The vast majority of people will definitely not forget that childhood classic - the 86 version of "Journey to the West".
Whether it is the eccentric Monkey King or the compassionate and kind Tang Seng, countless old drama bones have done their best to present us with one classic film and television impression after another.
It's just that do you know that Tang Seng in "Journey to the West" this time has actually changed 3 actors before and after!
In the play, everyone is a master of Sanzang with deep Buddha nature and compassion, but back to reality, between the three of them
The circumstances are very different, especially the stark contrast between Xu Shaohua and Chi Chongrui.
01
Tang Seng actor who changed three times
Life is a very mysterious word, some people go step by step and succeed logically, and some people work hard but are always a line away from their dreams.
The three Tang Seng actors are a good example, before playing Tang Seng, everyone was a newcomer in the entertainment industry and was not famous.
But after the broadcast of "Journey to the West", the gap between people is bigger than that between people and other animals.
Time back to 1958, one of the actors, Xu Shaohua, was born in Qingdao, Shandong, with a delicate appearance and an active personality, from the moment he was born, this child seems to be a good material for performance.
When he was 8 years old, his family sent him to the Children's Palace to learn ballet, and then participated in the dance drama performance of "The White-Haired Girl", which was Xu Shaohua's first performance on stage.
Therefore, in junior high school, he joined the school's drama club and transformed to learn drama.
As soon as he graduated, he was favored by the Shandong Provincial Repertory Troupe, but at this time, "that decade" intensified, the art industry declined, and Xu Shaohua was forced to interrupt his studies.
It wasn't until 1976 that he returned to the field of art and came to the drama class of Shandong Wuqi Art School to study in a class, when he was 18 years old.
After graduation, relying on his superior appearance and perennial performance skills, Xu Shaohua received invitations from major drama troupes.
In 1979, the young Xu Shaohua directly starred in the drama "The Great Wall of the South China Sea", and was favored by the film director because of this experience, and a year later starred in the movie "Jing Chang" The image of the noble son.
The role has extremely high requirements for the actor's acting skills, after all, this noble son is stupid first and then sassy, there is a huge twist, how to make the image before and after contrast but not abrupt, here is a test of the actor's skills.
Xu Shaohua withstood the pressure, and he successfully gave everyone a classic screen impression as a fledgling, and it was at this time that the crew of "Journey to the West" took a fancy to him.
In fact, the role of Tang Seng in "Journey to the West" was originally used by Wang Yue, who was born in a professional class, has strength and acting skills, and has a good appearance, the key is that he is young and bookish, and the original director almost fell in love with him at a glance, thinking that the role of Tang Seng belongs to him.
When he first received the news of the audition, Wang Yue was extremely excited and excited, at that time he was still a newcomer who had just entered the industry, and he had not yet starred in any particularly famous dramas, and suddenly a big role was placed in front of him, and he naturally cherished it very much.
It's a pity that Wang Yue's brain is not very good, the original performance contracts have been signed, and the first few episodes of the drama have been filmed, but somehow, he believes the words of a "teacher", who claims that Wang Yue's qualifications are too shallow now, and Tang Seng's role is too classic.
If Wang Yue finishes his play, it is very likely that his acting path will be fixed in the future, after all, the audience can think of Tang Seng when they look at him, so how can they talk about the future in the future?
In "Stealing Ginseng Fruit", Wang Yue played the Tang monk who instructed Sun Wukong
When Wang Yue heard it, what the master said made sense! Running away overnight directly shocked the crew of "Journey to the West".
You know, now everyone has signed the contract and agreed to the agreement! Now Wang Yue has broken the contract in vain, do you say that this kind of person, will other crews dare to accept it in the future?
Many times, what the director is most afraid of is the substitution in the middle of the time, which is not only easy to bring inconsistency to the audience, but more importantly, this is a temporary departure, where can I find someone? You can't disband the whole crew for you, right?
But Tang Seng's role is too important, almost everyone has a relationship with him in all aspects, and in desperation, everyone in the crew had to fight frantically to find a suitable candidate, and Xu Shaohua was selected in this situation.
The director looked at his performance in "Refined Change", and the appearance was very suitable for comparison, not to mention that there was nothing wrong with the audition, so he simply didn't pick him, and Xu Shaohua became a key firefighter.
And his understanding is extremely high, the original director was very worried about whether such a young man could perform the director's soft and strong, compassionate temperament, but after Xu Shaohua mentioned it a little, he immediately performed the "Tang monk flavor", as if he was reincarnated!
It's just a pity that after only 9 episodes, Tang Seng's actor is going to change again, this time it is not Xu Shaohua who broke the contract, but the repertory troupe where he is located has a problem.
It turned out that the Shandong Provincial Repertory Theatre had a careful eye when signing the contract and adjusted the time of cooperation to facilitate subsequent renegotiations.
The crew of "Journey to the West" was so busy that they didn't have the time to pay attention to this kind of detail, and finally had no choice but to fall for it.
wanted Xu Shaohua to continue acting, the crew's funds would be seriously overrun, and in the end, Xu Shaohua had to be forced to say goodbye to Tang Seng in "Journey to the West".
It can be said that he has become a victim of commercial competition, according to the original trajectory, if he can successfully play Tang Seng, it will be of great help to his future future.
It's a pity that there are no ifs in life.
And the third actor the crew looked for was the later "Tang Seng Professional Household" Chi Chongrui.
