We all know that Xu Guanwen is called "cold-faced laughing", Shi Tian is known as the king of funny, and Zhou Xingchi has the reputation of "the king of comedy", in fact, Hong Kong has also produced a "laughing emperor", he is the well-known Hong Kong comedy star Zhan Ruiwen.
Zhan Ruiwen can be described as a household name in Hong Kong, and his popularity can be compared with Xingye, but presumably many mainland audiences are not familiar with the name Zhan Ruiwen, but his highly recognizable appearance characteristics and many characters with grotesque temperament must be deeply imprinted in the hearts of some audiences, such as the double gun male in "Buy Murder Shooter", the arms Liu in "Vulgar Comedy" and so on are the most representative film roles of Zhan Ruiwen.
Graduated from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, Zhan Ruiwen went to the United Kingdom as a mime actor in his early years, and after he returned to Hong Kong in the early 1990s, he and Zhen Yongbei formed a "theater group" to make this "niche culture" in the eyes of Hong Kong audiences step by step through a number of stage plays that reflect reality. And the "shape of the body" he created, is even more popular in Hong Kong, which is destined to be different from the comedy stars who grew up through television stations or sets such as Hui Guanwen, Zhou Xingchi, and Shi Tian, his style is his own school, all relying on body action gags, so his comedy works are also called "body comedy".
Although he has been in the industry for many years, it was not until 2001 that Zhan Ruiwen had the opportunity to participate in his first film "Buy Murder Shooter", in which he played the jianghu character Double Gun Xiong and the stunt actor Guo Weibin.
The two characters appeared when the killer Ah Bart (Ge Minhui) was looking for a stuntman to make up a close-up video of the two-gun male being shot and killed. And the identity of this stand-in is nothing else, it is Zhan Raven's old job - stage actor. When this fake "double gun male" has a board and an eye, talking about what actions and reactions are the most in line with the real logic, it is completely the posture of the stage play, put in such a situation, it is so disharmonious, it is so exaggerated and absurd, but it is so vivid and interesting, which is exactly the effect that Peng Haoxiang wants. This performance of Zhan Ruiwen is similar to the scene in "The King of Comedy" in which Xingye "has an expression examination" when he auditioned as a dragon set actor. If it is Ge Minhui and Zhang Daming who support the first half of the film, then the laughter in the second half of the film is mostly brought by Zhan Ruiwen.
In 2004's "Mr. Ink Bucket", Zhan Ruiwen made a cameo appearance as the manager of a bank branch, and when Chen Xiaochun, a social elite who lost his job and had no identity documents, came to the bank to withdraw money, he did not dare to offend, and could only prevaricate by selling insurance and pretending to call the application phone, portraying the meanness but helplessness behind the forced smile of the middle and low-level small staff.
In 2006's "Springfield Flower Classmate Association", although Zhan Ruiwen's appearance was only a few minutes, the boss he played used the speech method of teaching drama theory to instill the staff with the scene of "what is the point of life", like a "continuous ball cannon", supplemented by funny body movements, with a strong nonsense laugh, which made people can't help but be funny.
Later, Zhan Ruiwen also appeared in Peng Haoxiang's film works many times, although there are many scenes, but his appearance can always add a highlight to the film, which can be described as "not appearing, it is already, once it appears, it can control the overall situation." In 2007, Zhan Ruiwen and Chen Qingjia, a well-known Hong Kong film screenwriter, and Leung Pak-kin launched the "Master's Self-Made Work" "The King of drama", just like the "King of Comedy" written and directed by Xingye, which is the "sweet and bitter talk" of his acting career. And this "King of the Drama King" can also be seen as a continuation of Xingye's "King of Comedy", telling the story of a policeman trying to learn acting skills in order to do a good job undercover, and finally Zhan Raven also used the experience and lines of the role to say the center of what he wanted to express - as long as he insisted on himself, he would one day be appreciated.
Nowadays, Zhan Ruiwen has almost put the focus of his work on the mainland, not only starting classes, actively looking for and cultivating drama and stage drama talents, but also participating in the drama "Soft" directed by Meng Jinghui, in addition to co-productions such as "Extra Actor", "Decisive Battle God Eater", "Agent Dong du" and other co-productions can also be seen.
In fact, as early as the previous year, he participated in the recording of the second season of "Happy Comedians" as a representative of the Hong Kong comedians, perhaps he did not fully grasp how to adapt to the sense of humor of mainland audiences, he added a lot of sad and warm colors to his works, and finally affected the perception, and he has not yet reached the point where he can perform in Mandarin without interfering with the play, resulting in repeated failures. But the episodes that Have Jon Raven on stage also show his ability to convey his thoughts and values to the audience when creating comedy.
Mainland audiences have two roughly opinions about Zhan Ruiwen's performance style, one is that his acting skills are too contrived and exaggerated, and the other is that some "crazy comedies" require his slightly exaggerated acting. But no matter what, Zhan Ruiwen has established his own unique style step by step, no one can learn it, I believe that as long as you get used to it and accept it, you can definitely find the essence of it.