Zhou Xun in "Meritorious Service"
In "Tu Youyou's Gift" of "Meritorious Service", Zhou Xun plays Tu Youyou, a Nobel Prize winner in medicine and an outstanding representative of traditional Chinese medicine technology innovation, which makes people feel surprised at first, and then feel reasonable.
Director Zheng Xiaolong introduced that there are four requirements for the selection of actors in "Meritorious Service": one virtue and art, two forms of god, three superb acting skills, and four meritorious people himself agree. In fact, these old comrades have no concept of who is a star or who is an actor. Tu Youyou heard that Zhou Xun came to play herself and asked "which is Zhou Xun", and her daughter said next to her, Zhou Xun came to play a wonderful role. It is not easy to win the approval of the family of the meritorious person, first of all, it shows that Zhou Xun's social image is very positive, and secondly, it is also a recognition of her business ability. Judging from the broadcast effect, in addition to the pursuit of similarity, Zhou Xun still put more energy on the god-like, and devoted himself to the purity of Tu Youyou, who was somewhat unsophisticated in scientific research, and Zhou Xun, who had been studying performance for many years, did have something in common.
Zhou Xun in "Hello, Zhihua"
Zhou Xun, 46, is an outlier among China's first-line actresses, and at a time when many people are busy becoming slash stars and running cross-industry businesses well, she has focused on only one thing for many years - acting. Outside of acting, she doesn't seem to be very good at it or care too much. She is probably the most afraid of ugly photos of female stars, street shooting interviews are dare to face the face, every three to five was filmed to "bald head" "face swollen" photos, and as a young and famous actor she does not seem to cherish the feathers, she has received a lot of new director films, it seems that there are some inexplicable projects, the box office and word of mouth of the films she has acted in have been smashed, but it will never cause people to doubt her acting skills. She often chooses a role for a project not because it's a project that looks like it's going to succeed, but because it's "not yet defined," "there are a lot of possibilities," and "wants to try." She has achieved a lot of freedom, such as the freedom of ugly photos, the freedom of bad films, such as the freedom to transcend age anxiety, as her "famous fan" Hao Lei wrote for her: "She walks freely in the name of Zhou Xun in this world."
She has won too many praises, and even so, she is still an underrated actress in China.
Zhou Xun in "The Tale of Ruyi"
Have a broad understanding of beauty, so they can interpret beauty richly
Director Wang Jing once commented on Zhou Xun, which probably means that the appearance is not extremely beautiful, but the acting skills make up for the lack. Wang Jing didn't think Zhou Xun looked good, one possibility was because he hadn't seen Zhou Xun's cardamom years to double ten Shaohua.com. Zhou Xun is of course beautiful, and is amazing beauty, in the 90s of the last century, there were two major calendar girls throughout the country - North Qu Nan Zhou, Zhou Xun, who was still studying at the art school, was on a par with the first generation of supermodel Qu Ying, printing her wall calendar is easy to sell, I don't know how many wall calendar factories have been fed. The eyes of the masses are shining, how can the wall calendar girl who can laugh at the national hard numbers with sales hard numbers not be beautiful? Over the years, Zhou Xun is not known for beauty, one is because her super business ability makes people ignore her appearance, the other is because her beauty is unique, if Wang Jing thinks that only feminine mature women are beautiful, then in his eyes, Zhou Xun is indeed not beautiful enough. Fortunately, Wang Jing does not represent the aesthetics of all directors, and many directors think that she is extremely beautiful, and they do not hesitate to record her amazing beauty with a large close-up.
Zhou Xun in "April Days on Earth"
As early as the beginning of Zhou Xun's film, before she had hammered out the real performance characteristics of her own, she was already a small favorite under the lens of xie tieli, the third generation director of Chinese films, and the fifth generation director Chen Kaige, the blind girl played by Zhou Xun in "Jing Ke Thorn Qin King" was amazing, unforgettable, Chen Kaige looked at Zhou Xun's more close-up and more beautiful face on the monitor, and sincerely lamented that she was "the communicator of the soul".
