Wen | dumbfounded
Editor| Yiqing
In 2022, the 31-year-old Yang Yang was once again linked to the four words of "idol male protagonist".
"It's still the first time I've seen you dressed like this, it turns out..."
"It turned out to be so beautiful, wasn't it?"
A red-clad, veiled Bai Fengxi took a few steps forward, reached out to touch Feng Lanxi's cheek, Feng Lanxi slightly dodged sideways, and grabbed her arm to restrain it, Bai Fengxi turned half a circle, reached out and hooked each other's necks, the moment the two looked at each other, the camera drew closer, the gentle female voice BGM sounded, and the classic scene of "And Try the World" was born.
Under the topic of Weibo Entertainment Hot Search #How to Evaluate TV Series and Try the World#, @Sina TV Series released a video of intimate interaction between male and female protagonists, and the comment area was Yang Yang and Zhao Lusi fans' accusations of "battle", "Absolute Son", "Too Good-Looking", "Beautiful Death" and other copywriters with the refined pictures of the two actors, which were toppled by thousands of likes to the front row.
Image source: Screenshot of Sina Weibo @ Weibo TV series
In the latest discussion of the topic, about the acting skills of the male protagonist Yang Yang, netizens have their own opinions, some people think that Yang Yang's acting is always "holding", "Xiao Nai's time is like this, Feng Lanxi is also like this, And Bai Chang's face", but for idol dramas, the appearance of full scores and the acting skills of passing points may be enough.
From "A Slight Smile is Very Charming", "You Are My Glory" to "And Try the World", idol dramas are not only Yang Yang's "comfort zone", but also the last "bottom card" in his hand.
Although the acting skills still need to be improved, in the field of idol dramas, the 30-year-old Yang Yang can still be regarded as one of the "optimal solutions".
The fugitive male protagonist of "IP Start-up"?
In 2007, Yang Yang was 16 years old. On the eve of the Spring Festival this year, 6 "lucky ones", including Yang Yang, were selected by the new "Dream of the Red Chamber" crew to participate in the training and compete for the opportunity to play the adult Jia Baoyu. At that time, Yang Yang was preparing to participate in a dance competition in South Korea, so he could not make the trip.
After learning about the origin of the matter from other students who participated in the training, the crew of the new "Dream of the Red Chamber" found Yang Yang's school and unit for consultation, and then "opened a small stove" for him for a two-month separate training. Yang Yang did not live up to this preferential treatment, and was finally selected to become the actor of the adult Jia Baoyu.
"The actor knows a few drops of ink in his stomach with one mouth, and the copper coin on his head is full of materialism. The sound effects are too snake-like, the explanation is the same thing, this is not "Animal World". Can't see the significance of the remake, hurry home and sell sweet potatoes. In the Douban short review of the 2010 edition of "Dream of the Red Chamber", the top one is this spit of more than 2700 likes.
Although the new version of "Dream of the Red Chamber" has been controversial after the broadcast, the character modeling, narration style, etc. have been repeatedly ridiculed, and Yang Yang's performance has also been evaluated as "stiff" and "unqualified", but Yang Yang is precisely because of the role of the adult Jia Baoyu in this drama that debuted on the TV screen and entered the audience's sight.
Yang Yang's road to advancement in the film and television industry also began with the blessing of the classic IP works of "Dream of the Red Chamber".
In 2014, Yang Yang and his old owner Rong Xinda terminated their contract and transferred to Jia Shikai, who was the vice president of Huanrui at the time, together with Li Yifeng, who became popular with "Ancient Sword Qitan", filmed a web drama adapted from the novel of the same name by the third uncle of the Southern Sect, "Notes on the Tomb Robber", playing the younger brother Zhang Qiling.
Image source: Sina Weibo @ Tomb Robber Notes S
In Yang Yang's own words, this is a paralyzed character who does not need to make expressions, so even if the audience will feel that the performance is too "pretend", he will still do less expressions, "because this is how it is written in the book." ”
In June of the following year, "Notes from the Tomb Robber" was launched on iQIYI, and the number of broadcasts exceeded 100 million in the 22 hours of the line, refreshing the record of the fastest online drama played by "Love Apartment" before breaking 100 million; according to iQIYI's official data, after the full episode of the VIP episode was launched, the instantaneous playback requests reached 160 million times within 5 minutes, and the order requests for VIP members exceeded 2.6 million, resulting in a large-scale collapse of the server.
This douban score of only 5.3 points of the web drama, contributed to the "I want to hand over the bull's head to the country" such a hot stem, but also let Yang Yang be known to more people. With this drama, Yang Yang won the most popular actor award of "Scream 2016 iQiyi Night" this year and appeared on the stage of the 2016 CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
"'Notes from the Tomb Robber' was a turning point in my life." In a 2016 interview with Beijing Youth Weekly, Yang Yang said seriously.
