Recently, 38-year-old Yang Mi finally came up with a drama with an exceptionally strong production team:
"Harbin 1944" with the theme of spy war.
When the official announcement of this drama was announced, there was a discussion about the positions of the male and female protagonists, and Yang Mi also came forward to respond, saying that "the actor's first task is character building", and also said that "if it is gold, it will not be covered up"......
Less than a year after these words, she seemed to be slapped in the face, on the grounds that after the work was broadcast, the public was not satisfied with its performance, and "Gold Said" naturally became a joke.
But all this at least shows that Yang Mi attaches great importance to this spy war drama, and therefore is regarded by the outside world as her transformation work.
Unexpectedly, the "work of turning over" became a "work of overturning", which is embarrassing to think about.
Looking at the entertainment industry, Yang Mi is not the only one who wants to make a comeback by starring in a spy war drama.
Zhao Liying, Chen Xiao, Li Moufeng, Ren Jialun and many other idol-born actors have tried their best to come up with works with the same theme, but the response has been tepid.
But of course, there are also spy war dramas that prove their acting skills, such as "The Wind Chaser", which just ended some time ago, which made Wang Yibo gain a lot of fans.
So, why do celebrities rush to enter the spy war drama market?
And why do some people overturn and some people turn red? The answer really lies not in appearance.
1. What are their regrets about failure?
Yang Mi may never have dreamed that her new role Guan Xue would fulfill another actress: Wang Ou.
After the broadcast of "Harbin 1944", the audience immediately expressed their disappointment, and then sent the role of Wang Manchun, the female spy leader played by Wang Ou in "The Pretender", to the hot search.
Not only that, Yang Mi's appearance has been questioned in the play, her state is indeed very bad, the makeup is too obvious, not to mention, the whole person looks very tired.
There are also many fans who soberly pointed out: "I feel that she wants to act well too much, and she is not relaxed enough, so her facial features are also hard."
Indeed, Yang Mi himself bluntly said in an interview:
"I hired an acting teacher for this play, and every day we both smashed the lines at home, and when we went to the scene, we didn't bring the script. ”
She also said that the reason why she chose "Harbin 1944" was because the role moved her, and she also emphasized that "this is a play I have never tried before".
And this is not the first time Yang Mi has tried to transform, as early as 6 years ago, she tried to transform with a literary film "Baby", and she also cooperated with Hou Xiaoxian, a big man in the circle.
Before the broadcast, the film was also booming, especially her acting skills in the trailer were full of tension, which was very exciting.
But after the work was actually released, the complaints were far greater than the praise, and Yang Mi's attitude was not careful, and she said in an interview: "I'm not in a hurry about acting." ”
As early as more than 20 years ago, Li Shaohong, the director who first discovered her, pointed out the main reason for her lack of acting skills:
"She was in the crew when she was a child, and she was too accustomed to acting. She herself subconsciously stylized the performance, happiness is hahaha, pain is wow wow wow...... She's just a brain. ”
Perhaps because of this, Guan Xue, the spy leader he played in "Harbin 1944", was instantly killed by Wang Ou, who was not from a professional class.
And the last one who overturned due to a spy war drama was Huang Xiaoming, and netizens' comments on this were:
"There are a lot of bad spy war dramas, and there are bad and annoying spy war dramas, "Stalker" is afraid that it is unprecedented. ”
Huang Xiaoming, who was evaluated by the outside world as "oily but not ugly", also had acting skills in his early years, and the early "The Son of Heaven" and later "Chinese Partner" and "Heroes of Fire" are all evidence.
But I don't know why, last year he came up with the spy war drama "Stalker", and finally ended with a score of 5.2, which is ridiculous and generous.
In fact, because of divorce, weight loss and other reasons, Huang Xiaoming's original bad impression has quietly changed, but unexpectedly, because of a spy war drama, the audience once again saw the shortcomings of his acting skills.
It was Chen Xuedong who became a difficult brother with Huang Xiaoming:
In 2016, when his career was in the popular stage, he came up with the spy war drama "Decryption", but in the end he also scored 5.2 points.
Not only that, but he also suspected that the male lead, who was originally a "genius", looked like he was not IQ enough, which caused the outside world to complain.
This play can be said to be Chen Xuedong's Waterloo work, and after that, he acted in "Summer Solstice Has Not Arrived", "Huge Call", etc., the resources are getting worse and worse, and the sense of presence in your circle is getting lower and lower.
Xiaosheng, who also tried to use a spy war drama to enter the drama market, also has Ren Jialun.
In 2020, he who had already secured the position of "top of the ancient style" with "Glory of the Tang Dynasty" and "Under the Brocade", suddenly transformed and came up with the spy war drama "Autumn Cicada".
However, the results of the work are still unsatisfactory, and some people analyze that this may be because he has left the costume drama shooting technique he is good at, Ren Jialun's acting skills are obviously insufficient.
And last year, something even more interesting happened:
Actress Song Yi, who came out of the spy war drama "The Pretender", returned with a new work of the same theme "Hive" filmed in 2017, but it received bad reviews after it was broadcast.
Everyone's reason is basically the same: "This is an idol drama under the banner of a spy war drama, and the heroine's lipstick number is a big problem first!"
In addition to the above-mentioned spy war dramas that were sprayed and pulled their hips, there are also many popular Xiaohua and Xiaosheng who have tried to transform by relying on works of the same type, but they all ended up without a splash:
For example, Li Moufeng's "Sparrow", Zhao Liying's "Rouge", Wen Yongshan's "The Wind", Chen Xiao's "Red Rose", and last year's Guan Xiaotong's "Plum Blossom and Red Heart" and so on......
