The new film "Above the Cliff" directed by Zhang Yimou was released nationwide on the last day of April.
This film is the first time that actor Qin Hailu has worked with director Zhang Yimou in the 20 years since she has been in the art. It is also the first time she filmed an action drama in her career.
When filming the movie "On the Cliff", the crew had to add a meal once. Qin Hailu suggested adding cucumber and fried peanuts, because these two dishes are rich in meaning in the Northeast. They are called "Fen Shen Bone" and "Feng Pei To The End". "Above the Cliff" tells the story and the state of the whole crew in front and behind the scenes who are fully engaged, "very suitable for the scene."
These agents are not supermen but ordinary people
Live before you can talk about tasks
"Above the Cliff" is adapted from Quan Yongxian's original story. It tells that in the 1930s, four communist agents who had received special training in the Soviet Union formed a mission team and returned to China to carry out a secret operation code-named "Utra".
Due to the betrayal of the traitors, they were already in the snare laid by the enemy from the first moment they parachuted and landed.
Revolutionary husband and wife Zhang Xianchen and Wang Yu, young lovers Chu Liang and Xiaolan, were separated when they landed. They reluctantly separated from their lovers and formed two teams to perform their tasks.
They embarked on the battlefield with the determination to die, and their lives were unsafe, and they still missed their loved ones and loved ones in their hearts.
Qin Hailu played Wang Yu in the film, and asked her what attracted her to the movie. Qin Hailu laughed and said, "If I don’t say the words'Zhang Yimou', would I be sorry for Director Zhang Yimou? It must be Director Zhang Yimou. For practitioners in our industry, no matter which department they are in, working with Director Zhang will be his (her) ideal."
Back then, Qin Hailu’s classmate Zhang Ziyi had the opportunity to film "My Father and Mother" directed by Zhang Yimou. The classmates felt that Zhang Ziyi was too lucky. Negative Shaohua finally waited for "Above the Cliff." When I first saw the director, I was very nervous. Before I started to get the contract, I talked to the director about the script, said some ideas, and got the director's approval. I was already very happy. After I decided to star in the role, I was quite calm. I thought it would be better to treat this movie as a normal job. If I think too much, I can’t calm my mind."
For actors, apart from the importance of teamwork, another important criterion is the script. Qin Hailu likes the "humanity" of the agent Wang Yu. Wang Yu is not the kind of superhuman agent who can go to heaven and earth, she is just an ordinary. He was trained as an agent in the Soviet Union, and he returned to perform the mission with her husband Zhang Xianchen, hoping to find two children who were wandering outside without care. "People in those days could sacrifice for their faith, although Wang Yu could do it regardless of his life or death. She has a mission, but she also cares about her children, and even longs for the warmth of the family. She has the feelings of a family and the country, and she has a yearning for her own family. She will be injured, bleed, and run away. I think such a role is very real. She It's not the kind of agent who can play eighteen and then has nothing to do with him."
What particularly attracted Qin Hailu was that the four agents were in desperation because of the betrayal of the agents before they performed their tasks. She and Zhu Yawen, who played Chu Liang, were arrested by agents and placed under house arrest in a small foreign building. "In the words of the director, this agent has already I think it’s worth exploring how to become a waste and how waste can counterattack. How to escape under the surveillance of others, I think this process is a very different perspective from other works in the spy war film "Above the Cliff". "
Therefore, in Qin Hailu’s view, the first task placed in front of several of their agents is to survive first. "The agents of 007 and "Mission Impossible" are completing their tasks, but I am surviving. They are for I sacrificed after completing the mission, and I had to survive before I could think about the mission. I jumped directly from the mission back to the basis of survival. The title of "Above the Cliff" means that the agent is on the cliff while performing the mission. On the cliff, walking on the tip of a knife, but in this film, you have to live first, and then you can walk on the cliff."
Acting with "internal strength" and crying are all a pass
As agents, they are also agents closely monitored by the agents, and their emotional expression can only be calm and restrained.
Qin Hailu said that when they chatted with the director, Director Zhang Yimou said that China’s top adjectives are all related to the internal organs, such as heart-piercing, loyalty to the liver and righteousness to the liver, and diarrhea, “I’ll just say we When I was arrested, I basically didn't have any expressions. In the script, I always wrote that my heart was tight and my heart was loose. May I ask how to act?"
Qin Hailu laughed and said that afterwards, everyone mobilized the "organ-style" performance. "They didn't change their faces, but there would be such a so-called tightness and looseness in their hearts. The agents had undergone very cruel training. They didn't. Like ordinary people, they have the emotions and perceptions of ordinary people, but they can’t express their emotions without scruple like ordinary people, especially in this kind of monitored environment. Relatively speaking, we need to use internal energy, such as In martial arts novels, it is said that the sword is used to hurt people, not the sword is used to hurt people."
