Text: June
Edit|Lonely drifting dreamer
Who would have thought that since the 87 version of "Journey to the West" was launched, the leading actors have become famous overnight and have been liked by countless fans, and the TV series has been replayed more than 3,000 times, becoming the most replayed TV series in the winter and summer vacations.
Among them, six Xiaolingtong was ridiculed by everyone: "The beautiful and handsome guys on the screen don't care about looking carefully, they only care about looking at the monkeys!"
He used his superb acting skills to present us with the enduring "Monkey King", but few people know that Liu Xiaolingtong is a "relation" who was stuffed into the crew, and the director was dissatisfied with him for a time.
So how did Liu Xiaolingtong enter the crew of "Journey to the West", and what is his current situation?
Six Xiaolingtong, born in a monkey opera family in Shanghai, his father is the famous "Southern Monkey King" Zhang Zongyi, starting from his grandfather Zhang Tingchun's generation, three generations are learning monkey opera.
As the youngest son in the family, his mother didn't want him to learn drama because it was too hard. Liu Xiaolingtong has been interested in opera since he was a child, and after the persuasion of his brother Zhang Zongxin, his parents finally agreed that he would practice with his family.
The second brother of the six-year-old child, Zhang Jinxing (renamed the little six-year-old child), is the most talented among them. In 1957, when his father took him to participate in the performance of entertaining foreign guests, he was also received by Premier Zhou, and his second brother, who was only seven years old, was still held in Premier Zhou's arms.
However, jealous of talent, Zhang Jinxing died of leukemia at the age of 16 and died soon after. The father was heartbroken, and the second son left, thinking that there was no successor to the "monkey show successor". After thinking about it, this heavy responsibility fell on Zhang Jinlai. His father gave him a stage name, Liuxiaolingtong.
Because of the times, when his father was doing his best to train him to be a new generation of successors, they could only be assigned to rural transformation, and only in his free time could his father teach him to practice. Therefore, the basic skills of six-year-old children are not solid.
Since then, Liu Xiaolingtong has become an unknown Kunqu Opera troupe performer. When he heard that one of the classic Chinese masterpieces "Journey to the West" was going to be put on the screen, he finally ushered in a "bright future" in his life.
When I was going to shoot "Journey to the West", in addition to financial difficulties, casting also gave the director a headache, especially Sun Wukong, director Yang Jie first went to Peking Opera actor Li Wanchun, who was once known as the "Monkey King of the Northern School".
Unexpectedly, there was a big difference between the creative concepts of the two, Li Wanchun insisted on using Facebook, but Director Yang Jie thought that Facebook was not suitable for TV series.
Yang Jie had no choice but to find Dong Zhihua, as the pillar of the Jin Tuantuan, Dong Zhihua was busy with his performances, and he starred in TV series at all.
Yang Jie once again found the southern monkey king Zhang Zongyi. Zhang Zongyi is old, and he is definitely not suitable to play Sun Wukong, but he thinks that his youngest son Liu Xiaolingtong is very suitable.
Looking at the six-year-old boy with blank eyes, Director Yang Jie doesn't quite approve of it, as the old saying goes, eyes are the windows of the soul. The actor's eyes are too important, and the other party is wearing glasses, not only 600 degrees of myopia, but also 200 degrees of astigmatism, can he play the fiery Monkey King?
Liuxiaolingtong also knew his shortcomings, and in order to make his eyes bright, he decided to follow Master Mei Lanfang to learn to "practice eyes".
Every day, I have to stare at the sun, ranging from ten to twenty minutes, every day I run to watch others play table tennis, my eyes move with the ball, and at night, I light a incense, turn off the light, and then stare at the incense head for a long time.
No painstaking and no gain, the six-year-old child finally practiced a pair of bright eyes. In addition to this, his father often encouraged him to observe the pictures of the monkeys and figure out the characters carefully.
In 1982, Liu Xiaolingtong walked into the crew of "Journey to the West", but Yang Jie's attitude made him feel that the director still did not recognize him, but used him as an alternative.
