Yan Chengxu's new work "Summer Flower" is a hit, with mixed reviews, but the complaining voice is basically on the male protagonist Yan Chengxu.
Xiao Han, played by him, is a middle-aged man who looks high-quality in all aspects.
It is said that the director and screenwriter regard him as a former idol, so he uses a large number of shots to restore Yan Chengxu's all-round handsomeness.
But the 21-year age difference between him and Xu Ruohan, the actor of the heroine, persuaded many audiences.
However, this is not the first time that Yan Chengxu has appeared in a "dusk idol drama" - although from the outside, he is indeed a frozen age male god.
But since becoming popular with "Daoming Temple" 22 years ago, has Yan Chengxu really never thought about transformation?
1. Initial flow rate
When Yan Chengxu first appeared in front of the public, he was still 24 years old, and he had been working as a model until then.
Born into a poor rural family, he was already living in precarious conditions, and his father died of illness when he was 12 years old, which made the family's economy even worse.
As the only man in the family, Yan Chengxu took on the burden of the family at a very young age, starting from odd jobs to subsidize the family.
After entering junior high school, he began to work part-time, and he could only sleep 3 or 4 hours a day when he was busiest, which was very hard.
The poor family situation and the early death of his father have made Yan Chengxu fragile, sensitive, inferior, and particularly troubled by feelings, which also makes him still like a child at the age of 46, as if he will never mature.
Yan Chengxu worked as a small vendor, porter, and bartender, and now he remembers his youth, only bitterness.
With a girl with a crush, he never dared to step forward, and he didn't even have the courage to say hello, and finally about to graduate, he accidentally discovered that the two were actually happy, but in the end he regretted missing it.
Because of his outstanding appearance, Yan Chengxu was discovered by scouts, so he became a model, began to take on some advertising and MV work, and once won the championship in the model audition.
It is precisely because of these experiences that he was chosen by gold agent Chai Zhiping and got the opportunity to appear in the idol drama "Meteor Garden".
In fact, at that time, no one knew whether the idol drama "Meteor Garden", which invested only 110,000 yuan, would be popular, after all, the eight o'clock stalls in Taiwan at that time were all family dramas of some mothers-in-law and mothers.
But when the four big boys who came out of the comics appeared at the same time, they still set a new rating record for Taiwanese TV dramas, and this record was not broken until 2006.
Yan Chengxu became popular because of this, and Zhou Yumin, who played the flower class, both became the "first generation of the top".
How popular was this work at that time?
This wave of dividends is said to continue until four years later:
Audiences in 16 countries have seen "Meteor Garden", with more than 1.5 billion viewers.
The dividends Yan received were even more impressive: he released a photo album the following year, and 12,000 fans lined up day and night for a book signing in Hong Kong.
In 2003, Yan Chengxu's announcements were concentrated in the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand and other places, because he had to go to meetings and concerts all the time.
That is to say, after becoming famous, he has not come up with any new works for about 5 years, but has been eating the old book of "Meteor Garden".
Oh yes, during the period, he was also wrapped in the scandalous story of Yan Chengxu and Lin Chiling, the "first beauty in Taiwan".
The relationship between the two was first known to the public in 2005, because the woman's mobile phone was broken to repair it, and intimate photos were exposed.
But in the end, they did not come together, which once became the first Be aesthetics in the hearts of the post-80s and 90s audiences - this long and regrettable emotional experience has also become another secret weapon for Yan Chengxu to maintain his popularity.
2. Acting black holes
Until 2007, Yan Chengxu finally starred in the medical-themed TV series "White Tower", which is also adapted from a Japanese drama, although the score is not as high as the original, but it has a good reputation.
I believe that in addition to the excellent original work itself, some of this reputation may come from the team and other actors, as well as Yan Chengxu's popularity and popularity at that time.
As for his acting skills, he has never made any progress, and even because he couldn't do a slightly disappointed walk, he was scolded by the director in public: "Pig's head! ”
After that, Yan Chengxu starred in idol dramas such as "Basketball Fire" and "Tears of the Heart Star" successively, returning to his comfort zone.
In particular, he filmed "Tears of the Heart Star", and was also revealed to have a relationship with the heroine Guan Ying, but this relationship ended soon after.
After a long time, Guan Ying, a real lady who has always "not chosen words", vented her dissatisfaction with the media, and also said that during the period of love with Yan Chengxu, the man disappeared at every turn, which was a proper "human ghost love".
Indeed, although in the hearts of fans, Yan Chengxu has a tall figure, three-dimensional eyebrows, and a shy expression, his popularity and reputation are not good, and he is a "tyrannosaurus" in the mouth of his partners.
In 2009, he began to enter the mainland market, and cooperated with Chen Zihan and other actresses in the cross-strait co-production drama "Just Want to Depend on You", playing the still handsome and compelling elite lawyer "Xiang Yuping".
When Yan Chengxu has been spinning in idol dramas, his former partner Zhou Yumin is studying transformation.
The two have similar backgrounds and similar personalities, and the works that became popular are the same, but in the planning of their acting careers, they began to have differences.
When Yan Chengxu starred in "Just Want to Rely on You", Zhou Yumin took out "Riffraff Hero", playing the 26-year-old riffraff Chen Zaitian.
