The Paper's reporter Chen Chen
"Tomorrow Do You Still Love Me" is the second love movie starring actor Li Hongqi this year, and the same as the "Tanabata Customization" "I Am Waiting for You at the End of Time" four months ago, he has played two characters who are obsessed with "Little Transparency" who sacrificed for love.
From "Drunken Life Dream Death" to the Golden Horse Best New Actor debut, and then in the Bi Gan film "peaked" to nibble an apple, li Hongqi, who is well known to the audience who loves literary and art films, has actually always wanted to have the opportunity to act in an "idol drama" in the past few years when he has always acted in literary and art films. This actor, who is accustomed to playing the bottom and the marginalized, calls the mainstream genre of urban pure love films "out of the comfort zone".
Stills of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow", played by Li Hongqi
But the result seems to be less "comfortable", and the rating of "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow" is not satisfactory. There is a lot of controversy about the plot in the comment area, Li Hongqi's performance is not scolding, and the audience who knows him knows that he can act, so many people say indignantly, "Li Hongqi, are you good at acting in literary and art films?" ”
For Li Hongqi, the actor is the director's living prop, and the film should have all kinds of looks; as for the performance, it is only part of what he wants to "play more". He likes art, 15 years old to take a leave of absence to work for art school, learn to play drums, form a band, after winning the performance award did not take advantage of the hot iron into the show business circle but into the university to read philosophy, from the supporting role of literary and art films to the absolute male number one of mainstream commercial love movies, he does not feel that this represents anything, "just one more experience." ”
Present the purest form of love in the ice and snow
In "Tomorrow Do You Still Love Me", a self-proclaimed "tool man" IT man, he followed the company team to Finland, accompanied by the injured and amnesiac goddess Zhao Ximan (Yang Ying) stranded in Northern Europe, in the countdown to only one day of romantic journey to pursue the aurora, he pretended to be Heeman's boyfriend, and finally healed the inner wounds of the goddess with a sincere heart.
Stills from "Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow"
Such a pure love story, combined with Finnish fairy tale scenery and Christmas atmosphere, is full of beauty. But Li Hongqi's shooting this time has gone through difficulties. As an actor from Taiwan, he has not suffered much from freezing since he was a child, and he was directly frozen when he arrived in Finland. The unprecedented extreme cold experience of more than twenty degrees Celsius exceeded the degree of physical endurance, but the vast number of people and horses going to a foreign land was also a bow and there was no turning back, and Li Hongqi could only "shoot hard" against his sick body.
"As soon as you finish speaking your lines, you wear a mask, try to keep a distance from other staff, take the next shot and then take the mask off." And also ask the director not to shoot too static scenes, the feeling of the body will be better when running. Because the low temperature movements and expressions have become a little sluggish, it has become difficult to memorize lines to find a camera position when the body is weak, recalling the scene shot in Finland, Li Hongqi bluntly said, "It's really painful!" ”
Fortunately, the IT man also looks wooden in the established impression, and Li Hongqi's performance limited by physical and climatic reasons is not enough to make people play. It's just that such a role didn't resonate with too many audiences, and in the evaluation of the film, many viewers questioned the effort and unconditional effort in the film, so that there was almost no life and personality of their own. For such love, Li Hongqi has his own understanding.
"I think he's back to a very pure love, and the idea of love that I want to share is that it's just plain." Li Hongqi said that the simplest attitude in this kind of love is exactly what really attracts him, "Just like the kind of feeling in a small country, I like a girl, I am willing to pay for her, I am willing to ride a bicycle to take her to school every day, and then wait for her to finish school." It seems that love becomes more and more complicated when I grow up, but this kind of happiness for the sake of a person's happiness is a very pure side of my love concept, and I also hope to remind myself by acting in these films, not to abandon this essence. If love has to measure the payoff and the return, it becomes the pursuit of profit, but Ringer (the male protagonist of "I Am Waiting for You at the End of Time") and Labor are the kind of people who are happy because the other party is happy. I am willing to play such a person for the audience to see. ”
If the subject matter is not what you want to see, then don't look at it
Li Hongqi is the kind of actor with strong sensitivity, and he also requires himself to empathize with the character. So the first time he acted in "Drunken Dream Death", he raised ants for a month before booting up to cultivate feelings. He played a deaf-mute man in "Baby", without a single line, but became an impressive highlighter.
