Director Li Gang's debut film
"If One Day I Will Leave You"
Will be released on this year's White Day,
It's a movie about emotion,
It captures the subtlety and delicacy of the emotions,
"Limited affection", "temporary friendship", "similar to love",
The film portrays these inexplicable feelings sincerely.
We specially invited the starring Qi Xi and the director Li Gang,
To tell the story of these sincere and warm emotional interweaving.
(Li Gang) black short-sleeved POUR LUI
Qi Xi is an actor who does not put up a star shelf. But that doesn't mean she's weak. After a short time of contact with her, you can feel the cool temperament of her body. A Guizhou girl, who studied dance in her early years, was later admitted to film school, and after graduation, she first acted in Meng Jinghui's drama, and then turned to the screen, cooperating with various excellent directors and high-quality content, creating a variety of profound roles.
She has a tall height of one meter seven or four, such a tall person standing in the crowd is immediately obvious, coupled with her own unique temperament, you will always feel that such a person is an unusual person. However, Qi Xi can play any role, like that role into her body.
In 2020, a film she starred in called "Calm" premiered at the Pingyao Film Festival. The protagonist is a woman in her early thirties. After breaking up with her boyfriend of many years, her mood fell into a low ebb. She chose to face it silently, and as time and life continued, her personal pain gradually subsided.
In the film, it is the daily life of the protagonist Lin Tong - walking, sitting, seeing people, talking, and the audience follows the protagonist to see the world together. People who have seen Qi Xi will be amazed to see that she really becomes another person in the movie, as if she was originally such a person.
Black long jacket, black shorts, metal buckled high-heeled boots,
Leather belt and silver-toned metal earrings are all GIVENCHY
Single seat VITRA WIGGLE CHAIR BY CABANA furniture store
Usual temperature
Qi Xi read the script in the first draft stage of the movie "If One Day I Will Leave You". That was about three or four years before the film started. When he really participated in the movie "If One Day I Will Leave You", it was Qi Xi who temporarily played the role of acting store manager Guan Wei in order to save the director's emergency.
Qi Xi said: "Everyone may think that this is a warm Story of the Japanese, but in fact it is not so. Because it was shot in Japan, there will definitely be a lot of Japanese elements, but in fact it is about very Chinese emotions, and these expressions are extremely real. ”
From touching the script to starring in the role, I saw this movie take shape. This story gives Qi Xi a very strong feeling, and it is reasonable not to be high. This is also the feeling given by this film, and it is also the characteristic of director Li Gang in his creative aesthetics. He had a thing he really wanted to tell, but the way he told it was not by shouting it out loud and exaggerated.
Including the character she plays, for Qi Xi, this character is very established, that is, this person is very ordinary, but you feel that in the ordinary, the tough, hard-working quality of this person that Chinese is very touching.
"She started from very simple work little by little. At first she was a waiter, and then little by little she became the manager of a Chinese restaurant. Qi Xi said that when she went to observe Guan Wei's prototype and followed her to experience the life of a store manager, she knew what it was like to be a store manager in a store.
"I've only been doing it for half a day, and my waist can't stand up straight, because she has to manage the front hall, she has to manage the back kitchen, she has to manage the accounting, and she has to manage the purchase." It's a job of both physical and mental operation, and it's really not that you can be what you want. I really think she can manage a restaurant, she can manage a business, she is very good, and she is actually a young woman, not a few years older than me. ”
Guan Wei's character is a very strong character. The way she spoke, the way she walked, her demeanor, her form were all traceable. All you have to do is to put these real details on yourself little by little.
This is also the feeling that the production process of this film brought to Qi Xi - from the first time I saw Li Gang's script, to the continuous optimization of one draft after another, and then to the reproduction of the text in the film later.
Qi Xi feels that the value of this movie is that these very everyday, very ordinary things are put together little by little, and at the end, you will suddenly be moved by the original temperature of life.