Yang Jie thinks that his acting skills are not up to par and he does not integrate with the role of Sun Wukong. There is another reason that has nothing to do with acting, thinking that he is too squeamish.
At the beginning, Zhang Zongyi proposed that his nephew play the role of Zhu Bajie, and by the way, he could take care of his youngest son in life. Yang Jie felt incredible when she saw a young man in his twenties and an old father helping him get hot water.
Yang Jie questioned the ability of the six-year-old child to live. The stubborn six-year-old boy has since been more diligent, he often observes and carefully imitates the monkey's movements, and also practices various martial arts moves.
In that era when they didn't know what capital was, the older generation was polishing art with their lives. As a talented strong woman, Yang Jie strives for perfection in photography, scene selection, modeling, actor selection, etc.
After seeing that the six-year-old child is becoming more and more like a monkey, and there is no problem with his life ability, she finally finalized the role of Monkey King. is different from the sky-high salary of big stars today, the salary of a six-year-old child is 80 yuan per episode, although it has increased later, the total salary is less than 2,500 yuan.
At that time, due to financial and technical constraints, the 25-episode "Journey to the West" was filmed for six years.
In the past six years, the crew has traveled to most of China to select scenes. It is far from the same scenery of today's film and television city, and the special performance of "five cents" after green screen cutout is comparable.
In 1986, after the broadcast of "Journey to the West", it immediately caused a huge response, in the 80s, not every household had a TV, but people still tried to squeeze into the TV to "watch monkeys".
Liu Xiaolingtong successfully created the role of Sun Wukong, from the lawless monkey in the early days, to the "big brother" who became witty and brave and took on heavy responsibilities later, he portrayed it vividly. The drama was later broadcast in other Asian countries and won the love of many viewers.
With the rolling fame and fortune, the young actors can't help but be a little impetuous, once Liu Xiaolingtong and a few other people secretly went to other places to participate in a commercial performance, Yang Jie knew about it, and felt that he shouldn't leave the crew without permission in order to make money, so he criticized him during the meeting.
This led to a rift between the two. In 1988, Singapore invited the crew of "Journey to the West" to perform, but Yang Jie refused. In the end, only four leading actors attended the event.
Since then, Liu Xiaolingtong has participated in many film and television dramas, and won the Golden Eagle Award for Best Supporting Actor with "Monkey Baby".
But these TV series did not leave a particularly deep impression on people, and when people saw him, they still thought of the naughty and cute "Monkey King".
One thing that really caused controversy was that many years later, after the death of director Yang Jie, Liu Xiaolingtong actually promoted his new movie on such a solemn and extraordinary occasion. This kind of behavior is shameful, and many people feel that he is disrespectful to the deceased.
In addition, he repudiated other films adapted from Journey to the West, such as the criticism of Stephen Chow's "Big Talk Game", showing his narrow-mindedness and self-righteousness.
It is said that art is open, and there is nothing wrong with expressing one's own opinions. But while criticizing other people's movies for being made up, he also ran to shoot a mobile game endorsement adapted from Sun Wukong's love, isn't this a typical "double standard"?
However, the six-year-old child did not respond to the doubts of the outside world. He has always had a positive image and participated in various programs or public welfare activities.
In March this year, Liu Xiaolingtong also attended the unveiling ceremony of the Shanghai Monkey King Book House, he said that as one of the leading actors of "Journey to the West", he hopes that young friends can love the motherland, love the nation, and love traditional culture.
Liu Xiaolingtong is a well-known Monkey King, and his superb acting skills are beyond doubt. For so many years, he has been actively spreading the excellent traditional Chinese culture. His spirit of hard work is also worth emulating.
Although it has been questioned because of certain behaviors and words. As the saying goes, no one is perfect. No one is perfect, what do you think?
Shingen:
1. Encyclopedia
2, Journey to the West director Yang Jie's interview collection before his death, bluntly said that he hoped that Journey to the West would not be successful, which made people sigh - https://m.163.com/v/video/VIO2QIO51.html
3, "Shangguan News" "My old grandson is also here" six-year-old children appeared in Minhang
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