In order to describe his life, Chen Zhipeng showed a curve to "People". Life is the top stream, he first raised his hand high, then put it down, drew a high and low wave in the low place, and then it was like this.
Chen Zhipeng's top life appeared in the late 1980s and the decade that followed. In 1988, he debuted as a member of the Little Tigers. As soon as the Tigers debuted, they detonated the market and became the youth memory of a generation in the 1990s. Less than a year after their debut, the Tigers sold 2 million albums and embarked on 20 concert tours. The truck carrying their concert set off from Taipei to travel around the island, and fans rode their bicycles to chase after them, and the word star chasing originated from this.
At the end of 1991, the Little Tigers were disbanded due to Chen Zhipeng's military service; in December 1993, Chen Zhipeng returned, and the Little Tigers released albums such as "The Stars Are Still Shining" and once again achieved good results. Four years later, the Little Tigers were disbanded for the second time due to the military service of the Thunderbolt Tiger Wu Qilong. Since then, Su Youpeng, Wu Qilong, and Chen Zhipeng, three members of the Little Tigers, have each embarked on their own paths.
For more than twenty years, Chen Zhipeng is the one with the weakest sense of existence in the public vision. Chen Zhipeng himself was well aware. Everyone said why Did Chen Zhipeng go, or that he was the least popular. In the interview, he said this to "People".
At the end of 2020, with the singing and dancing competition program "Chase the Light!" Brother", Chen Zhipeng returned to the audience's field of vision again. Although at the beginning of the show, his image is not positive — during the first performance, the flesh of his stomach spilled out from the hem of his black shirt. Coming down from the stage, the host Venus told him: Now your movements let me see the sense of age. Then Venus pointed to his belly and said, "I saw it too." But by the time the show was recorded for the tenth installment, he quickly lost 12 kilograms and was given the inspirational label.
Before the afterglow of the program dissipated, he received several invitations to satellite TV evenings, and in the first half of this year, as a mentor, he participated in the music label confrontation show "Golden Melody Youth" launched by Oriental Satellite TV.
The last time he was active in front of the camera was in 2018 – in a way that was criticized. At that time, he released his solo album "A Thousand Faces", in the MV he dyed fluorescent green hair and wore a strange costume, and since then Chen Zhipeng's name has been associated with hot eyes. For the next year, he wore purple stockings, a pink vest, a light blue fur shawl, a dark V-neck red and green plaid suit... Attending the music festival of Phoenix Satellite TV, someone said to him: Brother, our party, the red carpet depends on your hot search. He listened to this sentence, and then put on a transparent suit at the event site, with a black tights and ultra-shorts, and sure enough, it was on the hot search.
In the thirty years since he became a star (or, in other words, in his fifty years of life), the imagery represented by the word star has profoundly shaped almost all of Chen Zhipeng's life. Being a star is the theme of his life.
In order to be a star, he has been tug-of-war with weight all the time since he was 16 years old; in order to be a star, he has to win the public eye by packaging — even in a less decent way. For example, he does not wear the same clothes a second time, because when he first debuted, a reporter told him that the stars wore the clothes they wore before had no value in being photographed.
In his own words, from the moment he was born, he felt like I should be a star. Later, he really became famous at a young age and became a star. Then after ten years of life at the top, there was a trough.
According to Chen Zhipeng's own explanation, the low point was due to the boss's credulity to a master at the dinner bureau and shelved him. The dinner he saw as a curse and the most terrible thing of his life happened in 1998, and he was also present. The master asserted at the dinner table that Chen Zhipeng was not suitable for acting.
In the twenty years since, he has had ups and downs, sometimes a little bit, thinking he was going up, and then he went down again. He never returned to his former top state. Even at certain moments, he almost forgot that he was a star. He no longer wants to remember the time when the so-called real "top stream" was, because now if he thinks about it again, it hurts.
The once-top star faces a question that may take a lifetime to answer: How does a star face a day when the stars are no longer so bright?
The following is Chen Zhipeng's self-statement.
Wen | Zhang Weicheng
Edit | Shen Shi
1
I'm here to Chase the Light! My brother brought fifty or sixty pairs of shoes and bought a dozen boxes of clothes. When I first started on stage, I began to rummage through boxes and cabinets and picked a set of collocations. In the mirror, I was quite thin, and I was very confident. How that happened after coming to power, I don't know.