Almond tofu
In the movie "If One Day I Will Leave You", there are actually many characters. This is also the result of Li Gang's intentional integration and reduction of some characters before filming began. These characters are actually a wave of people far away from home, and in such a situation, they hide different stories about love.
As the first director's work, it was actually difficult to choose to shoot such an everyday story. When Li Gang talked about this issue, he said that he was ignorant and fearless. He only knew that the story he wanted to write was this, and he didn't think much about it, and when he had the motivation, he went to shoot the story. But in Qi Xi's view, Li Gang did this because he was confident enough.
Qi Xi and Li Gang are very good friends in life and know each other very well. But it wasn't until he came to the film crew that Qi Xi saw another side of Li Gang at work. At first, Qi Xi thought he was just going to help. After arriving at the scene, she knew that Li Gang was serious.
"He knows very well what he wants. If you watch the finished film, you will see that no actor in this movie will seem particularly explosive, and in such a movie, the director is actually tuning all of us into a very average look, like a song, he has made us into a very good song. Not a single note is particularly jumpy. He was a good composer and conductor. Qi Xi said, "Before shooting this movie, we met all kinds of brothers and sisters, and it was all him who took care of me." Drink happy he accompanied me home; I had nothing left to buy, and he helped me buy it. But when it came to the crew, I was scared like something, I was afraid of him every day. ”
"I would feel like I wasn't dedicated enough. In fact, I'm already very dedicated, but with him you will never feel that you are not dedicated enough. You know his script, you don't know how many scripts it is, it's densely written, every page is full of things, but after we see it, he says, why is your script so clean? So when you see it, you're going to say, it's over, I'm lazy again, that's the state. "But wait until the movie is finished and you're back in real life. He was still that warm friend, the gentle brother.
"If One Day I Will Leave You" has family, friendship, love, away from home and homesickness, as well as growth and life and death. It's been two years since the film was filmed, and as a friend in life and a colleague in the crew, Qi Xi knows what Li Wants to express in "If One Day I Will Leave You".
"The film is about the theme of parting, but it is actually about the reunion with the theme of parting. Just like one of the most important foods in the movie is almond tofu. This is an after-dinner dessert at every table where guests at each table eat a plate of almond tofu. ”
Qi Xi is deeply impressed by this food, she represents the work life in the crew of "If One Day I Will Leave You", and also represents a way to look at feelings through this film.
"It's a ritual dessert, and looking at it makes you think it's a small plate of food, maybe it's a gift in the end." But as long as you finish eating this, this meal will carry sweet memories. When you leave this place, you will think back to it, and that sweetness is not that intense sweetness, just a faint sweetness. ”
Lee studied Japanese in science and studied film as a graduate student. His first film started when he was 30 years old. In 4 years, the film will meet the audience.
Li's film, titled "If One Day I Will Leave You," is about exchange student Lee Xiaoli who spent a year studying abroad in a remote Tokyo-based "Fuchinobe" in Japan. Li Xiaoli, who is dull and wooden, wants to work, but he repeatedly hits a wall. Finally, with the help of his old classmate Qiu Qiu, he found a Chinese restaurant and was willing to hire him. The acting store manager Guan Wei took care of him, the clerk Aoki regarded him as a love enemy, and the kitchen master Fu Lao Wan and the little master Song Ge ignored him. At this Chinese restaurant, Li Xiaoli's arrival broke the silence of the back kitchen and became involved in everyone's life.
A year passes quickly, before the next spring arrives, some people stay, some people leave, where will the "limited family affection", "temporary friendship", and "similar love" that have just been formed in this year go?
Blend long-sleeved jacket shirt and grey cashmere turtleneck knit
Both are ERMENEGILDO ZEGNA
Nankoku-tei-style restaurant
The story in the film is based on Li's personal experience when he was learning Japanese. At that time, he was in his second year of university at Beijing Language and Culture University and was given the opportunity to go to Japan for a year of exchange. For a year, in addition to attending classes at school, he spent the rest of his time at this restaurant called Nanguo pavilion. In the movie, the shop that Li Gang photographed was the shop where he worked that year.
