Zhang Guorong, formerly known as Zhang Fazong, was born in Hong Kong on September 12, 1956, his fame resounded throughout Asia and even the world, he was selected by CNN as one of the "Twenty-five Greatest Actors in Asia", and was also included in the world's most authoritative encyclopedia "Encyclopedia Britannica", which was included as a entry, and he seemed to have become the embodiment of the legend of the music and film industry at that time.
In Zhang Guorong's nearly 30 years of acting career, he has left us with a lot of popular songs and classic films, and his appearance has even influenced generations of Chinese. Therefore, when the news of Zhang Guorong's suicide by jumping off a building due to depression came out, it immediately shocked the national society.
"I remember a few years ago, whenever I met a group of friends chatting about the past, they would ask me why I was not happy, I always saw no joy on my face, I thought I might suffer from depression. As for the source of the disease, it is dissatisfaction with oneself, dissatisfaction with others, and dissatisfaction with the world even more. ——Excerpt from "Zhang Guorong's Autobiography"
Leslie
Since the 1970s, Hong Kong's economy has taken off rapidly, traditional culture has also risen, and popular music has entered a stage of industrialization, under the operation of large-scale commercial capital, a new generation of idol stars has gradually begun to appear in the Hong Kong music scene.
In 1984, the singer Tam Wing Lin, who became famous for singing the song "Can't Forget You", won six of the top ten Chinese golden melody awards of that year with a song "The Root of Love", breaking the unprecedented record in the history of Hong Kong music. Since then, Tam Wing Lin has become the hegemon of hong Kong's music scene at that time, with a large fan base.
It was also in this year that Zhang Guorong, who had been working quietly in the Hong Kong entertainment industry for many years, became famous overnight with a popular song "Monica", which shook the Hong Kong music scene and made him a household name for a new generation of public idols, and the momentum reached the tyrant of the song world, Tam Wing Lin.
At that time, the Chinese mainland also blew up a wave of admiration for Zhang Guorong, if you want to cut a hair salon in Guangzhou with the same partial hairstyle as Zhang Guorong, you need to spend 50 yuan, at that time, the average monthly salary of ordinary citizens in Guangzhou was less than 100 yuan.
Tan Yonglin in his youth
After 1985, Cheung Kwok Wing gradually showed signs of surpassing Tam Wing Lin, and he held his first concert at the Hongkan Gymnasium in Hong Kong, and performed ten consecutive performances, setting a record for the highest number of first concerts by singers of the same period.
In 1987, Zhang Guorong sang the main song "No Heart Sleep", which successfully suppressed a song "Don't Say Goodbye" sung by Tan Yonglin, so tan Yonglin's fans' anger against Zhang Guorong also reached a white-hot.
At this year's annual Golden Melody Awards Party, Tan Yonglin officially announced to the public: "From now on, I will no longer participate in the competition for any awards."
On the spot, Tan Yonglin's fan fans stood up and scolded: "All blame the damn Zhang Guorong."
"The campaign of Jingge Golden Song had a profound impact on my outlook on life, and I, who had been pursuing perfection in the past, finally understood that things in the world are often not as good as I wish, and the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment."
Tan Yonglin, Zhang Guorong
As early as 1977, Zhang Guorong held the mentality of participating in the competition and participated in the Asian Amateur Singer Competition sponsored by Hong Kong Lai Television. What he never expected was that he actually achieved the second place, and signed a contract with Li's TV station, officially became a variety show host, and has since stepped into the entertainment circle.
It was this game that changed Zhang Guorong's life's fate.
After Zhang Guorong entered the entertainment industry, the first like-minded friend he met was Chen Baiqiang, and the two of them had a lot of similarities, although they were both unknown juniors, but they were demanding perfectionism. In the eyes of people in the entertainment industry, Chen Baiqiang at that time seemed to lack a kind of Zhang Guorong's self-confidence and flying.
Zhang Guorong, who has just entered the music scene, released his first solo English album "I LIKE DREAM", and he was full of fantasies and expectations for this album, but in the end it did not make him popular. And Chen Baiqiang, with a Cantonese song "Tears Flow for You", successfully landed on the top ten golden songs of that year, and became a high-profile star.
Chen Baiqiang
At the end of the 1970s, Hong Kong ushered in the golden age of film and television dramas, and the theme songs of film and television dramas sung by Hui Guanjie, Rowan and others in Cantonese quickly spread throughout the streets, and English songs gradually began to be ignored, and Cantonese songs once became the mainstream at that time.
