In 2010, at the sharing meeting of the movie "Hawthorn Tree Love", a familiar figure attracted the attention of many people - she was Wei Minzhi, the heroine of Zhang Yimou's movie "No One Can Be Less" 12 years ago.
Over the years, Wei Minzhi has long faded the youthful and immature appearance of the countryside and is already a mature, generous and confident professional director.
Zhang Yimou said with emotion:
"I haven't seen Wei Minzhi for many years, you've grown up, like a story, when you made a movie with me, you were only 14 years old, and now you're sitting here, giving me a feeling like a dream." 」
Wei Minzhi, on the other hand, said:
"The experience of shooting 'No One Less' has changed the trajectory of my life.
Only then will I have the opportunity to go to university and study abroad. Without this movie, I might have raised pigs at home, got married, had children, and been a housewife. ”
Life's encounters are wonderful.
Sometimes, a chance encounter will make a huge difference in a person's life. So, is the change in Wei Minzhi's life really because of this movie?
Go back in time to 1998.
At that time, 13-year-old Wei Minzhi was just a very ordinary rural girl.
Like many other rural children, in addition to studying, life is to chop firewood, feed pigs, do housework, and do farm work.
At that time, Zhang Yimou was preparing to shoot the movie "No One Can Be Less", because Zhang Yimou hoped that all the non-professional actors in the film would be found to star in their true colors, and the crew came to her hometown of Ningbao Township, Chicheng County, Hebei Province.
The early Wei Minzhi, simple and simple, due to the perennial wind and sun, the plateau red on both sides of the cheeks was particularly eye-catching.
A straightforward, unadorned face exudes a natural rustic local atmosphere.
Unexpectedly, at first glance, she looked ordinary, but with a newborn calf who was not afraid of the tiger's "dare" energy, she became the person who laughed to the end.
Deputy director Li Hong said that her first sight was Wei Minzhi's sister Wei Congzhi. The two sisters are twins, but on the outside it is obvious that Wei Congzhi is more dominant, she is better looking, more spirited, and more intelligent.
But when Li Hong asked If Wei Congzhi would sing and dance, Wei Congzhi shyly hid behind her sister.
But Wei Minzhi boldly said that she would, and then performed a song and dance "Our Motherland is a Garden".
To be honest, Minzhi's performance is not outstanding. Slightly stiff limbs, a flat voice, no expression on his face. But it was that simple and fearless confidence that made Li Hong look at her with astonishment.
In the subsequent auditions, Wei Minzhi stood out from more than 10,000 candidates and became the heroine of the film with this bold and natural and authentic expression.
The film aired a year later and received a huge response and numerous awards.
And Wei Minzhi's pure natural performance has also been evaluated by professionals as: acting very naturally, not pretentious at all.
14-year-old Wei Minzhi, in this way, from an obscure rural girl, became a popular star overnight.
Various media outlets rushed to interview her, and countless directors issued film invitations to her.
The sudden explosion of popularity and the opportunity for fame and fortune at his fingertips did not make Wei Minzhi lose his way. She did not immediately make the next decision, but asked for the opinion of Zhang Yimou.
Zhang Yimou said frankly to Wei Minzhi:
You are not suitable for being an actor, and you are not suitable for the entertainment industry. You're not pretty and you're not in good shape.
This one thing can't change your fate, that is, to cooperate with me and shoot "No One Can Be Less". This one thing cannot change your destiny.
But you can get into a good school. It's important to study well, from now on.
In the face of the media chase, Zhang Yimou calmly called on the media:
Please don't be hyped up on the child, don't ask the child such a question, it is an inducement to the child.
Don't ask her what you will do when you grow up, what will you do when you grow up, why do you want to do so much?
Now we keep telling the children along the way, and although the children are now smarter than before, they have recovered a state of mind.
Wei Minzhi followed Zhang Yimou's advice, resolutely left the flashy entertainment circle, turned around and walked into the classroom, and continued to be an ordinary middle school student.
At the age of 19, after the end of the college entrance examination, Wei Minzhi decided to take the Northern Film examination or chinese opera as a director. However, due to the failure of the three tests, he lost his hand with the dream school.
Subsequently, there was a lot of negative news on the Internet about Wei Minzhi's failure to apply for film school, but the ridicule of the outside world did not stop Wei Minzhi's persistence in her dream.
After a year of re-study, Wei Minzhi was admitted to the School of Western Film and Media of Xi'an Foreign Chinese University as she wished, and became a student of the Department of Choreography and Directing.
In his sophomore year, he directed the first TV series "Mother's Wish".