In retrospect, it was a particularly simple time. It's full of study and work, and it's full of karma. In later films, Li Gang used his own experience as a prototype and added more characters and stories.
Li Has always been acquainted with the staff of the store, because from the "2007 exchange" to the "2019 film shooting", he would go back there every year and go back to see. This is Li Gang's style of acting, and he will always be attached to important people and emotions. Or to put it another way, he always values the people and emotions he encounters in his life.
Li Gang is a very thoughtful person, and he always carries sincerity and goodwill in him. As small as this shooting, Li Gang will carefully bring drinks and pastries on the spot, no fake courtesy, no high-cold shelves, and even a little nervous and shy in the face of magazine shooting that is not good at. He was a little reserved at the beginning of the shoot, but after a few minutes of running-in, he trusted the photographer and the staff. But he will not have an overly flamboyant expression and action because of this, he is still him, but he will have a special relaxation because of trust.
Actor Qi Xi plays the acting store manager Guan Wei in the movie, which is a very important role in the movie. Qi Xi and Li Gang met in the crew of zhang Aijia's film "Blind Love". At that time, Li Gang followed one of his graduate supervisors, Tian Zhuangzhuang, to the crew for internship, in fact, because the study experience in this crew gave him the confidence to make his own experience into a movie.
Qi Xi and Li Gang are friends in life. She said, "Li Qiang is an extremely good friend. If you want to make friends, you definitely earn it by making friends with him. He would remember the birthday of every friend around him and would give them birthday gifts. He was an extremely warm man. He would make a script that would be very well bound, wrapped in a very beautiful package, and then written on it. His gifts to you will also have writing, and there will be cards (on the cards) that will have some patterns drawn. The gifts he gives you are always specific to your gifts. ”
Just like because Li Gang knew that Qi Xi's family had two cats, what he gave to Qi Xi was the exact same doll that he bought according to the appearance of those two cats. Therefore, when he just entered Li Gang's film crew to shoot, Qi Xi would be a little unaccustomed. Life is so warm and careful, like a person of his own brother, he is actually a very powerful leader on the set. He was extremely serious, he knew exactly what he wanted, he was very decisive on the spot, and everyone would listen to him.
Crab head on poster
The movie poster for "If One Day I Will Leave You" features Li Xiaoli wearing a crab head. He came to Japan alone to communicate, and he once applied for a job at the supermarket where he worked on the recommendation of his old classmate Qiu Qiu. So he needed to wear a crab head to sell crab sticks, and he was very shy and did not dare to stand there and dare not sell. Poster designer Huang Hai chose this scene to make this version of the movie poster after watching the movie. Teacher Huang Hai was very impressed by the picture of the crab head. It also says that it feels like a fable.
So on this version of the poster he designed, we see a crab-headed boy looking up at everyone he met in Japan standing on the crab's feet. The boy raised his eyebrows, his eyes wide open, and the freckles on his face were like dots of starlight.
What is the movie "If One Day I Will Leave You"? The film may be a film about parting. The screenplay for the film began to be written during Li's graduate school years. After entering the film crew internship of "Blind Love", the script began to progress further.
Li Gang said that when he wrote the film script, he first had the characters, and then the theme of today. As the characters are established little by little, the theme of parting is naturally established between the characters. Li Grew up with his grandmother. He was always afraid of parting, always not knowing how to face parting. From childhood to the present, he has always been like this. When the story came to his mind, the theme naturally ran to the question. Li Gang himself also realized that "parting" is a very important creative theme in his heart.
Value the past, love people, fear of parting. These three depend on each other. Li Said. In fact, he is always experiencing parting in his life, but he always can't learn this thing. A lot of things can be learned through acquired efforts, or at least can be improved. But he said he didn't know why, and he felt that he couldn't learn anything without the course. When facing parting, you always can't control your emotions, you will be afraid of it, you especially want to escape it, and you will always have no way to face it.
