In the last century, zombie movies directed by Mr. Ching-Ying Lam were all the rage. Uncle Ying's image as a "zombie leader" is still classic: wearing a yellow robe, a bronze sword in his left hand and a gossip instrument in his right hand. In addition, the zombie image in the movie has always made people love and fear: the whole body is as hard as iron, the arms can't droop but stretch horizontally, and the knees can't bend but jump.
The legend about zombies originated in the period of the Yellow Emperor. Legend has it that the earliest zombie was the daughter of the Yellow Emperor, a barren girl. When the Yellow Emperor fought Chiyou, he didn't have an advantage at first. Later, in order to help her father achieve great things, the barren woman put a blood curse on Chiyou's army. However, when the great cause of the Yellow Emperor was completed, the raccoon mother was unable to ascend to the divine world because she killed too many things. Finally, he became a zombie because of anger.
Of course, the above are just legends, which are stored in Shan Hai Jing. Since then, although the records about zombies have appeared from time to time, they are all too sparse, so I won't mention them here. If we really have a detailed record of zombies, it belongs to the Taoist book Daqianlu, in which "the limbs are stiff, the head is not low, the eyes are not inclined, the legs are not divided, and the body is not rotted", which is very similar to the zombies in our memory.
After Tales of a Thousand Stories, Yuan Mei's Woods Language and Ji Xiaolan's Notes on Yuewei Cottage are also highly regarded zombie books, and some even call them "Zombie Encyclopedia".
Of course, some people will ask, there are many records about zombies in the Qing Dynasty, so must it be based on the Qing Dynasty? Actually, it's not. However, from a biological point of view, if the death time of a corpse is too short (not to mention cremation), it will not become a zombie; But if it takes too long, it's not a zombie, but a bandage or something.
So the time can't be too long or too short. (Think carefully, hundreds of years later, the zombies in film and television works should all be in suits and ties, carrying briefcases and wearing Rolex. )
Just kidding.
Therefore, the zombies in the film are unlikely to come from the Tang Dynasty and other periods, and most likely they are set in the Ming and Qing Dynasties. So why did the zombies in the movies we saw wear clothes from the Qing Dynasty instead of the Ming Dynasty?
First of all, we should consider the cost of making a film. Compared with the clothes of the Ming Dynasty, the clothes of the Qing Dynasty are much cheaper. This should be easy to understand. After all, most of the costume dramas we see today are Qing Palace dramas. There are also Ming dynasty dramas, but they are too few compared with Qing palace dramas. As we all know, "scarcity is the most precious".
Secondly, it is very important that the costumes of the Qing dynasty, especially those of the government, are more in line with the image of zombies. As we all know, the official uniforms of the Qing Dynasty are basically straight and full-tube, and the colors are mostly dark. Coupled with the shape of the official hat, it looks very easy to give people a "stiff" feeling, which is exactly what zombie movies need.
If someone insists on playing, "can't you wear Ming dynasty clothes?" It's not impossible. It's just that the clothes of the Ming Dynasty are very similar to Hanfu, with lighter colors and looser clothes, which don't feel like zombies. Can you imagine jumping out of the grave in the middle of the night and dancing there in white clothes and long sleeves? If you can think of it, it should be Nie Xiaogan from Ghost Story.
Is this a fabrication? Of course not. Just like Yin Fu's paintings and the theory of Yin and Yang in movies, zombies in zombie movies wear Qing Dynasty costumes for a certain reason. Although there are still modern zombie movies, they have no taste of Uncle Ying. No one should surpass Uncle Ying's zombie movies in the future!