In addition to the quiet performance of "internal strength", Qin Hailu has several important crying scenes in the film, like the scenes of crying her husband Zhang Xianchen's sacrifice in the bathroom and seeing the child at the end. Qin Hailu's crying scenes are all over and displayed. Superb acting.
Speaking of crying scenes, Qin Hailu said that she had never thought about what kind of crying she would perform. "I don't have a setting for this kind of scene. I don't think about which side of the tears would be more beautiful when I cry, or that I want to keep it A state of crying, I think at that time, what is your inner heart, is what kind of expression, it may be ugly, or it may be beautiful, this ugliness and beauty, it is a touch on the soul. I have such great emotions The movement of the play is basically never fortified or designed. It is to really feel the moment in that environment. I think that when you really feel it, the audience can receive it in the cinema. Because I have been magnified infinitely, and my emotions have also spread out with the infinite magnification."
At the end of the movie, Qin Hailu said that she had not thought about crying in advance, "At this time, we need an emotional outburst, but sometimes crying without tears is also an emotional outburst. The moment I saw the two children, I I cried involuntarily. What I was crying was that I couldn’t be reunited. I wished that Zhang Xianchen would also be standing beside him, the family hugged and reunited, but no. The feeling at that moment was the hug on the left and hug on the right, but the heart in the middle It’s empty, so it’s really sad."
And in the scene where Wang Yu was crying bitterly in the bathroom, after Wang Yu took the poison, he learned of the arrest of Zhang Xianchen. Because he was under the close surveillance of the spies, Qin Hailu could not cry, "Wang Yu was already weak after being poisoned. I heard the bad news about her husband again. From her body to her mind, she was in a weak and helpless state, and she did not dare to cry bitterly. She could only shut her mouth and cried out of breath. The few breaths that the director said downplayed her heart. ."
Originally asked Qin Hailu to sit on the toilet and cry, but Qin Hailu suggested sitting on the floor, "I sat on the toilet for a long time and felt that it could not give me a very weak state. Later, I chose to sit on the floor and leaned on the floor. On the toilet. Wang Yu was weak from the inside out at the time and needed comfort from people, but I couldn’t make a sound, and I couldn’t let anyone know that I was fragile at this time. At that moment, I didn’t have any design, and compared to me. A stupid actor really can only be an experientialist. I just feel it. The only trick is to let me enter the prescribed situation and become that role."
Qin Hailu’s proposal to sit on the floor was approved by Director Zhang Yimou: “In the director’s image, the person is between the toilet and the water platform. There is a feeling of being caught between the toilet and the water platform. When the image came out, the person was small and cold by the two. The porcelain is sandwiched in the middle. It feels even sadder at that moment."
The film does not describe the feelings of Zhang Xianchen and Wang Yu in the film too much. Qin Hailu believes that their feelings are invisible under the water, but they are very strong.
For example, at the beginning, the four soldiers were divided into two groups. The two only said that they were going to find the children alive. They didn’t talk much, but they were very tacit. “On the train, Zhang Xianchen left a signal in the toilet, but after leaving the signal, he didn’t leave. Waiting for Wang Yu to get out of the car before going to rescue Xiaolan. I think he is not sure whether Wang Yu has seen the signal, if I don’t see it and don’t make the decision to get off, he will think of a second way to notify me There was a traitor. Wang Yu also took a look at Zhang Xianchen’s back before deciding to get out of the car. During the whole process, they were thinking about each other. However, apart from the difference in the beginning, the two had no communication at all. I think theirs Love is not face-to-face, but back-to-back, but the feeling of back-to-back, the kind of power you can rely on and rely on, is the emotion that you can leave your back to the other party, this kind of emotion is very enviable. Zhang Xianchen and Chu Liang It's all for the sake of my companions and I chose to sacrifice myself. I think this kind of sacrifice is for faith when it is big, and when it is small, I think it is the emotion and trust between people, which is very moving."
Acting for the first time in 20 years of acting
Qin Hailu, who was born in Daomadan, experienced a painful experience of "unbearable looking back" when she was a child. That period was the darkest shadow of her childhood, so she has always refused action scenes since she was an actress.
This time "On the Cliff" is Qin Hailu's first filming scene in 20 years.
Qin Hailu revealed that when the script was accepted, there was actually no action drama. Then one day I went to try on makeup and met Director Zheng, who was in charge of the action of the film. Director Zheng wanted to add some action dramas. Qin Hailu said: "I had my heart in mind at the time. Tight, I have not filmed action dramas in 20 years, but I am embarrassed to refuse. I said you would like to ask Director Zhang first, because my line is conspiracy and escape. I sit there and act in a down-to-earth manner. Suddenly I don’t know if it will affect these two lines. He said it’s okay, and Director Zhang said OK. Then he showed me a trial film he made, my mother! It’s the kind of Bond girl. Later I thought, if I dedicate my first action film experience to director Zhang Yimou, it would be worth it. Because a person who has been in the art for 20 years still has new things thrown out, it will make everyone think she might There is still something in it."
