Wen Yongshan: In addition to being dangerous and fascinating, I have added a key prehistory to "Li Muzi"

June 25, 2023 | Total Issue 3277

Because she came to the mainland to film too early, when it comes to Hong Kong actresses in recent years, people rarely think of Wen Yongshan.

Some people describe Hong Kong women as "zhengdan and color dan", not only the women of Jiangsu and Zhejiang who can carry the liquidation well, but also the open-mindedness and hardness that Lingnan girls can carry things, the colorful and brittle shell is knocked open, and the softness of quicksand can be seen inside. After contacting Wen Yongshan, you will find that she happens to be the opposite, with a delicate appearance wrapped around the heart of bandits, and she is not in a hurry or slow to walk her own actor path.

This time "Disappearing Her" makes us feel the long-lost Hong Kong flavor on Wen Yongshan, "Li Muzi" wears a long dress, dangerous and charming, which endorses the temperament of the entire movie.

From a teenage model to today's "drama throwing face", Wen Yongshan has used 13 plays. Relying on her appearance, she has long unloaded the burden of "beautiful", shielded the disturbances outside the scene, and focused on the wider sky in the role.

This is Wen Yongshan's tenth year of filming in the mainland, and this Beipiao Hong Kong female group no longer recognizes her life, but she still feels anxious when repeatedly polishing her role. As a "detail control" who must do everything, she will repeatedly deliberate on the logic of the characters when she gets the script, and find a real foothold in fiction.

But this time's crazy criticism of the beauty "Li Muzi" is precisely a role that is not logical, it is difficult to glimpse the true face, but after entering the play, he can be completely enjoyable.

"Li Muzi" has three stages

"The last time I wore such delicate makeup in the play was when I filmed "Equator" nine years ago." Wen Yongshan recalled. Although she was the first to appear in the circle with beauty, Wen Yongshan rarely starred in movies as a brightly dressed urban beauty. In 2015, Wen Yongshan was nominated for the Hong Kong Film Awards for the role of Zhang Yijun in "Equator", with flaming red lips, big waves and fierce hands rising and falling, which once made Zhang Yijun become the "Ji Circle Heavenly Cuisine" in the hearts of fans.

"'Li Muzi' and Zhang Yijun are still very different, although their beauty is very aggressive and they both know how to control the situation. But Zhang Yijun is a killer, giving people a more powerful feeling. 'Li Muzi' is more of a charm, her ruthlessness is like a rose thorn, I don't know when I will prick you. ”

"Equator" Zhang Yijun

Actors are competitive and keen to show different sides of themselves through their roles. The first time Wen Yongshan saw the script, she was very moved by the role of "Li Muzi".

A strange "wife" who suddenly appears after disappearing, knows all the details of the relationship between you, but never mentions the reason for being close to you. "The first time I read the script, I didn't guess the ending at all, the film has a lot of reversals, and each character has an explosive climax." Li Muzi's before and after contrast is very large, people don't talk much, and there are different states in the three stages of the film, which is very fresh and exciting for the actors. ”

The actor's job is not only to turn words into images, but also sometimes to logically supplement the script and characters. Wen Yongshan is a detail controller, she will bury some of her own designs from the lines, shape and even costume props to make the characters as authentic as possible. Wen Yongshan's "Li Muzi" this time is the "trick" of the entire film, and it is also the link that connects the key plots of the film, but the amount of information about the identity and background of "Li Muzi" in the first version of the script is not much.

Wen Yongshan said that the details of the "cutting wrists" at the end were added after communicating with the crew. The lines of "remembering a person" and the traces of "cutting wrists" accurately interpret the motives of "Li Muzi"'s behavior, and many viewers understand the girl's position in an instant after watching it.

"What the audience sees is the emotional game between 'Li Muzi' and He Fei (played by Zhu Yilong), but as an actor, I must understand why she can be so cruel to herself, and even hesitate to leave a scald scar on her leg in order to help her friends. Use your imagination to sketch out every aspect of her in your mind. In Wen Yongshan's heart, "Li Muzi" should have experienced unimaginable tribulations for ordinary people, and became unable to believe in feelings or men, so that he was willing to hurt himself and help his friends take revenge.

The "smash yourself" shot five or six shots before I was satisfied

After getting the script, Wen Yongshan used to write down the ups and downs of the psychological state of the characters in each scene, which not only allowed her to quickly enter the characters, but also helped to design the emotional drama into layers. In Wen Yongshan's heart, "Li Muzi" from playing He Fei's wife to revealing his true face, the state is divided into three stages, "of which playing his wife in the early stage is the most difficult part to play." ”

"When she first came to He Fei, she had to deceive He Fei and the audience, and she had to act as a real wife, and at the same time show some caution to pave the way for the subsequent character changes."

Wen Yongshan feels that "Li Muzi" has a bit of a "play within a play" feeling. "A key point in her state transition was the beach scene. She had some fake feelings for He Fei before, but at the beach dinner, she was officially showdown and began to show her fangs. It can also be seen in the tidbits that the confrontation between 'Li Muzi' and He Fei was very fierce, and she pulled a tablecloth and was pushed to the ground, which was actually a signal that she declared war on He Fei. ”

Many people were deeply impressed by Wen Yongshan's scene of "smashing the wine bottle", and the blood stains on her forehead were still pressing step by step. This scene is like the curtain call of "Li Muzi", and Wen Yongshan feels that if the beach confrontation is the beginning of the battle of wits between two people, then "smashing wine bottles" here is to clearly distinguish between you and me alive.

