Text/Xue Gongzi
In the early years of Li Youbin's film and television works, he also wore suits and leather shoes and was personable.
A stand-up collar trench coat, smoking a cigarette, that kind of demeanor, quite a bit of the taste of Zhou Xingchi in the Hong Kong film "Domestic Lingling Paint"...
This year, Li Youbin was not thirty years old.
In fact, Li Youbin's association with film and television began when he was 5 years old.
It was 1963, and a film from the Changchun Film Studio called "The General's Son" had chosen him.
Unfortunately, due to historical reasons, the film was eventually "stillborn" and could not be released.
He also missed an opportunity to become a child star.
However, this small screen experience touched the teenager's retention of dream light and shadow.
And this stay also made his life closely linked to this light and shadow in the following decades.
One
In 1958, Li Youbin was born in Changchun to a working-class family with four sisters, and he was the second oldest.
Xu is due to the strong film atmosphere brought to the city by Changchun Studio.
Li Youbin, who was born as a worker, did not retake the old path of his father," but embarked on the road of drama performance early.
Along with him on this path was his sister, Li Yeping.
Li Youbin in middle school showed his outstanding acting talent on the drama stage.
In 1974, 16-year-old Li Youbin starred in the drama "Fenghua Zhengmao" at school, which can be regarded as officially entering the industry.
The play was very good, and he was selected by the Changchun Cultural and Education Bureau to enter the local theater troupe.
Drama performance most honed an actor's performance level, but it also precipitated Li Youbin's calm and experienced performance skills.
After several years of drama performance, by 1980, the 22-year-old Li Youbin could already stand out in a drama.
When the drama "The End of New Beijing" successfully portrayed the classic role of the last emperor Puyi, Li Youbin waited for an important turning point in his life.
Two
In 1985, after 27 years of experience in the drama industry for nearly a decade, Li Youbin was finally transferred to the Changchun Film Studio as he wished.
His starting point is not low, and his first time acting in a movie, he is a proper male protagonist.
He was also highly malleable, and at the age of 27, he played a division commander of the Northeast Anti-Japanese Coalition Army in his 40s in the movie "Death Certificate".
There was no sense of violation.
In 1987, he filmed the movie "The First Drift of the Yangtze River" and suffered a lot.
Because of the need for shooting, for more than 3 months, he had to stay at an altitude of more than 6400 meters.
Without water, he could only not brush his teeth and wash his face; without a decent shelter, he could only burrow into a tent.
In the following years, he successively starred in the movie "Sky Drum", the TV series "She Was Once My Wife", and "The Tide Rises and Falls".
Every film is a protagonist, but perhaps in his opinion, as a qualified actor, you should not only revel in decent characters.
After all, he is 37 years old, and he has played too many leading roles, too many positive roles.
Although the wind is still not born and the water is not enough, it is time to try something new.
Three
In 1995, the first "big villain" that belonged to Li Youbin's acting career came.
This time, he changed the stereotype of always giving people a kind of grandeur and righteousness.
In the movie "Flying Tiger Team", he played a traitor - Qin Xiong.
The first time he "dressed up ugly", he could also perform the kind of "adultery", "flattery" and "bad" carved in his bones.
His villain image, even in front of Li Xuejian, Zhang Fengyi, Liu Wei and other powerful factions who belong to the same drama, is not inferior at all.
Dramas, movies, TV series; decent people, villains...
It seems that all the actors have been acted, so he is no longer obsessed with how the role is, in fact, he also has the strength to redefine the role.
In 2000, he performed two works a year.
One is the scientist Lu Guangda in the movie "Born in the Sky".
This very positive role, he is too easy to grasp, even the eyes are beautiful and hopeful.
It was so healing!
The other is the "black boss" Zhou Shiwan in the TV series "The True Colors of Criminal Police".
In this drama, a peak duel between good and evil was staged between Li Youbin and Wang Zhiwen.
In front of Wang Zhiwen, a recognized actor in the industry, Li Youbin's acting skills seem to have a slight upper hand.