In just two weeks after Zhang Guorong's English album "I LIKE DREAM" was launched, the price dropped to 1 yuan per album.
"Those days can really be described as the 'Dark Ages', whenever I am free, I will soak in disco until late at night, anesthetize myself with noise, and stimulate myself with spirits. ——Excerpt from "Zhang Guorong's Autobiography"
In 1980, Zhang Guorong, Chen Baiqiang and Paul Zhong co-starred in the filming of the youth campus drama "Cheers", which was unanimously praised by the audience, and the three of them were also known as the "Three Musketeers".
A year later, the "Three Musketeers" cooperated again in the movie "Unemployed Student", in which Zhang Guorong still played the villain role, and he also won the nomination for the best supporting actor at the Hong Kong Film Festival for the first time because of this film, but it also made his relationship with Chen Baiqiang gradually deteriorate, so that both sides no longer cooperated with each other.
"Three Musketeers" Chen Baiqiang, Zhang Guorong, and Paul Zhong
After experiencing the popular wave of European and American English songs and Cantonese TV drama theme songs, Tam Wing Lin, Cheung Kwok Wing and Mui Yan Fang have become the pillars of the Hong Kong music scene. When Tam Wing Lin announced that he would no longer participate in any awards, Zhang Guorong had one of his biggest competitors.
Zhang Guorong's success in the music world has also won him the capital to grope in the film industry.
Since 1986, he has starred in the movies "The True Colors of Heroes", "Rouge Buckle", and "Ghost of Qiannu" with popular actress Wang Zuxian.
Zhang Guorong has achieved great success in the Hong Kong music scene and the film world, just when he was famous and rich, and the scenery was unlimited, he made a decision that surprised everyone: farewell to the music scene!
From December 1989 to January 1990, Zhang Guorong held as many as 33 farewell concerts at the Hongkan Stadium in Hong Kong, with a total of more than 300,000 spectators coming to the scene to watch.
Zhang Guorong and Wang Zuxian in "Ghost of Qiannu"
"Honestly, my reason for making this decision is that I see it as one of the great events of my life, but I am not acting rashly or arranging it on impulse. Because I have seen from the past records that some brilliant and shining predecessor stars have retreated and said goodbye at their brightest time, I know that this choice cannot be wrong. ”
However, only a few months later, some people found that Cheung Kwok Wing actually appeared on the set of the film "The Legend of Ah Fei" directed by Wong Kar-wai, which caused an uproar for a while.
Due to Zhang Guorong's previous confession at the farewell concert, people believe that he has completely withdrawn from the entertainment industry and moved to Canada to live.
Zhang Guorong's good friends Zhou Runfa and Mei Yanfang openly supported him and said to the outside world: "Zhang Guorong just quit the music scene, did not promise not to make movies, he did not deceive everyone." ”
Regarding the topic of Zhang Guorong, it is still being hyped up by the media.
People don't know that long before Zhang Guorong held a farewell concert, he accepted the invitation of director Wong Kar-wai and agreed to star in the movie "The Legend of Ah Fei". However, due to the repeated revision of the script, the film shooting time was postponed for a long time, and even though he had announced his withdrawal from the music scene, Zhang Guorong was still fulfilling his former agreement.
Wong Kar-wai was the first film director to truly influence and change Cheung Kwok Wing, and he made Cheung Kwok Wing understand the true meaning of acting and learn to find himself in performance.
Inspired by Wong Kar-wai, Cheung Kwok Wing gradually entered a state of complete self-performance. It is precisely because of his excellent performance in "The Legend of Ah Fei" that Wong Kar-wai repeatedly added his role in the film, so that he originally only made a cameo appearance, but became the protagonist in the play.
Cheung Kwok Wing's wonderful performance in the movie "The Legend of Ah Fei" won him the Best Actor Award at the 10th Hong Kong Film Awards, which was the first and only time in his life to become a Hong Kong film emperor.
Poster of "Ah Fei Zheng Biography"
Zhang Guorong met Mei Yanfang almost when he first debuted, and the two of them not only have the same agent, but also belong to the signed singers of Huaxing Company. Therefore, they have many opportunities to perform on the same stage, and their feelings are constantly deepening, Zhang Guorong once publicly stated: "Mei Yanfang is his only confidant with a red face."
As a first-line superstar in Hong Kong's entertainment industry, Cheung Kwok Wing has never left the attention of the media, and various news about him appears in the entertainment media almost every day.