2. Why are they successful?
But there are also many people who rely on spy war dramas to usher in a full house, such as Wang Yibo in "The Wind Chaser".
Compared with all of the above actors, Wang Yibo is a real idol, he was discovered by Lehua Entertainment at the age of 14 for participating in a hip-hop dance competition, and immediately became its trainee.
But a year later, he officially debuted as a member of the UNIQ group, but the following year he began to impact the film and television industry and acted in the inspirational movie "Dream Partner".
However, his road has not been smooth sailing, and he has repeatedly been viewed by the audience with colored glasses because of too much traffic: acting, is he good?
In fact, in the past year, Wang Yibo has successively come up with three high-quality movies, "No Name", "Warm" and "King of the Sky", but he has not been able to reverse the audience's prejudice against traffic.
However, "The Wind Chaser", which was broadcast two months ago, helped him do it.
Some people lamented that he would choose films, but in fact, this work, which has been in preparation for 5 or 6 years, was not favored by the industry before the start of filming, because it focused on the unpopular financial spy war theme.
At one time, it stagnated because it couldn't attract investment, and the investment was not in place until Wang Yibo agreed to shoot.
In terms of performance, he also achieved relaxation and naturalness, whether it was lying on his back to show that he was a poor man, or holding the dry food in his hand to feast......
This is a necessary condition for the audience to be able to empathize, and it is also a major factor in his success as a result.
There is no doubt that Wei Ruolai, played by Wang Yibo, is a flesh-and-blood person who really walks into the hearts of the audience - and this is very different from the trendy and glamorous idol image he gave people before, forming a strong contrast, and it also makes people feel that he is full of sincerity.
Behind the success of character building, it is indeed necessary for actors to treat each other with sincerity, and Yao Xiaofeng, the director of the play, praised: He has been doing transformation now, and I like children who don't lie flat.
Wang Yang, who has a lot of rivalry with him in the play, also revealed in the live broadcast:
"I digested all his lines before filming. ”
In addition to "The Wind Chaser", Wang Yibo also came up with the movie "No Name" with the same theme last year, and he also had a lot of Japanese and Shanghainese lines in the film at that time, Wang Chuanjun said that he didn't seem to need to sleep, and he had been listening to the recording and practicing his lines.
What's even more amazing is that from "No Name" to "The Wind Chaser", there are always many audiences who praise him for his good performance and his true performance.
But in fact, Mr. Ye and Wei Ruolai are obviously two characters with completely different temperaments and circumstances, which also allows the audience to see his plasticity.
In addition to Wang Yibo, the last male artist who successfully transformed through spy war dramas was Hu Ge in 2015.
At that time, he was still in the impression of "ancient style Xiaosheng" because he had acted in fantasy dramas such as "Fairy Sword Series" and "Xuanyuan Sword: Traces of Heaven", and he urgently needed an opportunity to transform.
Although Hu Ge was also active in the drama stage at that time, he also entered the life drama "Life Apocalypse" to challenge different images.
But what really made him the first to become popular was the role of Mingtai in "The Pretender", and this drama once became a classic in spy war dramas.
The play combines the theme of spy war and the theme of idols, and the exciting plot + combination of handsome men and women makes the audience who have watched it want to stop.
The factors for its success can also be discussed: first, the script is not suspended, and the plot is compact, full of suspense and reversal, and the storyline is fascinating.
Moreover, there are almost no loopholes in the performances of the actors, whether it is Hu Ge, Jin Dong, Wang Kai, Wang Ou, etc., they have all played their best.
And as a spy war drama, "The Pretender" rarely faces bloody war scenes, but cuts in small ways and silently shows the impact of war on ordinary people in the details of life.
Also with a good response is in 2021, "Rebel" starring Zhu Yilong, which ended with a high score of 8.3 at the time, and now it has dropped to 7.7 points, but compared to others, it is already good.
So for Zhu Yilong, the actor who relied on the transformation of the play, it is already a very good achievement.
In fact, he did start with this play, and successively came up with acclaimed and popular film works such as "Life Events" and "Mistakes by the River", becoming one of the popular students who took the lead to the big screen.
3. Is spy war drama a good theme for transformation?
Since 2008's "Latent", spy war dramas have indeed been on the cusp for a while, and then "Before Dawn", "Cliff", "Kite" and other masterpieces with a score of 8.5 or more have emerged, and also made Sun Honglei, Zhang Jiayi, Liu Yunlong and other male stars become "the top of the uncle circle".
But looking at these high-scoring spy war dramas, they actually have one characteristic: in addition to the meticulous script, there are also superb acting skills of the actors.
In other words, these works don't rely on faces.
Spy war dramas and idol dramas, especially ancient puppet dramas, require different levels of acting skills.
The above Yang Mi, Zhao Liying, Li Yifeng, Ren Jialun, Chen Xiao and others all relied on ancient puppets to become popular, although they have been frequently transforming in recent years, but they are obviously unaccustomed to the spy war drama.
In addition to the actors, the director should also have the ability of the script to control the spy war drama, and restore the whole story from a reasonable script, smooth editing, and character portrayal.
In other words, if you want to act in a spy war drama well, the actors' acting skills, production team, and directing ability are all indispensable, and a beautiful face may be the least important factor.
This is also the main reason why top idols have thrown themselves into the spy war drama market, but they frequently fail.
In a word, striking iron still needs its own hardness, those fresh meat and little flowers who have the dream of relying on spy war dramas to transform should really learn from Wang Yibo - since they have done it, they must really pick up the role and shape it well, otherwise they will be "top stream", and there will be a day when the dividends will be eaten.
After all, today's audiences are demanding, and they not only look at their appearance but also their strength.
The above is a personal opinion, don't spray if you don't like it.