He became China's first post-00 "ten billion box office" actor
Yi Yang Qianxi: Ordinary Luck
With the blessing of the two films "Changjin Lake Watergate Bridge" and "Miracle Stupid Child", the box office of the movies starring Yi Yang Qianxi has exceeded 10 billion in total, becoming the first post-00s billionaire box office star in China.
In addition to being able to carry the box office, the critics did not hesitate to give generous praise to his performance. After "A Little Red Flower for You", film critic Shi Hang gave his performance in "Miracle · Stupid Child" once again. High score - "Qianxi is very moving this time. In the past, the strength he showed on the screen time and time again was mostly from resistance and breaking free, jerky and brutal, but this time he was always skilled, calm, and sometimes learned A wry smile - a good actor can turn a screenwriter's blank space into a breathable space instead of an unfinished sketch, and this time, Qianxi's performance autonomy has been established without a doubt."
Then, someone raised the question: why him?
Dawn, who was born in the sky and became one of the "Four Heavenly Kings" in Hong Kong, said that "ordinaryness is her luck" when talking about his ordinary-looking daughter in the face of the media.
When I picked up the pen to write Yi Yang Qianxi, this sentence automatically popped out and became my answer to "why he".
The Time of the Day: The "Ordinary" Epic Comes in Time
Through the popularity of a star, you can get a glimpse of the style of the times and the psychology of the public.
Among the new generation of stars, Yi Yangqianxi is not very outstanding. His height is less than 180cm, and he does not have the same skin as well-maintained as actresses, and his facial features are not impeccable. To be honest, in a crowd of beautiful Among the dazzling new generation stars, he looks quite ordinary.
However, he was born at the right time - a group of "ordinary people's epics" focusing on the struggle of ordinary people have successively appeared on the big screen and continued to write good box office results.
The actors of these ordinary people on the screen can be Mesozoic actors Xu Zheng and Huang Bo, younger ones can be Zhang Yu and Wang Chuanjun, and younger ones, obviously there are fewer and fewer choices, and the new generation stars forged by the tide of capital flow Their dazzling starlight seems to have turned into a disadvantage at this time. They are too beautiful to play the role of ordinary people with their appearance. Even if they suppress the starlight or even destroy their image, they are not enough to play ordinary people. persuasive.
And Yi Yang Qianxi can, he can play an ordinary soldier, an ordinary high school student, an ordinary worker, and put him in a group of powerful actors, or in non-professional extras, He wouldn't stand out so beautifully that he wouldn't fit in with them.
Yi Yangqianxi started in the era of idol traffic as a member of "TFBOYS". With his image and temperament, if the era of idol traffic continues, he may not be the most shining one when he grows up. In the past few years from his youth to adulthood, the tide of Chinese cultural creation has undergone profound changes.
Looking at the country, there are not many new-generation male stars who have the reputation and recognition that reassures the capital, the strength and acting skills to make the audience and film critics buy it, and there are not many new-generation male stars. Among the gaps, Yi Yang Qianxi stretched out and stood out, becoming the best choice in the market.
In the next few years, it is foreseeable that Yi Yang Qianxi will continue to be popular because he has established his own closed loop of virtuous circle.
The troubles that some actors complained about not being able to make a film may not exist for him. Due to the success of previous projects, more projects have been found to find him, and the surplus projects have also ensured that he can choose the best among them. The high-quality production also ensures the quality of the output, which further consolidates the binding effect of his performances with high box office and good reputation, and promotes more choices and better results.
Location: Audiences prefer boys who are not "good"
The popularity of Yi Yangqianxi is a counter-offensive to the trend of "beautiful children" in the process of raising boys in Chinese society.
We have all heard of the East Asian culture's obsession with women's "skinny, white and young" aesthetics, and there is also a trend that needs to be alerted to the upbringing and domestication of boys - "beautiful and good young", "beautiful" refers to boys It also pursues exquisite beauty like girls. "Good" refers to being well-behaved and sensible, and completely removes the rebellious, offensive and aggressive factors in boys. "Young" refers to keeping boys in a boyish state instead of growing into a strong one. Even a little rough manly.
Of course, the so-called "man" cannot be narrowly limited to appearance, but more should be understood as a state of mind. Some "big guy" male stars who love to lift iron, although they are sturdy and impressive, they match a human animal. A harmless innocent face, always a face that strives to please, still feels like a big boy, not a man.
The impressive male screen images in film and television works are often more destructive, impactful, and rebellious men. Think of the famous actors in the movie history - Marlon Brando, Toshiro Mifune, Sean Penn , the original unrestrained, untamed and dangerous atmosphere of their body is unforgettable.
Looking back at the 1980s and 1990s, some of the most popular young male stars in my country’s film and television industry—Jiang Wen, Wang Zhiwen, and Chen Daoming, although they were all young men in their early twenties at the time, had distinct personalities and were unruly in the world. The classic film and television images are all rubbed with their unique character background.
In contrast, the current new generation of male stars seems too "good", only Yi Yang Qianxi, Ou Hao, Qu Chuxiao and others still retain a little bit of rebelliousness, collision, uncompromising aggressiveness and destructiveness.