This character started out as a somewhat lonely "beggar" image, and later drove sports cars, wore name brands, and soaked hot girls... It's very different from the Hanazawa class in my impression.
Yan Seung-wook still took advantage of his easy popularity and popularity, and in 2010, he was still elected as the "Most Popular Taiwanese Male Artist in Korea" and published a photo album.
Indeed, at that time, he had been debuting for 10 years, and his popularity was still undiminished, and the TV series "My Brilliant Life" he starred in again won 100 million hits during the broadcast.
But the public's aesthetic of "beautiful men" will eventually pass, and Yan Chengxu, who is gradually entering the middle-aged stage, still does not understand: people cannot eat the old book forever, and artists are even more so.
The "beautiful man" Zhou Yumin next door has won the Golden Bell Award for Best Actor in the Drama category in 2013 for starring in the TV series "The Other Side 1945".
On the podium, he was no longer shy and voluntarily admitted that he had a stable girlfriend and planned to get married.
What about Seung-wook?
Still playing elite, overlord, fashion editor-in-chief in various idol dramas, the splash gradually decreased, and thus became the "top stream" that every audience knows but no longer pays too much attention to.
Maybe the popularity is declining, the film contract has decreased, or maybe you don't want to repeat the same script again.
There is a stage where Yan Chengxu hardly films, but occasionally he can still rush to the hot search:
For example, in 2018, Lin Zhiling announced her marriage - since then, the regrettable relationship that has been entangled for 15 years has finally ended.
But is Yan Chengxu's "youth" over? It doesn't seem to be.
3. Stay put
In 2020, Yan Chengxu, who has been debuting for almost 20 years, suddenly has more work, especially the TV series "I Like You So Much" co-starring with the young "Little Flower" Shen Yue.
But this time, instead of flowers and applause, he complained more than praised.
Yan Chengxu in the play is still "full of youth", playing Lu Xingcheng, the editor-in-chief who is cold and ruthless on the surface, but is actually gentle and kind.
Even if you haven't seen this work, just hearing this introduction, will you feel very familiar:
Is there any difference between this character and the Daoming Temple 20 years ago?
And the heroine is played by Shen Yue, who is 20 years younger than Yan Chengxu - more magically, she also played the role of Shancai in the new version of "Meteor Garden".
Therefore, everyone's complaint at that time was: "The love story of the old version of Daoming Temple and the new version of Shancai? ”
But more doubts lie in the insurmountable age difference between the male and female protagonists, and the most objective evaluation is really heartfelt:
"Knowing the age difference between the two, CP can't stand it, and the acting skills of the two are not good enough to make me forget the age difference outside the play."
And the old-fashioned plot and suspended lines also make people play in minutes, and even the screenwriter directly moved the classic line of "Meteor Garden": "If the apology is useful, what do you want the police to do", it is obviously consumer feelings.
Seeing the new drama hit the street, Yan Chengxu, who was bent on ushering in the second spring of his career, participated in the show "Brother Who Broke Through Thorns" non-stop.
Although the program group also innovatively invited the actor of Shancai, Da S, to connect live, it did reach a certain climax of "Ye Qing Hui".
But then, Yan Chengxu's performance was unsatisfactory:
In terms of singing and dancing, he is obviously inferior to his contemporary, Chen Xiaochun;
When he showed his talent, he didn't have anything outstanding, and even said bluntly: "I only eat."
Therefore, in "Phi Ge", Yan Chengxu's performance can only be summed up by "opening high and walking low": showing off feelings when appearing and winning a wave of heat; The end was dull, with a tail dropped.
Now, in 2023, the work he came up with is still an idol drama of "rotten street" such as "Summer Flower", and the cooperation object is Xu Ruohan, who is 1 year younger than Shen Yue.
What is even more stunning is that the actress who plays the heroine Xu Ruohan's mother in the play is Huang Yi, who is the same age as Yan Chengxu.
Therefore, as soon as this drama was broadcast, in addition to some people questioning Yan Chengxu's "old cow eating tender grass", some people exclaimed: "Huang Yi plays mother? ”
Yes, Huang Yi, like Yan Chengxu, became famous in 2001 because of a play: she was Li Yuhu in "The Wrong Flower Palanquin Married to Lang", and later became the "Little Swallow" in "Huan Zhu Gege 3".
Her early performance aura was compelling, but due to the unsmooth emotional life, her career fell into a bottleneck, and she also repaid in recent years, trying to find a new breakthrough.
It's just that the public didn't expect that the "childhood goddess" Huang Yi would meet the "childhood goddess" Yan Chengxu in a play, but he has begun to play two different generations.
Although there is never a lack of works with the theme of "uncle love" in film and television dramas, compared with Zhang Jiayi with Wang Xiaochen, Chen Jianbin with Li Yitong, Yan Chengxu's performance in "Summer Flower" is not a contradictory existence.
But an actor who has been playing the same role for 20 years and has hardly made much progress, is it his own lack of hard work, or the director's bottomless connivance?
Actress Hui Yinghong said to student Shen Yue in the variety show "Infinite Beyond Class" that she "wants to try different roles", and said bluntly:
"Every time they ask me to play mom, but I can also play a lot of different moms!"
I still hope that Yan Chengxu, who has been taking over the play, can make a little change, and maybe he will see a different self.