Chinanews.com, January 1 (Zhao Yifan) "Flowers" came to an end, and the audience was able to relive an old dream about Shanghai under the lens of Wong Kar-wai. Among them, there is one person who stands out from the gorgeous cast in the play, which makes everyone unforgettable - the "uncle" played by You Benchang.

This Shanghai "old mage" taught the law of the ups and downs of the Bao Zong Shang Sea played by Hu Ge, and became his safest hole card. Every time he uses means to turn evil into good fortune, there will be people in the barrage who recall "like Grandpa Ji". Netizens couldn't help but sigh in the comment area: When I was a child, I wanted to learn magic from Jigong, and when I grew up, I wanted to learn from my uncle.

From Jigong to uncle, You Benchang has once again become a "living immortal" engraved into the DNA of Chinese children.

The first half of his life was dumb

Wong Kar-wai's works are exquisitely aesthetically crafted, especially in the opening. Like "The Grandmaster", which opens from a rainy night fight, the rain and pace are dense and rapid in slow motion, and all the chaos stops at the punch of Ip Man played by Tony Leung to lay the victory.

The same goes for the beginning of "Flowers". A car accident comes suddenly, the life and death of the protagonist of the story are uncertain, and when the surrounding crowd is leaderless, a person calmly appears and throws a sentence of "Yi can't die" to calm the noise.

It was the "uncle" played by You Benchang who came. He's the punch that lays the nail on the batter.

In the story, the grandfather is the beginning of all success. Under his guidance and packaging, the protagonist Ah Bao began his life as "Mr. Bao", and in the process, the first scene that made many audiences unforgettable was born.

Looking at Ah Bao, who had become dressed as an upper-class person, Uncle Grandpa's eyes instantly burst into tears, and looking at Ah Bao as if he was looking at something through him, like a calloused hoarse throat ready to start telling a story, mobilizing all his facial muscles but swallowing the first note dumbly.

Uncle may have seen himself who once dominated the Huangpu River. After filming this scene, You Benchang cried silently for a long time with the support of the staff, holding the director to blame himself for being "too slow", and he kept crying and sighing when he sat in front of the monitor to watch the playback, and the paper in his palm was wet again and again.

Some netizens turned out photos of him when he was young, and there are too many similarities with Hu Ge dressed by Mr. Bao. Netizens said that grandpa saw the former "You Benchang".

You Benchang when he was young

Unlike the young actors who shine in "Flowers", You Benchang is actually not from Shanghai. He was born in Taizhou, Jiangsu Province in 1933, and as the only boy in the family, he was frail and sickly since he was a child, and others said that he looked "not more than 13 years old".

By chance, a monk passed by the door of his house, looked at You Benchang, who was only 6 years old, and said: "This child has a bumpy fate, but there is a glimmer of chance, take refuge in my Buddha, and get good results." In this way, his parents sent him to the Fazang Monastery in Shanghai to worship Venerable Xingci as his teacher, and only after he passed the 13-year-old hurdle did his parents pick him up when he reached the age of 15.

In this way, he formed a fate with Buddhism and Shanghai.

After entering high school, he actively participated in the school's troupe activities because of his love for drama, and later won an award for the drama he rehearsed, which was favored by the Nanjing Art Troupe, but he refused. Because he was only in his second year of high school, he wanted to wait until he graduated. A leader of the Federation of Literary and Art Circles also admired him, and said to him earnestly: "You do literature and art, there are three standards - first, milk, which brings nutrition to the audience. Second, if it doesn't work, it's plain water, at least to quench your thirst. Thirdly, harmful poisons must not be supplied. ”

In 1951, 18-year-old You Benchang graduated from high school and successfully entered the Nanjing Art Troupe, and a year later was escorted to the performance department of the East China Branch of the Central Academy of Drama, which was later known as the Shanghai Theater Academy. In the past few years of studying acting, he used all his strength to learn his skills, watched Soviet movies like crazy, and slept in the rehearsal hall when he was sleepy.

You Benchang when he was young

Finally, he won the first place in the graduation examination and was assigned to Beijing, where he became the first batch of young actors trained in New China at the Central Experimental Theater (now the National Theater of China). But the excellent results did not bring him many opportunities to get ahead. Many of the roles he got were picked by others.

As for the reason, You Benchang said that he "has too low emotional intelligence", he is not very good at dealing with people, and he does not compete, so he always takes over the small role quietly in the end.