Later, the moment Sister Jin talked to me, I realized that my sister was not joking with me, my own inner world was - you are finished, you must quickly adjust yourself. So from that point on, I started to beat myself up again. Buy a waist seal, buy the most ruthless waist seal. Guys all wear M or L, and I buy XS. Sometimes I can't tie it myself, so I ask my assistant Brother Li to break the meat for me and buckle to death. The waist seal is made of the kind of tire glue, and you have to pull the meat over, pull it over, and buckle it. Just keep buttoning like this, buckled until I can't breathe, and tie my stomach.
I also wish I could control my body shape, but most of the time, the food still can't stop. Later, I found myself to be a person who can change myself for work, so I can lose weight. One year in Nanjing, I was acting in a play called "Nowhere to Put", and when I got the script, I began to adjust myself and lose weight. I remember that I hadn't eaten for about three months, and I drank soup, I drank mineral water, I drank sparkling water, I drank juice, and it was gone. So I became the thinnest of the actors.
Later, I went to Pai Hunan Satellite TV's "Star Drama Society", and now Weibo still has someone pulling out the clip of me at that time, and when I looked at it, I thought how I was so powerful at that time. Because the character is set to be thin, I started tying my body again. Then I just eat cake, which has sugar and starch to supplement my brain genes. When memorizing words, I am a bite of cake and a script. The more I eat, the thinner I get.
I gave myself a star aura, so I was able to memorize all the words as quickly as I could and get my body back. I'm professional. When I played "The Great Magician", I also felt that the magician was thin, so I didn't allow myself to have an extra piece of fat on my body, so I bought a lot of waist covers and tied them. Then to do weightlifting in the middle of the night, or to do push-ups, is to practice waist strength, because the last magic is to first stand upside down, and then break free, there is a time limit, rely on waist strength.
The first time I tried, I failed and I had cramps as soon as I went up. Then I started to be afraid, but I felt that I had to finish this thing, so I practiced.
When I hung up the finals, I could only tell myself and fight. Above that, I heard Ding Jianzhong (Editor's Note: Magician, Chen Zhipeng's program partner) talking, the music played in the stereo, and the cheers offstage, but I couldn't hear him shouting seconds. He kept reminding me, Brother Zhi peng, whatever, I can't hear. All I knew was that my eyes were bloodshot. Then I started to feel something was wrong. I hurriedly pulled the rope and safety ring down, and for the last ten seconds I had no strength left to kick out one foot and the other. The moment I came down, it should actually be very handsome, like a ninja, but I had no strength, I came down like a dead pig, and I slammed down.
It was really uncomfortable, but that's my attitude to work. The judges were stunned. They think that why fight so hard is not a magic reality show. But I can't get past my own pass, that's how I fight.
At the launch of the movie "Manslaughter", I said that I was killed by manslaughter in the entertainment industry. I was killed by everyone. For many years, everyone said why Did Chen Zhipeng go, or that he was the least popular. I've been killed by mistake until "Chase the Light!" Brother", finally returned my innocence.
I feel like my time is only here at this moment, and it's really been misplaced for decades. I'm 50 years old and my life has only just begun. These programs have a particularly high degree of attention, so that everyone can return to see a new me. So my youth is back, not being delayed and my youth is gone.
Chen Zhipeng participated in "Chasing the Light! Brother" image source Chen Zhipeng Weibo
2
In fact, it is not a secret that when the "A Thousand Faces" album was released in 2018, I felt that my time had come, my attention was back, and I hoped that everyone would see a new subversive Chen Zhipeng who was at the forefront of fashion. But unexpectedly, the final public opinion was distorted.
There was a play that should have had achievements before, called "Princess Huaiyu", and I made a cameo in it. But when I made a cameo, I snatched up all the scenes, and then when they saw that the scene changed to me, the producers felt that it was not right — to make you fire, you are not our artist - and they wrote me away. Then I reappeared and it was the big ending, and I was mad at me.
Fortunately, I made "Chasing the Light!" Brother," I could still think of myself as the one who had been killed by mistake. In the short few decades of life, if you have not found a chance to seek revenge, how can you relax yourself?
