Huawei princess Yao Anna's debut for three years|has capital, but no strength
"No acting skills!
On February 21, with the broadcast of the drama "Ice Hunting", the starring Yao Anna's acting skills were not only sent to the hot search, but also the personal Weibo comment area was also attacked by netizens who complained about her acting skills.
Yao Anna's other identity is more well-known - "Huawei's second princess". In January 2021, Yao Anna made her debut as an artist with the power of capital for more than three years.
In the past three years, there have been continuous negative evaluations and turmoil. But the most important thing is that she has capital, but she has no strength, which makes it difficult for her to really gain a foothold in the entertainment industry.
Therefore, 4 days after the launch of "Ice Hunting", the popularity value of Tencent Station approached 30,000, attracting 50,000+ comments, and everyone praised Zhang Songwen one-sidedly, and at the same time denied Yao Anna's performance from all angles - such as "the acting school does not bring the relationship" and "the ugly child of capital" and other arguments, which are also constantly fermenting in public opinion.
From singing and dancing singers to entering the film and television industry, is it a line of work that does not work, or is it a rebirth of breaking the circle?
Labels that can't be removed
"Ice Hunting" is Yao Anna's first drama as a starring role, judging from the few episodes that have been broadcast so far, her acting skills are superficial, lacking eye drama and inner drama, and her performance has no level. Whether it is literary drama or martial arts, the state presented by the characters has hardly changed at all.
Especially when playing with Zhang Songwen, in contrast, it is indeed as netizens said "can't catch it".
Although director Gao Qunshu said that the little girl has worked very hard, the chase scene to capture the fugitive is not even a stand-in, and she is also very hard in the crew...... But the audience doesn't pay for such a "hard-working person". The barrage and comment area are full of complaints.
In fact, she previously made a cameo appearance as a commissary proprietress in "A Windy Place", with few scenes, but she won a lot of favor. So the focus of everyone's controversy is - can her acting skills take the lead?
Obviously, judging from the current level of acting skills, there is a gap between him and Zhang Songwen. Yao Anna is too thin in character building, her role is a retired anti-drug policewoman of special forces, in addition to the appearance is quite qualified, the character's own character, characteristics, and experience do not have much interpretation in the details of the performance. To put it simply, the charm of the character has not been released, and the audience can't like it.
The focus of the police film is the cat-and-mouse game of the confrontation between the two strongmen, but at present, it looks more like a high-IQ drug offender beating the police, which reduces the attractiveness of the follow-up plot and turns the two strong moves into a powerful crushing of one side. There were even audience comments:
"For the first time, I don't want drug dealers to get caught......"
Behind the negative public opinion, Yao Anna's acting skills are not online, although it is an important reason, but another key point discussed by netizens is still inseparable from the label of "Huawei's second princess". It was even rumored on the Internet that Yao Anna had a high salary, and she won the role of the heroine by "bringing money into the group".
Gao Qunshu, the anxious chief director, personally went down and wrote a small composition, explaining the beginning and end of the creation of "Ice Hunting" and the ins and outs. The core meaning is that the crew is indeed poor, but Huawei has not invested a penny. The main creative team is very young and doesn't have much filming experience, especially the plot of the police line, which has hard injuries at the script stage. Coupled with the fact that it was only filmed for 55 days, there is no more time to polish the new actors, which can be said to be a work with regrets.
In short, Gao Dao took the initiative to take the blame and thought that all the problems were in himself.
In addition, Director Gao also revealed that since he started his career, he has always liked to use non-professional actors. Yao Anna was selected because of her simplicity, without any traces of acting training, and her image and temperament also matched that of a female policeman.
Although the creator explained on the spot, the audience only saw the result. Judging from the few episodes broadcast of "Ice Hunting", it is indeed "Zhang Songwen who memorized the whole drama", Yao Anna's performance is indeed young, and the audience's criticism is understandable.
Comparing non-professional artists who have just debuted with professional actors, such a comparison itself may not be fair. But that's the way it is with actors, if you're not ready to present yourself to the audience at your best, you have to bear all the doubts.
"No matter whose daughter she is, if her acting skills are not online, she will be criticized" - netizens' comments hit the nail on the head.
However, aside from her acting skills, from an image point of view, Yao Anna has nothing to do with the "princess" in the play. The little princess with long hair and bejeweled light at the Paris Ladies Ball is long gone, replaced by a policewoman with short ears, piercing eyes, and a thin body, who can kick drug dealers with one kick, just like a female man. Such Yao Anna is undoubtedly in contrast to her identity to the public.
did not play a peerless beauty in Xianxia dramas, nor did she fall in love in idol dramas, but tested the waters in low-cost online dramas. Yao Anna's choice seems to be a bit unexpected, but perhaps to a certain extent, it is the most suitable for her. At least in the future, "actresses who urgently need to improve their acting skills" will become Yao Anna's new label.