"If One Day I'll Leave You" - The name of the movie is a hypothesis, a hypothetical problem that can happen at any time. The characters and stories in the film are Li's answers to this question. It's just that for Li Gang, he can give an answer, but he can't learn to do it. So the answer to this question he gives in the film is an ideal answer.
The film gives an attitude toward parting, like the lyrics he likes, "If one day I will leave you, there will be no tears on my face." Li Gang said, "I can't do without teardrops on my face, I must belong to the kind of person who cries very ugly." But I think, all say movies are dreams, and as a creator, I want to do something in a movie that I can't do. I want to feel it. ”
M.C. : What are your impressions of each other?
Li: The first time we met was on another set, and she wore a green jacket, and I had that dress too. So my first impression of her was how she would wear the same clothes as me. Because she was sitting there, I found the clothes before I noticed the man.
Before Xi Jie entered the crew of "If One Day I Will Leave You", I saw that her previous roles were very rigid, very tough, and very stubborn, and I felt "not very good". But after the cooperation, I found out that she was actually quite a little girl.
Qi Xi: He is an extremely good friend, and if you want to make friends with him, you will definitely earn it. Because he is extremely good to his friends. He was a particularly good family member, a younger brother. But on set, he was a leader.
His mind is still very delicate. At the same time very emotional, it is also very rational. He is not only responsible for the creation, but also for the investors and for the overall situation.
M.C. : Please ask each other a question.
Li Gang: As an actor, what do you most want to hear the director say on the scene? The director has the hope that the actor will complete the things, and when it is completed, what kind of communication do you most want to have with the director as an actor to gain a sense of security?
Qi Xi: (About making movies) Will you always keep your enthusiasm for filming?
M.C. : Please answer the questions given to the other party truthfully.
Li Gang: Ah, I can't say no to this. Hahahahaha I feel that this time the enthusiasm is more focused on its own part. I want enthusiasm or enthusiasm, but to be able to be as enthusiastic as possible with others.
Qi Xi: It may be that the director is in front of the monitor, such as after filming a stop. If the performance is not right, he may have to use more language to say, this place to tune, that place to tune, this. But if after filming a stop, the director gives me a look, a particularly affirmative look, I think this time is a tacit understanding without words, which will make me feel particularly secure.
M.C. : What do you understand about love?
Li Gang: Regarding what love is, I think this question is very difficult, this word is too big. I am willing to concretize it, it is actually the people around you, the friendship, family affection, love around you.
Each of us must have been treated very kindly, and we will be treated very maliciously, but I choose to remember and show kindness, which is what I can choose. A lot of people say that you (this movie) are too fake, how can it be so bright, the world can't be like this. It doesn't live at all. But I think this is what the director can choose. I think everyone's life is already quite hard, why not say something about the warmth in life, why must we expose some of the pain of life?
Qi Xi: The story in our movie is actually taken care of at all ages, and its emotional tolerance is very strong, and it is very funny to tell the truth, it is very suitable for watching with the people you love, of course, it is also suitable for you to watch alone. Because you can also love yourself, you can also watch with yourself. I think in fact, if you want to learn to love people, the first thing is to learn to love yourself. Because if you don't even love yourself, you won't love people.
I think loving this thing is actually a very broad word, for example, you sometimes love a city, you love the taste of a milk tea, you may love spicy; some people love the sun, some people love rain. All of these starting points are a feeling of the self, in fact, you have to stack these things first, and your world will become particularly full of love and happiness.
Editing/Cinny
Photography / Fan Ran
Written by/Yan Wenjing
Makeup / Ho Lei (MQ Studio)
Hairstyle/Gao Peng
Styling/Shaoqing
Styling Assistant /ViVi
Venue/LIT STUDIO