I'm thankful to be myself in 2018, to say what I dare to say, and to do something I never wanted to do before this year, 2021. I was interviewed for the second time, which was "Chase the Light!" Brother", the third interview is still in "Chase the Light! Brother". I was like a silkworm baby, making cocoons, protecting myself, and finally tearing it open and coming out.
When you get into a show like this, what do you want? It was a reshuffling Chen Zhipeng who came out.
If you look back at my past teenage years to the present, what you see in the film, I am not joking about working, I am working very seriously. So that's who I am, the same person for decades. What I've always wanted to do is that I can get my fans or my boss to appreciate or see me.
But because it's a team, the odds of seeing you are not high. In addition, interpersonal, our family did not teach interpersonal this lesson, we teach is obedience, teaching is courtesy.
In life, we have not seen my parents quarrel until now. Our family has a beauty salon, so when we treat guests, it is impossible to be cruel to guests. When my father was a child, for example, I remember seeing him drunk once or twice, it was all socializing. It was very popular to go to a restaurant in those days – I don't know if you understand a restaurant? It's the kind that accompanies the wine, and the rouge powder is particularly heavy—and then my mother would say, go. Slowly I paid my dad and put it in my pocket, and she said you're going to look for something prettier than me. We've all seen it this way since we were kids, wow, my mom is awesome. Then my dad was obedient. Where do you say the quarrel is?
Even I would observe the marriages of my sisters or my brothers, and no one quarreled. My sister-in-law is, as long as she goes out, even if it is me, she will stand in the third position behind me. I said sister-in-law, hey, sister-in-law, you come here, that's it, she's not going to walk side by side with me. I don't know if it's my brother's education or my sister-in-law's habits. She felt that boys were the Lord. So our family includes my nephew, my nephew, my niece or whatever, the personality is the same as us, all of our children are obedient, do not know how to fight.
But from the moment I was born, I have memories that I thought I should be a star.
Like when I was a child, I watched Gao Lingfeng, or Teresa Teng, they are the stars in my mind. They are all brand-name, and then they sing and dance, with a fairy breath. I went on stage when I was four years old, went to a more rural place to perform, and gave me a prize of soap. Singing on stage I think that's what I like. When I was in junior high school, I went to see movies, and I watched the movies that Zhang Guorong made when he was young. Watching the movie come out in the middle of the night, some people say, isn't this Zhang Guorong just on the movie? Hearing this, I felt, Oh, I'm the one with the star temperament.
When I was in junior high school, when I realized that I looked like others, I thought I was a star. But I'm not a star. What if I want to be a star? Every New Year's Day, my parents would take me to buy clothes, and I had to pick a very star-style coat, the kind of beautiful clothes that I could only wear once a year. That's when there was a star atmosphere.
My pride is always there, you can't get rid of this - I may be born with all the star breath, I walked past and there was that gas. My photographer, after the 90s, watched my recent performance rehearsal, came down and said to me, brother is a star. Then I said that my brother was not a star for more than thirty years after his debut, and he only understood.
When I was 20 years old, I got the soldier's list and wanted to become a soldier. That's when I came back from the tour, I realized that I was going to have one last struggle. If I want to become a student, I can stay in the entertainment industry for a few more years, and then I really went to sign up, thinking that I should be the lucky star, how to test can be admitted to a school. When I was admitted, I continued to be a star.
But when I went to the first subject, as soon as I entered the school gate — it's not a door to everyone — but when I was going to walk in that day, I thought I was a star, and I couldn't go in. I think I'm a star, why should I go to be a student again?
Because I felt like a star since junior high school, and then I suddenly became a star in my first year of high school, so you think it's a very strange thing to go to school. I was a student, but I already had a lot of privileges. Then I enjoyed the aura of stardom outside for two or three more years, and when I walked into the school again, I had a little bit of disdain.
Do you want to take the exam in the end? The registration fee is also a lot of money. Go inside. I went in with my mask on. When I took the exam paper and looked at it, I didn't know it at all. I sat for about half an hour, and when someone in the exam room finished writing and left, I said to myself, let's go, become a soldier, and leave.
