The birth of a new Jia Ling

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2024-04-29 09:15Posted on the official account of Beijing characters

According to the original plan, the behind-the-scenes documentary "I Only Live Once" of the movie "Hot and Hot" was launched on the thirteenth day of the first lunar month. But after the movie was released, due to various reasons, the launch time of the documentary was delayed again and again. Finally, after the movie was released and all the war of words caused by the movie subsided, the story about Jia Ling herself was quietly told.

Text: Golden Shell

When the secret is no longer a secret, the mystery is quietly revealed.

On April 16, the behind-the-scenes documentary "I Only Live Once" of the movie "Hot and Hot" was quietly launched. Six days before this, "Hot and Hot" ended its release, and finally became the box office champion of the Spring Festival stalls in 2024 with a box office of 3.46 billion, and ranked 14th at the box office in Chinese film history. This achievement is far beyond Jia Ling's imagination, her earliest expectation is that she will be satisfied if "Hot and Hot" can have the zero head of "Hello, Li Huanying" (the final box office of "Hello, Li Huanying" is 5.413 billion), interviewed by Lu Yu during the promotion, Jia Ling said that the audience held a chubby her to a cute and cute position, she has worried many times, (after losing 100 pounds) What if the audience doesn't like herself?

To some extent, Jia Ling was overly concerned. The two movies have a total box office of more than 8.8 billion, and the audience chooses to pick up the slimmed down Jia Ling and bring her to a new position - the new is of course not only the dazzling box office figures, but also the way the audience views her and how she gets along with the audience.

Judging from the results, the beginning and the end are intuitive - a female comedian who presents herself with a humorous, cute, chubby image and makes it her vocation to make people laugh suddenly decides to change one day.

"Fat" was originally the cornerstone of Jia Ling's public image, whether it was an early cross talk sketch or a later variety show, everyone, including Jia Ling herself, was used to ridiculing her appearance, in addition to the entertainment effect, a female fat person will not cause trouble to anyone, she can form a CP with anyone at will, from Shen Teng to Yan Chengxu and Andy Lau, anyway, it is just an innocuous joke, and no one will really take it seriously.

She can consider herself a female man on the stage of the Spring Festival Gala, and willingly walk into a set of stereotypical narratives that are funny for the sake of being funny. That chubby, round image provided Jia Ling with fame, topic, national popularity, and of course, some kind of cover and shelter, and people acquiesced to everything that stood behind this image - funny, thoughtful, non-aggressive, and inevitably tolerant, patient, and caring for everyone. Of course, the metaphor about apples in "Hot and Hot" also applies to Jia Ling, if Jia Ling had two apples in the past, people would default that Jia Ling would give the big one, or simply give the big and small ones to others, she is so friendly and kind, how can she care about this little thing?

However, the fact is that Jia Ling cares, and uses this to give birth to the core of the movie "Hot and Hot". She has repeatedly expressed that this film is not about losing weight, not about boxing, but about how a person learns to love himself under these appearances.

The story is over, and the results are good. Of course, there are side effects, and since the release of the movie, it has been accompanied by various public opinion disputes. Some people accuse the movie of over-marketing, some people wield the stick of gender issues, and some people feel that Jia Ling oversells body anxiety, and many discussions far exceed the movie itself, and Jia Ling, who is in it, chooses to be silent most of the time.

According to the original plan, the launch time of the documentary "I Only Live Once" is the thirteenth day of the first month, and there are not many materials released before the release of "Hot and Hot", on the one hand, it is out of the consideration of retaining suspense, on the other hand, Jia Ling is also worried that losing 100 pounds will cover up the audience's attention to the movie itself, so the documentary is planned to be launched in the second half of the film promotion.

But after the movie was released, due to various reasons, the launch time of the documentary was delayed again and again. Finally, after the movie was released and all the war of words caused by the movie subsided, the story about Jia Ling herself was quietly told.

Between the expectation and the outcome, it is a long and arduous process. Tencent News recorded this process with 20 months of exclusive follow-up shooting, "I Only Live Once" is a parallel but different story from the movie, in a sense, it witnesses the birth of a new Jia Ling.

Photo source documentary "I Only Live Once"

Before the release of "Hot and Hot", Jia Ling disappeared from public view for more than a year. Most of the time, she spent her training in Hainan to prepare for the filming of the second phase of "Hot and Hot".