Zhou Xun in "Painted Skin"
There are many kinds of beauty, sometimes it is not that one thing is not beautiful, but that our understanding of beauty is too monotonous and convergent, and feeling beauty requires us to have more imagination and tolerance. Isn't the little one in "Painted Skin" beautiful? Who says fox spirit is fleshy charm? The fox we see in nature is obviously a small cute, why should it become a full and plump female entity when transformed into a human form?
Zhou Xun also played a famous beauty - Nanzi in the movie "Confucius", and the group of Zhou Xun's wild running pictures that were very popular on the Internet recently were taken from this movie. Nanzi was a well-known sexy demon woman in the Spring and Autumn Period, so how did Zhou Xun play this role? She played Nanzi into a forest deer, beautiful but not self-aware, in the world of wanton leaps, when the hunter shoots a sika deer, not because she has any fault, but because she is too beautiful, beauty is the original sin that makes her eventually die. Zhou Xun has said many times in interviews that she loves to watch animal documentaries, and she thinks animals are beautiful, real and moving. For beauty, Zhou Xun has a broad understanding and cognition, and it is precisely from this that her interpretation and presentation of beauty are also rich.
Zhou Xun in "If Love"
Genius flashes in front of the camera because of daily preparation
Speaking of Zhou Xun, the two words seen most are "elf" and "genius".
Of course, there is talent, it is undeniable that Zhou Xun has super comprehension and empathy, and at the same time has super imagination and expression, Lu Chuan said that she is an actor with a very low emotional boiling point, one point can be, and the performance can be controlled very accurately, in short, it is a natural good actor.
Zhou Xun in "The Legend of the Archery Hero"
Zhou Xun's childhood was spent in the cinema, and when he first came into contact with acting, Zhou Xun imitated the films he had seen in the cinema to interpret the role. What a person uses as the first media to contact the world and intervene in the world is very important, and her subsequent artistic career will clearly carry the characteristics of this medium - those who intervene in the world with literature always have a distinct literary nature, and those who contact the world with photography or painting will always have a strong sense of picture, and Zhou Xun's childhood determines that she uses the medium of film to understand the world and intervene in the world, which also determines that her performance has a high degree of cinematic and cinematic texture from the beginning.
Zhou Xun in "Daming Palace Words"
But in the name of talent, it is obviously misleading to obliterate the enormous effort behind a person's success. Zhou Xun has said many times in interviews that in fact, she is also very diligent and diligent, but everyone always attributes her achievements more to talent.
Zhou Xun has always been a very hard-working and serious actor, from her first film to entering the crew of Xie Tieli's "Tomb Desolation" by mistake. Director Xie Tieli as one of the famous "two Thanks" in the history of Chinese cinema with Xie Jin, representative works include "Early Spring February", "Wise Tiger Mountain", etc., his high requirements for art, the seriousness and rigor of his attitude towards artistic creation, are well known in the circle, and director Xie Tieli brought into the film and television circle this high starting point, so that Zhou Xun has always run on a correct track as soon as he embarks on the road of film and television performance. After that, she was favored by the fifth generation director Chen Kaige, and even without finally determining whether she could play the main role Ruyi, Chen Kaige still left Zhou Xun in the "Wind Moon" crew, telling her that even if she could not play this role, she could benefit a lot from watching and learning more in the crew. Although Zhou Xun eventually lost the role of Gong Li in the film due to her young age, she was not discouraged, but instead took this setback as a spur and encouragement, and honed her acting skills more seriously and diligently, she often watched Gong Li and Zhang Guorong acting on the set, stealing teachers from excellent actors.
Zhou Xun in "Wind Moon"
When she entered Li Shaohong's crew, director Li Shaohong, who was also a teacher and an elder, had only one requirement for her: you should not think about anything, and concentrate on acting well. And since then, she has also insisted on practicing this requirement, focusing on the shaping of the role, in order to play xiuhe in "Orange Red", she wore small shoes all day in the crew, her feet were worn and bleeding and refused to take them off, to feel the physical and mental constraints suffered by women of that era. When he and Huang Lei played in the final separate scene, Zhou Xun threw himself into tears when he saw Huang Lei on the set, feeling that he was "about to die" like Xiuhe. Her mind was completely on the scene, and even after the scene was filmed, she was still pondering. In the play, Xiuhe cried when she learned that she was pregnant, and how Zhou Xun listened to director Li Shaohong at that time did not quite understand why Xiuhe was crying. Until several years later, director Li Shaohong suddenly received a call from Zhou Xun, who said that she finally knew why Xiuhe was crying, because she had a life in her belly, "it is life", Zhou Xun sincerely sighed. Good performance, good actor, is endless practice, cultivation, realization and realization.