But are you really a star? At that time, the money for work, such as a hundred yuan, you want three people to divide, how much do you want to divide a hundred yuan by 3? There is also a decimal point, how do you divide it? The company is finished first, and then give it to us. So at that time, there was just a sense of aura. Stars without money – that's funny.
Chen Zhipeng and the Little Tigers as a young man The image source is Chen Zhipeng Weibo
3
I remember the first time I drank — when I started being a celebrity for the first time — I was 19 years old. It was the star who took me to play, and I forgot that I was also a star. As soon as I found out, I was a star, and everyone came to drink with the star. And then I drank well, I was on a plane at 5:30 a.m. and I drank until 3:30. Because of teenagers, very young, very ignorant, drink, drink happily. I arrived at the airport at 5:15 a.m. on the plane, and I was about to be cursed to death.
I was dizzy and went to the Golden Gate to do activities. I don't even know what I'm doing. Coming down from the plane, they said on TV, hoping the team would run off the plane, I was still drunk.
It was about 20 years from the first time I drank to when I stopped drinking. In fact, after these 20 years have been at the top, it has been somewhat down to the lowest; sometimes it comes up a little bit, thinking that it is going up, and then it goes down again.
After I became a soldier, I acted in a few TV dramas in the mainland, returned to Taiwan to shoot a few MORE TV dramas, and then I moved to Shanghai and stayed at a friend's house - at that time I felt that I was very uncomfortable, very unhappy, and everyone knew what to do, but there were no results. Then I stopped leaving and began to live a casual life, every day is how to drink, how to eat.
I show up when I have a job, I drink without a job. That kind of life is still very fun, and everyone holds you up, because you are a star and will take you to eat and drink every day. After twenty years of drinking, I can drink any wine and drink everything. Go as long as there is wine, and don't care about the image.
I drink to relax myself. But when you drink a point, that emotion is not right. Because things bind you, you start to feel uncomfortable, painful, uncomfortable. I remember when I was most exaggerated, I actually went back to the videotape, looked back at the video of me when I was seventeen or eighteen years old, before I became a soldier. I sat in the corner of my room and began to frantically release all my emotions as I watched. That helplessness is no way to imagine.
One day, the phone came and said, there is a song and dance drama in Taiwan called "See the Sun", the director said to find you, can you come back? I said let me think about it and hung up the phone. I struggled because I hadn't acted in a cabaret or had a so-called theatrical performance on stage, let alone danced and sung. So I was very repulsive at first.
That night I dreamed of the warning bell before the start, and a red light kept turning. I heard someone shouting at me, so I rushed over. That's when the alarm goes off and I wake up. It was at that moment that I talked to myself, going back or not. Because I can't escape anymore, I run away from it again and I've been in the so-called enjoyment of life.
I decided to go back. Go back or go back wearing a mask. Because you can't show that you are resting. But that is not deceiving people, eating well and drinking well every day, and drinking a bunch of wine, the director said when he saw it, he is not tall, a little fat. Chen Lerong, a musician he has worked with before, remembers that there is a person like me, and he came out to recommend to the director and said, you see, the sound has not changed, it is still good. The director said, that's okay.
Our workload is 12 hours a day, one line after another in a scene, each place grinding, grinding for about two or three months, and then we can go on stage. I remember the first performance, very depressed. I was a singer before, and your applause was always there after singing. But when the song and dance is performed, the performance is finished, the curtain is closed - there is applause at this time, and then there is no more. I had to take the makeup, carry a bag, and go home. The whole gap is so big.
I thought, say, what the hell am I going to do? How did my life come to be like this? I was a top singer, I suddenly became nothing, and then I went back to the cabaret and was an obscure actor again. So sad. The theater was close to where I lived, and I walked all the way home in a painful process.
I had to perform 70 performances, and then I gave up on myself, because I felt that no matter how I sang, the audience was very small. I started looking for other actors or dancers to drink. In Tainan, after rehearsal, I went out to drink, drank until dawn, and entered the theater at 10 o'clock in the morning. The director, knowing we were hanging out, wouldn't talk to me and warned me in this way: He was angry.
