"Changjin Lake" and "Wolf Warrior 2" are the box office champions and runners-up in Chinese film history. The cumulative box office of the films has exceeded 28 billion
Wu Jing: There is no such thing as Wu Jing defeating Wu Jing is that Chinese films are advancing step by step
After filming the films "Changjin Lake" and "Changjin Lake: Watergate Bridge", Wu Jing felt that he had matured a lot, and what made him sigh was that his son "Wu So-called" had also changed, "He usually 'doesn't matter', but watching After "Changjin Lake", he cut an inch, and he asked his mother to ice a potato for him, and he ate it. I think, this is the meaning of our filming this theme and making these movies. We have to tell us What a hard-won happy life today.”
"Changjin Lake", "Changjin Lake Watergate Bridge", "Wolf Warrior 2" and several other films have made the cumulative box office of the films starring Wu Jing exceed 28 billion, becoming the well-deserved "box office king". It casts an "olive branch".
In 2021, the movie "Changjin Lake" will become the number one box office in China's film history, and "Wolf Warrior 2", directed and acted by Wu Jing, retired to the runner-up position. Some netizens joked that "only Wu Jing can defeat Wu Jing". In this regard, Wu Jing said , I was particularly fortunate to participate in the filming of "Changjin Lake" and "Changjin Lake: Water Gate Bridge", "This is an unforgettable experience. There is no such thing as 'Wu Jing defeated Wu Jing'. Higher mountains go forward. I am just fortunate to participate in the performance. My teacher Zhang Xinyan once said to me: 'As an actor, you have the responsibility and obligation to make all the staff happy and make them believe in you, because the final achievement is the film. 'I think if "Changjin Lake" didn't have me, it would have achieved such good results."
Chinese men are stupid, but Chinese men can carry them on their shoulders
Q: How did you first receive the invitation for the role of Wu Qianli in "Changjin Lake"?
Wu Jing: It seems that in November 2019, Mr. Yu Dong, chairman of Bona Film Group, came to me, introduced this project to me, and wanted to invite me to play.
I was in the recovery phase when he "carried" me out of the hospital.
I leaned on crutches and said to him with the film in my hand, "Look at me like this, can I play a warrior?"
Q: What moved you later and made you decide to take on the role even with an injury?
Wu Jing: After reading this script, I cried several times because many scenes in the play brought tears to my eyes.
What strikes me is the kind of genuine emotion that touches the deepest, softest part of your heart.
In the end, I chose to take the role.
Now that the show is over, I consider myself very lucky.
Q: Did you get hurt again during filming?
Has the old injury on the leg returned?
Wu Jing: There are injuries.
As for the old injury, our directors are all very smart. The directors of the three groups said: "Oh, you have an injury in your leg, so let's let your leg hurt in the play." So they arranged for Wu Qianli to be there. The leg was injured in the film, so that when I was running, it was very real.
Q: You have played military roles many times. What are the similarities and differences between Wu Qianli and your previous performances?
Wu Jing: The same thing is that they are all ordinary soldiers in the Chinese military. The difference is that Wu Qianli is a company commander. He is like a brother who has to take care of everyone in the company. He has the responsibility to let them go home safely. .
Therefore, Wu Qianli has a lot of things on his back, but he can't show too much on the outside. He is a person who is very soft on the inside and strong on the outside.
Q: Do you think you have any similarities with Wu Qianli?
Wu Jing: I think I have the character traits of Wu Qianli, for example, in dealing with parents.
I left home at the age of 9 and worked hard outside for 20 years, but the emotional ties to my family have always been in my heart.
Wu Qianli's experience is very similar to mine.
I have experienced life and death, of course, not fighting like Wu Qianli, but in the process of filming and practicing martial arts, I have also experienced some life tests and experienced some dangers.
Wu Qianli is a typical Chinese man.
Chinese men have a kind of strength to carry it, and they are willing to keep their warm and vulnerable side in their hearts, and show their strong side to others, so that everyone can see his strongest side.
Chinese men are not good at expressing themselves and will never say to their mother, "Mom, I love you." He may use his actions to make his mother have a better life.
He may not say to his wife: "Wife, I love you so much." However, he may do his best for his family and let his family live a happy life.
He won't say: "Son, you are so good, Dad loves you so much." But when something happens to his son, he even sacrifices his life to protect his own child.
Chinese men are stupid, but Chinese men can carry them on their shoulders.
Chinese men are like a piece of iron on the surface, but they are actually a piece of sugar in their hearts.
Reverence for the ancestors, for fear that there will be a slight mistake in my performance
Q: You have a military temperament, so that Director Lin Chaoxian once thought that you were indeed a soldier. How do you understand the military and military spirit?
Wu Jing: Soldiers have the responsibility to protect their families and the country, and soldiers have the obligation to take responsibility for the word "military".
I think when you can take on this responsibility, or when you yearn for it, no matter who you are, no matter what you look like, you will naturally show the responsibility and temperament of a soldier.
I think this is military manliness.
Q: How do you think about Wu Qianli's action scenes?
Wu Jing: How to restore the real battlefield and try to remove the decoration of some previous action movies, this is my biggest challenge.
