country of Origin: China
Country of Filming: Yulin, Shaanxi, China
Language: Mandarin/ Shaanxi Dialect

( - Label Plaza Mayor Company - Lydia Braoude - )

More info at: Label Plaza Mayor Company

More info at: Official Web Site Apple Music

Plaza Mayor Company presents the soundtrack for A Handful OF Dried Noodles (一把挂面), composed by Murat Sherizat

Plaza Mayor Company presents the soundtrack for A Handful OF Dried Noodles (一把挂面), composed by Murat Sherizat

The film tells the whole life story of Zhang Jiagen, the inheritor of Chinese traditional handmade hollow fine dried noodle, who was struggling with his fat. In these later years. He has taught the method of making the hollow fine dried noodle which is passed down from generation to generation to the whole village.

Theme song and theme music of the film derives from the Shanxi folk song Missing Your Kiss in My Heart. The original folk song is in the musical type of Xintianyou (a folk music style from Shaanxi, China) and minor mode of Shang, mainly represented by two lines of lyrics with approximately the same melody.

It seems too thin and simple to be copied as the theme song. Therefore, the composer Murat Sherizat changed it into four phrases of “A+B” verse and refrain based on the original piece.

The melody has also gone through another creation. With the music techniques of polyphony, key changes and harmony, the combination of national instrument and orchestral music, the magnificent theme music was composed elaborately.

Based on such theme music, the theme song Worshiping Heaven and Earth with Three-strand Noodles was recomposed as well. The lyrics “Fine dried noodles have tied down two hearts” and “Worshiping heaven and earth with three-strand noodles” are two important plots in the story.

The lyrics “The day seems like a year when the clouds floating on the sky from the mountain top, the pain seems to be unbearable when missing someone” were composed according to a characteristic mountain top in the film – Wanguagua mountain (in Northern Shaanxi localism, “Wanguagua” means the bottom of a bowl, and here it is used to describe the shape of the mountain as an upside-down porcelain bowl).

“Bow to heaven and earth with three fine dried noodles, I can let go of my parents before giving up on you” shows profoundly the traits of characters of men and women on the loess land that they dare to love with extreme grief and happiness.

Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Director: Shan Shi
Writer: Liu Yuzhu
Producer: Zhang Jing
Music Director: Murat Sherizat
Leading Cast: Zhou Jinping, Li Lei, Qiao Zihan
Country of Origin: China
Country of Filming: Yulin, Shaanxi, China
Language: Mandarin/ Shaanxi Dialect
Label: Plaza Mayor Company Ltd

More info at: Official Web Site Film Freeway