Jinan, April 18 (CNN) -- The cross-dressing of young people in the national style "Chinese superheroes" "ignites" young hearts
Reporter Zhao Xiao
In the expectation of fans, Zhu Tiexiong's video account was "new" after more than 20 days. Since its release on the evening of the 17th, in just over 10 hours, the new work has received 43 million views and 1.7 million interactions, and the relevant data is still rising.
Zhu Tiexiong, 29 years old this year, is a well-known "master with extremely low output, extremely high quality, and dare not urge changes" in the Internet video circle. In the past three years, he and his team have created more than 30 works based on national culture. Although the output frequency is slow, close to one update per month, it still has tens of millions of fans.
Zhu Tiexiong in the video is the "Monkey King" Monkey King who plays the golden hoop stick with a tiger, Nezha, a prodigy who drives the Hot Wheels to the sky and the earth, or Guan Yunchang who is angry and dances a big knife, and Zhao Zilong who rides a horse and a spear...... He led the team to reshape the "Chinese superhero" in the heart of the "Internet Generation" in the form of "national style + narrative + cross-dressing".
In October 2021, Zhu Tiexiong cooperated with young actors, using special effects and cross-dressing to perform the Monkey King. (Data map) provided by the interviewee
"Every boy has a heroic dream. When I was a child, the hero in my heart was the Monkey King. In an interview with reporters, Zhu Tiexiong recalled that his hometown is in Meizhou Island, Putian, Fujian, the birthplace of Mazu culture, and he has been a "die-hard fan" of Puxian Opera since he was a child, and he often follows his grandmother to watch and chase dramas.
Stories such as Mazu helping the weak and helping the poor, and Sun Wukong descending to eliminate demons planted the seeds of a heroic dream in Zhu Tiexiong's heart.
In 2013, Zhu Tiexiong came to Shandong, the hometown of Confucius and Mencius, to study at Shandong University. Here, he met a group of like-minded friends through rich club activities, and taught himself photography, acting, and post-special effects to shoot micro-films. College became the place where his dream set sail.
"After graduating from university, I shifted from focusing on video special effects to the national style track, focusing on Chinese heroes. Zhu Tiexiong said that in his team, most of the young people are "post-90s" and "post-00s". Everyone formed a consensus to present the romance and enthusiasm that belongs to the Chinese in a way that young people like to see.
In January 2023, Zhu Tiexiong used special effects and cross-dressing to perform Sichuan opera to change his face. (Data map) provided by the interviewee
In Zhu Tiexiong's view, their love for traditional culture is a natural emotion engraved in their DNA. "There's a description called 'Bloodline Awakening.'"
From the audience's feedback, this group of young people felt similar emotional resonance, and gradually incorporated more national style elements into their creations.
"Lion dance, shadow puppetry, Sichuan opera face changing, etc., are all common themes we use. Zhu Tiexiong said that they often spend hundreds of hours polishing a special effect for a few seconds, and try to complete the cross-dressing with visually striking traditional costumes to amplify the impact of the work. "I especially like to tell the small people and stories in life from the small, from low to high, to achieve big emotions and big resonance, and to meet the emotional experience of the audience. ”
In November 2022, Zhu Tiexiong (right) demonstrated his skills in lion dance and iron flower in his video creation. (Data map) provided by the interviewee
"Every time I watch Tetsuo's works, I feel extremely warm and moved" "I was amazed by the national style, and I burst into tears after reading it...... Many netizens sighed after watching it, "I was poked into tears". Some of the works were spread abroad, attracting foreign friends to leave messages and praise: "Amazing!"
The reporter searched social media platforms and found that in recent years, young people like Zhu Tiexiong who focus on the creation of national style have emerged one after another, and they have brought traditional culture into the public eye with a new attitude through the secondary creation of "new and peculiar".
Ling Yun, the intangible inheritor of Emei martial arts who spread across borders, Peng Jingxuan, a guzheng girl who played Chinese folk music on the streets of France, and Lang Jiaziyu, the inheritor of Beijing's "Noodle Renlang" who made the ancient noodle sculpture cool and trendy, all triggered phenomenal transmission.
In the view of Yang Chaoming, a distinguished professor at the Institute for Advanced Study of Confucianism at Shandong University, at present, the elements of national style and national tide are gradually sought after by young people, and they are frequently "out of the circle", not only because of the ideological essence and aesthetic concepts contained in traditional Chinese culture, which arouses the emotional resonance of the younger generation, but also because of its enduring vitality to bring spiritual confidence and a sense of gain to the "post-90s" and "post-00s", which is a manifestation of the return of Chinese cultural self-confidence.
Yang Chaoming believes that in the future, the popularity of traditional culture and national customs will continue to rise, go deeper into the people, go to the public, and catch the pulse of young people. "In the process, we should develop a more accurate and objective understanding of our own culture, its history, its characteristics and its deep values. ”
"Cultural self-confidence is based on cultural self-knowledge. Only with full cultural self-knowledge can we develop a high degree of cultural self-confidence, and then take the initiative to integrate it into our lives, and share and disseminate it in a newer and more diverse way. Yang Chaoming said. (ENDS)