Since she agreed to perform, Qin Hailu worked hard. She hoped that the effect of the pain would be more real, so she didn't use protective gear and cushions.
After the filming was over, "I went back to Beijing to quarantine and lay in the hotel for four days, because I was covered with bruises. In the scene where I was shot, I shot Li Naiwen's Lu Ming part on the first day. It seemed that I fell almost Four or five times, and then I took a panoramic view, and I fell four or five times, and then I fell four or five times when I took a close shot, because I fell to the ground in an instant, and there was no cushion underneath it, just a real road, the whole back, shoulders to arms , I basically fell into a half-disabled body. So after I came back, I lay in bed for four days, basically in the bathtub for more than two hours a day, wanting hot water to quickly fade the bruises."
In addition to playing, the director also added a drag racing scene, which made Qin Hailu feel excited, "It's very difficult to drive a classic car. I need to wear high heels, because the clutch of a classic car, when stepped on and lifted up, is very, very high. , My feet are not high enough, so I have to wear high heels, support my feet, and then lift the clutch. Sometimes I lift it abruptly, basically up to a foot, I step on it, I have to step on it more than a foot, Then when you lift it to one foot, you may only give the accelerator and the car will move, so it often doesn’t work well. Often the director says prepare, turn on, and catch fire! Then I turned off."
Qin Hailu was also very entangled about how to drag the car and how to act the reaction after the crash. "Should I act as an agent who is in danger, or do I want to act as a normal person? After almost a week of entanglement, I thought I was going to act as an ordinary person. Because an ordinary person has been specially trained to become an agent, she needs experience when driving is dangerous, but she can think of ways to avoid the danger instantly after being surprised, so the expression becomes very complicated. If you perform in sections, I must be surprised first, then calm, figure out how to avoid, and finally decide and execute. Filming this scene allows me to improve my performance rhythm and speed in an instant, which is quite fun."
When Qin Hailu’s play was finished, the audience applauded for her. Qin Hailu was very happy. She thanked everyone for always encouraging her, "Although I am an old artist who has been in the art for 20 years, but when you go to open up a new state of performance At that time, the fear and anxiety in my heart are actually better than those of the newcomer."
Acting is more than 5 catties lost after physical work
"Above the Cliff" is the first time Zhang Yimou directed a spy war theme. He led a professional team to go deep into the northeast of the Linhai Snowfield at minus 40 degrees Celsius. The actor's face was frozen red and his mouth and nose exhaled white breath in the extreme cold weather. When he couldn't achieve it with the special effects in the later stage, Zhang Yimou laughed and said, "Haqi is most valuable.
The cold weather has left Qin Hailu feeling lingering. She is wearing woolen trousers and cotton trousers, with a leather coat over the cotton coat, a big scarf and a leather hat.
"Basically, you can't open your legs. I put 15 warm babies all over my body. As soon as I walk in the snow, the warm babies will get hot and sweat. When the sweat falls, the heat will pass through the cotton jacket and get on the outside. The snow becomes ice on the body, and I feel a lot like Michelin. The frost on the eyelashes and eyebrows does not need special effects at all."
In addition to the usual drama chats, Zhang Yimou also left homework for several leading actors, and they also have a WeChat group for drama chatting.
As far as these drama players are concerned, it is not only enjoyable and hard work, that no one wants to perform the worst when they gather together to "experience".
Qin Hailu said that for actors like them who have acted for many years, "When watching the replay, we will pick up with the front and back to see if the performance is smooth. For example, the 65th scene I played the day before yesterday. I can’t connect to the 64th scene of today’s performance. I’m playing the 64th scene today, but the 65th scene has already been filmed. This is how I acted in the 65th scene. Then I will think about how I will act in the 64th scene. The state of other actors’ speaking lines, the response you need to make, and what kind of look you give you, you have to think about these things."
Therefore, Qin Hailu said that acting is really physical work, very hard work.
After the filming came back, she started taking Chinese medicine, "Because I stayed up all night in Shanxi, my tongue was all black. During the filming in Shanxi, I lost more than five catties, right."
For Qin Hailu, "Above the Cliff" is a very important work since she started her career, because this film made her an actor who has been in the industry for 20 years, and she still feels and learns some new creative methods.
She even saw the bravery of a teenager from Zhang Yimou, "Although director Zhang Yimou is a banner of Chinese movies, he is still like a young man, dare to do it, dare to think, dare to realize, I think he is really fearless. People who want to do something like this.” This kind of bravery obviously affected Qin Hailu. Qin Hailu said that Zhang Yimou asked her before, next time she asked her if she wanted to do something like this. Now, she can tell the director. "Don't think about it, I can".
Text/Photo courtesy of our reporter Zhang Jia/Bo Le