On the Internet, Li Youbin's interpretation of Zhou Shiwan is even called one of the top ten villains that can be included in textbooks.
This is a good and an evil, and two sides blossom.
For playing the role of Lu Guangda, he won the best actor at the Changchun Film Festival for the first time, and the more layered negative role Zhou Shiwan won him the Golden Eagle Award for Best Supporting Actor.
However, this year, Li Youbin has already entered the year of confusion.
At the age of 42, he won the award for the first time, which is not a bright achievement for an actor who has been working the road of acting for decades.
But with such achievements, he is already very satisfied.
In 2004, he filmed a film aimed at restoring the 98 flood control, "The Waves of The Waves".
In fact, for this kind of film that carries forward the main theme of the national spirit, he has always responded to every request and enthusiastically participated in the performance.
In order to deeply restore this feat of '98, the director asked all actors not to allow the use of stand-ins.
Therefore, the 46-year-old Li Youbin had the heroic scene of building a human wall with everyone in the flood.
But when shooting, it is the hot summer season, high-intensity shooting, it is easy to heat stroke.
At the end of this drama, there were more than 2500 bottles of Huoxiang Zhengqi water for heat stroke alone.
And around the corner, the highlight moment of Li Youbin's fate came silently.
Four
In 2005, the 47-year-old Li Youbin held the script of "Bright Sword" in his hand, and he was a little excited.
After acting in dramas for most of his life, he keenly felt that the subversive military role of "Li Yunlong" was unprecedented in previous film and television works.
Tenderness is revealed in the blood, and there is some anger in the majesty.
When he took up this play, he was more interested in this rare role.
He thought that this drama would be fire, but he never thought that "Bright Sword" would become like this, in fact, he just wanted to make money to eat when he made this drama.
Some things are good to do, if you can meet a good script, you can play the lead role, it is even better
However, the play is a large paragraph of lines, as the protagonist's heavy role and the cold shooting environment in the north...
All this makes Li Youbin, who is already 47 years old, feel a little overwhelmed physically.
In one of the scenes, Li Youbin had a high fever, had to speak a large line, and had to charge into battle, and then directly lay tired in the bathroom.
A good script, a good character, coupled with Li Youbin's profound acting skills, let this anti-war drama directly seal the gods.
"Waited bitterly" for 30 years before waiting for a "Li Yunlong".
And a "Li Yunlong" who spits out fragrant flesh and blood and has feelings and righteousness has also made Li Youbin, who has been tepid for 30 years, embark on the highest peak of his acting career.
The influence of this role is unprecedented.
16 years later, its vitality is still exuberant.
At Station B, every clip of "Bright Sword" was used to make various ghost animal videos, and the barrage covered the sky.
Later remakes, even the micro-expressions are reproduced according to Li Youbin's version, which can be described as nothing new.
This also leads to a very funny phenomenon: Li Youbin is playing Li Yunlong, while other actors are playing "Li Youbin".
Li Youbin's "explosion of fire" that year was something he had never expected.
At the same time as the applause of flowers came, better scripts and fuller characters followed, waiting for him to interpret.
But, can he jump out of the aura of Bright Sword?
Five
In 2007, the famous Li Youbin took over an annual drama that was about to appear in CCTV prime time - "Breaking into The Guandong".
With Li Youbin's yuwei that has not yet dissipated due to the filming of "Bright Sword", the prime-time advertising cost of the TV series has exceeded 138 million.
In the play, he plays the old father Zhu Kaishan, who is calm and tolerant, and the fate of the character is legendary, but it is essentially different from Li Yunlong in "Bright Sword".
Compared with Li Yunlong's sleek words, this character is more simple and dull, like a pot of old wine, exuding a sense of the weight of time.
The filming location was selected in the middle of the forest sea snow field in the northeast, and the cold was incomparable, which was another challenge for Li Youbin, who was about to turn 50.
However, from the development of the plot to the end, Li Youbin creatively integrates the characters with the historical background, and almost occupies the style of the entire play.
He said:
If you want to create a good role, you must fully understand the script and analyze the characteristics of the role, if you can't do it, you won't play the role well.
