He Saifei, the "Chinese-style mother" in "The Story of Cheng Huan", is a stunning Yishu girl

Five more spring

2024-04-28 11:02Posted in Jilin Entertainment Creators

On the Spring Festival Gala in 2023, the song "It's a Mother and a Daughter" sings about the complex and gentle intergenerational relationship between mother and daughter. In the just-concluded Yishu drama "Chenghuan Ji", Yang Zi and He Saifei sang this song again, deducing the real conflict and attachment, twists and turns and comfort of Chinese mother and daughter. In the play, He Saifei, who plays the heroine's mother, brings to life the paranoia, forbearance, strength, and affection of traditional Chinese mothers. She can live a humble and aggrieved life, but she can't let her daughter repeat her mistakes, and all her unbearable and unseemly is just for her daughter to live a happier life than herself.

He Saifei's interpretation makes the highlight of "The Story of Cheng Huan" not only the sweet love between Yang Zi and Xu Kai, but also the warm and ironing mother-daughter relationship. The show hasn't finished yet, #何赛飞抓住了刘婉玉的灵魂#这一话题就被刷上了微博热搜. He Saifei really grasped a wisp of obsession with Yishu's mother named Liu Wanyu, making this imperfect character really moving and colorful.

Liu Wanyu, played by He Saifei, is the epitome of a Chinese-style mother

Liu Wanyu in "The Story of Chenghuan" is a character who is not very likable, but also annoying.

On the one hand, she is strong. She interferes with her daughter's thoughts, ignores her daughter's privacy, and always wants to arrange her daughter's life according to her own ideas. Liu Wanyu in the play is still very vain and materialistic, she blocked her daughter from dating her boyfriend at first, but after knowing that her daughter's boyfriend was a rich second generation, she immediately diligently matched the two.

On the other hand, she does love her daughter like life. She protects her daughter unconditionally, and if her daughter is wronged, her sky will fall. Her philistines and customs only come from the lowliness of her birth and the narrowness of her vision, but her love for her daughter is no less than that of others. However, it is precisely because she has no vision and no knowledge that she always does things that make her daughter in a dilemma with the intention of "good for her daughter".

In the original book, Yishu described Cheng Huan's mood when he looked at his mother:

Such Liu Wanyu is a mother figure that almost everyone of us is familiar with. She used to be young and beautiful, but in the end she still stepped into a rough and embarrassing life, working hard for her children and husband until she was old and died. Her bitterness, strength and arrogance are all cocoons she has carved out in her life, and they are the marks of the years that she cannot escape.

If we are willing to look at our mother a little longer, if we are willing to know her a little more, we can gently peel back this hard cocoon and see her soft heart, even though time has washed her into an old woman, but her love for us has never changed.

In fact, I really want to say that Teacher He Saifei is so beautiful and elegant! So much so that just looking at the stills, I feel that she and Liu Wanyu are not very close to each other...... Because Liu Wanyu in the original work of "Chenghuan Ji" is a very ordinary, slightly fat, vicissitudes, and even not so good-looking housewife and mother figure, who has been rubbed into a dull light in the trivial life day after day. And He Saifei really stood there as if his whole body was glowing. But Mr. He Saifei's acting skills are really good, which directly covers up the subtle sense of dislocation in appearance, and makes the audience believe that she is Liu Wanyu herself.

The Yishu girl in the play, and the Yishu girl outside the play

In this Yishu drama, He Saifei plays a supporting role. But He Saifei, who is outside the play, is a fake "Yishu girl". Her life perfectly fits the standards of Yishu's heroines: beautiful, intelligent, independent, and strong, with both the courage and tenacity to sink out, as well as the sincerity and wantonness of self-cherishment.

He Saifei was born in Zhoushan, Zhejiang, and her parents divorced when she was young, and she lived with her father. The father and daughter live in poverty and hardship, and the father is always working outside the home, while He Saifei has been cooking and taking care of the household since he was 6 years old. The hardships and hardships of her childhood became the first experience in her life, laying the foundation for her self-motivated, rational and independent character.

