In conversations with Yu Feihong, we talked about the first time we listened to Teresa Teng's "I Only Care About You" and the popularity of Japanese movies and filmmakers in China. Whenever she answers, she will start with a sentence of "like our generation" - this seems to be a traceless stop, seeing her clear and frank sense of age, but also seeing her reluctance to stand out in the natural and appropriate identity of the post-70s female actor collective.
"Yuan Yuan's age should also be my current situation"
The movie "I Care About You", released on April 12, is one of the few films starring Yu Feihong in recent years. As the "big heroine" in the film, Yuan Yuan, played by her, is a female elite in the current society, the identity of a well-known fashion designer, but on Yu Feihong, who is a close friend of many internationally renowned luxury goods "brands", he has a closed-loop association without violation. However, behind the spotlight, Yuan Yuan is constantly troubled by the painful choices he has made in his career and family in the past - at the premiere, the film director Bi Guozhi threw out a topic: Yuan Yuan could not bear to consume himself in the forced family space and ran away for his dreams. Or is it the manifesto of contemporary women 'be yourself'? ”
Stills from "I Care About You", Yu Feihong played Yuan Yuan
Such a role seems to be tailored for today's Yu Feihong.
In her acting career, there have been two TV series with modern themes that have caused great controversy. One is "Holding Hands", which was broadcast 20 years ago, and the third person she played, Wang Chun, was hated, and at that time, there was even public opinion questioning whether the drama was glorifying extramarital love. There is also a "Little Husband" broadcast in 2016, and Yao Lan, played by Yu Feihong, talked about a sister-brother relationship with a difference of 9 years.
It is not difficult for the audience who often watch domestic dramas to find that male actors, whether they are in their twenties or forties or fifties, they can fall in love with girls in their twenties in the play; while actresses in their forties and fifties, they can often only play their mother-in-law and mother-in-law, let alone fall in love, and it is rare to be able to match a husband who does not cheat. But this law does not apply to Yu Feihong. She plays a pair with an actor 16 years younger than herself, and the audience will feel that the sister-brother relationship is no problem, but how can such a naïve boy be worthy of Yu Feihong. Everyone hopes that she will play the "big heroine", an independent woman. Yu Feihong gives people the impression that this is like this, there is no aggression, but she has her own ideas and persistence, no matter how disturbed the outside world, she has her own pace of taking over the play, her emotional life is undisturbed, calm and calm, mysterious and low-key, just like the writer Han Songluo's earlier judgment on her "accidental" transmission: Feihong, a "Hong" word, always has a rare meaning. Occasional slush left toes, occasional spring waves, are fleeting, as if in the absence, the sea of people hurriedly take a picture, brushing past the car window to give a silhouette.
At present, "Care about You", the previously continued personality has been upgraded to a "female opinion leader" by public opinion. This made people who knew Yu Feihong laugh. It's not that she can't afford the kol title, but that this person, who has always disliked using too much language in front of people, has no intention of doing so - in many interviews in the past, she has shown her heart: it is precisely because she has been limited by speaking that she has chosen to express her emotions and "opinions" by being an actor and performing. In this dialogue, I asked Yu Feihong, compared to the previous role of "showing weakness" in Wen Wan, why he only chose to play the workplace and emotional world of urban elite women until now, and the answer was still light and light, "Before the age has not arrived, now I am older (laughs)." ”
In recent years, Yu Feihong's character age has been positioned in his thirties, but this time "I Care about You", "The daughter in the play is almost 20 years old, and yuan Yuan's age should also be my current situation." ”
Stills from "I Care About You"
"I love Naruse's films"
2018 marks the 40th anniversary of the conclusion of the Sino-Japanese Treaty of Peace and Friendship, and "I Care About You" was also filmed that year and became the first co-production film after China and Japan signed a co-production agreement. Correspondingly, Yuan Yuan, who is successful in china today, made a choice of sadness and joy in japan. The film begins with the film filming the Head Buddha at the Makoma Uchi Takino Cemetery in Hokkaido, where Yu Feihong walks alone and gazes into the distance in architect Tadao Ando's iconic world of shimizu cement... It is said that there was no cover around the Head Buddha, and Tadao Ando added a lid to it, so that from a distance, only the flesh of the Buddha statue was revealed. "The building itself has a point of convergence with the play, because the Buddha's body is buried, which makes people feel its majesty and compassion, and there is also a line in the movie, 'The more deliberately you hide, the more difficult it is to ignore.'" Yu Feihong said.