In the movie, Le Ying's process of practicing boxing and weight loss is processed into a set of high-burning shots mixed and edited, with strong rhythmic music, Le Ying, who is determined to escape from decadence and fight for herself, ushered in her own awakening moment, she runs, jumps rope, swings punches, pedals the bicycle, does various strength exercises, the four seasons change on the side, and in the movie, the change is completed in a few minutes.

But outside of the movie, time is heavy and slow. In order to bring a strong visual and psychological impact to the audience, the obesity scene in the early stage of the movie requires Jia Ling to continue to gain weight, and the number is finally fixed at 210 pounds, a weight value that will trigger a series of physiological reactions such as palpitation and dyspnea, Jia Ling uses a clumsy method to create the image of a marginal person, she is rejected by society and self-loathing, there is nothing interesting in life, she and the costume designer choose clothes for Le Ying, it is definitely not possible to be too fashionable, and it is not good to have a slight sense of design. When she seemed to have worn an oversized T-shirt for a long time and couldn't distinguish the original color, Jia Ling felt right, what she wanted was this kind of absent-minded ordinary, musty feeling in life.

Le Ying's dress in "Hot and Hot" is the source of the movie "Hot and Hot"

Mo Jinjin, the producer of "I Only Live Once", felt that Jia Ling had to almost complete an impossible thing, she had to use her fat appearance to perform Le Ying's decadence in the movie, and she also had to plan the layout of the whole movie with a weight of more than 200 pounds. Unlike some who questioned that Jia Ling might find it difficult to complete the challenge, Mo Jinjin always believed that Jia Ling was the kind of person who could get things done.

Jia Ling has indeed collapsed, especially when her weight has entered a plateau and she is stuck and does not fall. "It's hard for you to accept, I didn't eat secretly, I eat very healthy every day, less oil and less salt, and exercise very seriously every day...... You've done everything you can do scientifically, but you're still not moving, and I don't feel like there's anything I can do to alleviate that low mood. 」

At that time, Mo Jinjin's confidence came more from a woman's intuition, when she first met Jia Ling, she saw a Jia Ling who maintained absolute concentration on her work and ideas, "She will not particularly emphasize the goal, but she will emphasize hard work, that is, try to do something and something." 」

In his opinion, a comedian trying to break through himself, this motivation is not enough to support Jia Ling to complete this matter, "Why she chose the most difficult path is always a proposition we want to answer in the documentary. 」

On September 1, 2023, after more than half a year of training, many thoughts suddenly rushed out of her head that day, "Why do I want to live like this, do people have to be like this? Everyone is eating, everyone is happy, everyone is walking on the road, everyone is going shopping, everyone is traveling, what am I doing? am I still alive? am I still alive?

She asked the assistant to order a skewer for her, and ate a delicious meal with a sip of red wine, the long-lost chicken feet and oily edges, the next day on the scale, up 3 pounds, but she did not regret eating that meal at all, she felt that she almost couldn't hold on without that meal of revenge, before losing weight, Jia Ling loved to eat grilled shrimp very much, and the assistant also ordered it for her that day, but Jia Ling just didn't want to eat grilled shrimp that day, "I just don't eat it, I don't eat protein!"

A month later, "Hot and Hot" was launched again. This time, it is the scene of the boxing duel in the movie. At this time, Jia Ling had lost about 120 pounds, and visually, she had almost lost one-half of herself.

But after filming the boxing match for the first time, Jia Ling didn't wait for the sound of the surrounding staff "wow", in her previous imagination, Le Ying must have been very sharp, full of tendons, and particularly handsome in the end, and then handsomely beaten, handsome "failed", but in the first shot, Jia Ling's exhaustion was completely difficult to hide, and makeup and lighting could not cover the whole person without a little energy, which was far from Jia Ling's expectations. After discussing with the filming and fitness team, the shooting rhythm was adjusted, and Jia Ling carried out shaping training under the advice of the coach, in order to recover her posture as soon as possible and make the muscle lines smoother, the coach asked Jia Ling to cut off the water. In the past year's training, not being able to eat hot pot barbecue cakes and braised pork has been torture in the world, but after a long time, I don't think about it anymore.

Not being able to drink water is a more extreme torture that is close to the limits of the body, and the thirst for water is a biological instinct along with the loss of water from physical exhaustion. But Jia Ling only has a quota of 100 milliliters of water per day, and this 100 milliliters of water is poured into a small transparent watering can, and when the fire is really burning in her mouth, she picks it up and sprays it. When there was no water to drink, she realized that water was the most beautiful thing in the world, and her sense of hearing became very acute, and the harshest thing on the scene was the sound of other people gulping water. One day during filming, one or two hundred people were dangling in front of her, but she saw the water dispenser in the crowd at a glance, and "she couldn't pull out her eyes".

