The recent film "Soul Hunting" that has met the audience has received widespread attention and discussion since its release, and has become a high-profile work in early 2021.
Although the film combines science fiction, crime, suspense, thriller, love and other genres, and the last few high-energy reversals are even more amazing, but in addition to the layers of clothing, we see the final story core, still focusing on an ancient proposition: love.
"How far can you go for the sake of the person you love?" This line, which appears repeatedly in the movie, is actually a topic that the director wants to lead the audience to think about together. The fate and emotional entanglement of several pairs of protagonists, in the final analysis, are still out of the entanglement of "love". "Life can die, death can live", under the soul transfer, love is the most primitive driving force.
The film begins with a brutal and bizarre murder. Wang Shicong, the chairman of the famous group, died tragically at home, the cause of death is confusing, and even the murderer is a ghost. With the deepening of the investigation of the case, the characters have appeared one after another: the simple and cowardly second wife Li Yan, the long-time partner Wan Yufan, the deviant son of the deceased Wang Tianyou, and the bloody curse of the deceased's ex-wife Tang Suzhen, who committed suicide, even cast a terrifying cloud on the case.
However, the prosecutor who investigated the case, Liang Wenchao, and his wife, the criminal police officer, Ah Bang, also have their own pain: Liang Wenchao's cancer is running out, which sets a crucial premise for ah Bang's mistakes after ah bang and the final and surprising ending of the story.
Among them, the young newlywed wife of Wang Shicong, played by young actor Sun Anke, "Li Yan", did not attract attention when she appeared on the scene, and the audience would never think that this character carried so many secrets.
In fact, Li Yan is a crucial and extremely complex character in the film, with this character, all the character lines in the film can be connected, which is a veritable puzzle eye.
(The following contains spoilers, please use with caution)
One tree and five flowers, different flowers
"Soul Hunting" is adapted from Jiang Bo's science fiction novel "Soul Transfer", the so-called "soul transfer" in the film is the use of RNA technology for "human brain replication" and finally completes the soul transfer. The wonderful thing about the role of Li Yan is that in fact, the real Li Yan has long died when she appears, and the only thing active in front of the audience is Li Yan's body, but what is injected into her body is the soul of others, and Li Yan is also called "the most miserable tool person" by the audience.
Counting up, there were three souls injected into Li Yan's body, namely the soul of Li Yan's body, the soul of Wang Shicong, and the soul of Liang Wenchao. What is more complicated is that Li Yan needs to present five different personalities in the film, in addition to the three souls, but also add "Wang Liyan" disguised by Wang Shicong and "Tang Liyan" disguised by Wang Shicong.
It sounds dizzy, not to mention the need for the actors to present it accurately, and the difficulty of the performance can be imagined.
The success of the role of Li Yan is crucial to the film, she is not only a link that connects all the characters, but also the appearance of Li Yan in turn of the five personalities is to promote the development of the plot.
In the past, this kind of one-person decoration of several corners needed to rely on different image presentation to help. However, Li Yan of these five personalities does not have much difference in appearance, and it all depends on the performance of the actors to distinguish. Letting a newcomer actor carry out such a difficult challenge can't help but make people sweat, and Sun Anke, who was born in 98, finally handed in a satisfactory answer.
1 "True Li Yan"
Sun Anke first plays the real Li Yan, which is also the only role that can be freely interpreted by her according to her own understanding. We only glanced at Li Yan's body in the back-up of the story. Li Yan grew up as a childcare director, promised to conduct experiments for a reward of $100,000, and became the new Lady Ofe After the death of Wang Shicong's first wife, Tang Suzhen. In the nanny's narrative, we can see that the real Li Yan is a humble and courteous, simple and kind young girl who has no idea what happened to her future.
At this stage, Sun Anke mainly shows the character's ignorance, weakness and helplessness through unfocused eyes. The poor girl has no idea that she is actually only looked at as a physical body and will become Wang Shicong's "soul container", which makes the audience full of sympathy and regret for her.
2 Wang Shicong's disguised "Wang Liyan"
The Li Yan we see at the beginning of the film is actually disguised by Wang Shicong. Li Yan's body of fainting made "Wang Liyan" faint after the murder and thus became a suspect, during the trial, she burst into tears, even trembling, convulsing to the point of not being able to help herself, completely frightened and excessive, making people feel pity.
Coupled with Wang Shicong's will, she was designated as the first suspect, and the audience was even seduced for a while, believing that she had no motive to kill. Sun Anke's performance allows us to see a cowardly woman who is helpless after the tragic death of her husband, not so much that Li Yan's body is the soul of the old adulterous giant Wang Shicong, but rather that Sun Anke's superb acting skills re-inject the soul into the role.
3 Wang Shicong's disguised "Tang Liyan"
However, with the development of the story, Li Yan's various performances are suspicious, as if he is haunted by ghosts and is completely in a state of collision with evil. In a scene with the captured Wang Tianyou, we can almost really believe that this is Tang Suzhen's soul on Li Yan's body.
The previous weakness and timidity disappeared, leaving only the joy of reuniting with his son for a long time, the excitement of returning to the Yang World and the hatred for Wang Shicong, only 22-year-old Sun Anke portrayed a mother with deep affection. Wang Shicong's disguise even deceived Wang Tianyou, who loved his mother deeply, and Sun Anke's performance made every moviegoer happy and convinced.
4 "Wang Liyan" who does not hide his identity
In the second half of the film, we finally learn that the soul in Li Yan's body is indeed not Li Yan himself, but it is not Tang Suzhen's ghost upper body, but the blindfold method used by Wang Shicong, which staged a "soul return" in front of everyone's eyes, but the object of the soul return is a living person, which is equivalent to disguised murder.
