The author of this article is @Nico the author of the manuscript
Use a movie to break through the last layer of window paper of life
In early September, Zhao Wenzhuo posted on Weibo announcing the good news of his directorial debut.
This means that next, like Wu Jing, he will embark on a transformation road of creating out of the circle.
In 2015, Jackie Chan publicly stated that he was most optimistic about his successors, there were two:
One is Wu Jing and the other is Zhao Wenzhuo.
However, compared with Wu Jing, whose soaring value and box office of tens of billions, Zhao Wenzhuo's acting career is much bleaker.
Looking at the film and television works starring him in recent years, we can intuitively draw such a conclusion - eating the old book.
Whether it is Huo Yuanjia or Huang Feihong, Zhao Wenzhuo has starred more than once.
For example, in "New Huo Yuanjia" (2001) and "The Great Hero Huo Yuanjia" (2020), he twice starred in the role of "Huo Yuanjia".
Playing the same role again, his state has long been much worse than before.
The martial arts action that shines out is all decent, and it is blessed by the lens and special effects.
This kind of excessive consumption will not only cause the audience to be aesthetically tired, but also set limits for itself, making the drama road narrower and narrower.
Because of this, after watching "The Great Hero Huo Yuanjia", many viewers can't help but ask: Why is Zhao Wenzhuo less and less popular? //////////
Zhao Wenzhuo was born in Harbin into a martial arts family, his father was a martial arts instructor, his mother was a sprinter, and he had two older brothers, who were also keen to learn martial arts.
At the age of 8, he learned martial arts from his teacher and practiced a martial art.
Not only is he good at swords, guns and boxing, but he can also play more than three hundred sets of different schools of boxing.
In 1990, after being admitted to the Martial Arts Department of Beijing Sport University, Zhao Wenzhuo further underwent systematic martial arts training.
Just one year after entering the school, he won the National Wushu Championship and became a national martial arts athlete.
Not long after his sophomore year, he was taken care of by the goddess of destiny.
That year, the film "Fang Shiyu" began filming, and director Yuan Kui went to Beijing Sport University to select actors.
Zhao Wenzhuo only used a set of universal arm fists to conquer the director.
As a fledgling, he was given the opportunity to perform with Jet Li.
In the movie, the "Nine-Door Admiral" Erdo, played by him, is a remarkable villain, whether it is temperament or style, it is very amazing.
At that time, Xu Ke's "Huang Feihong No. 4: The Wind of the King" and Yuan Kui's "Fang Shiyu" were filmed on the same set.
Both films were originally scheduled to star Jet Li.
However, not long after "Huang Feihong No. 4: The Wind of the King" began filming, it fell into a bottleneck.
At that time, Jet Li was arguing with Jiahe over contract issues, and after the agent Cai Ziming signaled, there was a boycott.
In order to catch up with the shooting process, Xu Ke could only make other plans, and chose Zhao Wenzhuo on the same set to succeed Li Lian as the role of "Huang Feihong".
Compared with Jet Li's version of Huang Feihong, Zhao Wenzhuo's version of Huang Feihong exudes more of a youthful, old,peaceful and heavy personal temperament.
In "Huang Feihong No. 4: The Wind of the King", he portrayed Huang Feihong's sense of mission in his home country;
In "Huang Feihong No. 5: Dragon City Fighter", he portrayed Huang Feihong's helplessness about the sun and the building will fall.
In addition, through the "Huang Feihong" series, Zhao Wenzhuo also created a wide-open and unique Zhao martial arts style, which made Xu Ke praise: doing a hundred sets of actions will not be repeated.
However, because jet Li zhuyu is in front, Zhao Wenzhuo's version of "Huang Feihong" has not surpassed jet Li's position in the hearts of the audience.
Even so, Xu Ke, who cherishes talent and loves talent, signed a long-term contract with Zhao Wenzhuo to continue the cooperation between the two.
After filming "Huang Feihong No. 5: Dragon City Fighter", Xu Ke invited Zhao Wenzhuo to star in the 5-episode TV movie version of "Huang Feihong" as a producer.
It didn't take long for Cho to become another kung fu leader in the development of films from the mainland to Hong Kong after Jet Li.
Hong Kong media affectionately referred to him as "Jet Li's second.".
With high hopes, he began to be like Jet Li, in the martial arts world of kung fu movies.
The cooperation between Xu Ke and Zhao Wenzhuo did not stop at the role of "Huang Feihong".
As Xu Ke's royal male protagonist, Zhao Wenzhuo also starred in many impressive classic roles.
For example, Fahai in "Green Snake"; for example, Ding'an in "Knife".
The Fahai he plays is not only the "most handsome Fahai in history", but also the most controversial Fahai.
In the movie, he has a sword eyebrow, a robe and dust, and with an ascetic posture, he staged a charming and hazy erotic scene with the green snake.