In 2016, Yang Yang found the most suitable path for himself - the idol drama male protagonist. He starred in the TV series "A Slight Smile is Enchanting" adapted from Gu Man's novel of the same name, and officially became the "bg light" in the audience's heart with the role of Xiao Nai.
Source: Sina Weibo @ TV series smile slightly is very overwhelming
After the start of the show, Yang Yang's fans exceeded the 20 million mark, and the Douban Ratings Research Center Group's June 2020 statistics of "Youku's broadcasts from 2016 to 2020 have more than 100 million plays" show that "A Little Smile is Falling City" ranked first with a total of 28 billion plays.
Although it was evaluated as "awkward acting" and "excessive baggage", and there was a mistake in taking "facial paralysis + squinting" as "Su", Xiao Nai, played by Yang Yang, still contributed a number of famous scenes that satisfies the hearts of young girls: when they met at the bridge, they said to the heroine Bei Weiwei: "Unfortunately, I am waiting for you." When facing the male partner Cao Guang, he will say the maintenance words of "my girl, why don't you trust"; found that the bei wei skirt in the back seat of the bicycle was short, and intimately bought a pocket of snacks to facilitate her to press the skirt. The small details in the episode successfully allow yang Yang to play Xiao Nai to life.
"After 'Wei Wei', I felt that I was really known to everyone, and the places I went to were also paid more attention to." In an interview with ELLEMEN Ruishi, Yang Yang "certified" the importance of this drama to him.
Yang Yang is undoubtedly lucky, under the blessing of classic IP in various fields such as tradition, double male protagonist, and romance, he has successfully embarked on the road of traffic.
In 2016, known as the "military art school grass", he officially ranked among the "four big and three small" ranks, becoming one of the indispensable traffic actors in internal entertainment, and since then, he has played steadily, maintaining the speed of 1-2 film and television works a year, wandering between the "Jinjiang male protagonist" and the "starting point male protagonist".
Yang Yang's confusion, difficult transformation
Yang Yang, who is in the limelight and in the ascendancy period, fell hard in 2017.
In 2017, Yang Yang partnered with "Immortal Sister" Liu Yifei, starring in the movie "Three Lives and Three Worlds and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" adapted from Tang Qigongzi's novel of the same name, however, the high-value combination that attracted much attention failed to deliver a satisfactory answer. In addition to the plagiarism controversy in the original work, Yang Yang danced while ramen, and finally the scene of "evil charm laughing" made many netizens call greasy, and to this day it is still a famous scene for the audience to "relish it".
The drama version of Ye Hua, who competed with the same title, was praised for "plastic surgery acting", and the actor Zhao Youting was nominated for the best actor at the 23rd Shanghai TV Festival Magnolia Award.
From Ruo Bai's brother in "Whirlwind Girl" to Xiao Nai in "A Slight Smile is Falling Down", Yang Yang, who is "smooth sailing" in the field of romance, may not have expected that he would "flip over" in a familiar field.
"I didn't deliberately transform, I just felt that which plays, which scripts, which characters were attracting me, and then I tried and challenged." In a video released in August 2021, Yang Yang responded to "transformation" in this way.
Although Yang Yang does not think that he is in transition, after "Three Lives and Three Worlds and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms", his focus on selecting the script shifted from "idol drama male protagonist" to "big male protagonist", and successively took over "Wudong Qiankun" and "Full-time Master" adapted from male novels and "Special Warfare Glory" adapted from military novels.
In August 2018, Yang Yang starred in "Wudong Qiankun" online. The drama is adapted from the fantasy novel of the same name by The Silkworm Potato, directed by the well-known director Zhang Li, but the word-of-mouth and broadcast double-double flutter street, douban score is only 4.4 points, Yunhe Data released the "2018 Q3 Serial Drama Market Report" shows that from January to September, the new series accumulated positive film effectively played in the TOP20 list, and there is no "Wudong Qiankun" figure.
Source: Sina Weibo @ Deep Blue Pictures Wudong Qiankun
Eight hundred times the speed of the entertainment industry will not stay for anyone, Yang Yang "pounced on the street" this year, Zhu Yilong, Bai Yu with "Town Soul" to become the new "top stream" among the actors, costume idol drama "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost" won the popularity of Deng Lun and Luo Yunxi, Wang Hedi, Song Weilong, Feng Shaofeng and so on became the male protagonists with love IP in hand.
The "Full-time Master" broadcast in 2019 has a very wide reader base, and is the first "Thousand Leagues Book" in the history of online literature, that is, it has thousands of readers who consume more than 1,000, and the cumulative sales of physical books published in 2016 exceeded 4 million copies.