It wasn't until the eighties that pantomime quietly emerged in China. After watching the performances of foreign masters, You Benchang set off a huge wave in his heart. He immediately decided that he wanted to have an evening party dedicated to pantomime. A year later, his gala landed, and the tickets were sold out in less than 90 minutes, and the original 3 performances were directly added to 11. You Benchang often sweats profusely, and even changes his sweaty shirt four times in one night.

In the audience, there was a middle-aged man who watched it with relish. His name is Huang Yihe, he is the director of the first CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and he also invited You Benchang to perform the pantomime "Shower" on the Spring Festival Gala.

You Benchang performs the pantomime "Shower" on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala

Become Jigong

If you ask You Benchang what the earliest recognized role is, everyone may think that it is Jigong, but in his own eyes, there is another answer.

In a Douyin filmed by You Benchang last year, his daughter asked him this question, and he replied that it was "Thor". When he was younger, he was responsible for the sound effects of thunder in the backstage of "The Great Thunderstorm". The muffled thunder in the distance was rolled on the floor with lead balls, the thunderbolts that erupted were shaken out with two-meter-long iron sheets, and the thunderbolts were shaken back and forth with three splints.

Halfway through the play, some audience members began to worry that they had not brought an umbrella; after the performance, the foreign theater delegation insisted on going backstage to find out.

Later, he played the role of "serf" in the same play, the role did not have a single line, only needed to follow the noble lady to the other end of the stage, and appeared for a total of more than ten seconds. For these ten seconds, You Benchang flipped through 19 translations of "The Great Thunderstorm", and finally starred in the image of being blind and lame. A foreign expert was amazed that it was the serf's interpretation that explained the meaning of the whole play.

Slowly, he gradually became known in the drama circle as a "big actor who plays small roles".

You Benchang and Lei Kesheng, Huang Xiaoli, and Li Xuejian collaborated on the drama "Old Stubborn"

In 1980, the famous director Cen Fan wanted to start filming the movie "The True Story of Ah Q". After seeing Yau Benchang's performance, Xie Tian, another famous director, felt that he could play Ah Q, so he encouraged him to recommend himself. You Benchang, who has always been indisputable, also thought that this was a rare opportunity, so he mustered up the courage to write a letter to the director for the first time in his life. It's a pity that the director didn't know anything about You Benchang, but took a fancy to his student Yan Shunkai, and he gave up this idea after learning about it.

Four years later, You Benchang saw the news of the TV series "Jigong" in the newspaper, which is a character he has liked very much since he was a child, when he was less than ten years old, he had a small porcelain statue of Jigong at home, and when he was in the fourth grade of primary school, he often went to listen to Shen Xiaomei talk about Jigong after school. When he was holding back his strength again and wanting to recommend himself, he saw that someone had already negotiated with the filming party, and this person was Yan Shunkai again.

He chose not to fight again, leaving the opportunity to the students, and never thought about this role again. His lover also felt sorry for him, "You are really an unlucky actor." ”

But luck is really indescribable, this time it was not thunder that sounded in the distance, but the drumbeat of advance. When You Benchang was performing in Dalian, he suddenly received a call from his wife, saying that Shanghai TV had watched his drama performance and invited him to star in "Jigong".

At the age of 51, You Benchang finally had his first "tome" screen drama. He has told the story of filming Jigong countless times: after waking up at noon one day, he walked with his shoes and found the feeling of Jigong; filmed in a temperature of 39 degrees and forcibly swallowed the already smelly elbow prepared by the crew the day before; the extras who played the board felt sorry for him and didn't dare to really fight, so the scene of hitting the board was filmed back and forth 12 times, and he was also beaten 12 times......

Stills from "Jigong" in 1985

After experiencing these, the TV series "Jigong" was broadcast in 1985 and became popular all over the country. In those years, there was no child who was not the "doll" of Jigong's grandfather, and no family's pu fan could spend a complete summer.

After becoming "Jigong", You Benchang followed the central delegation to perform in various places for several years. At an altitude of 4500,6 meters in Tibet, the oxygen is thin, and You Benchang sings the two sentences of Jigong Song "Hey" to secretly ease his breath. After the performance, he received a little Hada from his two children backstage. Unlike the usual ones, they are two small ones like gauze bandages. At that time, Tibet had just finished showing the Tibetan version of <> episodes of "Jigong", and the children told the grandfather "Jigong" before leaving that they wanted to watch it again if they hadn't seen enough of the play.