Because the military training I received before was relatively modern, with the taste of modern special forces.
And the postures of soldiers holding guns, charging, marching, and fighting in the 1950s are not skills that I have mastered.
When shooting action scenes, I have to control this degree all the time, which is more difficult.
In addition, I have some martial arts skills, which sometimes makes me naturally take on a heroic style, which requires me to control myself at any time.
Q: Director Tsui Hark said with emotion that he had never seen such a group of people chatting about characters on the set and in the hotel. What inspired everyone's creative enthusiasm?
Wu Jing: Awe.
It is because of the awe of the ancestors, for fear that if there is a slight mistake in his performance, he will be sorry for the sacrifices of these martyrs.
On the set, a lot of times we created it together, and a lot of the shots were created together by everyone.
I have rarely experienced such a movie. Whether it is the director, the screenwriter or our producer, everyone works together for one thing. In the end, you can't even tell which sentence is said by which person. It is a combination of Everyone's blood.
Q: Have you learned any valuable experience from working with three great directors, Chen Kaige, Tsui Hark, and Lin Chaoxian at the same time?
Wu Jing: I learned a lot from the three directors, and I can see different things from each of them.
I have a habit of going to the scene and seeing this scene, I would think, "If it were me, what would I do?" If the director's choice was different from mine, I would ask the director why you did it.
The directors are nice to me, they tell me what their thoughts are.
If there are such shots in the future, I will add my thoughts and their thoughts. Will there be another kind of thoughts?
So I think I have gained a lot from this play.
This time, I learned a lot from the directors and the photographers.
Because our current machine is not the same as before, and the conversion of lenses is also different, including color grading, including the use of lenses, I have learned a lot and accumulated some experience for my future films.
I think it is a great asset for me.
Q: In your opinion, is there any difference in the styles of the three directors?
Wu Jing: Director Chen Kaige's pictures are very particular about color, composition, lighting effects and color matching. He is a romantic poet.
Director Tsui Hark, as everyone knows, he is "Old Monster Xu". I have worked with Director Tsui Hark before, and this time I want to learn from him and "change".
He changed too fast, and when he changed, his perspective was completely different from what you thought. He was very courageous and dared to implement.
Director Tsui Hark often says, "I'm also learning, and I've learned a lot from everyone." Even Director Xu is learning, so why don't we study?
Director Lin Chaoxian's filming is like fighting a war. Step by step, he pushes forward little by little, without rushing, and everything is advancing according to the industrial process, and it is within his own control.
I'm an action actor, I've never thought about being praised for crying scenes
Q: In the movie, the brotherhood of Wu Qianli and Wu Wanli touched many people.
Wu Jing: Indeed, the relationship between the brothers needs to be pondered by me.
The age gap between me and Qianxi is relatively large. If I really worked hard back then, my son would be so old.
When I was acting on the set, I was thinking about what kind of feeling I felt for him.
So I imagined him as my son, and that emotion came out naturally.
After I became a father, my heart became softer and my eyes became shallower.
There is a scene in the play that both Director Chen Kaige and Director Tsui Hark particularly liked--I rubbed my brother Wu Wanli's face into a steamed bun.
Actually, that's what I usually do with my son, but think about it, if you make Wu Wanli a bun face, and he's about to go to war, if this is your son... think about me My heart will be sour, and tears will flow out. Maybe I am old.
I think that the soft part of Wu Qianli and I are actually quite similar. I don't need to act deliberately, I naturally show it.
Q: Outside of the role, what is your relationship with Yi Yang Qianxi?
Wu Jing: Yi Yang Qianxi is a relatively silent child, but he has a strong sense of cinema.
He is very indifferent, his maturity, his knowledge of movies, his acting, you will think he is not like a young actor, he is really a genius.
From the beginning of the preparation of this play to the completion of the drama, we are both together.
Although he doesn't talk much, he can understand each other's meaning with just one look when acting. We have a tacit understanding, and the feelings between brothers are naturally developed.
This young man, Yi Yang Qianxi, is invaluable.
I came in with a cane, and my crutch was passed on to my brother.
Yi Yangqianxi injured his ligament during the filming of "Changjin Lake". There was a slope outside the studio. When he couldn't climb up with a crutch, he dropped the crutch and climbed to the studio on his knees.
When I saw that scene, I really felt that this young man had a bright future.
Q: Did anything memorable happen on set?
I heard everyone is working hard.
Wu Jing: This is a big family, brothers love each other.
In the set, we have a small room.
It was very cold during filming. When we came back from filming, we would get together to eat hot pot, summarize today’s shots, performances, and talk about what happened today.
It's freezing and snowing outside, and our room is so happy.
Each of the soldiers of our Seventh Company looks like an animal, so we call ourselves "Seventh Company and Six Beasts".
Brother Hu Jun is a big bear, Li Chen is a great ape, Han Dongjun is a leopard, Qianxi is a little wolf cub, Mei Sheng is a fox, and I am a wolf.
I think the actors this time are all very good, without any hypocrisy, they are really very dedicated and professional crew.
For example, Zhu Yawen, he is not an action actor, there is a scene where he rolls down a hillside, and in one shot, his head almost hit a tree.
