Han Xiaoqiang
To a certain extent, the just past 2021 is indeed an important year for Huang Zhizhong's artistic career. He not only starred in "Feng Bang", a disaster blockbuster that filled the National Day archives, but also appeared in the popular dramas "Sweet", "Breakthrough" and Knowledge The archaeological program "Hidden Details", in addition to playing Yuan Longping in "Meritorious Merit", has become an alternative memory after Yuan Lao's death.
One of the most well-known photos of Yuan Longping during his lifetime is a violin playing in a rice field. It combines the mind of a scientist with the taste of an artist. In my opinion, it is a complete expression of Chinese masculinity.
The inheritance and remodeling of this temperament also adds a new sample to Huang Zhizhong's "Character Collection".
Tough guy does his part
Just now, it was the first impression of Huang Zhizhong in "Feng Bang".
Gang here is both fierce and fearless, but also stubborn.
In a scene where the father and son quarreled, Huang Zhizhong made his son speechless because of his indiscretion, so he naturally established Hong Yunbing as a tough guy who was a retired railway soldier.
This is just a routine operation, as Huang Zhizhong said in an interview: "I advocate the spirit of sacrifice, heroism, especially positive and tough values, as are many characters."
This kind of masculinity has become one of Huang Zhizhong's characters, and many of his screen roles also belong to this category.
Huang Zhizhong's "hardness" lies in the neatness of his image and his well-trained physique. He is not from the military or martial arts, but his resume as a professional basketball player also brings him the fighting power in his bones, making him extremely good at police, secret agents, and combat. The way of the hero.
In terms of masculinity, Huang Zhizhong and Wang Zhiwen seem to belong to two sides. They both have the word "zhi" in the middle of their names. The difference is that the former is rigid and the latter is soft, the former is martial and the latter is docile, so even if they are both soldiers, it is Huang Zhizhong. Tie Shuai, Wang Zhiwen was a Confucian general.
This inevitably involves the classification of Chinese-style masculinity. The so-called literati lifts the pen to settle the world, and the martial artist immediately decides the world. There has been a binary distinction in history around the way of literacy and martial arts.
Bai Jingwenqing is the "cream niche", the rough men are the "hardcore niche", and the young Tang Guoqiang and Jiang Wen are their representatives.
However, as they get older, both groups of actors have gone beyond mere appearance or hormonal charm, and moved towards a deeper soul. There are also a group of actors in the middle who are late bloomers. Zhang Jiayi, Yu Hewei, and Wang Jinsong are all typical examples, and Huang Zhizhong is also an example, yes For these hardcore actors, it may be a false proposition to become famous as soon as possible. If God does not want to be talented, they must first suffer their minds, and their later upper limit is difficult to guarantee.
Huang Zhizhong was admitted to the Department of Chinese Opera Performance in 1991 with the first grade in his major. After graduation, he was admitted to the China Children's Art Theater. Before the age of 30, he wore a baby face, but he was not good at it at all.
He shuttled through various crews and started his career as a hero. He also played the male lead in several film and television dramas such as "The House of the Rich", "Bao Nian" and "Fuxi Nuwa", but no one recognized him.
It was not until 2000 that Huang Zhizhong finally moved his destiny. He met a high-quality TV series for the first time in "The Gate of the Mansion" and played the elder brother-in-law Huang Li of Bai Jingqi.
This is a standard image of a loyal, brave and tough guy. Even if there are not many scenes, the few rival scenes with Chen Baoguo are impressive, and they also paved the way for his future tough guy trajectory.
make a classic
For Huang Zhizhong, "The Mansion" is a stepping stone, and "Infernal Affairs 3" is an accelerator.
In the final chapter of this trilogy that saved Hong Kong films from fire and water, Shen Liang played by Huang Zhizhong was smashed in the head by Tony Leung with an ashtray.
This performance benefited from the support of his senior brother Chen Daoming (Chen Daoming also played the role of Shen Cheng), and it was the beginning of opening the door to big movies.
Years later, Huang Zhizhong played the villain in "Apostle Walker 2", and once again witnessed his high degree of plug-and-play and strong adaptability.
In 2007, Huang Zhizhong finally ushered in his own turnaround work - "Da Ming Dynasty 1566", this historical masterpiece, contributed to the strongest male group performance in history.
Huang Zhizhong not only met Chen Baoguo and Wang Qingxiang who had worked together in the past, but also met powerful Mesozoic actors such as Ni Dahong, Wang Jinsong and Zhang Zhijian.
The crew is full of talented people, full of sophisticated magnetic fields and benign chemical reactions. Everyone has a lot of energy, and they slammed Fang Qiu on the filming site, almost like Huashan's sword.
Different from making a wedding dress for Chen Baoguo in "The Gate of the House", Huang Zhizhong in "Da Ming Dynasty" rose to be one of the two male protagonists who kept pace with Chen Baoguo. This time, the two reunited for the second time. Become one of the top powerful actors.