It was also during her college years that she once again met the noble person in her life, Chen Ergang, a Chinese professor at Brigham Young University in the United States, and on the recommendation of Professor Chen, she went to study at Brigham Young University, the third largest private university in the United States.
After graduation, she chose to stay at the school to work.
Later, she met and married Liu Jinhui, a Chinese-American, and gave birth to two lovely sons after marriage, and the family of four was happy and sweet.
In 2010, she returned to China with her husband as a production assistant and actress for the documentary "Miracle's Daughter".
Wei Minzhi spent 12 years to complete the transformation from a young "girl" to a mature director.
If she had dropped out of school to enter the entertainment industry, she might have long been lost to everyone.
Being able to have all this today is inseparable from her clear understanding of herself and her persistence and effort to stick to her dreams.
Compared with Wei Minzhi, another "girl" Lin Miaoke, her innate conditions and starting point are much better than Wei Minzhi.
Because of her outstanding artistic talent, Lin Miaoke was arranged by her mother to learn piano dance from an early age.
Being able to sing and dance, coupled with a cute and clever appearance, Lin Miaoke was discovered by the director when he was six years old and made an advertisement.
Later, she played a deaf-mute girl in the TV series "Forgiveness".
In 2008, Lin Miaoke was selected by Zhang Yimou, the general director in charge of the Beijing Olympic Games, to become the lucky girl who sang "Singing the Motherland" at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.
This year, Lin Miaoke, who was only 9 years old, stood on the Olympic stage of global attention and became famous overnight, becoming the first generation of child stars.
Although Lin Miaoke was pushed to the cusp of the storm a few days later because of the false singing storm, she also received countless attention and became more popular. Subsequently, under the control of her agent's mother, she received a lot of film and television dramas and advertisements, and quickly became popular.
Lin Daiyu, who starred in "Dream of the New Red Chamber" in her childhood, performed "Love Me and Hug Me" on the Spring Festival Gala stage in 2011, which can be said to have a smooth star path.
After that, Lin Miaoke was frequently on the hot search, but almost all of it was negative news:
13-year-old walking in a bar, singing birthday songs;
At the age of 14, he participated in the performance of the TV series "Fairy Lake" and fell in love with 37-year-old Chen Long;
In the news that the actress of the "Dream of the New Red Chamber" crew was unspoken by a high-ranking official, lin Miaoke's name on the "list of being submerged" was prominently listed;
When Yu Qiuyu participated in the test screening of "37", he was instigated by his family to ask for Yu Qiuyu's autograph and group photo;
At the age when he should have gone to school, Lin Miaoke went farther and farther on the road of pursuing fame and fortune, so that his learning plummeted.
And long-term immersion in the entertainment industry and under the tutelage of the agent's mother, the young Lin Miaoke revealed a precocious puberty that was extremely inappropriate for age.
In those years, her photos on the Internet were all kinds of complaints from netizens that she was dressed too old-fashioned, dressed up as mature, dressed as an adult, shook her head when talking, and pretended...
Seniors in the show business have gently reminded Lin Miaoke:
Child you should stop. You should talk naturally, forget the set you learned, really like a child, go to school, to grow, you have to do acting, it should be after high school.
But Lin Miaoke is still running wild on the road of filming, and has no time to take care of his studies.
This also led to her choosing the art examination in the 2017 college entrance examination, the connection was rejected by Nortel and Chinese opera, and she could only retreat to the second place and choose Nanjing University of the Arts.
Time flies. It has been 12 years since Lin Miaoke stepped onto the Olympic stage at the age of 9.
In these 12 years, Lin Miaoke stepped into the complicated circle of fame and fortune in advance, because he prematurely appreciated the cruelty and truth of the adult world, and the whole person carried a sense of sophistication and vicissitudes that were extremely inconsistent with age.
Although the facial features were still beautiful, the aura between the eyebrows had long since disappeared. Even, in the photo she took with her classmates, she became an unrecognizable passerby.
Zhang Ailing's sentence "Fame should be early" makes those who become famous overnight, whether men, women and children, as if driven away by the whip of fame and fortune, everyone goes up with the trend, regardless of their own body, and constantly creates momentum for "red" in order to make "red" last longer.
But as everyone knows, a person who pulls out seedlings to promote growth, prematurely overdraft belongs to the talent given by God, but there is no corresponding effort and strength to support, often a huge consumption, after a flash in the pan, it is likely to be brilliant again.
Fame can be achieved early, but strength takes time and patience to accumulate, and there are no shortcuts.