In order to make this scene well, he rolled all night and encountered unpredictable risks with each shot.
When Li Chen was filming a scene, he injured his eye, but after he was injured in the eye, he continued to come.
There is also a big scene of Hu Jun's big brother, because the director wants to shoot 360 degrees, we have to cry every one, Hu Jun big brother has to cooperate with us in 360 degrees, and he will "bleed" every time he shoots, in winter When the blood flowed to the body, it was sticky, cold, and icy, and scabbed.
Actors are often most afraid of crying scenes, because they are afraid of exhausted emotions and tears, and sometimes they can't cry, but in order to achieve each other, they are using sincere feelings for each other.
In such a cold weather, everyone has no complaints and no regrets, and fully devoted themselves to this play. We are brothers inside and outside the play.
Q: Every crying scene in the movie is very contagious, such as the scene where you return to your hometown to kowtow to your parents. How did you grasp it?
Wu Jing: I am an action actor, and I never thought that my crying scene would be praised by others.
I think it is because of this sincerity, because of the simple feelings Chinese people have towards their parents, elders, brothers, and comrades-in-arms. I think we all have in our hearts.
And we, the actors, have lived together for so long and are very familiar with each other, not to mention that there are such good dialogues and such great emotions as support in the play.
Even if we don't have to perform anything, we naturally enter the emotional world in the play.
Speaking of my parents, in fact, during the filming, my father happened to be hospitalized for a cerebral thrombosis. My father, mother, and sister didn't tell me that they were afraid of affecting my work.
Later, when my father was recuperating, the family told me.
When Wu Qianli saw his parents kowtow in the scene when he returned to his hometown, if they were your real parents, how could you not be moved when they faced you with the simplest and greatest emotion?
So these don't need to be played.
"Changjin Lake" and "Changjin Lake's Water Gate Bridge" will fully affect my life
Q: Filming "Changjin Lake" and "Changjin Lake: Water Gate Bridge" must have been unprecedentedly difficult, right?
How do you feel?
Wu Jing: Although our shooting environment was very difficult, the volunteer soldiers of the year still won this battle under such difficult conditions. We have no reason to complete it in a comfortable environment. This is wrong.
So each actor does this in his own state, and we only have to enjoy the process.
One night, I fell asleep on the set with Li Chen and Yi Yang Qianxi. The temperature that day was -23°C.
We sat on the ground for almost two hours, and the cold air poured into our stomachs from the ground, and our stomachs were bulging.
We still have hot water to drink, but those soldiers didn't have it.
It was only that day that I really realized why it was really exhausting to say "you will fall asleep when you are cold."
We feel the real cold, and we will admire those seniors who won the battle under such difficult conditions.
Another day, we heard that it was going to cool down, and the coldest time of the day could reach -37°C.
On that day, the South Pole was -38°C and the North Pole was -39°C.
We all wore thick cotton coats with added thicker underwear and thermals.
But when we got to the set, Director Tsui Hark said that the wind was not strong enough, so he arranged for a wind cannon to blow the snow, which made us feel chills and tears could not stop flowing down.
The director asked us to pay attention and keep our eyes open.
The wind made half of our faces numb, and poured down our necks into our bodies.
That feeling really is that you want to run after one shot, but you really can't run after one shot, because you have to keep burying your seat and wait here.
During the filming of "Shuimen Bridge of Changjin Lake", one day, I was shooting a scene where I rushed into the enemy's command post. Because the wind direction suddenly changed, the wind set the command post on fire, and I was trapped in the house. Now, I heard Director Tsui Hark shouting loudly on the walkie-talkie: "Go in and save people! Come in and save people!"
When we were filming the scene in the fire, it was very hot inside, and I couldn’t hold back. We missed the ice and snow so much at that time; however, when we arrived at the ice and snow, I felt it was too cold, and I wanted to hurry up and go to the fire. Warm and warm... This kind of torment of ice and fire will help us to better shape the characters and find the feeling of the characters. The environment on the set stimulates every nerve of ours.
Q: After filming "Changjin Lake" and "Changjin Lake: Water Gate Bridge", what was your biggest feeling?
Wu Jing: I am very fortunate to have participated in the filming of "Changjin Lake" and "Changjin Lake's Water Gate Bridge". These two films will fully influence my life.
I hope our performance will not embarrass the veterans of the volunteer army.
Back then, so many senior volunteers lost their lives. What can we complain about now?
We should cherish the present life and cherish the happiness of the present.
I really want those martyrs who fought against U.S. aggression and aided Korea to see today's China - this prosperous world, as you wish.
Q: "Changjin Lake" has become the No. 1 box office in Chinese film history. Everyone says that "only Wu Jing can beat Wu Jing". What do you think of this?
Wu Jing: I am particularly honored to participate in the filming of "Changjin Lake" and "Changjin Lake Water Gate Bridge", which is an unforgettable experience.
There is no such thing as "Wu Jing defeated Wu Jing", it is Chinese movies that are advancing step by step, moving towards a higher mountain.
I'm just privileged to be a part of it, privileged to be on the show.
Text / Photo courtesy of Xiao You / Bona