Jiang Wen's words, placed on Wang Baoqiang, are too right

Before the release of "In the Octagon Cage", there has always been an argument on the Internet:

Even if this film is average, everyone is willing to support Wang Baoqiang, and we don't want Wang Baoqiang to lose.

There are not a few people who hold this sympathetic mentality, because Wang Baoqiang has really lived too miserably over the years.

In 2016, Wang Baoqiang exposed his family ugliness, and the two most trusted people chose to betray, and Wang Baoqiang encountered the darkest moment.

In 2017, Wang Baoqiang's directorial debut "Big Trouble Tianzhu", which sold well at the box office, but his reputation collapsed, and Wang Baoqiang failed everyone's expectations.

In 2018, Wang Baoqiang personally received the Golden Broom Award and apologized to the audience.

After that, he didn't mention the director, in fact, at that time he had already begun to prepare the script of "In the Octagon".

In 2019, "Crazy Alien" was released, although Wang Baoqiang did not participate, but signed a bet of 2.8 billion box office, the final box office of the movie was only 2.2 billion, and it was rumored that Wang Baoqiang lost several hundred million.

In 2021, "The Legend of Shaolin Temple's Depot" starring Wang Baoqiang will be launched online.

The executive director of this film is Tang Jili, but the real main Wang Baoqiang.

At that time, he was influenced by the movie "Shaolin Temple" to learn martial arts, and he always had a dream of shooting Shaolin Temple, but the failure of the first film made him dare not be a nominal director anymore.

After the film was launched, the reputation was extremely poor, and the Douban score was only 4.0 points.

In the same year, "Detective Chinatown 3" starring him was released, which sold 4.5 billion + at the box office, but the reputation was very poor, and Douban only had 5.3 points.

At that time, there was a saying of "five absolutes" in the film industry, which meant that the five most appealing actors in the film industry were Wang Baoqiang, Wu Jing, Shen Teng, Xu Zheng, and Deng Chao, of which Wang Baoqiang was the only post-80s generation.

After encountering two consecutive attacks by word of mouth, many people predicted that Wang Baoqiang would fall behind from the first echelon.

Sure enough, for the next 2 years, he did not bring new works, until the recently released "In the Octagon".

This is Wang Baoqiang's accumulation, and it is also a battle for his right name.

Obviously, what he wants is not the sympathy of the audience, but to impress the audience with good works.

In his own words, "I hope this movie can win my dignity back." ”

This time, Wang Baoqiang chose the most difficult path.

Judging from the preparation time, Wang Baoqiang has been preparing for at least 5 years.

In the past 5 years, at least 5 directors have handed over olive branches, and Wang Baoqiang has refused them one by one.

He had only touched one book.

When director Li Ruijun sent him his original script, Wang Baoqiang was deeply moved by this story, and drank with the director, and once agreed to play the male number one.

But after learning that the shooting cycle, which could span at least three seasons, he was caught in a dilemma.

Because he was already deeply working on the script of "In the Octagon" at that time, he couldn't switch the creative focus back and forth, and finally regretted missing it.

Later, the movie was released, called "Hidden in the Dust", which is the best domestic literary film in recent years, and Wang Baoqiang regretted missing the opportunity to be crowned again.

From the perspective of the creative theme, Wang Baoqiang chose the most unflattering realistic theme.

In recent years, Wang Baoqiang has always been the image of a comedian in everyone's heart.

At a time when the economy has not fully recovered, most people prefer to watch comedy in cinemas, and investors also hope that Wang Baoqiang will make comedy.

But Wang Baoqiang wants to return to his original intention, because his film debut is the realistic work "Blind Well" directed by Li Yang, and his acting skills are gods, or the realistic work "Hello! Mr. Tree".

When he comes from the grassroots, he will return to the grassroots.

Judging from the shooting time, Wang Baoqiang is not in a hurry.