After the procurator Liang Wenchao broke the sky, the smile of "Wang Liyan" made people shudder, and the audience could not see the shadow of any weak woman before, but a gloomy old man who was deliberate and fierce. In this part, Sun Anke's performance is amazing, exuding a cold and powerful aura, as if Wang Shicong has really been resurrected.
5 "Liang Liyan"
The "fifth personality" played by Sun Anke in the end, although the role is very small, it greatly improves the completion of the film. Liang Wenchao eventually died of cancer, but before Dr. Wan committed suicide, he had copied Liang Wenchao's brain onto Li Yan, Wang Shicong disappeared, and Liang Wenchao was resurrected.
In the end, "Liang Liyan" met his wife Ah Bang in prison, Ah Bang did not cry, "Liang Li Yan" did not say a word, and the action of touching his wife's brow made the audience suddenly realize that it was Liang Wenchao who was in Li Yan's body at this moment. Sun Anke's eyes at this time revealed the calmness of a middle-aged man and his love for his wife, which was intriguing.
II."For the sake of perfection,
How far can you go? ”
Although he is a newcomer to the screen, Sun Anke's performance in the film makes people feel bright.
Zhang Zhen, who plays Liang Wenchao in the film, has had a lot of rivalry with Sun Anke, and he praised Sun Anke's performance as "perfect".
Behind the "perfect perfection" is unimaginable hardship.
Seeing the full script for the first time, Sun Anke "jumped up at home" and was thrilled for such a wonderful role. However, to interpret such a heavyweight role, but also to take turns with several predecessors, or gave her a lot of pressure. Pressure is also motivation, but also an opportunity. In "Soul Hunting", Sun Anke's grasp of the role is impressive, and it is inseparable from her efforts.
For example, many viewers found that the accents of "True Li Yan", "Tang Li Yan" and "Wang Li Yan" were very different, and such details deserved a wave of praise. Outside the play, Sun Anke has been practicing his accent and eyes, and even undergoing "fright training".
One of the keys to Li Yan's exposure is the switching of her left and right hands. Li Yan herself is accustomed to using her right hand, but Wang Shicong is left-handed, and the setting in the film requires Li Yan to sign with her left hand. For this reason, Sun Anke "has been fighting with his left hand." From the beginning of the pen shaking, to the final success of the left hand to smoothly write the siamese art words. Such a small detail has to make such a big effort, and the overall difficulty can be imagined.
There is a scene of needle pricking in the film, which can be completed with a borrowed position, but Sun Anke proposed that not only should he personally go to the "needle", but also be able to see the blood return in the needle tube. According to her understanding, this needle is crucial, so it is hoped that there will be a real presentation. As a result, on the day of filming, the needle was actually used to use a very thick needle tube, and it was pierced more than once. Even so, Sun Anke did not have any complaints, in her opinion, it was more important to make a scene than anything else.
In order to interpret this "five-fold personality", Sun Anke has made great efforts. From the stage of script reading, she observed the status of the other three actors at the request of the director, and the performance should be restored and reproduced, and a slight deviation may cause confusion, completely confused about who is who now.
A personality has just established itself, and it is immediately overthrown by the next character, and the personality switch is based on the audience's recognition of the previous personality, and it must be done to establish the credibility of the personality in a short period of time. Each personality's eyes, accent, tone, movements, aura, etc. are completely different, and she has worked each personality to strive for precision.
In the end, Sun Anke completely switched between five completely different states such as trembling, heartbroken, crazy collapse, sinister cunning, calm and warm feelings, etc., and the imitation of other actors was also a wonderful portrait, and now which Li Yan is on the screen, you can see it at a glance.
3. "Do not forget the original intention, and strive to move forward"
For Sun Anke's performance in "Soul Hunting", the director, actors and the general audience have given high praise.
Cheng Weihao, the director of "Soul Hunting", once said, "I would like to say that Encore's performance is remarkable and impeccable. This time there was indeed a hard part of her, which was simply like a lot of heavy personality, and then in everyone's state, there had to be some defense against every interrogation or inquiry, and that self-defensive thing had to be mixed with what kind of personality he was now pretending to be, or which kind of personality she was actually. The expression of this thing is indeed a more difficult place, but she behaves very well."
Although several characters are very different, to contribute such a perfect performance, you must not just rely on stylized routines, but to truly empathize with the characters. Sun Anke carefully analyzed the inner state of each character, so that he could deeply understand the role and then create a second time, and finally let himself fit perfectly with each personality.
Although he has not been in the industry for a long time, Sun Anke has been strict with himself from the first day of being an actor.
The role is changeable, the belief remains unchanged, from Yang Bu regret in "YiTian Slaughter Dragon Chronicle", Ming Hui in the Qing Palace drama "Dream Back", and then to the "Five Li Yan" in "Soul Hunting" this time, so that the audience completely remembers this new xiaohua with superb acting skills.
In the future, she will have many works such as "Children of the Qiao Family", "Flowers Are Good and Round", "Kill the Wolf" and so on, waiting for the audience.
In addition to being obsessed with performance, Sun Anke in life also likes photography and travel, and is quite talented in painting.
After learning to paint for many years since childhood, the director knew about it and encouraged her to simply create a work of her own as a prop in the play. We see in the film that the oil painting decorations placed in Wan Yufan's underground laboratory were created by Sun Anke himself, which made people feel more convinced by this versatile little girl.
A few days ago, Sun Anke wrote on Weibo, "I hope everyone likes "Soul Hunting" and likes Li Yan who is simple, affectionate, extreme, and deep. I am a young actor Sun Anke, I will not forget my original intention, and strive to move forward. "This young actress with both spirit and strength makes people look forward to her. Sun Anke has several more works to meet with the audience, let's wait and see her performance.
Lu Han
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