It is worth mentioning that, "Da Ming Dynasty" initially chose Huang Zhizhong to play Zhang Juzheng, and the choice of the protagonist Hai Rui is still pending.
Huang Zhizhong worked hard, was familiar with history books, and was fully prepared, and finally pulled his teeth at the last moment and won this heavyweight role.
The play of "Da Ming Dynasty" has a clear and peculiar idea. The main story is driven by dual cores. One is Jiajing, who is at the top of power, and the prince who is the most yin and soft;
Nominally speaking, Chen Baoguo is the male lead in the play, but in terms of the number of scenes, the actual driving force and the audience's sense of identity, Hai Rui played by Huang Zhizhong is the soul of the whole play.
Since his appearance in the sixth episode, Huang Zhizhong has been in full swing, revitalizing the historical image of Hai Rui with astonishing explosive power.
In order to achieve a similar figure, Huang Zhizhong quickly lost 19 pounds in 12 days, which can be called a Bell and McConaughey-style human flesh compressor.
In the four or five months he played the role, he maintained his true state of sallow, hungry and exhausted.
According to director Zhang Li, after Huang Zhizhong was hungry to a certain extent, his eyes began to shine, and his body exuded a breath of air, which inspired the perfect state of this image.
Hai Rui's toughness, perseverance, sadness and even faith, through his melodious low voice and chilling eyes, compose the character's sincerity.
The sympathy of staring at the starving and dying in the snowy day, and the arrogance in the face of Jiajing's cross-examination in the end, are all breath-taking and breathtaking.
The audience called this version of Hai Rui "The King", but they didn't expect him to come up with a classic. Since then, Huang Zhizhong has become one of Zhang Li's royal actors.
Well-Nurtured Aura
Hai Rui is full of loyalty, filial piety and righteousness, but after all, he is a historical figure. His face is yellow, skinny, and bearded, and the actor's own charm is also obscured.
Although Huang Zhizhong is generally on the tough guy line, he is still considered to be outstanding in appearance. At this time, he is at his peak and urgently needs an image to restore his charm.
In 2009, Zhang Li recreated the historical blockbuster "The Right Way in the World is the Vicissitudes of Life", and Huang Zhizhong was selected to play Yang Liren, which can be regarded as a match made in heaven and everyone's expectations.
Like "Da Ming Dynasty", the play is also a male group play. Huang Zhizhong and the original actors Zhang Zhijian and Zheng Yu in "Da Ming Dynasty" met again, but in terms of plot design, "Human World" is to write the story of the three sisters and brothers of the Yang family. Yang Liqing, played by Sun Honglei, is the first male, and Huang Zhizhong is the second male.
However, Huang Zhizhong once again practiced the "overtaking procedure" from the second male to the first male. Although Yang Liren played by him belongs to the Kuomintang camp, in the complexly constructed family and country character pedigree, Yang Liren is highly condensed with the amount of information and complex characters. Sex has won the audience's deep recognition of Huang Zhizhong's performance.
At this time, Huang Zhizhong showed his mature style and masculine charm, while fitting in with the absurdity and sadness of the characters' fate, which made him overwhelm Sun Honglei's protagonist halo with a high degree of realism, and finally won the Feitian Award and the Magnolia Award at the Shanghai TV Festival. .
In a later interview, Huang Zhizhong believed that Yang Liren was a "lonely seeking defeat", with a fatalistic tragedy in him, "admitting his failures, but never admitting his own demise."
As a masterpiece, "The Right Way of the World is the Vicissitudes of Life" can be called a history textbook in modern China.
Since the time line is long enough, the fate of the Yang family or the character arc of Yang Liren will be long enough. The latter's identity has transitioned from a middle school teacher to a killer, a Huangpu officer, a CCP spy, and a senior Kuomintang official. Every step he takes is a witness to history. The torrent, the ups and downs of the country and the country, although Yang Liren has enough talent, opportunity, and enough determination, but the direction of the historical wheel is doomed to his continuous failure in career and love. This elite failure performed by Huang Zhizhong may be the The core strength of the play lies.
When many comments talk about the role of Yang Liren, they usually say that Chengfu is very deep and deeply affectionate. This role has a slightly gloomy appearance (this is a bit like his Wei Zhongxian in "Jin Yiwei"), but it needs to be looked at accurately. Yes, Huang Zhizhong's charm or his masculinity is not a simple tough guy line, nor is he able to play various complex characters or villains with ease, but he has a "magnificent spirit" no matter what.
This kind of arrogance gives Huang Zhizhong a kind of righteousness derived from his blood and bones when he plays any role - this is naturally inseparable from the tempering of the role of Hai Rui in "The Ming Dynasty", but more importantly, his own temperament attributes.
This kind of arrogance makes him different from other actors in the mainland film and television industry. He can play both positive and negative roles very "positively", so as to stand out and establish his own identity.
different revolutionaries
It is Huang Zhizhong's characteristic that he is good at cultivating his arrogant spirit, but it is also a double-edged sword.
The roles of the drama are varied, and the various routes are broad and profound.