When he really entered the filming stage, the epidemic hit, and Wang Baoqiang asked for people everywhere, but he couldn't pull investment.

Because the general environment was unclear at that time, a movie was likely to be stopped while filming, and no one dared to take this risk.

Wang Baoqiang found a bank loan for this to shoot, the whole film is actually very light, in addition to Wang Baoqiang, the starring actor Wang Xun is a little famous.

Others such as Xiao Yang, Li Chen, and Liu Hua are all friendship cameos, and most of the rest are amateur actors.

The filming process of the crew was stretched, and the money was used up in the later stage.

At this time, another good brother Chen Sicheng stood up and told Wang Baoqiang that "the problem of money is not a matter, you can open your mouth at any time."

When Wang Baoqiang recalled this experience, tears welled up in his eyes.

In an interview with Phoenix Satellite TV, the host asked him how do you repay the bank loan if the movie loses in the end?

Wang Baoqiang said with a smile: "Then it's good that I continue to film, I can still be an actor." ”

Fortunately, the hard work is not disappointed.

After the release of "In the Octagon Cage", the box office and word of mouth ushered in a double harvest.

In terms of word of mouth, the film Maoyan 9.5 points, Taotao ticket 9.3 points, and 7.6 points on the most demanding Douban, which is currently stable at 7.5 points, which is not easy for new directors.

In terms of box office, before the release of the film, two large-scale screenings were held, and the box office alone exceeded 244 million, breaking the box office record in film history.

Despite this, many people are still not optimistic about Wang Baoqiang.

There is an argument that Wang Baoqiang is using the cover of his brother Chen Sicheng to eat the dividends of the hot screening of "Disappearing Her", and the stamina after the movie is really released is insufficient.

Sure enough, after the film was released on July 6, the final box office predicted by major platforms was mostly concentrated around 800 million.

But soon the film's word-of-mouth began to ferment, and box office expectations continued to rise.

At present, the box office of the film has exceeded 1.6 billion, and the final box office is likely to exceed the 2 billion mark.

A realistic work, it is not easy to get this result, the last one did "I am not the God of Medicine".

Wang Baoqiang fought a beautiful turnaround, not relying on everyone's sympathy, but on the quality of the works taken.

In Jiang Wen's words, he made money by standing this time.

After understanding these behind-the-scenes stories, and then looking back at "In the Octagon", you will feel a completely different taste.

The film is adapted from the Enbo fighting orphan incident, telling the story of the protagonist played by Wang Baoqiang who taught a group of orphans to fight boxing to Tenghui, and finally brought them to highlight the siege of fate, and he also fell into the vortex of public opinion.

In the process of watching the movie, we can obviously feel that Wang Baoqiang is telling other people's stories on the surface, but in fact, he is looking back at his acting career affectionately.

First of all, in the selection of actors, he went deep into the mountains of Sichuan and selected a few young actors with spiritual qualities from a group of rural children, saying that he saw his shadow from the children.

In the behind-the-scenes footage, there is an interesting detail.

These rural babies usually don't have enough to eat, and after filming, the crew's food is very good, they gobble up, and the steamed buns have to be picked up and eaten on the ground, and Wang Baoqiang watched with tears in his eyes.

Later, the crew came to several small actors in the city, and the rural baby immediately showed his inferiority side, and Wang Baoqiang also keenly captured the child's heart and encouraged them to be confident.

Wang Baoqiang also invited two special characters to make cameo roles.

One is his own sister, who plays his sister in the film, which makes this role and Wang Baoqiang himself have a certain degree of mapping.

The other is director Li Yang, who chose Wang Baoqiang to shoot "Blind Well", this time he returned the favor and asked his mentor to make a cameo role.

Li Yang revealed that Wang Baoqiang seems to be humble in appearance, but he has a ruthlessness in his bones, and if he wants to do something, he will definitely do his best to complete it.

Secondly, in the design of details, Wang Baoqiang has also put a lot of effort into it.