Despite the family's poor financial situation, his father always wanted He Saifei to have a skill, so that he would not have to wait in the countryside to get married, but could be self-sufficient and settle down. Under his father's teaching and nurturing, He Saifei understands the importance of self-reliance. Although she has no innate foundation, but she has acquired diligence, she learned musical instruments and Yue opera in turn, and was able to enter the Zhejiang Daishan Theater Troupe, it only took one year, she got the opportunity to play the heroine of the big drama "Lifelong Events", and since then she has emerged. Later, He Saifei was selected into the Xiaobaihuayue Troupe and became a pillar. In 1984, He Saifei was selected to play in the Yue Opera movie "Five Women's Birthday", which opened her acting career.

In "Five Women's Birthday", He Saifei plays Cuiyun

After that, she successively starred in Miaoyu in "Dream of Red Mansions", the third aunt Tai Meishan in "The Red Lantern Hangs High", Xiao Cao in "Red Pink", her sister Xiuyi in "Fengyue", and Xiao Hongyun in "Behind Enemy Lines...... There are thousands of roles, but He Saifei's seriousness and solemnity are consistent. In order to play the famous Peking Opera singer Mei Shan, she practiced Peking Opera day and night from Yue Opera, and in order to play the big drum actor Xiao Hongyun well, she repeatedly practiced the "big drum with lights", that is, she sang the tune while holding a lampstand lit with a candle in her mouth. She can be 100% committed to a role, even if she is on the same stage with famous actors such as Gong Li, Liu Xiaoqing, and Leslie Cheung, she is not inferior at all.

In "Behind Enemy Lines", He Saifei plays Xiao Hongyun

After shining in the film industry, He Saifei came into contact with TV series again, and the parts he played were classics. An epic "Mansion Gate" has achieved many immortal characters, including Yang Jiuhong, a famous prostitute played by He Saifei, who dares to love and hate, is brave and strategic, but is gradually swallowed up by the old society of cannibalism, how beautiful and miserable it is. Under He Saifei's interpretation, Yang Jiuhong has become the most impressive character in the play except for Bai Wenshi and Bai Jingqi.

At the same time, because He Saifei was too successful in shaping glamorous and complex characters such as Mei Shan and Yang Jiuhong, she won the nickname of "Aunt Professional".

In "Mansion Gate", He Saifei plays the spicy and tragic Yang Jiuhong

Later, she successively performed classic roles such as Hai Lanzhu in "The Secret History of Xiaozhuang" and Yazhi in "Scarlet Sun". During filming, He Saifei was injured many times due to serious dedication, and some directors said that she "has a 'bourgeois' face, but she is better than a nanny". This ruthlessness and tenacity dedicated to her career have also made He Saifei, and her performances can always win praise from everyone.

"Mansion Gate" director Guo Baochang praised He Saifei

Although he has already laid his own place in the film and television industry, He Saifei has never forgotten his original intention. She has always remembered that she is an opera performer, always running around, cultivating genre heirs for Yue Opera, giving public welfare classes to children, and has been participating in Yue Opera performances. It is precisely because of this cherishing of opera that she has the famous scene of angry and outspoken for the grassroots opera workers with meager income.

He Saifei supported the opera workers on the opera program

Recently, He Saifei won the Golden Rooster Award for the movie "Chasing the Moon". At over 60 years old, she wore a beautiful costume of her own design, and with a still clear voice, she stood on the podium with a smile and waved the trophy. When talking about the excitement, He Saifei choked up. She said: "We (actors) are very hard in this profession, sometimes it hurts the body, sometimes it hurts our heart, and it affects our health...... But no matter what, I still want to continue to work hard and continue to suffer. I'd rather live a few years less, and I also want to create a little more characters for everyone. ”

He Saifei delivered a speech at the Golden Rooster Awards

Since "Chasing the Moon" has not yet been released, the just-concluded Yishu drama "Chenghuan Ji" is He Saifei's latest work that we can see. In "The Story of Cheng Huan", He Saifei is no longer the bright-eyed and bright-toothed Yue Opera Xiaohuadan in the past, and he is no longer a glamorous aunt who dares to love and hate, but let us see her as an ordinary mother image that is different from the past. Although she is only a supporting role in the play, outside the play, she who acts beautifully, lives beautifully and looks beautiful is the one closest to the core of "Yishu Girl".

