Before the Spring Festival had fully passed, bad news came.
In 2020 we said goodbye to many celebrities, just ushered in 2021, the bad news came -
On February 13, 2021, the famous film performance artist Yang Zaibao passed away at the age of 85.
Speaking of the name Yang Zaibao, the post-90s and even post-80s may not know anything, but in the early days of reform and opening up, the name "Yang Zaibao" represents a well-known screen tough guy.
He was the hero of that era, the youth idol of a generation, and the existence of Jackie Chan, Stallone, and Schwarzenegger today.
Although he did not overcome the disease and eventually left us, in that era of black and white and color, the spirit of the screen tough guy he played was always worthy of our learning and awe.
On June 25, 1935, Yang Zaibao was born in Suzhou, Anhui. Growing up in the crop fields as a child and losing his father at a young age, little Yang Zaibao has been living with his mother.
This child with thick eyebrows and big eyes did not like martial arts and sports since he was a child, but he had a strong preference for literature and art. When he was in elementary school, he often participated in literary and artistic activities such as allegro and double reed.
After graduating from primary school, Yang Zaibao was admitted to the then Anhui North District United Middle School, and during the school period, the teacher would often lead the students to rehearse dramas, and Yang Zaibao had a strong interest in drama when he was in middle school.
In 1952, at the age of 17, Yang zaibao was admitted to Sucheng No. 1 Middle School and served as the director of culture and entertainment of the student union. At this time, his literary and artistic talents were quickly brought into play, and on weekend evenings he often organized and personally participated in the dramas "Democratic Youth March" and "Fang Pearl".
At this time, shortly after the liberation of China, a hundred flowers and a hundred schools of thought in the national literary and art circles were competing, and Yang Zaibao, who had a heart of acting ambition, was admitted to the acting department of the Shanghai Theater Academy in 1955, and successfully graduated in 1959 as an actor in the Shanghai Youth Repertory Theatre.
At this time, Yang Zaibao was 24 years old, the best age in his life.
It is not difficult to see from the old photos that Yang Zaibao is not the popular cream fresh meat, he is rough and strong, the bones are angular, he looks righteous, and his figure is big and stiff.
In the 50s, when movies were mostly war scenes, Yang Zaibao's image was simply a natural decent tough guy.
Sure enough, in 1960, just a year after Yang Zaibao graduated, he got a role in the movie "Red Sun" directed by Tang Xiaodan - Lian Changshi Donggen.
Although not the protagonist, Yang Zaibao, who has just graduated, is full of vigor and enthusiasm into the performance.
The image of this peasant-born grassroots commander and fighter has also become more three-dimensional.
Originally, the film image of this era was very facial, but Yang Zaibao's Shi Donggen was very similar to Li Yunlong in "Bright Sword", with a loose and domineering life, but heroic and fearless on the battlefield. It turned out that the character was successfully portrayed, but he paid the price of blood, which was simply exchanged for his life.
Because I have a personality, I am liked.
Among all the homogeneous hero images, Yang Zaibao was well known to the national audience for the first time.
Yang Zaibao's second most popular role was also that of a company commander, playing Xu Company Commander of the Eighth Route Army in the 1964 film Bethune.
The image and temperament of thick eyebrows and big eyes made Yang Zaibao very popular, and also paved the way for his future career.
In 1965, directed by Zhao Ming, the film "Young Generation", which expressed the ideals and service of young geological exploration team members to the motherland, was broadcast, and Yang Zaibao played the male number one in the film for the first time, this time playing Xiao Jiye, a young man with lofty ambitions.
This is the era of dedication and pioneering, Yang Zaibao played by Xiao Jiye, concentrated the most full enthusiasm and vitality of young people in that era, and pinned on the most lofty aspirations and ideals of young people in that era.
And Xiao Jiye's personality is also very similar to Yang Zaibao himself.
He is playing others, but also playing himself, during the filming process Yang Zaibao has been very excited, and after the film was broadcast, it quickly became popular all over the country.
Xiao Jiye became the hottest youth idol at that time.
Xiao Jiye's influence on young people is so great that Yang Zaibao did not expect it. He didn't know before that acting in a movie could have such a big impact on others.
Since then, every time Yang Zaibao plays a role, he will ask himself in his heart: "Is this play valuable to society?"
His career was smooth sailing, but Yang Zaibao encountered the disaster of imprisonment.
When Yang zaibao went to prison, he was afraid of dragging his wife and children down, so he filed for divorce.
The wife not only refused, in order to encourage Yang Zaibao to persevere, she often sewed shoulders for her husband herself.
And stuffed a note inside, the note was written with words of encouragement to the husband, and expectations for the future.
In those days, these words of his wife were like a guiding lamp, allowing Yang to see the light in Bao's heart.