After her debut, the word "hard work" was repeatedly mentioned by Yao Anna. Indeed, in many professions, hard work is valuable. Zhang Songwen spent nearly 20 years confirming this fact.
But in the entertainment industry, sometimes "God appreciates food" is also very important.
Is the princess "out of the ordinary"?
In 2018, Yao Anna's name rushed to the hot search for the first time.
At the Paris Ladies Ball, known as "one of the world's top ten luxury parties", Yao Anna, who had just turned 20, danced with the Belgian prince, which instantly detonated the Internet, which was her highlight moment. For the sake of his daughter, even Ren Zhengfei, who has always been low-key, cooperated with the media to take a family photo for the first time.
As a celebrity and Huawei's second princess, she had another identity at that time: a Harvard scholar.
In 2016, Anna Yao was one of seven students admitted to Harvard University in Chinese mainland. But unexpectedly, this computer science and statistics major chose to become an artist after graduation. Even the contracted company Tianhao Shengshi is skeptical:
Could it be that the princess is here to play the ticket?
Yao Anna at the Ladies Ball in Paris, France (second from right)
Since the public is curious, then defeat the magic with magic. The agency simply responded to why Yao Anna wanted to be an artist in the form of a documentary. In the documentary, Yao Anna made it clear that she was not here to play tickets, "I look at being an artist as a career, and I will do it well from the heart." ”
On January 14, 2021, the day Yao Anna turned 23, she officially announced her debut on her personal Weibo. At this time, her half-sister Meng Wanzhou was still illegally detained by Canada, and the contrast between ice and fire made her instantly the target of public opinion. However, public opinion itself is a double-edged sword, which is the weight of the profession that artist Yao Anna must bear.
4 days after her debut, Yao Anna released her first single "Back Fire", although she admitted in the documentary that she didn't like the word "princess", but there is still such a sentence in the lyrics of "back fire" - "The so-called dogma, I will break it and write the legend of the princess". For Yao Anna, who had just debuted, "Huawei's Second Princess" was indeed the biggest eye-catcher at that time.
On September 1 of the same year, Yao Anna released her first music EP "Letter, Hope· ART", which is said to have written and composed the music herself, but failed to make much of a splash. Twenty-five days later, Meng Wanzhou ended her three-year detention and returned to China. As a younger sister, Yao Anna excitedly posted, claiming that "my sister will always be my role model".
But sharp-eyed netizens found that there were many typos in the article: "Your words are very sensational, and I doubt your cultural level." After Yao Anna edited it many times, she made up for it in the comment area - "Excited heart, trembling hands." ”
Judging from the few songs released after her debut, Yao Anna's singing skills are indeed not complimentary, and compared with the professional level of her ballet, she is not at the same level at all. For the music industry, sometimes it is true that God rewards food, and it has nothing to do with hard work.
Perhaps, there is a sense of self-knowledge. Soon, she switched to the variety show sequence, as a resident guest, to participate in the food show "Chinese Restaurant Season 5", although the show pulled a wave of "civilian princess" favor for Yao Anna, but from the content point of view, the program team still used "Huawei's second princess" as a gimmick and repeatedly hyped it. The identity of "princess" has long become a label that cannot be torn off.
In the second year of her debut, Yao Anna was no longer obsessed with singing and dancing, but entered the film and television industry. In May 2022, the short film "A Cliff Rises by the Sea" starring her won the Palme d'Or for short films at the 75th Cannes International Film Festival. It was also in this year that she participated in "Ice Hunting" and completely transformed into the film and television industry.
Singing, recording variety shows and acting, in the past three years since her debut, Yao Anna's hairstyle has become shorter and shorter, and her body has become thinner and thinner. The temperament of the whole person has also changed from the original idol type to a cool self type.
She and the princess in everyone's impression have drifted apart. But is it really "out of the ordinary"?
Yao Anna's report card is still not excellent.
Behind-the-scenes capital territory
"Exceptional Princess" is the brand positioning of Yao Anna by the brokerage company Tianhao Shengshi (full name is "Beijing Tianhao Shengshi Entertainment Culture Co., Ltd.").