Acting in love fairy tales, Li Hongqi said that he still believes in the existence of these characters, "The sense of faith may not necessarily come from having the same life experience, sometimes it is simply to grasp a thing, as long as Ling Ge loves Qiu Qian, laboriously loves Xi Man, this is enough, it is crossing, it is high-tech, it is the future, these are just external packaging, and finally back to the individual person, the important person knows what he wants to do. ”
Stills from "Calm Wind and Waves", Zhang Yu and Li Hongqi
Including this year's release of another film closer to Li Hongqi's past drama path of "Calm Wind and Waves", Li Hongqi played by Li Tang in it also gave a different extreme expression. Vicious to twisted, empty to insane, arrogant to brutal, in short, to live a very "hard" look. Such a performance also allowed Li Hongqi to receive some controversy in his evaluation based on this film.
Talking about the role, when the reporter said the word "force", he said: "Of course, this sounds like a bad word, but I want to ask rhetorically, have many people really seen what some extreme people are like?" I've really seen friends around me like this, unable to control their words and emotions. At the same time, the extreme events that appear in the news, the things that seem to be very crazy, because of the limited space, only show a very one-sided single message, and in private, there may be some things that I can't understand, but that's what I'm going to present. ”
Whether it is an obsessive man who does not ask for a return to pay, or a rich second generation who "uses too much force", these experiences for Li Hongqi are all attempts to broaden the boundaries of performance, "Before I shot things that were more partial to social themes, or more marginal people, I did not have the opportunity to act in some 'small freshness' when I was younger, a little unwilling." ”
Li Hongqi is 30 years old this year, and he still retains his sense of youth, and he is finally saying goodbye to the age of youth and making up for some regrets. "Because I know that as I get older, my experience increases, and my posture will become more mature, I will definitely not be able to act in that youth campus, and growing up is an irreversible process." Maybe just like photos, photos taken at different stages record different memories, so it feels good to take them now. ”
As for those fans who prefer Li Hongqi's literary and artistic films, Li Hongqi's advice is, "If the theme is not what you want to see, then don't watch it." Because movies have trailers and posters before, it can already help different people to identify whether this is the kind of movie you want to see. ”
Poster of "I'm Waiting for You at the End of Time"
"I'm Waiting for You at the End of Time" earned more than 500 million at the box office, ranking seventh in the Chinese film box office in 2020, which is a figure that is difficult for niche literary and art films to reach. So Li Hongqi still feels that he has made some kind of progress, "Some people may like it, and some people don't like it, but even when I played the low-level characters before, some friends told me that they didn't like the movies I played, and they thought those movies were too dark." So are different people with different standards? Wouldn't it be nice to get to know more audience friends and accept more diverse things? ”
Be a director yourself to "record the moment"
Li Hongqi went to perform because he liked art, liked movies, liked to observe and think. Such a person does not want to frame himself too seriously in the performance. "I sometimes don't even think I need to be an actor, it's like playing for me, just a little more experience." Over the years, working with different directors, everyone's style is very different, and it also allows him to see the various paths in which the film is created. "Actors are the director's living props, and no matter what I do, I present the director's worldview." Many years ago, he wanted to be his own director, and now this is the time to go.
In the past few years, there have been many actors who choose to act and direct well, most of them will choose mature commercial genre films, as well as a technically mature enough creative team. But Li Hongqi regards filmmaking as a director as a very personal and pure way of expression. He himself took the camera and captured the spontaneous flow of the people around him, and some real passage of time.
For example, he secretly put the camera in the corner of the house to record the dialogue of his parents, but the dialogue actually had the motivation for his deliberate guidance and provocation as a director. "The movie is really amazing sometimes, and I think sometimes it's really not telling a story, it's some moment in the moment. For example, the movies I like often may be because of a look in the character's eyes, or a pot of flowers he is holding, or the sky, or a plant... It's the things I want to remember at this moment. ”
In fact, since this year, Li Hongqi has really become the male protagonist of a movie, although he has already had many roles before. Being known by more people and becoming a movie star will not become an obstacle to a down-to-earth life, and here li Hongqi said that he can still stay comfortable.
"I don't think my state has changed at all, except that sometimes I may have to add some group photos and things like that, and everything else is the same." I don't think it's necessary to close the channel of my understanding of the world, because you have to go down on your own, such as going to the bus yourself, so that you can see life as it is, and I can't let myself not see things. So I myself feel that I am not very changeable, only more mature and wiser. ”
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Luan Meng