After the next day's performance, I returned to Taipei from Tainan, which was not far away, but I was on the train. After leaving the hotel, just say, go, and then the driver will go to the airport. The train station is five minutes from my hotel and the airport is half an hour away. By the time I looked up, I was almost at the airport. When I turned around and drove back to the train station, I saw that the train I was going to take was running. I started scrambling with the train to see who arrived first, and the train passed. I could only take another train, standing from Tainan back to Taipei, and stood for about six hours. Half drunk the day before, didn't wake up, and kept throwing up on the train. It was really pitiful then – now that I think about it, it was retribution.
For two or three years, I opened a shop. To be a shop owner, you have to use your wrist to earn this money. The people you come into contact with every day, you have to deal with the advances and setbacks. You have to go out and drink with people and tell people false truths. Later, I slowly found out that that was not what I wanted, I wanted to be a star.
Then I started to clean myself up because I felt like I couldn't look back in life. That's all your past aura, what does it have to do with your present? These are all in the past. Until the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Tiger, I told myself that the most important thing about being a singer was the voice. And then what is it, the form. You can't always drink all the swollen. I was talking to myself constantly, asking myself, what do you want? If I continue to be dashing, my life will always be dashing.
About three months later, I returned to Taiwan for the Chinese New Year and officially began to quit drinking. My sister said that there is still some wine at home or not, I said yes, but I have an agreement with myself, 58 degrees 5 wine, drink every day, 22 days to drink, not allowed to drink another drop of wine. There must always be an end to life. I really did. On the 23rd day, I didn't drink a single drop of wine, until now, for 12 years.
Image source Chen Zhipeng Weibo
4
I hope the past doesn't start again. I don't want to reminisce about it, like the so-called real top stream, because now if I think about it again, it hurts.
In 2018, I made the album "A Thousand Faces", the boss spent money, and you always have to give back to others. Before that, I was filming one after another, or running some activities. It was all unseen, and I forgot that I was a star. But when you come back to the audience's field of vision, you can't be so arrogant, you can only package yourself.
Self-packaging is important. I used to be a casual person, a person who could get out of flip-flops, a person who could buy cheap goods, because at that time I thought, I had a star aura. I forgot to package myself.
I had dinner with my team in Beijing that day, and then someone said, Brother, why do you have to wear makeup when you eat with our own people? It was because one of the boys on the team said a word, and I listened to it. He said, brother, the star comes out, every moment every second someone is watching you, what if you want to be photographed and not good?!" After he told me that time, I was not allowed to have oil on my face, and I had to wear makeup when I went out.
I want to get back into the audience's sights, and that's all I have to do is wrap myself up. So I started to consume myself, I started to buy, I began to adjust. The more you adjust, the more you add things to yourself.
I actually do a lot of things and run fast, I run faster than others. If you go and listen to my first album from 23, called "Remember Your Incense," and you put that song into my current life, or when I'm thirty-five or six, it makes sense. In 2018, I sent that "A Thousand Faces", those dressed, if you put it now, you can. Because this trend is accepted, the trend of two years ago is not accepted.
My outfit is not referring to anything, it's my brain spinning all the time. For example, if I see this coat first, how do I put it on, I want to make it different. Or it has to add gloves, or add a high neck, it can have an attitude out. Once there was a media outlet @ me, he said you see, foreign popular information is plagiarizing Chen Zhipeng. Because I wore that one of those collocations was worn six months later. So I am very famous in this kind of advanced fashion circle for example. They think my collocation is OK. But if you are in the show business, or even the film and television industry, you will feel crazy.
At the music festival of Phoenix Satellite TV, someone said through the agent at the time: Brother, this party, the red carpet depends on your hot search. I listened to this, and from the moment I knew there was an invitation to this event, I drew my own drawings and then asked my costume artist to make clothes. That time it was more fierce, it was a transparent suit, that is, fully transparent, and shorts were worn inside. I originally set up a black dress with tight long sleeves, and the pants were also tight long pants. But I was in the hotel for a long time, and after putting it on, I found that I was uncomfortable looking at it. I started cutting myself, cutting off the sleeves and cutting off the pants. Sure enough, as soon as it came out, it was a hot search.