For example, the movie has many scenes of smoking cigars, which immediately reminiscent of Mr. Shu's cigar-smoking emoji.

Wang Baoqiang also carefully designed the details of "smoking cigars with a toothpick", highlighting the psychology of the protagonist pretending to be a big person, but picking the rope, which is very expressive, and this shot is likely to become a famous scene in the future.

For example, the scene when the protagonist first met Mr. Li, Wang Baoqiang played extremely pompous, this character is greasy and sleek, a social person, making people dream of Tang Ren in "Detective Chinatown".

The wonderful thing about this performance is that it can be immediately embarrassing to disgusting if you change someone else, and only Wang Baoqiang's performance makes people smile, and it is also put into the trailer to become a major attraction.

Finally, as a realistic movie, in addition to the main plot, the film also directly addresses the cruel reality.

The most poignant is the role of Su Mu's sister.

In the film, Xiang Tenghui takes Su Mu and Sloppy to find her sister, and on the way meets a man who has just come out of her house.

After meeting, I discussed compensation with Tenhui and my sister, and my sister let the two children go out, instinctively pulled the blanket on her body, and said: "You don't embarrass the doll, I will find a way to compensate you for the money." ”

The sister was left disabled because of fertility problems, and it is not known who the father of the child is.

Here Wang Baoqiang shot extremely restrained, but from the details, the audience can also guess that my sister has been exchanging my body for money, and the man I met just now is a prostitute, and my sister said that losing money is also meat compensation.

A small shot, confessing so many plots, do you say it is powerful?

Wang Baoqiang's setting for the protagonist Xiang Tenhui is also very interesting.

He was an honest athlete, but he was framed by the people around him (coaches), took illegal drugs, won the championship was canceled, and knowing the truth, he beat up against the coach and was sentenced to prison.

Isn't this a copy of Wang Baoqiang's previous divorce incident?

After the divorce incident, Wang Baoqiang rarely mentioned his marriage, and when he was a guest at Oriental Selection some time ago, Yu Minhong took the initiative to ask him: "Baoqiang, do you still believe in love?" ”

Wang Baoqiang's answer was also very calm:

"I have always had a clear conscience when I am so big, others can fail me, but I can't fail others."

Wang Baoqiang has experienced such a big setback, can he not have resentment in his heart?

He has, but he turns it into creative material, integrates personal experience into the creation of characters, and expresses this emotion.

This is the most gentle and superlative form of revenge.

The child in the film grows from a wandering orphan to a fighting champion, which represents Wang Baoqiang's own mental journey.

In fact, each of us lives in our own octagon, and we must have the courage to make a desperate bet to break through the cage of fate.

Isn't Wang Baoqiang himself like this?

He became popular with "No Thief in the World", many people say that he is a special actor, only playing silly roles, he immediately starred in "Soldier Assault" and "My Brother Called Shunyo", proving that he can also play a good military theme.

When a wave of homogenized scripts found him, he starred in "Hello! Mr. Tree", "Destiny" and "One Man's Martial Arts", using a madman, a killer and a martial idiot to prove how malleable he is in performance.

When everyone felt that his ceiling was there, he starred in the "Thai" and "Detective Chinatown" series, proving that even on the track of "playing a fool", he can also perform different feelings, innocent, greasy, poor, cute, and handy.

As an actor, Wang Baoqiang is already the first of the post-80s actors, and a large wave of people behind cannot see his taillights;

As a director, Wang Baoqiang re-bloomed after a short period of dormancy, knocking on the door of the 2 billion+ club with a semi-autobiographical realist work.

His legend continues.

Many people say that we don't want Wang Baoqiang to lose, and we don't want to see honest people being bullied, this mood is understandable, but in fact, we don't need a "poor" Wang Baoqiang.

He is an excellent actor, a hard-working director, and a strong man in life, and he is much stronger than we think.

Text/Pippi Film Editorial Office: A Chicken

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