In the interview with Tencent's "Into the Drama", Yang Yang revealed that when shooting, he will pay attention to the performance of the body, so that he can relax to better get close to the characters, rather than being "correct" as before. #杨洋 Under the topic of #Weibo, some netizens expressed their recognition of Ye Xiu's role, "There was no feeling of being upright during the "Full-time Master" period. ”
Yang Yang's performance has indeed improved, and the pictures of tencent video merchants association on the internet show that the drama is Tencent Video's 2019 self-made drama investment top 1.
But there is still a certain distance from the real "blockbuster". According to Yunhe data "2019 annual serial drama network broadcast performance and user analysis", in 2019, the explosive content increased, the TV series "Do you know if it should be green fat red skinny" and "All is good" effectively played more than 10 billion, the network drama "Icebreaker Action" and "Qing Yu Nian" effectively played more than 5 billion, the effective playback of only 1.78 billion "Full-time Master", the "Chen Qing Ling" that is not "summer limited" and the "Dear, Loved" that also contains e-sports elements.
"Special Battle Glory", which aired in April 2022, as Yang Yang's "tough guy" work, revealed some embarrassment after three years of being late.
Leaving aside the script issue, Yang Yang's acting skills are somewhat exaggerated, for example, in the first episode, Yang Yang played by Yan Baoyue organized a new recruit to run, and when choosing a platoon leader and squad leader, his expression was so forceful that he was a little "bitter and worried", and every line was roaring; but director Xu Jizhou praised Yang Yang's playing well, bluntly saying, "At that time, many people who played with him were afraid of him, and the aura was particularly oppressive." ”
Source: Sina Weibo @ TV Series Special Battle Glory
At the same time, the male actors who became popular in the same period have already shown their strength in other types of dramas such as military dramas and suspense dramas.
In 2018, Huang Jingyu starred in "Red Sea Action" and was nominated for the best newcomer of the 34th Hundred Flowers Awards; in 2020, the Republic of China film "Hidden and Great" starring "Old Partner" Li Yifeng was nominated for the 27th Shanghai Magnolia Best TV Series Award; in 2022, Bai Jingting, who also cooperated in "Whirlwind Girl", became another fire with his infinite stream work "Beginning".
Yang Yang's transformation is, after all, a step slower.
Outside the series, Yang Yang also tried to exert variety shows, but also encountered "Waterloo".
The second season of "Flowers and Teenagers" in 2015 was Yang Yang's "nightmare", and in an interview with Liu Yifei 2 years later, the host asked if Liu Yifei wanted to participate in the reality show, what Suggestion Yang Yang had, after a brief silence, Yang Yang replied, "I have participated in reality shows, let's still act well." ”
After 5 years, Yang Yang finally returned to variety shows. In 2020, Yang Yang became a resident guest of "Brother Full of Vitality", as the captain led the members of the younger brother team to "fight wits and courage" with his brothers, but just like when Yang Yang participated in the third season of "Youth Tour" in 2021, B station up master @ Gao Bi vomited in the video, "Although you can feel that Yang Yang is trying to be funny, it may be because he is too handsome, and he always feels that there is a hint of humor in the fun."
Different from "Star Detective" to Bai Jingting, "Longing for Life" to Peng Yuchang, variety shows have not become Yang Yang's plus, and the IP male protagonist image that has always been leading is also slightly behind others.
Yang Yang has tried a lot, but from 2017 to 2020, he seems to be more and more confused the more transformed.
Choose idol drama and return to the "comfort zone"?
Fortunately, as early as before the broadcast of "Special Battle Glory", Yang Yang once again returned to his "comfort zone" and found his own positioning.
In 2021, Yang Yang and Gu Man cooperated for the second time, partnered With Di Lieba, starring in "You Are My Glory" adapted from Gu Man's novel of the same name, playing the aerospace engineer Yu Tu, whose ideal is the sea of stars and the chai rice oil and salt in front of him.
Compared with The all-round male god Xiao Nai, who is both a game "high play" and a computer science bully, and can successfully start a business in his senior year, yu Tu's role is obviously more real and more "grounded", overtime, mortgage repayment, parents are sick, the moon and sixpence choices... What he experienced was a common problem in the lives of ordinary people.
However, although there are certain differences between the two characters, they belong to the same "motif", that is, the male god image in the idol drama.
Idol dramas have a set of successful formulas that have been practiced, that is, "high value + good people + sweet plot".
Douban's high praise and short comments can support this, some people were impressed by the protagonist's appearance when the drama was broadcast, saying that its "casting is really the spring of yan dogs, raising eyes"; some people were attracted to people, praising YuTu as "the ideal and perfect husband in the system"; and some people were all satisfied, "I unilaterally announced that this year's best romance drama!" The plot, the actors, the special effects, all are amazing! Fans of this original are really satisfied."
