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Editor's note: "The Brother Who Cut Through Thorns" allows the audience to see a honest, inclusive, serious and warm Zhao Wenzhuo. His stage performance, lifestyle, and interaction with the younger generation have become the topic of everyone's talk. The screen "chivalrous guest" who once stood up with a martial art has transformed into a practitioner who constantly observes and examines himself in the tempering of the years. In his view, today's life of not being happy with things and not being sad with oneself, and putting the care for the family and others above one's own desires, is a more generous and worthwhile life.
1 "Trainees" who stand on their own feet
"I like you."
When Zhao Wenzhuo asked a lady on the other end of the phone to say what she liked as a "brother/artist", the other party did not hesitate to show him a love.
At that time, in the 10th issue of "Brother With Thorns and Thorns" (hereinafter referred to as "Brother"), the program team arranged for the "brothers" to call the audience to do information investigation. This three-month reality show variety show has passed the halfway point, Zhao Wenzhuo still can't react to the audience's direct confession: stunned, paused, don't know how to answer the phone, want to reciprocate the other party to sing a song "Stupid Child", and forget the words in a hurry.
This comes from his lack of expectations for fan love, and it is also a natural reaction after holding a certain sense of distance to the entertainment ecology for a long time.
"Participating in "Brother" is a very unexpected thing for me, I didn't expect to have such a big impact, so many people, especially young netizens, to re-understand me, and I can also get everyone's love." It was a very big shock for me. So at this time, how to grasp your own heart, it is also a process of cultivation. ”
49-year-old Zhao Wenzhuo, sword eyebrows and starry eyes, tall figure, self-discipline. In the show, he was generous and serious, promoting chivalry and traditional Chinese culture, which made netizens sigh "for the first time to feel the charm of traditional Chinese men". But he confessed that when he first received the invitation to "Brother Who Cut Through Thorns", he was hesitant.
"Because too many years have not produced excellent works, and now they are out to show everyone in this way." Singing (dancing) is a form of stage performance that is very foreign to me, and I am worried that I can't do it well. ”
When he first entered the Hainan program base, Zhao Wenzhuo was like a primary school student who entered the music hall, not to catch up with all his brothers, not to mention, but also to confront these "doctors" and even "doctoral supervisors". And the opponents are all starting high, he must learn from scratch, "24 hours immersion, otherwise I will regret it." ”
Practicing vocal music, memorizing lyrics, and practicing dance, he understood what is called "remake in, weak beat in", learned how musicians quickly plucked off the melody and improvised into a song; the live situation on the stage was no easier and simpler than the martial arts competition.
When he sang "Stupid Kid", he learned to wear an ear to others. Unexpectedly, the audience and the stage were close at hand, and the shouting and noise completely overshadowed the sounds received in the ears. The other ear was already thrown into the clothes and could not be pulled out. He was dumbfounded. What to do, I had to rush to the stage regardless of it. "Fortunately, I usually practice a lot, I can silently recite the rhythm, hear a little bit of music like a treasure, grab it and sing..."
Time has passed, and he has been familiar with the modulation equipment: "Huang Zheng told me that you can let the staff turn the volume on to 6. If you're a little more skilled, you can drop it to 5. I can also adjust the size of my own voice, and even if I want to hear the voice of a certain brother, I can ask them to help me adjust the size of his voice alone. From a professional point of view, I have a deeper understanding of the areas that I am completely unfamiliar with, and I have learned a lot, which opened my eyes at once. ”
2 Honest and self-disciplined ascetics
The open mind and self-discipline began in childhood.
His father was the chairman of the factory workshop trade union, and he often practiced martial arts with his co-workers in his spare time. He learned Shaolin Boxing, Taijiquan, Taizu Fist, and Yanqing Fist with a teacher named Yu Wenlong, and after arriving in the gymnastics team, he studied under Zhang Yuanbin, the apprentice of Liu Hongren, the "Gun King". In the hammering of swords, guns, and sticks, he honed the hand-eye method of being awake and measured. But what is more essential is the heroic story that Master told him about helping the weak and the poor, and doing heroic deeds.