Zhou Xun in "Orange Red"
Every so-called genius actually has to make a huge effort to look effortless, and the comedic genius Ge You's comedy is naturally handy, in fact, it stems from the fact that each of his lines has to try out hundreds of different statements at home, repeatedly figuring out which one is the best effect. Hao Lei said that a good actor must be naïve, and it is very tiring to open himself up to life and expand his tentacles to capture the subtle feelings in life, but if you want to become a good actor, it is necessary. Good actors observe life every day, and store performance materials, when filming "Painted Skin", Zhou Xun thought that his puppy likes to tilt his head when he greets her every day, so he also tilts his head to see Wang Sheng, which belongs to Xiao Wei's way of expressing his liking; she loves observation, and sometimes she will find a place to sit for an afternoon and go to see people and things. When she was preparing to shoot "Dragon Gate Flying Armor", she went to Africa, looked at the vast grasslands, watched the clouds in the sky, and went to taste and figure out the loneliness of Ling Yanqiu. Everything in life will inspire her, a sound, a taste, a photo, a ray of sunshine, inspiration fills every crevice of life. If there is no daily preparation, where is the flash of genius before the camera?
Zhou Xun in "Li Mi's Conjecture"
Find synaesthesia with the character and expand your own performance dimension
No one doubted Zhou Xun's acting skills, but at the same time, not too many people noticed that she was still struggling to improve little by little. It is easy to see from 60 points to 90 points, and starting with 90 points, even if you improve your score by 1 point, it is not easy. Zhou Xun's often said words in recent years is: "At this stage now, I want to re-absorb, which is a more difficult process, because you no longer have a sense of freshness for many things, and it can no longer easily impress you." "Happily, she's still improving.
She was originally free, and now she is even freer. She has been an unlimited actor from the beginning, and some stars are still discussing the difference between the big screen and the small screen, and there is never such a difference here in Zhou Xun, she wanders freely between the big screen and the small screen. She also does not have too many regional characteristics, whether in the films of the fourth, fifth and sixth generation directors in the mainland, or in the works of Hong Kong and Taiwan directors, she is free, and few people find it difficult for her to integrate.
Zhou Xun in "Like Fog Like Rain and Like Wind"
In recent years, she has passed the midlife crisis and age anxiety, and at one point she cried all day long because she found that she was no longer young and beautiful, but after crying, the Zhou Xun we saw again was a completely free actor. In "Hello, Zhihua", she calmly accepted to play the mother of the young girl Zhang Zifeng, and in the "Eleventh Time" directed by Chen Jianbin, she played the mother of Dou Jingtong, when an actress really survived the female mid-life crisis, putting aside the anxiety of appearance, she was invincible. In "The Eleventh Time", Zhou Xun has a swollen eye, and the whole drama is shiny, playing a middle-aged woman in the city who completely gives up dressing, although the good actors in the film are gathered, but no one can cover her light. In the film, she has a scene of scolding her daughter during dinner, Zhou Xun's handling can be called "the stroke of God", she scolded and threw out the chopsticks in her hand, but in the end she had to pick up the chopsticks from the ground, wipe them on her clothes, and continue to eat. This treatment comes from the observation of life, but also from the actor's wit, a few strokes of this character's strong sense of life on the screen, such as netizens commented "really my mother is my mother".
Zhou Xun in "The Eleventh Time"
She was never honest, and now she's more authentic. From the beginning, Zhou Xun admitted that his performance would not have any superb skills, but would come from the bottom of his heart. Starting from "Red Prescription" and Xi Meijuan acting in the opposite scene, some very strong emotional conflict scenes, she asked for real fights, so some actors emphasized that the set was really beaten, and it was never a problem in Zhou Xun.