At that time, the popularity of "Jigong" actually became an obstacle to making a sequel, this is not something that "someone" can decide, and no one dares to gamble at the risk of a sharp decline in word-of-mouth, "Take it when you see it, don't smash the pot." But You Benchang understands that he must do it, at least two Tibetan "dolls" are waiting for him, and as for reputation and reputation, the two Hada "are my highest reward."

So in 1998, his 20 episodes of "Jigong Travels" met with the "dolls" again.

Screenshot of the 20170122 issue of "Chinese Literature and Art".

The second half of his life

From the perspective of most people, after You Benchang starred in "Jigong Travel", except for occasional reruns on local stations, he slowly lost contact with us like his childhood. Later, there were even rumors every few years that the grandfather who played "Jigong" died.

reappeared in the public eye, probably the short video explosion in 2018. In the video, You Benchang picked up Jigong's appearance again, and a broken pu fan swayed, instantly bringing many people's thoughts back to the summer of more than <> years ago.

Screenshot of You Benchang's social media

You Benchang's appearance this time is for his own "Jigong School". One day, You Benchang was walking on the road and saw a large schoolbag moving. When he looked closer, he saw that it was a child. He was shocked that the burden on children is so great now, so he thought about how to use his profession to bring happiness to children.

So in 2017, the "Jigong School" opened and recruited a group of children to do the special training camp for virtue and art. On the first day of the camp, You Benchang announced that all tuition fees would be refunded, and the special training camp became a public welfare training camp. The children were overjoyed, and he said he had reaped "the greatest happiness".

This is just the tip of the iceberg of You Benchang's drama education. He put a lot of effort into teaching his art troupe students. Many of these students are unsuccessful students, "The school doesn't want you, grandpa wants you." ”

In the years when he lost contact in the middle, You Benchang was actually not idle.

The savings saved by the Gong of Pai Ji, You Benchang all lost his money. Seeing the scarcity of works that promote the positive energy of history in the market, he filmed "Lifan", and in order to let everyone know that there is no "dumb" in Chinese pantomime, he filmed the pantomime TV series "Mr. You Smiled Dumbly". After the filming of these works, it was like a mud bodhisattva entering the water, without any commercial repercussions, but You Benchang never regretted it.

In 2009, he was invited to participate in the drama "Master Hongyi: The Final Victory". But this is not a box office drama either, and it cannot go the road of complete commercialization. For practical reasons, the director at the time did not want to continue any further.

Stills from You Benchang's "Master Hongyi: The Final Victory". Photo by You Sihan

You Benchang immediately decided to buy the copyright out of his own pocket, at that time he had been hollowed out by several unprofitable TV series, and finally discussed with his family and decided to sell the company's house, "The house was also given by 'Jigong'." Coincidentally, more than 800 years ago, Jigong passed away in Hupao Temple, and more than 100 years ago, Uncle Li shaved and became a monk in Hupao Temple and became Master Hongyi.

In the end, "Master Hongyi: The Final Victory" became a recognized drama masterpiece, and was invited to tour by Canada and other countries. "I just want to keep this drama going. The reporter who interviewed him at the time still remembers that You Benchang did not say this in a loud voice, but it was loud.

To this day, You Benchang is still thinking about his "dolls". On the last day of 2023, "Jigong" sent blessings on social media, with more than 3600 million video likes, and many people posted photos of their grandfather in the comment area, "I think of him when I see you".

He seems to have Jigong's spell on his body, and as long as the song of "shoes are broken, hats are broken" sounds again, we all turn back into his dolls. At an awards party in 2023, You Benchang won the title of "Quality Dramatist". When he came to the stage to accept the award, he hummed the Jigong song, and everyone in the audience, from young actors to old actors, sang along.

After You Benchang received the trophy, he wanted to give a heartfelt word to the young actors. Before opening his mouth, he said "so heavy", returned the trophy in his hand to the awarder for safekeeping, and said with a smile, "It's a burden".

After handing it over, he said: "Every day when I look up, there is a plaque with seven words on it, and I am willing to share it with you - 'guide people's hearts with literature and art'."

Sources: China News Network, "Chinese Literature and Art", Lu Yu Youyue "Jigong and Me", Yangcheng Evening News, CCTV News, You Benchang's personal social media account, etc