"When I first started practicing martial arts, I often went out to test my hands. Slowly with the concept of martial virtue, I began to know not to bully the weak, but to maintain order. Chinese martial arts have always paid attention to knocking down on the stop, point to stop, when the practice to a certain extent, a certain level, the heart has to be collected, can not be easily shot, pay attention, because it is easy to hurt the other party. ”
In 1991, he won the National Wushu Championship and was elected as a national martial arts athlete. After that, it is the well-known acting road: when he was in Beiti University, he was selected by Yuan Kui to play the villain in "Fang Shiyu", the nine-door admiral Ordo, and at the same time, he was favored by Xu Ke of the detective class, playing Huang Feihong, a blockbuster. In his early interviews, he recalled that the film "Knife" was filmed, there was no script, no full plot of the actors, not even lines, in an extremely harsh environment, let the actors play freely. "For the eyes to be bloodshot, every shot is first handstanding, and then shouting for a while, it is difficult to find such a desperate state." There was a field fight, the coldest winter in Hong Kong, it was raining, the mud on the ground was very thick, and I wore straw shoes to fight in the field for several nights, and the sharp stones and glass in the mud punctured my feet, and I was bleeding every day. He described the month as "bitter and enjoyable."
When he was 20 years old, he starred in Fahai in "Green Snake", and he did not think that this alternative role was constantly interpreted by generations of fans, and he himself did not realize one or two until later.
"At that time, it was basically the director who said what I did, but I didn't understand it thoroughly. In fact, what Li Bihua wrote about is the difference between people and demons, what people sometimes do, you think he is like a demon; what demons sometimes do, they are very kind. So the so-called good and evil are not determined by the identity of people or demons, but by what you do. Fa hai is actually a cultivator, and entering the world is also his karma. He was also in the war with the green snake and the white snake, choosing how to choose himself. ”
As soon as he debuted, he could play the protagonist of a famous director movie, coupled with his heroic appearance and height advantage, Zhao Wenzhuo should have had an incomparably open career prospect.
But with the peaks followed, it was a long trough. "1993-1994—" In the interview, he still remembers that era vividly: because of the introduction of Western blockbusters and changes in the situation at home and abroad, the cold winter of Hong Kong martial arts films hit, and it has not warmed up for more than two decades. "The back of the movie is to try to quickly return, the result is worse and worse, the worse, the less investment, the whole market is going downhill."
Some commentators pointed out that in the globalized information age, in the wave of chasing commercialization in the domestic entertainment industry, history and culture have been impacted and dissolved, martial arts films have become concentrated renderings of martial arts, the sense of personal responsibility and free imagination in the chivalrous spirit, and the classical romanticism in Hong Kong-style martial arts films that make people feel reverberating are falling.
Maybe it's a coincidence, maybe it's self-selection, in addition to Ordo in his debut film, Zhao Wenzhuo has basically created heroic characters in his more than twenty years of actor career: Qi Jiguang, Huo Yuanjia, Su Qi'er... The charm of those generals, masters, and chivalrous guests in the legend was slowly subtly absorbed by him.
"As a kind person, when you do, can you tolerate others? In many confrontational competitions in the competitive world, some people take the first place, they think that I am the first in the world, how I am, very arrogant. But in fact, for us, his cultivation is immoral. The real cultivation is that the higher you go, the more you have to move forward, the more you have to help others, which can be called 'chivalrous', otherwise you will always be just righteous, and you will not be able to reach the chivalrous. ”
What is a hero?
In his view, the hero is for the sake of others and for the sake of more countries and national righteousness. He would advise rap musicians such as Liu Cong and Zhou Yan to pay attention to the grasp of vocabulary when writing lyrics. "It's not about being ostentatious, angry, or venting. When you don't use it particularly appropriately, there will be some teenagers who will follow, and they don't have the ability to judge right from wrong, so you have to be particularly careful about how to do it as an example. ”
It is an unavoidable fact that from the last few "Huang Feihong" series to "Kung Fu League" and "Su Qi'er" with high hopes, word of mouth and box office are not ideal. Fans who care about Zhao Wenzhuo, while expressing their cherishing for him, on the other hand, they ask questions on the Internet: Is there less management (ambition) in the career, too much dependence on some homogeneous roles, and more control over the cooperation objects and film selection?
"Can you accept these facts and questions?"
"Yes." He answered calmly. "But I would ask myself, was it hard at that time?" My answer was to try hard, I tried my best. The success of a work is not only about oneself, but also about working with people, but also about other collaborators, including the market, and the determinants are all sides. ”
In his dictionary of life, there are no options such as "life is repeated" and "life is exchanged". The road to acting is not ambitious, because the family has long surpassed the career and ranked first in his life sequence. From the time the three children were conceived in October to the time they fell to the ground, Zhao Wenzhuo accompanied him and did not take over the work. The child is kind, independent, and inherited from his parents, and he is much happier than winning an award in a movie. "At least now I'm living in the moment, and I'm very satisfied with my current situation."