I was scared to death when I first searched for "A Thousand Faces". What do I think I did? I just dyed a green hair and wore a pretty normal outfit, nice clothes. Then my night was a sleep that was hard for me to sleep, and I was very nervous. Then that day there was a friend who sent a photo, which was the photo that I was hotly searched for. He said, very good, what I call very good, he said, first of all, you are an artist, you are a star. What you want, the topic. Again, what you want, attention. And then there's what it is, self-confidence. It was a chat, and the friend talked with me for about two or three hours, and I began to digest.
I read a lot of the news that night. After reading it, I found that there are many people who scold. Then I closed my ears and I began to change back into what I called a middle-aged rebellious me. I felt like that year was a complete upheaval of what I hadn't done as a junior high school student. I started to do a lot of things... For example, piercing the ears. Two, five, and then immediately ran to the market to get a prick in the ear, and then three times it passed. And then I started, and I started living the days I wanted to live.
When I had to put every set of clothes on and go out, I actually had a lot of courage. For example, the outfit at that event in Shanghai, when I let the staff go to sleep, I thought about it myself, adjusted, changed, and figured out how to get it until almost 4 o'clock, and then decided on the hair color of my hair. I'm probably the only male artist in history who has changed his hair color and three outfits at an event.
I really think I'm crazy. I keep reminding myself that this is your job. You have to put it on, you are the best one. So when I put it on, that confidence is going to come up, and I don't care about everyone's eyes.
Chen Zhipeng's "A Thousand Faces" album picture
5
I feel like I'm not going to be a guy who's going to be eliminated, or I'm going to walk faster than others. I accept things too quickly. I'm surrounded by young people, and I think sometimes they can't keep up with me.
When "Chasing the Light", it is half learning and half growing. You say it's very professional, such as stage setting, in fact, I understand. When I was in the military, I would set up everything except the microphone. The flat ground becomes a stage, the stage has lights, and we all build it ourselves. So when I get into such a professional stage, I won't say I look at it, it's great. Why? Because I know all that.
Moreover, this is the popular element, the hardware for you. As for what the software gives you, pack yourself. Right? So I've been following the times. And then there's the fact that you didn't notice that my previous makeup was different from what I have now? In the past, as long as the makeup was good, but after coming to "Chasing the Light", I found that it was not right, the makeup had changed, I did not look for a makeup artist, it was all self-made. We will go to see what Han Fan'er's transformation method is, what is the localization method. That's learning. You're all following the trend, so you learn faster than others.
I'm a person who can't read, but I'm a very good at learning with my eyes, super fast. Like everybody says you can cook? Yes. So you'll cook it yourself? I haven't seen anything. I said I don't have to cook, I use to watch. For example, if I watch my mother cook, what she buys, what she adds, I will do it.
You think of these 21 people, except for me, the 20 people, each with their own makeup. When they saw me, they said, Brother, your makeup looks good. I said that I was human. Are you sure? We don't all have to be human, we all have to find people. I say too many of you hurt you. But I say to them, you must learn to be yourself. Why? Only you know where you look best. What someone else gives you is someone else's profession, and he only knows how to make everyone the same face. He doesn't know where your good looks are.
So everyone was filled with awe and knew to put me in the position of a senior.
As I said before, I have a proud and lonely soul. Did you see me walk the red carpet and then show up at that feast? I didn't have it, I walked off the red carpet and I was gone because I didn't dare to stand inside. I don't want me to take a drink, hello, who am I, I can't make it. I'm going to walk the red carpet and turn around and go back to the hotel, or I'll just put on my mask and go shopping.
In the Light Chasing Academy, when everyone was crackling and performing themselves, I felt that I was the loneliest person. Because I can't interject, I won't. And when we sleep in the dormitory, like some brothers, they like to visit the door. I'm the kind of person who as long as I get into the room, it's impossible for you to let me out that door. I just went to the toilet door and went straight into the toilet, and then I went straight back to the bed, I am such a person.
My loneliness is all the time, and I actually enjoy it. When everyone else went to sleep, I started enjoying my loneliness. Enjoyed it a lot. It was Brother Li that they went to sleep, and at this moment I began, such as taking a bath and sorting out the clothes I would wear tomorrow. Because I am a person who does not borrow things, so I buy my own luggage, my luggage is a few boxes of things, so I must take advantage of this lonely process, looking for, making up, so that tomorrow's self is the most shining.