In 1977, Zhang Guorong, who was only 20 years old at the time, met the artist Mao Shunjun during a filming, and the two began to communicate.
This relationship with Mao Shunjun is Zhang Guorong's first love in the show business circle, and he treats this relationship very seriously. However, when Zhang Guorong proposed marriage, Mao Shunjun, who was only 17 years old at the time, was frightened and never dared to meet him again.
Zhang Guorong, Mao Shunjun
Many years later, Zhang Guorong was interviewed by the radio program "Entertainment Hot Selling 10:30", the host of this program is Mao Shunjun, and Mao Shunjun is already a mother of two children.
Zhang Guorong said in the program: "If Mao Shunjun had agreed to marry me at that time, it would have changed my life. ”
As early as 1989, when Zhang Guorong was living in seclusion in distant Canada, the media began to track his whereabouts, and Zhang Guorong denied all kinds of speculations and rumors from the outside world, and even scolded reporters for being bored.
"In fact, I have always been bright and honest in my work, and I have no shame, never paying attention to the rumors of the outside world, but those who secretly photographed me sneaked around." ——Excerpt from "The Autobiography of Zhang Guorong"
Since the end of 1996, Zhang Guorong has no longer cared about his promise to "withdraw from the music world" and once again held his first solo concert after his comeback in the music world, and his wonderful performance on the field once again shocked the entertainment industry.
Mei Yanfang, Zhang Guorong
At the enthusiastic concert held in 2000, Zhang Guorong's performance exceeded people's imagination, and began to wear various eccentric shapes and women's clothes, completely subverting the idol image in the hearts of fans.
However, Zhang Guorong's dress and dress at this concert were regarded by many people in the outside world as a pathological performance.
Zhang Guorong's films during this period, the kind of wordless loneliness he showed in the play, can always show the struggle of fear to face, but extremely expectant feelings. People even have questions: is Zhang Guorong's depressive state in the film from his own real life experience?
From Cheng Dieyi in "Farewell to the Overlord", song Danping, a disfigured entertainer in "Midnight Song", Ouyang Feng, a jianghu swordsman in "East Evil and West Poison", Zhang Guorong's role in the play has a very similar expression and fate, and his melancholy eyes in the play also seem to confirm to people: Zhang Guorong's depressed mood in real life.
Zhang Guorong concert in 2000
In 2000, Zhang Guorong wrote, directed and acted in the first public welfare film "Smoke and Smoke", and his personality at that time was particularly strange and changeable. During the filming, because the reporters rushed to take pictures and affected the filming of the film, Zhang Guorong, who has always been gentle and elegant, actually scolded the reporter in public for the first time, scaring all the people on the scene and afraid to speak.
In the plot of the film, under Zhang Guorong's vicissitudes, what is revealed is unprecedented haggard and unbearable.
"When filming this scene, Zhang Guorong cried for a long time and couldn't stop, and the whole audience was scared and silent."
In November 2001, Zhang Guorong accepted the invitation of director Luo Zhiliang to participate in the filming of the film "Alien Space", which was also the last performance of his on the screen.
In this psychological suspense thriller, Zhang Guorong plays a psychologist who treats depression, and when he saves his current girlfriend who suffers from mental illness, he has been plagued by his ex-girlfriend and eventually suffered from depression himself.
Some people say that Zhang Guorong was too involved in making this film, so that he has been in a trance outside the scene. According to the Hong Kong media at the time, "During the filming of 'Heterogeneous Space', Zhang Guorong was already plagued by severe insomnia and had to rely on medication, and even the original plan to launch a new record was forced to be postponed." ”
Tan Yonglin once said: "Zhang Guorong once told himself that he wanted to move, and he felt that the current house feng shui was not good. ”
Zhang Guorong's agent also confirmed that his depression had reached a considerable point, but Zhang Guorong denied the matter, explaining that he had a stomach problem.
At the end of the film "Alien Space", the psychologist played by Zhang Guorong was entangled by his ex-girlfriend day and night, resulting in psychological disorders, and went to the top of the building in an attempt to end his life.
Zhang Guorong jumped to his death
What people never expected was that the end of the film "Different Degree Space" actually became a reality and became the final ending of Zhang Guorong's life.
At 18:41 on April 1, 2003, Hong Kong's superstar of showbiz, Cheung Kwok Wing, jumped from the 24th floor of mandarin hotels and died at the age of 46.
Although Zhang Guorong has left us, he has left us countless vivid screen images, from an obscure singer to a superstar who has influenced generations of people, becoming a memory that can never be erased in people's hearts.