Zhou Xun in "The Best Life of a Spoiled Woman"
Zhou Xun's personal conditions are very unique, this is where she shines, and it is also where she will be restricted, she did not shy away, as she herself said: "Be honest with your heart." After being honest, you will have no obstacles, if you can't face yourself honestly, how can you face the role you want to play? "Without her will not act hard, for example, from beginning to end, she has not had a mature and sophisticated sexiness, she can not deceive herself, nor can she deceive the audience, the actor must rely on her own natural materials to create, this material is her own physical condition and the basic temperament of the whole person, it is difficult for an actor to transcend the limitations of natural conditions, the so-called chameleon thousand-faced people are only relatively wide thresholds."
She can't do it, she can't act hard, then she will be smart to find another way to circle or find another way to reach the destination. This is both honesty and a thoughtful wisdom.
Zhou Xun in "The Sound of the Wind"
She loves to watch the real, natural emotions of animals in documentaries, because everything they do is out of nature, so can't it be performed like this? From the true nature of the characters. So you see her consciously doing subtraction in the performances of "The Wind Listener" and "The Sound of the Wind", minimizing the visible performance skills and practicing a documentary-like zero-degree performance style, which is a very bold and very avant-garde practice.
In connection with the character, she gradually moves beyond the external features to approach, but tries to find the synaesthesia between herself and the character, the same or connected channel. "When I was filming "The Wind Listener", I felt that a spy had been working for so many years, she must be tired, and at that stage of my life was also very tired, I found the feeling from my own life, I had filmed for so many years, I was really tired." 」 In "The Wind Listener", she played the scene where the underground revolutionary Zhang Xuening was finally killed, Zhou Xun's interpretation was bold and novel, it was a very cruel scene, Zhang Xuening after the identity was exposed was slowly pushed into the chest by enemy agents with a sharp knife, Zhou Xun showed the revolutionary's final curtain very carefully and richly, from shock to struggle to powerlessness to finally accept the fate of death, the moment she closed her eyes, as Zhou Xun designed, there was a strong sense of fatigue, she lost, she was tired, and she slept for a long time.
Zhou Xun in "The Wind Listener"
While increasingly subtracting external performance techniques, she is also pioneering new performing languages, such as body language. Wong Kar-wai has said that compared with European and American actors, the body language of Chinese actors is not rich enough and not vivid enough, while director Kwan Kam Peng has compared the stars of the sound film era and the silent film era, believing that the stars of the silent film era cannot perform with dialogue, and because the close-up shots are far less than that of modern actors, their body language is much better than that of the stars of the sound film era. In Guan Jinpeng's directorial work "Ruan Lingyu", he deliberately juxtaposed Maggie Cheung, who had the best body language performance in the sound film era, and Ruan Lingyu, the best body language performance in the silent film era, so that they also presented a scene in "Goddess", and it was obvious that Ruan Lingyu's body language table was superior. In the past two years, Zhou Xun's expansion in body language performance is very obvious, whether it is the slack pace of the middle-aged mother walking the dog in "Hello, Zhihua", or the famous "crossing the threshold" bridge section in "Ruyi Zhuan", including the true and false staggering gait of simulating pregnant women with a fake belly in "The Eleventh Time", she is trying to expand her performance dimension with body language.
Zhou Xun in Red Sorghum
In the show "Performer's Speech" led by her, Zhou Xun gave herself the position of not a star, not even an actor, just a performer, so pure and simple. She entered the industry from the age of 17 to the age of 46, thirty years of research is the acting thing, and now she is happy to communicate with the industry, the latecomer is also the matter of performance, in the "Performer's Speech" book of the same name Zhou Xun wrote: "We chose to use 'professional communication' to record the actors in this era, record their views, experiences, ideas, and hope to give young juniors and the audience some performance sharing." "In the show and in the book, she honestly and frankly talked to the actors and friends in the circle about the role, the acting skills, the shooting method, the ignorance when she first played the role, and the inability to break through her troubles after accumulating a certain amount of acting experience." Karma is diligent, and success is in thought", in an era of flowers and flowers, Zhou Xun demonstrated for us a simple and pure way, that is, to find a beloved thing, keep doing it, strive to do better, share it with others, and make progress together, which is a happy thing.
Author| Zhouzhou (Associate Researcher, China Film Art Research Center)
Source: Wen Wei Po