During the shooting, although smashing a wine bottle on his head was only a brief shot, Wen Yongshan was not satisfied with five or six shots. "The moment the bottle hits the head, there is always a conditioned blink. If the eyes don't blink, the ruthlessness will be stronger. ”

Wen Yongshan recalled that when "Equator" was filmed, there were many shooting scenes, and she entered the group training six months in advance, and finally overcame the instinct to blink due to recoil when shooting. "This time, I also thought that I could overcome it by trying a few more times," Wen Yongshan said with some helplessness, "but blinking when I was hit is indeed a physiological reaction, and I can't control it with repeated practice." ”

Although Wen Yongshan has played many beauties, it is the first time to play this crazy woman with tea in this charm. How to interpret "seduction" has also become the biggest challenge Wen Yongshan faced during the shooting.

"That kind of charm is not to ruffle the hair, twist the waist can be expressed, the scale is not good, enchanting can easily become contrived." Wen Yongshan also mentioned the scene of the beach dinner, and the "Li Muzi" who had a showdown with He Fei at the dinner table was provocative, amorous, and made people feel very dangerous. "But at the beginning, I only showed tenderness and vulnerability, and the most important ruthlessness could not come out, thanks to the producer (Sicheng)."

Chen Sicheng is an actor, and on the scene, he can demonstrate it from the perspective of performance, giving tips to actors and giving actors confidence. "He can always use the details to handle the characters better, such as the beach scene, he shakes the bottle first, puts on a 'pour a glass of wine first' posture, and the feeling of negotiation and pinching is immediately there." Then you'll find that not only wine bottles, but also many common items can be used to enrich the character. ”

How to say goodbye to "Gangpu"

For a role like "Li Muzi" that is not easy to substitute, the situation built by the crew and the interaction with the opponent are very important. Wen Yongshan feels that the whole play of "Disappearing Her" is very staged, and the whole drama rhythm is very strong.

"The high-saturation color tone and symmetrical lens processing make the film very stage-like, some scenes with more intense emotions, and there will be a lot of collisions in the design of the action and position of the opponent actors, which can help the actors quickly enter the play." For example, after I fell to the ground on the beach, the tearing with Zhu Yilong was improvisational. ”

"Li Muzi" is the second time Wen Yongshan has appeared on the mainland big screen with her original voice. Although Mandarin has long ceased to be complained about "Gangpu", Wen Yongshan is still not satisfied with her lines. "Now there will still be psychological pressure when I see large, fast dialogue, such as the opening scene of 'Li Muzi' being interrogated by the police, the rhythm is very tight, there is a word that says slowly, and the final effect will be greatly reduced."

But there is no shortcut to language practice, you can only read more, listen more, practice more. In addition to taking line lessons, Wen Yongshan will try all the lines with different feelings in advance before the filming of each scene, "so that after walking on the scene, I will be more sure of the sense of proportion in my heart." ”

The rapid improvement of Mandarin in Man Yongshan came in 2017. This year, she joined the filming of the TV series "The Voice of the Wind", Wen Yongshan played by the deciphering genius Li Ningyu, there are a lot of professional terms in the lines, usually do not speak, but as soon as she opens her mouth, it is four pages of paper, in her words, "a play to finish a whole year's words".

After "The Wind", it was the norm for Wen Yongshan to dub the original voice of the character. She feels that if other actors come to dub, it will not fit the face, and it will also damage the performance, "The next "Moscow Action" and the period drama "Guangzhou Thirteen Lines" are all dubbed by myself. ”

"Disappearing Her" is the third work of Wen Yongshan and Chen Sicheng. From "Detective Chinatown 3" without lines to make a cameo appearance to amaze everyone's mother, to "Manslaughter 2" Ah Ling, who did her best to save her son, to this ruthless "Li Muzi", each character is extremely feminine. At the same time, they are also far away from Wen Yongshan herself.

"The first two times I worked with Sicheng was the role of a mother, and he felt that although I had never been a mother, I had the brilliance of motherhood. (laughs) Maybe it's because I'm a worried person in life. It looks like I am the party who needs to be protected, but usually I take care of others, control the details, and get used to doing everything big and small. Friends who know me well always say that I worry about my life. ”

This "worry" becomes excellence in the work. filming "The Great Chase", a piano scene of more than ten seconds, she went to learn piano three months in advance; filming "The Voice of the Wind" was not confident in Mandarin, and entered the group to memorize lines a month in advance; Ah Ling in "Manslaughter 2" has lived in Southeast Asia for many years, and Wen Yongshan asked the makeup artist to make her skin dark and rough.

"The actor must first achieve the role before the character can bring you applause." After more than ten years in the industry, Wen Yongshan has always maintained the hard work of "moving forward and not looking back".

The types of films and characters she has dabbled in are becoming more and more abundant, but she still expects roles that are very different from herself. Next, Wen Yongshan wanted to contact some literary films. "Although acting is a passively chosen profession, long-term seriousness and sharpening can finally allow the initiative to be held into one's hands little by little."

【Text/Kwai Chung】