3 Practitioners of time precipitation
Today, Zhao Wenzhuo, who is gentle, considerate and considerate of the overall situation, of course, also had a reckless "juvenile era".
Looking back at himself at that time, he said that he was more impulsive and more self-sufficient. "If there is anything to say, I will say it when it is not appropriate, but it is too straight, not suitable for show business, but the mentality of an athlete." I say hello you are good, say you are not good, you are not good', always express my opinion. But if you don't pay attention to the art of speech, something can easily happen. Later, after the precipitation of time, the personality can slowly sink down. ”
The turning point came 18 years ago, when he became a Buddhist monk, a practitioner who focused on self-observation and self-observation. Since then, he has observed every day what he has done, the decisions he has made, and his attitude toward people. "Observe yourself when your heart is racing, and try to control your emotions. You just observe, because you don't know what's going to happen in the future, what the idea will develop into, you don't know. ”
So in a program like "Brother", which is full of competitions and wins and losses, how to implement the path of cultivation?
"For example, when I find that there are so many audiences to love, and there are so many beautiful sounds around, I want to remind myself not to 'drift'. To a small extent, for every action, the attitude of others to you, how can you control your own heart, how can you still respond in a spiritual way. To put it bluntly, I basically use it [these sounds] as an accelerant, and the more they come, the more helpful they are to my practice. For some (conflicts), it is not that it can be completely dissolved, at least it can be made into small and small. ”
The new test and transformation also lies in breaking down the inherent barriers in the heart.
For example, rap music, the former Zhao Wenzhuo will think that this art originated in the streets of the Americas, mixed with violent elements, easy to "mislead people's children", once named "cultural aggression". But after coming into contact with Rippers such as Hot Dog, Liu Cong, Ouyang Jing, Zhou Yan, and Bregit, he corrected his views.
"Music knows no borders. This form, the powerful rhythm is popular with young people today, but how to write the words is very important. Like the hot dog shows his ideas and his attitude, Liu Cong's efforts on the word 'China' are relatively large, like "Leaving the Surface of the Earth" where he writes Chinese and talks about the Chinese soul, I agree very much. Ouyang Jing is a completely different type, he is a Chinese who grew up overseas and accepts many Western ideas. But on the recording scene, holding a book and memorizing various idioms every day, in his bones he is Chinese and flowing Chinese blood. ”
When everyone was curious about the "contrast" between his sitting on the front and the tender songs, the martial arts fitness and the dance needle embroidery, laughing about his work and posture of going to bed early and getting up early and holding the thermos cup, he stressed that he had no one to set - "My personality is my own attitude towards life." "He put himself in the group, from being curious and fresh about everything at the beginning, to being genuine with everyone, to understanding their disposition, what are they doing? What should I do and how should I do it? "It's all experiential life."
He respects the insistence of the hot dog not to dance, Liu Cong got up late and he did not blame; when the room was changed to cause heated discussion among netizens, he frankly said not to interpret too much, and used the action of allying with Lin Zhixuan's team to resolve the rumors; when there were young teammates who felt that the performance was not good, he firmly responded "Don't say such words again" to cheer all his teammates; when Ricky just joined his tribe, nervous and sensitive, he took the initiative to talk to Ricky, praised him, and let him relax; if it was not revealed by the interview program, Few people know that he has suffered from headaches for many years, and his nerves are sensitive and dull at the same time- that is the old wound that fell from the filming of that year. The brothers have different habits, he understands and accepts, but he does not ask others with the health care he advocates.
Zhao Wenzhuo said that empathy is very important. As an artist, if you are not attached and not paranoid, you certainly can't make works, but when you collide with others and clash, can you think in a different position? Even if he demands himself as a "cultivator", he is often aware of his own bias: as the captain, Liu Cong and Hot Dog are very much in agreement with him, and naturally he invests a little more in their feelings. But how can you achieve a bowl of water? And whether you want to show yourself a little more, or take care of everyone's brilliance, these need to be constantly adjusted.
Understanding this, it is not difficult to understand why in the "comeback" of Zhao Wenzhuo, there is rarely a strong sense of victory and defeat, and a result-oriented action. Whether it is high or low, prosperous or withered, strive to look at it with the heart of the visitor. This is not a void, but a firmness that time and experience have given him: using cultivation to help him become a better self, it is possible to have a thick and broad life experience.