Zhou Hao, the founder of Tianhao Shengshi, is a post-80s generation, and most of them were music agents in his early years, so he signed singers such as Tan Weiwei, Jin Zhiwen, and Ji Ke Junyi, which is not difficult to understand why Yao Anna was a singer when she debuted. In the later period, Tianhao Shengshi began to make efforts in film and television, and successively signed well-known actors such as Huang Zitao, Liu Mintao, Niu Junfeng, Qi Wei, Wen Qi, Kan Qingzi, and Chen Feiyu. At the same time, a number of subsidiaries including entertainment, music, film industry, and brokerage have been established.
In Tianhao Shengshi, Zhou Hao accounted for more than 56% of the shares, and the second largest shareholder, Horgos Lehua Film and Television Co., Ltd., accounted for 19.5% of the shares, and the boss was Du Hua. This can also explain why Lehua's star shareholder Han Geng will "carry a sedan chair" for Yao Anna in "Ice Hunting".
Filming a debut documentary, this specification proves that Yao Anna's starting point in the prosperous world of Tianhao is very high. In the industry, although Tianhao Shengshi is not a "big factory", it is full of characteristics. Unlike other companies, when they are ready to sign an artist, they will formulate a full set of plans for them and carry out "pre-planning".
In the overall structure of artist management, there is also a rare "brand center", which will operate artists like products, and will conduct all-round due diligence according to the personality and the problems existing at this stage, and finally give a brand plan. It was also under this process that Yao Anna finally unlocked the brand positioning of "Exceptional Princess".
However, when she first got such a plan, she herself was not satisfied, especially for the title of "princess". However, the brand director emphasized that the focus of the persona is to "break the rules", and to convey to the outside world is the attitude of having the courage to break through themselves and constantly break the limitations. Although mainstream public opinion generally believes that with Yao Anna's family background, it is destined to be difficult to empathize with the public, but the attitude of breaking through stereotypes and pursuing self-worth is still consistent with the internal values of Generation Z young people.
It can be seen that Tianhao Shengshi still has a relatively set of emotions in grasping the audience's emotions.
Zhou Hao once said in a public interview: "If the audience likes you, you must have a relatively unified interest orientation, and your positioning must be clear." In the end, "breaking the limit, breaking the theory, breaking the suitability, and becoming a better self" has become the core direction of Yao Anna's debut.
Yao Anna is not the first rich second generation signed by Tianhao Shengshi, Huang Zitao also signed Tianhao Shengshi after returning to China, not only that, but his father Huang Zhongdong in order to escort his son, during Huang Zitao's signing period, he acquired 39.6% of the shares of Tianhao Shengshi's Film Co., Ltd., and once served as the chairman. Until Huang Zitao terminated the contract in 2018, the company changed its name to Beijing Longtao Entertainment Culture Co., Ltd., and the actual controller became Huang Zitao.
Like Huang's father, Chen Hong escorted the child, after Chen Feiyu signed a contract with Tianhao Shengshi, his mother Chen Hong held 10% of the shares of Tianhao Shengshi's subsidiary, "Tianjin Tianhao Shengshi Entertainment and Culture Brokerage Co., Ltd." And Chen Hong's eldest son has a close relationship with Yao Anna, and there may be traces to follow in signing a contract with Tianhao Shengshi.
Ren Zhengfei did not buy shares for his daughter, but asked Huawei to register the name "Yao Anna" as a trademark. This is the first time Ren Zhengfei has "used public power for private purposes", for which he also apologized to all Huawei employees.
It is worth mentioning that Yao Anna got very close to Mango Terrace after her debut. not only as a resident guest of "Chinese Restaurant" and "Longing for Life", but also participated in "Going to a Windy Place" broadcast by Mango, and sang the theme song of the show at the 2024 Hunan Satellite TV's New Year's Eve concert.
The deep binding with the mango system is inevitably indispensable to the operation of the brokerage company. But the identity of "Huawei's second princess" is also an invisible asset. Since 2018, Huawei has reached an in-depth cooperation with Mango TV. In addition to connecting the two ports in terms of video content, Mango TV's full content is injected into Huawei Video, and Huawei has also provided cloud computing to Mango TV, opened up a number of technical capabilities, and cooperated at multiple operational levels.
A few days after the broadcast of "Ice Hunting", negative public opinion did not affect Yao Anna's mood. Instead, she appeared at Huawei's new product launch conference and stood for Pocket2. Many netizens sighed - "I have saved advertising money for Huawei" and "Ren Zhengfei has too long-term vision".
For Yao Anna, who is in the entertainment industry, in the future, no matter whether she succeeds or not, the social circle determines that she will always have a way out.
However, the real showbiz is more of a desperate rebirth.
Written by | Little ink
Curated | Entertainment Spring and Autumn Editorial Department