"I don't go to hell, who goes to hell!"
I believe that most people hear this sentence and immediately think of "Journey to the West Sequel", especially the slightly fat "Sun Wukong".
The actor of this drama happens to be Cao Rong, who once taught martial arts to six-year-old children.
Although the lean monkey played by the six-year-old child has become the most classic "Sun Wukong", the round monkey played by Cao Rong has also left an indelible impression on the audience.
So how did Cao Rong enter the show business circle, and how did he play the role of Sun Wukong?
01
Born in Hong Kong in 1962, Cao Rong began practicing martial arts at the age of 12, thus laying a deep foundation in martial arts.
When Cao Rong was young, he greatly admired Bruce Lee and hoped to be a kung fu superstar like Bruce Lee.
In addition to practicing martial arts, the young Cao Rong shuttled through various crews to run dragon sets, which not only allowed his martial arts talents to play perfectly in his acting career, but also accumulated a lot of acting skills.
Hong Kong in the 1980s was the era of martial arts films, and a group of film actors such as Jackie Chan and Jet Li pushed martial arts films to a peak.
The young Cao Rong was also very lucky, not only could he find a place to use what he had learned, but he also received the appreciation of Bole Jackie Chan by relying on his skills.
In 1957, Jackie Chan accidentally saw Cao Rong on the set, his martial arts action fist to flesh, fast and powerful action is also clean and beautiful enough, so he warmly invited Cao Rong to play a thug in his own movie "Flying Dragon Fierce General", although there are not many scenes, but thus got Jackie Chan's appreciation.
Cao Rong has joined the circle of Chengjia class and Hongjia class, on the one hand, he has the vigorous cultivation of Jackie Chan, on the other hand, with the resources of these two platforms, he can continuously learn and polish his acting skills.
Since then, he has directed many film and television dramas and achieved some achievements, but Cao Rong has not stopped at the front, but has been chasing the dream in his heart.
In Li Lian's outstanding performance of "The Demon Sect Leader of the Dragon Slayer in the Heavens", Cao Rong showed his outstanding kung fu, and the wonderful battle between the Shaolin Dragon Gripper Monk and Jet Li played by him made the audience stunned and pushed Cao Rong to another height.
Over the years, he has served as a martial arts instructor in many well-known movies and TELEVISION series, such as "New Female Pony", "Tianya Mingyue Dao", "New Dragon Gate Inn", "Tiger And Mighty Dragon" and so on.
In 1997, Cao Rong ushered in a major turning point in his life, he won the 34th Golden Horse Award for Best Martial Arts Instructor with "A Good Man", which also made him a well-known figure in the martial arts industry in Hong Kong.
In the era of Hong Kong film boom, many artists without teachers have emerged, and they are working hard step by step.
The modest and low-key Cao Rong is one of them, he really achieved "the harder you work, the luckier", won a place for himself in Hong Kong, and was recognized by many people.
02
At the end of the 1990s, Hong Kong action movies began to come to an end.
With the decline of Hong Kong cinema, Cao Rong also began to move to the mainland after consideration.
In 1998, Cao Rong received an invitation from director Yang Jie to serve as the action director of the "Journey to the West Sequel".
Cao Rong may not have expected that from that moment on, he had an indissoluble relationship with "Journey to the West".
He not only served as an action director in Journey to the West, but also made many cameo appearances, among which prince Mo Ang, who played a scene of fighting with a monster, made people gradually pay attention with his majestic and exquisite martial arts movements.
In 2000, there was a boss who wanted to take advantage of the popularity of Journey to the West to make a fortune, he took all his 15 million worth and more than 20,000 words of script to Cao Rong, hoping to shoot a TV series about the theme of Journey to the West.
At that time, the six-year-old child was all the rage, and he was also the best candidate for Sun Wukong.
The six-year-old child also confirmed that he would participate in this TV series, and everything was negotiated, but the six-year-old child temporarily changed his mind before the start of filming, and temporarily broke the contract on the grounds that his wife did not agree.
This also led to the boss saying that he would never cooperate with the six-year-old child, and the crew suddenly fell into anxiety because Sun Wukong's candidate did not land.
In the end, Cao Rong decided to go to the battle himself, because he had a kung fu foundation, and the effect of trying on makeup was actually quite good.