Due to the popularity of idol dramas and sweet pet dramas in the traffic era, the roles and performance modes of a group of new-generation male stars have always remained in a state for young audiences, which is light and profound.
It can be clearly seen that several works of Yi Yangqianxi who entered the film circle are just the opposite. Before the age of 20, he boldly tried very mature, social and even sharp and cruel themes.
The young Yi Yang Qianxi shows a very precocious side in casting and acting. His body is mixed with the feeling of a boy and a man, which makes his temperament more diverse and varied, and also broadens his role selection and performance. Domain, of course, in these works he starred in, the director also consciously used and amplified this point. Because Yi Yang Qianxi was chosen to play the role, he consciously made the characters and the actors closer when setting the characters in the film. , This kind of tailor-made also helped Yi Yang Qianxi's performance to be more real and natural.
In the play, Yi Yangqianxi is always placed in a cruel environment that has a huge sense of incongruity with his age, such as the soldiers of the Republic who are fighting the enemy's life and death by the icy Changjin Lake, such as "Miracle · Stupidity" In "Children", he became an entrepreneurial hero of an electronic component factory in order to save his younger sister. The fragile and fragile feeling unique to the boy and his stubborn and firm manhood are like two parties in a tug-of-war, wrestling with each other, forming a unique tension in his performance.
Wen Muye, director of "Miracle: Stupid Child" said, "Qianxi has a sense of vulnerability, which is very rare. What he has to bear on his back is far greater than what he should bear at his age, and he dares to betray others. In front of you, people who are hidden and vulnerable are strong. It seems that you have a hard shell, but there is a little crack, and that crack is the most moving."
Yi Yang Qianxi's face is not perfect, and it is this imperfection that makes him unique.
His face is a subtle combination of stubbornness and fragility. His eyebrows and eyes are obviously raised, with unruly aggression. The contours of his nose and chin are not fine enough, which gives his face a strong sense of roughness. In addition, the lip beads are like a small downward arrow, giving the whole face a sense of coldness beyond his real age. When he does not make an expression or his face is tense, it is easy to produce a stubborn sense of confrontation.
And once he laughed, he instantly broke his power, and the wide open arc of his mouth showed the foolishness of a young man. The most special thing was that there were two small pear vortexes that rarely appeared on a man's face.
There is no distinction between men and women with pear vortex, and they have their own sweetness. Yi Yang Qianxi's smile instantly melted away the hardness and roughness of his face like spring water melted ice, and the soft and even sweet feeling prevailed.
Ang Lee said that the face of being a movie actor is God's reward, and the wonderful contrast on Yi Yangqianxi's face is the gift of God. With just one change of expression, the feeling can change from hard to hard. Soft, from bitter to sweet.
Renhe: Concentrate on forging the highlight moments of acting skills
No matter how good the opportunity, no matter how good the talent, is inseparable from the hard work and hard work to move forward firmly towards the goal.
After a short test in the TV series "Twelve Hours in Chang'an" and "Qing Yunzhi", Yi Yang Qianxi ushered in his big screen debut "Youth You" in 2019, and won the 2020 award for the role of Xiaobei. The Best Newcomer Award at the 35th Popular Film Hundred Flowers Awards successfully propelled him to the big screen.
Originally, the audience's attention paid more attention to the heroine Zhou Dongyu. At the age of nearly 30, it was more difficult for her to convincingly play the role of a high school girl than Yi Yang Qianxi playing a stubborn and rebellious teenager with clear grievances, but Yi Yang Qianxi was more difficult. As a post-00 star, he can steadily catch Zhou Dongyu's opponent in the film, and he can vividly and freely perform a Xiaobei who makes the audience feel distressed.
In fact, Yi Yangqianxi was not the first person to play Xiaobei when he first cast the role, because the director felt that he was still a child when he saw him for the first time, and the character "Xiaobei", whether in temperament or appearance, They should all be a little more mature than him. The most important thing is that Yi Yang Qianxi does not have the ruthlessness and paranoia that the character "Xiao Bei" should have.
However, this role is destined to be Yi Yangqianxi. After half a year, the director has not found a suitable candidate, and Yi Yangqianxi, who appeared in front of him again, has grown up a lot, and his eyes are more firm. Completely different, the director felt: Yi Yang Qianxi is ready.
The transformation in the process of competing in "Youth as a Younger" is like turning into a butterfly. From then on, Yi Yang Qianxi pierced through the layer of window paper for the performance and suddenly became enlightened.
After the release of "A Little Red Flower for You", some film critics said that they knew that Yi Yang Qianxi had "made it" as an actor after seeing the scene where Wei Yihang was drunk to confess his love to the girl.
That scene is the eye of the film, a concentrated outlet of many emotions suppressed in the first half of the film, like a volcanic eruption, and Yi Yang Qianxi's handling is both powerful enough and very delicate, so it becomes Yi Yang Qianxi's treatment. Acting moment.
His body language is loose and deformed, accurately showing a person's out-of-control state after drinking. It is this exact out-of-control state that makes Wei Yihang's confession to his beloved girl particularly real and moving.