In 1976, Yang Zaibao waited until the day he was rehabilitated, and he finally restored his former freedom.
From 1976 to 1981, Yang zaibao set out again, wanting to take back the time he had lost. In the past 5 years, he has continuously participated in films such as "Dajiang Gushing", "The Tale of the Great Knife", "From Slave to General", "Xu Mao and His Daughters" and so on.
Especially in "From Slave to General", Yang Zaibao put down the image of all the generals and shaped the Red Army general Luo Xiao with a deep, rough and delicate performance.
He portrays the growth of a character from a small slave to a Red Army general without a trace.
In 1983, Yang Zaibao ushered in the second spring of his acting career, this year he participated in the movie "Blood, Always Hot".
In Yang Zaibao's heart, this is also the movie he is most satisfied with.
In the film, he played a factory director named Luo Xingang, who is a keen reformer, and in the context of reform and opening up, Yang Zaibao in the film once again played his advantage.
He not only shows Luo Xingang's determination to carry out drastic reforms, but also shapes his chaotic personality just right.
In the end, with "Blood, Always Hot", Yang Zaibao won the Best Actor Award at the 4th Golden Rooster Awards and the Best Actor Award at the 7th Hundred Flowers Awards.
The film aroused the desire of Yang Zaibao as a director, and finally in 1985, he directed and starred in the film "Acting Mayor", which reflected the reform and opening up.
Yang Zaibao once again regarded the image of the mayor who asked for the people's life and won the Best Actor Award at the 9th Hundred Flowers Awards.
But after this highlight, Yang Zaibao slowly fell silent.
On the one hand, he was hit by a double whammy of family and career.
During the filming of "Blood, Always Hot", Yang Zaibao's wife Xia Qiying was hospitalized for uremia and died shortly after.
Yang Zaibao, who has been taking care of his wife, wrote a picture on the seven-foot white cloth: a life of innocence and no kitsch, and there is pride in the season of death.
In 1984, Yang Zaibao, who won the Hundred Flowers Golden Rooster Double Award, quietly did one thing.
He took out a strand of his treasured hair, wrapped it around two medals, and solemnly put it into the urn of his wife Xia Qiying, the hair that had fallen off when he combed his seriously ill wife's hair, and he carefully kept it for several years, and no one knew.
On the third day of his wife's death, the director kept urging Yang Zaibao on the phone, "Saving the scene is like putting out a fire", he did not say a word, and left home to rush to the location of the movie "Two Heroes".
Creatively, just as Yang Zaibao was fully engaged in the creation of realistic themes, Chinese films began to face the impact of commercialization and the pain of artistic creation.
Between the ages of 50 and 70, Yang Zaibao never appeared in a movie again, until he was later asked to make a comeback, and he still rejected those roles that had no basis in life.
He is one of the best actors in our country.
What Yang Zaibao has always hoped is that Chinese films and dramas will strengthen the will of the nation, establish the backbone of the nation, and invigorate the national spirit.
He believes that film performance is an art of studying people and expressing people's emotions, it is reproduction rather than repetition, "realism" should not be a pure natural record, it is "selectively" in the form of artistic truth and artistic beauty to reflect life.
In 2014, Yang Zaibao won the "Virtue and Art Shuangxin Lifetime Achievement Award", and in 2019, the 84-year-old Yang Zaibao won the title of "32nd China Film Golden Rooster Awards China Federation of Literary and Art Lifetime Achievement Film Artists".
On the screen, Yang Zaibao established the image of China's first generation of screen tough guys.
Off-screen, he is as concerned about the country and the people as he is in the film. During the fight against the new crown pneumonia, Yang Zaibao not only participated in the online public welfare activities launched by the Shanghai Film Actors Troupe, but also went to the scene to cheer up.
On the evening of December 1, 2020, the Shanghai Theater Academy held a celebration meeting for its 75th anniversary.
In a 4-minute congratulatory video, the graduates of the opera celebrated the birthday of their alma mater, Yun, and when Yang Zaibao, a 55th-grade student of the Acting Department, appeared on the big screen, the audience burst into warm applause.
He may be as good to China as Clint Eastwood is to the United States.
Although he has left us, the tough guy image and masculinity he left for Chinese movies are immortal.
A few years later, when we mention China's screen hero again, the name Yang Zaibao will definitely appear in our minds.
As he put it:
"Life is a self-portrait, the key few strokes can not be drawn crooked, otherwise it will not look good." The actor is more self-portrait, appreciating what to pursue, often the criterion for him to shape the image. I don't act to make money. Literary and artistic works should carry forward the spirit of national excellence, rather than blindly pursuing money. In the face of the market tide, I have no way, but I am not in the same stream. ”
This may be the greatest glory of Yang Zaibao's life.
(Rotten Tomatoes Editorial Board: Yang Yang)