Xu Ke's "Knife" (also known as "Knife Breaker") is a martial arts film with a sword on the side.
The film is adapted from Zhang Che's "One-Armed Knife".
The story in the film mainly takes place in the background of an alternate era, and a barbaric and bloody jianghu world is formed by knife farms, hunters, horse thieves, robbers, and civilians.
It looks very urban and pure.
Many people believe that Xu Ke used this film to shoot the best Zhao Wenzhuo.
Unfortunately, after this movie, the two have not worked together on other films.
Because of the shooting gap, Xu Ke was very dissatisfied with Zhao Wenzhuo's "inattentiveness", and he said bluntly: "He was never on the shooting scene. He always took his hand-held phone, which was a bit ridiculous, and I didn't care about him, but I wasn't happy with it and didn't support it. ”
In the mid-to-late 1990s, Hong Kong kung fu films began to shrink, and many action movie stars switched to the mainland.
Zhao Wenzhuo, who is a port drifter, is one of them.
During this period, Zhao Wenzhuo starred in many familiar TV series: "Wind and Cloud", "Fengyun II", "Supreme Red Face", "Seven Swords Under the Heavenly Mountain" and so on.
After entering the millennium, he did not make another movie for nearly a decade.
With the advent of films such as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and Hero, China's "martial arts films" have begun to go global with a new look.
Different from the traditional Hong Kong film pursuit of real knives and guns, fist to flesh of the martial arts world, these "martial arts films" that have been pushed to the international often pay more attention to the depiction of artistic conception.
The so-called "martial arts spirit" began to decline.
And an action star like Zhao Wenzhuo, who can really play, is no longer favored by the market.
Coupled with The fact that Zhao Wenzhuo is shy and not good at words, the network resources he has accumulated in the Hong Kong circle are even less.
In those years in Hong Kong, Zhao Wenzhuo did not live happily.
"No one speaks Mandarin, I especially hope to have friends from the mainland, in short, if you speak Mandarin, I will invite you to dinner."
Because he didn't speak Cantonese, he was scolded when filming, "I don't understand, in fact, I am also in a hurry, I can only guess, and I will be scolded as soon as I go." ”
When filming "Golden Jade Mantang", Zhao Wenzhuo met Zhang Guorong, and the two quickly became friends.
Zhang Guorong once commented on Zhao Wenzhuo: "Zhao Wenzhuo is too upright and not suitable for the entertainment industry. ”
Later, Zhao Wenzhuo responded in the program: "At that time, I couldn't speak, and it was always easy to offend people." ”
Because the treatment of people and things is too straight, Zhao Wenzhuo's transformation path has been particularly difficult.
In 2012, in the process of collaborating with Zhen Zidan on "Special Identity", the two had a great disagreement.
The two sides have their own opinions: Zhen Zidan accused Zhao Wenzhuo of playing a big card and obstructing filming; while Zhao Wenzhuo accused Zhen Zidan of playing hegemony, and the crew engaged in "yin and yang contracts".
With the continuous escalation of the contradictions between the two sides, the stars in the circle have also launched a vigorous stand-in action.
Although the matter was finally resolved, the career development of the two parties was greatly affected by this.
In 2010, under the leadership of Yuan Heping, Zhao Wenzhuo returned to the film industry to star in "Su Qi'er".
Although he is the male protagonist, the spotlight of this movie does not fall on him, but on Zhou Xun and Jay Chou.
Just like when he first went to Hong Kong to shoot a film, Zhao Wenzhuo seemed to have become the most obscure one in the corner.
After "Su Qi'er", he acted in several movies: "Wanted by the Whole City", "The Code of The Heaven and Earth of Dawudang", "The Legend of the White-Haired Witch of the Bright Moon Heavenly Kingdom", "Huang Feihong's Heroes of the North and South"...
These works are not only poorly received, but also mostly lackluster in production and innovation.
During this time, Zhao Wenzhuo tried to seek transformation and replace traditional martial arts dramas with red anti-war dramas.
However, this road of transformation is also quite bumpy, and can only play some typed and routine positive roles:
In "Iron Blood and Red An", he is Liu Tonggong, a general of the Red Army; in "The Wind and Clouds of The Tang Dynasty", he is Qi Jiguang, a general of the Anti-Wu Dynasty; in "The Red Star Shines on China", he is Zhang Xueliang, an officer of the Kuomintang.
Later, he simply gave up the transformation and turned to playing some familiar roles.
It's just that the characters are still those characters, but the scripts are no longer those scripts.
Believe it or not, you carefully taste this bundle play below...
The great hero is for the country and the people.
Zhao Wenzhuo said that he has always had a "Huang Feihong complex".
To this day, he still stubbornly guards the martial arts jianghu in his mind.
But in reality, the martial arts jianghu no longer has his figure
Note: Some of the pictures in this article come from Douban and the Internet, if there is infringement, please take the initiative to contact us.