In "The Red Lantern Hangs High", He Saifei plays the rebellious and amorous third aunt Tai Meishan

20 years ago, Qiong Yao fever, 20 years later, Yishu tide

Now although "Chenghuan Ji" has ended, the popularity has not decreased. The popular drama 20 years ago was still the lingering and tactful Qiong Yao drama, but now, the Yishu drama with self-reliance and self-improvement as the core has obviously become the mainstream. In the mainland, Yishu has twice been in the public's eye. The first time was in the 80s of the last century, the so-called "Taiwan has Qiong Yao, Hong Kong has Yishu", but at that time, Yishu's attention was obviously not as good as Qiong Yao. The second time is contemporary, from "The First Half of My Life" to "The Golden Years", and then to "Chenghuan Ji", the drama department adapted from Yishu's work is a hit. Unconsciously, this "Yishu fever" has been going on for a long, long time.

From Qiong Yao's love to Yishu's posture, it is a microcosm of the slow transformation and growth of the whole society in the process of urbanization. Yishu's brother Ni Kuang once said: "Yishu's novels are excellent literary works. The social consciousness in her novels is so strong that it is not much stronger than those works that are generally boring, full of nouns, beautiful as serious literature and pretentious. ”

It is true that although Yishu's works are dedicated to women, they do not focus too much on romantic and sympathetic love stories, but focus on urban women who are intelligent, bold and free-spirited, ambitious and desired. Yishu's female characters always have an endless vitality, they value personal value above all else, and do not have ethereal illusions about love, but firmly believe that self-help is the only way out.

In the novel "City Story", Yishu emphasized: "Emotional troubles are never worthy of forgiveness. In "Rouge", Yishu wrote again: "My destination is health and talent. After all, what a person can trust is himself, and it is himself who can raise his eyebrows for him. I have found myself, I am my home. ”

Such a passage was placed 20 years ago, which may be incompatible with the cultural mainstream of idol dramas and Qiong Yao dramas at that time. But 20 years later, with the development of society, economic growth, and the improvement of women's education level and asset ability, Qiong Yao's love supremacy has long become part of the old values. Wang Baochuan has become a negative teaching material for "digging wild vegetables", Xu Qin's "white porridge theory" has aroused ridicule on the whole Internet, and Yishu, who has always focused on portraying an independent, self-contained, and individualized female image, has resonated with more and more women.

The adaptation of the original book in the drama version of "The Legend of Cheng Huan" has an additional scene in which Mai Chenghuan helps his mother realize her dream of performing opera, which is more warmth and comfort than the original book. When Liu Wanyu put on the costume and sang her favorite tune with a smile, the mother on stage and the daughter off the stage completed self-exploration and reconstruction together.

Of course, Yishu's work itself has many limitations. For example, her works are known for exporting the concept of human nature, but the handling of specific plots is weak, and many plots are often brushed aside; plus she has a good family background and an exquisite life, so she doesn't know much about the cruel truth of life that real ordinary people need to face, and when describing how the heroine struggles, it is inevitable that she will have a sense of suspension from real life. However, the sober and independent core of a work of art can transcend time and space and accurately step on the pulse of the current times. Just like this "The Story of Cheng Huan", whether it is the sunny Mai Chenghuan in the play, or the transparent and independent He Saifei outside the play, they are all a manifestation of the outstanding character of the Yishu girl. No matter when, the spirit of self-cherishing and self-improvement will never go out of style.

epilogue

The fire of "Cheng Huan Ji" not only let us see a more different and more malleable purple girl, but also made the old drama bone He Saifei return to our sight again. The years have never defeated the beauty, and the beauty has become the truth. I wish Mr. He Saifei to be beautiful and shine freely, and I also hope that more and more women will have the sober mind and tenacious background of "Yishu Girl", and embrace a better life with an independent and resolute attitude.

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Personal opinion, for reference only