First, the playful image of the past is gradually drifting away
Mao Xiaotong once won the love of the audience with his sweet and lovely image, especially in modern urban TV dramas, which is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. At that time, her round face was particularly delicate, her innocent eyes were like the dawn, and her smile was as bright as a flower, just like the ideal image of a national girl in people's hearts.
Whether it is the airline flight attendant An Jia played in "Thirty Only", or the girlfriend of college student David Tang played in "Children of the Qiao Family", Mao Xiaotong can perfectly interpret the unique girlish temperament.
The audience was attracted by her outstanding appearance and cute shape, and praised her as the "cherry blossom girl" in real life. However, when the youthful youth blooms on the screen like the spring sun, no one predicts that this beauty is only a fleeting moment, fleeting.
When participating in the costume drama "The Legend of Yunxiang", in order to create the heroic image of a chivalrous woman, the production team made a bold attempt to "makeover" Mao Xiaotong. They painted a cold, murderous aura between her eyebrows, and used special techniques to create a jaw-dropping swelling around her forehead and eyes in an attempt to hide her original gentleness.
What's even more surprising is that they also deliberately shaped Mao Xiaotong's jaw to be old, protruding forward, like an elderly woman. All these changes have made Mao Xiaotong's original temperament disappear, and his stiff and sluggish expression can no longer make people feel the demeanor of an actor.
2. The painful price behind the "makeover".
In order to portray Mao Xiaotong into a heroic heroine, the production team has made great efforts. They poured countless efforts into creating a shocking sense of swelling on Mao Xiaotong's forehead and around her eyes, aiming to create an image of a heroic and fearless heroine.
However, when the makeup artist drew a cold murderous aura between her eyebrows, the original gentle and graceful temperament was gone. What's even more exaggerated is that they even molded Mao Xiaotong's jaw into an old one, protruding forward, and the shape of the entire chin resembled that of an elderly woman.
This once popular "Sakura Girl" in Asia is now completely caught in the whirlpool of "disfigurement", and the beauty that everyone admired and made countless people fall for it no longer exists! The over-sculpted face seriously distorts the facial form, and even raises her real age to a sharp height, bringing people only a thrilling visual impact.
What's even more terrifying is that in order to create a unique texture of the costume drama, the production team actually carried out a ruthless surgical transformation of Mao Xiaotong's expression. In the play, she is always stiff and expressionless, and the audience cannot catch any emotional fluctuations from her face, as if she has incarnated into a lifelike humanoid wax figure.
Perhaps it was this excessive pursuit of "costume beauty" that made the production team make mistakes in grasping the proportions, and finally pushed an originally young and lovely girl to the abyss of "disfigurement".
Whenever the camera turns to Mao Xiaotong, what the audience can see is not her superb acting skills, but the "technological face" that is incompatible with her own image.
3. The proliferation of "plastic surgery face" in costume dramas
It is not only Mao Xiaotong who is jaw-dropping, in many costume dramas, phenomena similar to "technology faces" emerge in endlessly. For example, Chen Xiaojun, who is also a post-90s generation, is lively and cute and energetic in the modern urban drama "Little Farewell", but when she switched to the costume drama "Qingqing Daily", her whole face looks like an old woman who is over half a hundred years old, with loose skin, sagging muscles, and endless tiredness and old age in her eyes.
What's even more laughable is that Cong Shan, who was once known as the "national goddess", in the TV series "Youth in the War" reflecting the theme of the Anti-Japanese War, her over-processed face with "beauty" flashed with a dazzling luster like silicone, the apple muscles on both sides were towering, and the whole face looked more than ten years older than her actual age.
And the most exaggerated is Qiu Yinong's appearance in "Heaven and Dragon Slayer". This martial arts masterpiece directed by Wang Jing tells the magnificent love story between Zhou Zhiruo and Ling Hu Chong.
Zhou Zhiruo is the most beautiful woman in the character archetype in the novel, and is praised by the author as a peerless beauty who "sinks the fish and geese, and closes the moon and is ashamed".
Who would have thought that the peerless beauties in those books, under the play of Ms. Qiu Yinong, magically turned into a mouth-watering "plastic surgery face", and there was no beauty at all, let alone whether they could show the charm depicted in the text in their original form.
The faces that are overly reliant on "technology" for beautification have become the biggest slots and mocking materials in the genre of costume dramas.
In order to reflect that heroic temperament in the character development process, the production team may have had to make some adjustments to the actors' faces. However, the excessive carving and decoration make the facial form seriously unrealistic, and even make the actor's age appear too old, which is undoubtedly the source of the audience's laughter.
Fourth, the death of the filter in the era of science and technology
The "beautifying" filter function brought about by the technological age was supposed to be a remedy, which could add a bit of sophistication to many actors. However, some producers have embellished it with names such as "digital contouring" and "light and shadow retouching" in an attempt to find a more elegant excuse for the use of filters to "retouch the face".
However, the fact is that once the filter function is overused, it will cause the character to completely lose its original temperament and become unrecognizable. We must admit that an outstanding actor should not rely solely on their appearance to achieve success, and the quality of their acting skills is the real yardstick to measure their strength.
However, the audience's most direct perception often comes from the visual impact, so whether the actors look natural and beautiful plays a crucial role in their success.
Once this most basic sense of realism is lost, it is difficult to resonate with the audience, even if the lines are wonderful and the movements are smooth and free.
Taking Mao Xiaotong's performance in "The Legend of Yunxiang" as an example, she plays a chivalrous woman who is full of pure yang heroism, and she should have a strong martial arts and expressive heroic posture. However, how can her face, which has been completely erased by "technology", make the audience believe that she has the power of a chivalrous woman? This is the main reason why the show failed to win critical acclaim.
Some viewers said bitterly: "Is this really the much-loved 'Sakura Girl' back then?" It can be seen that the abuse of filters brings not only visual discomfort, but also great damage to the credibility of the entire play.
5. The plot characters of "The Legend of Yunxiang" made double mistakes
In addition to the critical image of the actors, the quality of the plot is also quite controversial. The beginning of the series presents a fiery love story between the male protagonist and the female protagonist, but this design is full of dog blood, and the plot is boring and pretentious.
For example, the male protagonist Chen Xiao fell in love with the heroine Mao Xiaotong at first sight in a gambling house, and the two even almost had physical contact; Another example is that in order to seek a breakthrough, the male protagonist went into the official's mansion alone to steal important account books, and after being discovered, he hid on the beam of the house with the heroine, once again staged an almost intimate scene.
The most funny thing is that the hero and heroine instantly pressed each other on the table during the frolic, and the lips of the two were only a fist apart, which made the audience jaw-dropping.
It's puzzling what kind of intention the production team had to incorporate so many industrial saccharin elements into a martial arts masterpiece.
The plot is so mediocre that it is naturally difficult to win the praise of the audience. The more serious problem is that the show also has many logical loopholes in shaping the characters' personalities. For example, the male protagonist played by Chen Xiao prides himself on being both wise and brave, but in the play, he has repeatedly turned danger into a disaster and has never shown human wisdom; Although the heroine played by Mao Xiaotong is excellent in martial arts, she often stands by at critical moments and allows her companions to fall into trouble.
Take the scene of rescuing the heroine's father, for example, although the stepfather is her reborn parent, she just stands by indifferently and watches her benefactor and best friend being taken away, which is really ridiculous.
In addition, the image of actor Chen Xiao is also quite eye-catching. Although he plays a smart and steady young man, his tired eyes and haggard face cannot bring the slightest vitality and vigor, but is more like an elderly middle-aged man.
It must be noted that the show does have major missteps in casting.