To give a simple example, Chen Baoguo's domineering spirit and Liu Peiqi's playful attitude in "The Gate of the House" are typical, but if Huang Zhizhong is replaced, the charm will be halved. This is due to the way of play and the law.
This situation was confirmed in 2011's "New Sword".
This drama is a remake of a classic masterpiece, and media audiences naturally want to compare Huang Zhizhong and Li Youbin horizontally.
Judging from the effect of the finished film, Huang Zhizhong can be said to have not worked hard, but the actual effect is unsatisfactory, and it is also because his strength cannot accurately cast the essence of Li Yunlong's role: rude, marketable, rogue, ruffian, happy.
Li Youbin took a slanted sword and played the role as the villain, and eventually won countless acclaims; Huang Zhizhong started a new career and played too sonorously and orthodox, but lost the flavor.
It is true that the failure of "New Swordsman" is not unrelated to the director's philosophy and the overall casting, so that there is a lack of positive interaction between Huang Zhizhong and other actors; but this is also due to Huang Zhizhong's own reasons, that is to say, his characteristics are not so suitable. Li Yunlong, at least far less suitable for Li Yunlong than Li Youbin.
But what is lacking must have advantages, and the failure to shape Li Yunlong does not affect Huang Zhizhong's continued success in shaping other images.
On the one hand, he maintains his dominant line in dramas such as "Tianzi No. 1" and "Fengyun 1949", and on the other hand, he can also act as a steady and reliable family man in dramas such as "Home Cooking" and "Things in Our Family".
There is no doubt that Huang Zhizhong can not only control the market comedy in "Legend of the Five Skins", but also show the royal temperament in "Heju Huating".
His play is neither narrow, but more sophisticated in depth, and his vastness of accumulation makes him effective in reshaping revolutionaries.
Among these characters, the crowning touch is undoubtedly Zhu De in "Founding an Army".
As the last part of Huang Jianxin's "Founding Trilogy", "Founding an Army" is directed by director Liu Weiqiang. It is the most commercial of the three films. Among them, there are many stars. The charm of the image is higher than Mao Zedong played by Liu Ye and Zhou Enlai played by Zhu Yawen, and he has risen from the third male to the first male status.
This is what Huang Zhizhong is good at, because of his strength, but more importantly, he uses a different way of thinking to interpret Zhu De, a proletarian revolutionary.
Perhaps it was the screenwriter's intention or Huang Zhizhong's own idea. Zhu De in "The Great Cause of Founding an Army" has a kind of ancient knight-errant style that combines hardness and softness.
Before the Nanchang Uprising, he wore a long coat, shuttled between the powerful and slick, chatting and laughing in the restaurant; after the uprising, he was dressed in sassy uniform, charged in front of the crowd, commanded Ruo fixed, and was a brave general.
The more than two-minute battle mobilization declaration is touching, and it is inseparable from his superb line skills. I am afraid that any audience who has watched him appear in "Like Words" should be impressed.
Zhu De is still the same Zhu De, but the difference is that Huang Zhizhong's version captures the moment of his ideological transformation (from an old warlord to a revolutionary), reflects his inner depth, and also reshapes the character in terms of personality charm.
This is an unprecedented Zhu De, and Huang Zhizhong's deep description brings out the inner quality of this character: he was once rejected from the party due to his warlordism, and later abandoned his office to study philosophy at the University of Göttingen in Germany, just to find Marx's ideas. The Tinder footprints completed their own enlightenment (cleansing the old spirit of warlords), finally found our party in Berlin, and returned to Nanchang to make a final decision.
His firm belief and long-term footprint not only make people feel emotional, but also further understand Zhu De, a living person.
The combination of civil and military affairs, and the prudent manners, these typical masculinities are all presented in Zhu De in "The Great Cause of Founding an Army".
But this is by no means the end.
After Zhu De, he portrayed Xiao Ruijian, an ambitious emperor, Hong Yunbing, a tough father, and Yuan Longping, a meritorious academician, on the big and small screens. He continued to enrich his temperament, and he was able to accumulate a lot, and play roles with few roles (such as Lao Hulu in "Eight Hundred", the airport dispatcher in "Captain China", and President Zheng in "Together") grabbed the audience's attention.
As mentioned above, the temperaments of Chinese male actors have different pedigrees, which either develop successively or overlap in parallel, forming basic classifications and evolutionary schemas. Usually, it is easier for people to match actors with these types, which can be compatible in multiple directions or even in all directions. are few and far between.
But Huang Zhizhong seems to be a typical case. He seems to have good looks, arrogance, extravagance, inner humor and all-round charm at the same time. If most mainland Chinese-speaking male stars are representatives of unidirectionalism, then put aside the tough guy surface, Huang Zhizhong It should be the relatively comprehensive one.
Therefore, across the trajectory of the works of this late bloomer, Huang Zhizhong took rigidity as a starting point, cultivated his aura, returned to the way of civil and martial arts, and became a model of Chinese masculinity.
(The author is a Ph.D. in Film Studies and an associate professor at Southwest University of Political Science and Law)