Acting one, fire one, even if it is a completely different character image, after his performance, it can always make people impressed.
Yet he was very humble.
When interviewed, he has always been "like gold", silence, and less words seem to have become his norm.
Because in his view, it is more meaningful to be famous than to interpret one role after another.
Six
In 2010, he continued to "charge" into his unknown acting field.
This time it's a TV version of the Western, called "Love in the Vast Land."
In order to pursue realistic effects, the crew found real wolves from Inner Mongolia to participate in the real shooting.
In this play, Li Youbin grabs a snake with his bare hands and dances with wolves.
At the same time, he also enthusiastically taught the rest of the crew a lot of wilderness survival experience.
"When you encounter a wolf, you should quickly calm down and look it in the eye so that it can't see your next move."
After 2012, Li Youbin, who is in his 50s, began to return to family drama.
In 2012, he starred in "Old Yan Has a Daughter Who Doesn't Worry About Getting Married";
In 2014, he starred in the kung fu comedy "The Bodyguard of Love";
In 2015, he starred in the TV series "The Happiness of Sun Lao's Stubbornness".
Li Youbin, who always plays the image of his father in his 50s, is there no better script to find him?
Of course not.
Li Youbin, who is more than 50 years old, actually has his own considerations.
He confessed:
You are in your 50s, you can act, if you act more than 50 years old, if you act younger, the audience will be disgusted.
And some actors nowadays, in order to make money, disregard their aging appearance and forcibly "dress up".
In front of Li Youbin, the verdict was made in an instant.
In 2019, Li Youbin is more than sixty years old, but the momentum of not accepting defeat is still there.
He played a controversial character in "In the Name of the Law", but he was not distressed, he just said that he would just play the role well.
When this drama was filmed, it was the autumn and winter of Wuxi.
What impressed Li Youbin the most was that there was a scene in the opening scene of arresting the suspect in the late night rain.
Winter in the south is even more humid and cold than in the north, and it is already December when the shooting is approaching.
Due to the needs of the plot, the actors had to be poured by the rain while jumping into the river.
At that time, after filming that scene, many people, including Li Youbin, had a cold.
But Li Youbin, who is more than sixty years old, is not pretentious at all when filming the scene, and is like a "desperate sanlang".
On October 2, 2021, a new movie by Li Youbin, "Life and Death Sniper", was released.
His appearance in the play is quite similar to Li Yunlong 16 years ago, but he is much older.
Although he is 63 years old, it is indeed a bit difficult to shoot war dramas, but since he has taken it, he has never thought of being a general.
One of the scenes in the filming is still very emotional.
This scene is a group actor playing a "Japanese soldier" who wants to hit Li Youbin's body with a gun.
Because the group performance took into account Li Youbin's star status, he was reluctant to work hard, and several times and three times did not achieve a good shooting effect.
Li Youbin let him hit hard, and as a result, he was beaten to the toe, and the scene ended successfully.
Seven
Now that he has been in the industry for almost 50 years, some people call him "old drama bone", but he said this:
Drama bones, artists, we don't dare to be, I think it is better to call an actor, I still have old actors on top, there is no old drama bone...
This humble, low-key, how many flesh-and-blood screen images of Li Youbin, has never been proud.
Recently, in an interview, he said this about how he views the actors as a group
Don't take the actor too seriously, we should really pay attention to people with feats, such as aerospace heroes, and Meng Wanzhou, who has just returned to China, what is the actor?
Li Youbin, he concentrated on polishing his acting skills before becoming famous, did not get carried away when he became famous, and after becoming famous, he can still be as low-key and enterprising as ever, how rational and sober he is.
When it comes to Li Youbin, the first reaction of the public is Li Yunlong, but he does have Lu Guangda, Zhu Kaishan, etc. or tender or deep roles.
Li Youbin should not have only one definition.
Encountering "Bright Sword" and meeting "Li Yunlong" is undoubtedly his luck.
But those who can, as always, bow their heads and continue to move silently on the road of performance.
That's really precious!