From the impulsive slap on the iron gate of Ma Xiaoyuan's house, to the moment when he flinched after Ma Xiaoyuan suddenly went out, to the courage to pour out his love to the girl he loves while drinking, and finally to realize that he is a dying person at all. The loss and decadence of qualified love, the twists and turns of ups and downs, the transition is natural and almost no trace, and it truly meets the director Han Yan's requirements for the film's emotions - "I don't want to play that emotion so accurately, I need a complex emotion."
Compared with "Young You", the performance of "A Little Red Flower for You" is more mature, and he can clearly see his progress. Director Han Yan believes that "Qianxi's understanding of the script and the seriousness of character shaping. And the desire is very strong, and he has been studying in the Chinese Opera for two years, and he has learned a lot, learned a lot of skills and the handle of shaping characters, which has been well released in the film."
In the interview, Yi Yangqianxi, who didn't speak much, showed very mature thinking when talking about the understanding and expression of Wei Yihang's role - "I think it is more difficult to describe the word ordinary, Because ordinary life dramas are very difficult to act, and ordinary people's dramas are also very difficult to act, because everyone is ordinary people, what you do is fake, what is unreal and unnatural, everyone can see it at a glance, you can feel that there is something I feel that we are not like this, that kind of small details, mainly depends on the atmosphere, whether you are like a family or not, this kind of thing will be more difficult to grasp."
He decided to use details to build up the characters in the daily scenes like a daily life account, such as eating. Every time he eats, he takes the chopsticks very quickly, and he almost pinches the ends of the chopsticks. This is the design he made for the characters, because China There is a saying, chopsticks are far away from home, and a sick child like him can't go far, so he always takes chopsticks so far.
Through "Giving You a Little Red Flower", he learned how to interpret the ordinary with details, and also found a relaxed performance state. Director Han Yan and Zhu Yuanyuan, who played the mother, were amazed at the relaxation of Yi Yang Qianxi. "This kind of relaxation is also a kind of talent, it is not trained, and some people do not relax when they play for a lifetime."
When it comes to "Changjin Lake", the biggest challenge for Yi Yang Qianxi is physical fitness and sense of the times. He is also a stupefied teenager with some rebellious spirit. In the 21st century, Yi Yang Qianxi fought with Gazi and Pan Dongzi in the last century. The little hero is clearly marked by a different era.
Compared with the military uniform that can blur the sense of the times, what amazes me most in "Changjin Lake" is the appearance of Yi Yang Qianxi in his hometown. He wears the short jacket and shorts of a fisherman in the early days of the founding of New China, with a steel needle-like edge. The frying hair is low and low on the eyebrows, and the mischievous and stubborn eyes are like the morning sun that occasionally flashes in the dense bushes, disappearing and appearing.
The skinny little arms and thin legs exposed outside the trousers are especially in line with the unique texture of the era when the material was not rich. For a few moments, it will remind people of Zhang Leping's Sanmao, a few years older. .
For the new generation of stars, it is not easy to get as close as possible to and restore the distant era they are not familiar with across the distance of the era. The seniors Wu Jing, Duan Yihong, and Hu Jun of the crew gnawed hard potatoes together in the ice and snow, and to truly feel the extreme cold and hunger, it also requires a keen understanding, awareness and expression of an art creator.
The former is hard work, while the latter is undeniably a talent.
Because "Miracle · Stupid Child" and "A Little Red Flower for You" are both contemporary urban youths, it is a challenge to break through the homogeneity in performance.
After watching "Miracle", the author believes that although the characters in the two films are similar and cannot be clearly distinguished in appearance, the mental states of the two characters are actually quite different. That is - although the age is similar, Yi Yang Qianxi played a boy in "A Little Red Flower for You", and he played a man in "Miracle: Stupid Child".
The protagonist in "A Little Red Flower for You" suffers from cancer and is cared for by everyone, so his state is always the state of a big child. Facing the death god who follows him like a shadow, and the sudden first love, his The responses are all boyish.
The protagonist in "Miracle: Stupid Child" has no parents and is raising his young sister alone. He entered the adult world ahead of time and is a character close to a single father, so most of his reactions are man-like, only in life At the most helpless moment in the lowest valley, when he was penniless, the typhoon knocked down the factory, and he had to announce to the employees that the factory could not continue, he rarely retreated to a lonely child.
When writing the script, Wen Muye felt that among the young actors of this age group, Yi Yang Qianxi was the most suitable candidate. After writing the script, he was even more certain, because "faced with all kinds of difficulties, he must be stubborn and tough. And can't make the audience feel hypocritical and blunt", Yi Yang Qianxi did it.
Jing Hao, played by him, was forced into a dead end in a scene where he asked his former friend to get back a loan. And body, are not beautiful, but in line with the reality of this character.
Yi Yang Qianxi completely ignored the beauty of her image in order to pursue the authenticity of her performance.
He is no longer an idol, but a real actor.
When an idol is 30 years old, he has to consider transformation, while an actor can act until he is old. Yi Yang Qianxi, who has just turned 21, still has a long way to go.
Author: Zhou Zhou (Associate Researcher of China Film Art Research Center)