Photo source documentary "I Only Live Once"

After staying up like this for three days, the boxing scene was filmed smoothly. Her opponent Zhang Guiling, who has twice won the 60KG level championship of the National Boxing Championship, before the official start of filming, worried that Zhang Guiling would not be able to do it, Jia Ling specially told her to hit her head as much as possible, because if she beats her stomach, the audience will not be able to perceive the pain of the character. She asked Zhang Guiling to play for two minutes, don't have any worries, because this is the last scene, it's okay to have a blue nose and swollen face, hold her fist, and she can get the two-minute long shot she dreamed of.

I thought that the movie that would never be finished finally waited for the moment of completion, Jia Ling and Le Ying became one, they were very sharp, full of tendons, and appeared particularly handsomely, and then handsomely beaten, handsomely "failed", inside and outside the movie, two stories (maybe one) need a final climax.

The game was over, the staff brought a plate of delicious food, Jia Ling dug up a matcha cake that she had been thinking about for too long and stuffed it into her mouth, and cried without hesitation. Standing on the stage, Jia Ling said that she was in a car accident on the way to the set that morning, she wondered how it could be so difficult to make a movie, and she couldn't understand that there were thousands of ways to shoot a movie, and there were so many roads that could get her to the end, why did she have to choose the most difficult road?

When the movie was done in the later stage, Jia Ling usually skipped the part of the boxing match directly, and she didn't have the courage to watch it again for a while, because "it hurts too much".

Jia Ling feels that if she remakes "Hello, Li Huanying" now, she must have a way to handle it more cinematic. But at the same time, the ignorance and sincerity of the "Hello, Li Huanying" period is what she particularly cherishes, people only live once, Jia Ling's two works have done it to take herself out and hand it over to the audience, sincerity is her only weapon, every time she faces the audience, there will always be a similar scene in her mind, she holds her friend's hand and desperately wants to share something with the other party-

filmed "Hello, Li Huanying", what she wanted was to introduce her mother to the audience, "Look, this is my mother".

filmed "Hot and Hot", what she wanted to say to the audience was, "Look, I found a flower here, it smells very good, you come and smell it".

During the interview, Lu Yu asked her, the two movies are so laborious, will she choose to suffer this kind of hardship again in the future? Jia Ling raised her head slightly, blurted out three words: "Why?"

Regarding the public opinion turmoil after the release of "Hot and Hot", Jia Ling has never responded positively, and she only posted a few Weibo posts during the release, one of which wrote such a paragraph:

Someone always asks me what I'm shooting~

I'll shoot what you see~

……

I picked up countless broken us, pieced together a Le Ying, and we held hands to explore how to live in this short and long life~

That day, she avoided all the hustle and bustle of Vanity Fair and went to Xinjiang to ski, in the video that netizens encountered, Jia Ling was speeding in the snow alone, her movements were neat and crisp, and she looked like she had no fetters, at the end of that Weibo, Jia Ling wrote, "It's so windy in Xinjiang this year, because of standing on the top of the mountain." 」

Regardless of whether the outside world accepts it or not, a brand-new Jia Ling has appeared in front of people. The slimmed down Jia Ling allows people to see the long-hidden aspects of her character, quiet, intelligent, tenacious, introverted, and even the contempt and disdain that are unique to women in the face of the chaos of the world at some moments.

Jia Ling has her own answer to the question of how to get along with the audience in the future, she feels that she can start a new journey with her friends, and the story goes back to the original theme, people only live once, and it is precisely because of this that the new adventure makes her feel more excited.

Perhaps for Jia Ling, only by completely shattering her past self can she have a new life at the age of 42. Jia Ling felt that it had taken 42 years instead of a year to get to where she is now.

In this sense, the real adventure that belongs to Jia Ling has just begun. The story of the past has been told with all my heart and lungs, and what the future will be like is the real test for Jia Ling as a creator.

After the publicity work of "Hot and Hot" ended, Jia Ling appeared in Hollywood and started the production of the American version of "Hello, Li Huanying" non-stop.

Many people feel a sense of power in this photo, and when the public opinion field is still noisy, this new Jia Ling has already crossed the mountains and mountains to the story of her next journey.

Photo source documentary "I Only Live Once"

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