Hokkaido is rich in high-quality rice, which makes it a "national rarity" sake. In the movie, Yuan Yuan's ex-husband Fuya, who abides by the spirit of the professional, once neglected to care for his wife because he was obsessed with inheriting his father's business of fine winemaking. A few years later, the two reunited, and a thousand words were also dissolved in that cup of qing and sweet wine. Yu Feihong recalled that on the set, he participated in the entire winemaking process from the primary process of "polishing rice", "those winemakers worked in their own fields in the summer, and in the autumn was the harvest season, and in the winter they came to the winery to make wine." The atmosphere of the winery is very peaceful and peaceful, everyone is dressed in neat costumes, and each process is very meticulous, it is completely hand-panned rice, then steamed, and finally fermented with yeast, including the number of ice cubes that are put in are very precise. I was impressed that after brewing, the rice residue would be used to mash it and then make rice dumplings, sprinkled with some sauce and eaten directly. ”
"I Care About You" was filmed in the small town of Shimomai in Hokkaido, where the platform was famous for Ken Takakura's filming of Station in 1981. Later, the deceased Japanese male god also filmed his widowed wife's wish in Hokkaido, "Railroad Man". The hair-increasing station in "I Care About You" also appears, perhaps staining the sadness and gloom of Ken Takakura's two old works, and the movie is still full of Yuan Yuan's parting.
A station in the movie "The RailroadMan"
The station in "I Care About You"
Yu Feihong introduced that she already knew the allusion to the filming of "Station", and when it came to her Japanese film peers, she unreservedly expressed her appreciation for the film director Naruse Mikio (1905-1969) - this can not help but remind people of the only film she has personally directed, "Love has an afterlife" when Amin and Ah Jiu drink under a ginkgo tree, the two constantly "fade in" and "fade out" visual effects. As the great feminist director of the twentieth century, "Women and Japanese Modernity" is the label of Naruse's works, and he has explored the conflict between women's dependent status and the awakening of individual consciousness in many of his films. And in "Care About You", it is still an agenda that has not been discussed and produced.
At the end of Naruse's classic "Clouds", Yumiko and Shiro Mishima raise a glass at the tavern and then break up. In "I Care About You", Yuan Yuan sat alone in the carriage of the return trip, his daughter's figure and everything outside the window gradually blurred, and the tears did not slide down Yu Feihong's cheeks from beginning to end.
【Dialogue】
Even if life is threatened, the actor must immerse himself in the role
The Paper: Talking about the origin of taking over this play, what do you think of the role of Yuan Yuan? Since the film was screened at the Tokyo International Film Festival last year, you don't seem to have much to talk about.
Yu Feihong: For actors, it is more about how to express this role, if you only use "say", you may not need us to play. I was also a person who didn't know how to express my feelings in words, and when I couldn't express them in words, I would perform. I've been friends for many years with the film's producer, Ms. Floret, and she's always wanted to work with me on a women's film, so there's this story, and I probably co-founded it with this film.
The Paper: Yuan Yuan's character is a successful and slightly cold urban elite woman, which is quite in line with your current state and feelings in front of people, but you have rarely played similar roles in the past? Another point is that before many film and television dramas, including this movie, your character in the play never seems to be more than forty years old.
Yu Feihong: Oh, I wasn't old enough before, but now I'm older (laughs). No, this time Yuan Yuan (the role) is about the same age as me, when her daughter came to see her in the play, she was almost 20 years old, and Yuan Yuan's age should also be my current situation.
The Paper: The title is taken from Teresa Teng's old song "I Only Care About You" released around 1986, which also appears in the key scenes of the film. Can you talk about how you felt when you heard it? Will this song be sung when the k song is sung now?
Yu Feihong: I don't really have a talent for music, and I may have contacted these popular songs and Teresa Teng's songs later than my peers. I can't remember exactly when, but maybe Teresa Teresa's song was already playable casually on the mainland, and I heard it by the way when I passed somewhere. In the play, this song easily brought me into the situation at that time, that is, I only care about you, which is the common knot between their mother and daughter, no matter how long they are separated and how far apart they are. In fact, I don't sing very often because my voice is not very high. When I go to KTV, that is, to sing some old songs, my age group of the same generation, Faye Wong's songs, Mei Yanfang's songs, and some boys' songs, girls' songs are too high, I can't sing.