Although the name of this work is "Journey to the West", it is not a simple continuation of Journey to the West, but a new story told in this framework.
It mainly tells the story of how after several masters and apprentices obtained the True Scriptures, after hundreds of years of peaceful days, a villain came out of nowhere, forced the Buddha to reincarnate, and finally helped the Buddha reincarnate to regain the Buddha's world.
The original intention of this drama was to continue the glory of Journey to the West, so once the filming began, a series of big coffee characters were gathered, and Qian Yanqiu, a famous screenwriter who wrote the series of "Yan Shuangying" and "Detective Di Renjie", personally operated.
Once the TV series was broadcast, it really received good ratings and popularity.
With this work, Cao Rong won the Golden Horse Award for Best Action Direction again.
However, because the 1986 version of "Journey to the West" really made the audience too impressed with Journey to the West, it attracted the audience to complain about this drama one after another, pointing out that the character settings in it were inconsistent with the original work.
For example, the Tang monks are actually strong in martial arts, the reincarnation of the Buddha actually fell in love with two women, and the mirror flip technique used in the shooting made the action broadcast back and forth to make up the time, which is a bit funny, which also makes Cao Rong the "originator of the ghost animal".
One of the most eye-catching is the "tearing" of Cao Rong and screenwriter Qian Yanqiu, the two tit-for-tat and quarrel on the Internet.
In terms of script, Cao Rong and Qian Yanqiu had a disagreement and blamed each other.
Cao Rong believes that obscure scripts do not meet the needs of the public, and the word count of the script cannot meet the requirements of 30 episodes.
Qian Yanqiu felt that Cao Rong was illiterate and still needed help from the staff, and no one would give in, and finally had to use the "ghost animal" editing method to piece together the length.
After many considerations, Qian Yanqiu slightly revised the script of "Journey to the West" and appeared in people's sights with a new look.
There is also the issue of the director's attribution, Qian Yanqiu and Cao Rong are both trying to prove their views.
Qian Yanqiu always believed that Li Yuan was the director, and came up with a lot of evidence to prove that the two sides even complained about each other's character, and Qian Yanqiu also revealed the unpleasantness that had been made in the theater to everyone, in order to show that Cao Rong's character was not good.
The two men disagreed and did not make up their minds.
However, the reputation of this "Journey to the West" that can be called the memory of the post-8090s has risen all the way, and with the changes of the times, the audience's tolerance and vision have become broader, and they can look at the problem from more perspectives.
Although "Journey to the West" is lacking in acting editing, it is logical and rigorous overall.
Although it does not have much to do with "Journey to the West", the Sun Wukong he played has received unanimous praise, coupled with rich content, it is also a rare god work.
03
As people have more different understandings of film and television works, the Douban score of this work has soared from 3.4 all the way to 7.9.
Cao Rong did not expect that 20 years later, "Journey to the West" has exploded again on various short video platforms, and then Cao Rong also announced that he will re-edit the work of "Journey to the West" to present a more wonderful and mature picture for the audience who like to support this work.
Although the drama has mixed reviews, Cao Rong's efforts to make for Journey to the West have been recognized by the public.
After that, Cao Rong also took advantage of the situation to launch the work "Dinghai God Needle" in 2020, and he still played Sun Wukong in this network movie.
However, it can be seen from the stills that Cao Rong, who is nearly sixty years old, has a blessed figure, the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes cannot be hidden, coupled with the rough clothing and shoddy plot, so this work did not cause too much splash.
Although this drama still does not have much praise, Cao Rong has long regarded himself as Sun Wukong, as if he is not playing a role in him, but he is the unruly Goku.
From the initial desire to be a martial arts star, to the current "Wukong professional household", he insisted on nothing more than that long-term dream.
Now Cao Rong is still in good spirits, his life is plain, he rarely appears in the public eye, perhaps he has only seen too many of the ups and downs of the entertainment industry, so he does not want his family to be exposed in front of the camera, so he also avoids a lot of unnecessary troubles and troubles.
Recently, he also often shares his life on social platforms, although his role of Sun Wukong has mixed reviews in the eyes of others, but it does not affect his positive and optimistic attitude towards life.