On April 18, "And Try the World" starring Yang Yang and Zhao Lusi was officially launched, and Yang Yang once again carried an IP with his face value.
Weibo topic # and try the world Under the ancient doll #, some netizens sighed: "Finally, there is a costume drama that is good-looking for both male and female protagonists, and the appearance and appearance are on the line." Entertainment blogger @Singapore Small Pen Tip wrote on Weibo, "TO ancient puppet actors:" and attached a screenshot of Feng Lanxi saying "pay attention to your own manners", forwarding more than 7,000 messages.
Image source: Sina Weibo @ Singapore small nib
The reason for this is only that netizens bitter ancient puppet ugly men for a long time.
According to Yu Jie'er's previous manuscript, screenwriter Wen Rong said that the number of actors who look good on the market, especially male actors, is limited, and the remuneration of male actors suitable for costumes may be higher than the overall cost of some episodes. In addition, these actors are very full of schedules, so the crew can only choose alternative actors.
In the B station search for "ancient puppet ugly man", a number of video playback exceeded one million, the most clicked video playback volume of nearly 7 million, Jin Han, Bai Shu, Yang Youning and other people were "named" because the facial features are not exquisite enough, the facial lines are not smooth, the proportion is general, the body shape is not straight enough, etc.
In March 2022, Yin Zheng's new drama "Shade the Sky" was exposed, playing the male protagonist Ye Fan, who "floated out of the dust", "does not eat human fireworks" and "is like a mirror lake bright moon photo", but he looked slightly rounded in the Reuters photo, which was far from the description of the original work, and was complained by Douyin netizens that he was not in good shape.
In April 2022, there was a kiss scene in the popular "Just Like the Return of the Dead" that caused controversy. In the video, the male actor with a flat appearance and average figure not only has a slightly messy hairstyle, but also has a beard and a beard, which is complained by Douyin netizens that "I feel stuck across the screen" and "I am reluctant to change me".
The resulting topic of #actress work injury once landed second on the Weibo entertainment hot search list, and the role-playing actor Wang Ziteng even apologized for it in the live broadcast, frankly saying that the kissing scene was because of the needs of the plot, if it brought discomfort to everyone, apologize to everyone, but as an actor or "dedicated".
Image source: B station "ancient puppet ugly man" search results screenshots
The "ancient doll" shape is a test for the actor. Without the "cover" of the hairstyle, there are higher requirements for the facial features and facial structure, both angular and angular, but also sword eyebrows; the layers of clothing want to be worn well, the actors must not only be thin, but also have a good temperament, such as Luo Yunxi, who graduated from the ballet major, the costume style can often have a sense of elegance, which stands out in "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost".
The audience who has suffered from "poisoning" is reluctant to look at the shoddy and hot-eyed "ancient dolls", and the "And Try the World" that is being broadcast at least meets the audience's expectations for the appearance of male actors. Yang Yang,whose facial contour is three-dimensional and has a straight posture, is both online, and some netizens sighed on Weibo, "God appreciates idol drama meals, tearing up the face and never collapsing." ”
There are also controversies. On April 19, #杨洋 was on the hot search with the #. In the first episode of "And Try the World", Feng Lan stood with the book, listening to the attendants report the news of Xuan Ji Ling, although the picture of the long body YuLi was very eye-catching, but the hand and foot were slightly restrained, adding a little bit of stiffness like a game modeling character.
But from "A Slight Smile is Very Charming", "You Are My Glory" to "And Try the World", Yang Yang's acting skills have also made some progress.
Xiao Nai and Bei Weiwei's emotional rivals play "fan embarrassment", the most common expression is a smile with different arcs; Yu Tu has some emotional outburst moments, such as covering his eyes and red eyes after rejecting Qiao Jingjing; and Feng Lanxi is more natural, when he is approached by Bai Fengxi in the third episode, his eyes are instantly wide open, his eyelashes blink quickly, he wants to say but does not say anything, and finally "flees from the wilderness" and drops a sentence of "boredom", interpreting the tension of the character.
Yang Yang once mentioned in an interview that he does not think that a tough transformation will be good for him, but he is trying to find suitable plays and roles for himself at each stage.
Staying in the comfort zone to play the "male god" may be a good choice for Yang Yang and the audience.
(In the text, Wen Rong is a pseudonym.) ）
Resources:
1. Treasure Hunt of the New "Red Chamber" - "Adult Version of Baoyu" Yang Yang Discovery, Sina Entertainment, June 23, 2008
2. Yang Yang: Needless to say and unspeakable, ELLEMEN Ruishi, February 2, 2021