Yu Feihong and Kinoshita Caiyin play mother and daughter
The Paper: There are a lot of Japanese dialogues in the film this time, have you learned Japanese before, or did you learn Japanese specifically for this play?
Yu Feihong: I learned Japanese specifically for this movie. Time stuck here, you can't learn from scratch. And each word in Japanese is independent, you must memorize the word, unlike our Chinese vocabulary is composed of a word, you know these words can be combined. This time it is directly into the line part, the Japanese teacher uses the standard pronunciation to read the line, I first memorize it, and then I go to ponder the feelings and emotions in between, so I have to listen, I have to memorize it, the process is quite painful.
I remember filming the scene where Yuan Yuan saw her mother-in-law again in Japan, and I originally only had one or two Japanese lines according to the script, and the other occasional Chinese. As a result, when I got to the set, the director found that it was not right, and my communication with my Japanese ex-husband in the play could be Chinese in Japanese, because when lovers fall in love, they are likely to learn each other's national languages, but my mother-in-law should not also learn Chinese. So it was changed temporarily, this play must be performed in Japanese throughout, I was a little crazy, practicing day and night, as long as I stopped for a while, I wore headphones to follow along. This scene is very important, not only the reconciliation between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law, but also to bring out the secrets of the past, and a lot of information is hidden in the lines. This was the most difficult time for me to shoot this time, from the performance point of view, but fortunately, I finally got it.
The Paper: In addition to overcoming japanese, you also have a scene in "I Care About You", did you personally star?
Yu Feihong: Yeah, such a big close-up, see the face (laughs). This scene was also quite difficult for me, because I was not very watery, we had filming by the river, and the specific scene in deep water was filmed in a deep pool, which was five or six meters deep, and the staff around me were wearing diving suits and hanging oxygen cylinders. When I sink into the water, the director's request is to sink all the way down, but the water itself has buoyancy, unless there are heavy stones tied to the body, and the on-site staff has tied pressure to me and pulled me down hard, so that there is a sinking effect.
The Paper: At the scene, how do you solve the problem of breathing while still performing a feeling of peace and relief?
Yu Feihong: There was an employee who grew up in Hawaii on the crew, and he warned the director not to pull down more than 1.5 meters, otherwise it might cause physical harm to the actors. But after I made two of them, the director felt it wasn't right because my expression was too vicious. For people with poor water properties, every time they sink a little, their hearts will involuntarily tighten, and facial expression tension is natural. In fact, there was an agreed prompt action between me and the staff, a gesture, but on the spot they saw me fluttering and didn't know if I was signaling or performing, so they choked on a lot of saliva (laughs). Filming this scene is the first time I have encountered the threat of life instinct in the filming, I think other external pressures are fine, such as filming "Love has an afterlife", I want to overcome the lack of oxygen in the plateau, but this time it is to fight against the instinctive fear, but also to coordinate their movements and expressions, show calm, empty (look), and have been fighting against the bottom line of the body. I think as an actor, even when your life is threatened, you have to immerse yourself in your role.
The Surging News: The second half of "I Care About You" has some psychological suspense, does your daughter Keiko exist in the film, or is it a child she adopts, or is it just Yuan Yuan's inner projection? What do you think?
Yu Feihong: I think that whether keiko is really a person or not is precisely the interesting part of this movie, and the audience can give any explanation that they think is reasonable after watching the movie. How I understand the inconvenience to guide the audience, this play requires the audience to judge according to their own emotions and experiences, and any possibility exists in my opinion.
The Paper: In the 1970s and 1980s, when you were growing up, many Japanese movies and filmmakers were extremely popular in China. Can you take a look back? In your capacity as a director, which Japanese director do you like to see?
Yu Feihong: When I was a child, I watched movies, in fact, there were not many choices, and it was not easy to see some outside films, like my generation may have seen "The Hunt" and "Wangxiang". In Japan, from the beginning of the twentieth century, there have been good movies at every stage, such as those of Yasujiro Ozu. I don't dare say that I have the identity of a director, I have the experience of directing, because I have only directed one film. I prefer the films of the Japanese director Kio Naruse, who made very good films in the 1920s and 1930s, which I did not see as a child or even in the academy, but I have seen in recent years.
Screenshot of "I Care About You"