02
The last Tang monk to play
Chi Chongrui was born in a Peking Opera family in Beijing, and almost all of the previous seven generations were performing and inheriting Peking Opera, but in his generation, Chi Chongrui chose not to do it.
Maybe it's because I grew up with Peking Opera since I was a child, or maybe it's for other reasons, all in all, this generation of Peking Opera heirs don't want to take over Peking Opera.
In order to escape the arrangement of his family, he even chose to join the army and became a literary soldier, and after retiring from the army, he was admitted to the Shanghai Theater Academy according to his own ideas to study, in 1981, Chi Chongrui starred in his first work "Doulaokou Blossom", thus officially embarking on the road of an actor.
Like Xu Shaohua, Chi Chongrui was also pulled over to save the scene halfway, and the crew of "Journey to the West" at this time was about to lose confidence, changing roles three times before and after, and even being the protagonist, which hurt the film and television drama too much.
It's just that to everyone's surprise, this firefighter's acting skills seem to be a little too good.
In fact, most of the famous scenes of Tang Seng in our impression were almost contributed by Chi Chongrui, who was 32 years old at that time, but perhaps it was the precipitation of time that the Tang Seng he played really had a trace of Buddha nature, as if he had seen through the red dust of the world.
Everyone was overjoyed, and at the same time, in order to prevent another moth, the following scenes were basically filmed very fast, until 1986, "Journey to the West" was officially released, and the Tang Seng played by Chi Chongrui also received unanimous praise from everyone, and he even became a "Tang Seng professional", and Tang Seng of all sizes in major film and television dramas will ask him to play.
It can be said that when it came to this, the influence of the same Tang monk's different life has been initially reflected.
Although Xu Shaohua is not to blame for the incident, he inevitably suffered a certain amount of damage in his career, and since then, he has hardly starred in any decent big productions, after all, people are not popular, and many directors of film and television dramas don't even know that there is a number one.
Moreover, Xu Shaohua has been trapped in Shandong Province since then, of course, he may not have such great ambitions, he has acting, life is simpler, and he is content.
In 2003, Xu Shaohua became the vice president of the Shandong Provincial Drama Theater, thus completely transferring to the administrative position and leaving the stage he had worked on for many years.
And his own wife is also looking for an insider-Yang Kun, is a famous theater director, both of them lived in the staff building allocated by the Department of Culture at the beginning, only more than 10 square meters, although small, but the life of the two is extremely warm, sometimes idle at home, the small couple will discuss all kinds of matters of drama.
It's just that while Xu Shaohua is living his ordinary life, another actor, Chi Chongrui, has started his own colorful life.
03
Tang Seng in business
After the explosion, Chi Chongrui received invitations from countless crews for a while, and at this time, he didn't worry about not acting at all, and he should even worry about whether he could finish acting.
Because the image of Tang Seng created by him is too classic, from now on, no matter what drama, as long as there is the role of Tang Seng in it, almost all of them will come to Chi Chongrui to discuss.
And when his acting career was booming, he also met his current wife, the wealthy businessman Chen Lihua.
They met at a dinner party, Chen Lihua herself loves Peking Opera very much, so she and Chi Chongrui, who was born in a Peking Opera family, have an exaggerated common topic, and the souls of the two resonate to a certain extent, and it didn't take long for the two to announce their marriage.
Although Chen Lihua had a failed marriage before, Chi Chongrui didn't care.
After getting married, Chi Chongrui didn't participate in performances much, but focused on following his wife in business.
At that time, Chen Lihua was already one of the few wealthy people in China, originally in the furniture business, and later after the business became bigger, it began to involve finance, real estate and many other fields.
Because of his own furniture, Chi Chongrui has always had to deal with rosewood furniture, and he also fell in love with this antique high-end wood, even to the point of obsession.
As soon as there was a suitable rosewood material on the market, he would buy it quickly, and then make furniture according to his wishes to play with it, and as he collected more and more rosewood, Chi Chongrui simply opened a museum to better promote this culture.
In addition, Chi Chongrui and his wife have also donated a large number of rosewood furniture to museums around the world, especially domestic museums, and they have become the treasures of countless museums, and the rosewood culture has also successfully gone abroad and begun to have an impact on the world.
It can be said that in the promotion of rosewood culture, Chi Chongrui and his wife have made great contributions.
Back to the beginning, we will find that before playing Tang Seng, the life trajectories of the two were still very different, but with the broadcast of the TV series, Chi Chongrui, as the main actor, almost achieved great success in his career, while Xu Shaohua always seemed a little tepid.
Recently, someone also photographed that the elderly Xu Shaohua subsidized his family, and he was wearing a Tang Seng uniform to take on commercial performances, which formed a stark contrast with the same Tang Seng actor Chi Chongrui.
One still has to run for daily life, but the other has begun to mess with rosewood culture, which can only make us sigh about the impermanence of fate.
Of course, there may be a gap between the two in their careers, but if the two are exchanged, no one may be happy.
Life belongs to him after all, if Xu Shaohua takes Chi Chongrui's path, he may not meet his current wife, not to mention, his acting career will be completely condemned.
And what about Chi Chongrui? Will he be willing to give up everything he has?
Epilogue:
All in all, as the actor of Tang Seng, there is a huge gap between the two in today's lives, but while we feel the fate and fortune of the times, we must not blindly feel that the life of one party is good and the other side is poor.
The circumstances of life cannot be compared, and for each of us, our past is the unique wealth of each of us.