What kind of person you are, the road ahead may extend in what direction.
She hadn't left her hometown until she was 13.
She didn't know that her next life would be intertwined with Zhang Yimou's life trough.
Wei Minzhi is a post-85 born in Chicheng County, Hebei Province in 1985.
A place close to Saibei and the strong winds made her face full of purple tang color since childhood.
As a child, she played with other children in the village.
After attending elementary school, she went to school and school every day.
There was wind on the run, but most of the time, she was in a hurry.
After writing homework, you also have to help your parents cut grass and feed the pigs, which is the homework of every child in the village.
At the age of 13, a new fork in the trajectory of her life appeared.
At that time, in a place outside Zhangjiakou,
A director named Zhang Yimou is mourning Gong Li and his own gang.
In addition, "Have Something to Say" did not make him the expected success.
The small twists and turns in his career made him think of accumulating energy to exert his strength again.
It was at this moment that he saw a round of sun in front of him.
The novel "There is a sun in the sky", the story is very simple,
A female substitute teacher in the village does not want her students to drop out of school.
After reading it, Zhang Yimou said that this is the bottom character he wants to shoot.
Moreover, this time, Zhang Yimou's own axis strength also came up.
A professional class actor is not used, all of them are amateur.
People without acting talent are better.
Casting also needs to be found in the countryside everywhere.
I don't know if it's morning or afternoon, I don't know if it's sunny or cloudy,
Outside the village of Ningbao in Akagi County, the casting assistant director saw two children.
Originally, the assistant director came to this village to select the role of the village chief.
The two little girls who were playing attracted his attention.
Take a closer look and see that this is a pair of twin sisters.
"Can you sing?"
The assistant director took a fancy to one of them.
The little girl was shy to see, and when she saw a stranger asking, she hid directly behind the other girl.
The assistant director glanced at the other girl, who looked slightly older than the girl.
Don't wait for the assistant director to say anything more.
The girl standing in front of her suddenly shouted, I will!
Then, she danced and sang, and came a passage "Our Motherland is a Garden".
The little girl was not shy, which made the assistant director interested.
So she danced to the assistant director.
The more the assistant director watched, the more happy she became, and directly asked her if she dared to make a movie?
The little girl is also very bold, directly came to the sentence, dare.
In fact, at that time, she did not understand what a movie was.
The assistant director excitedly brought her to Zhang Yimou.
She is Wei Minzhi.
Next, it is to screen again from the children who have been initially screened.
It is said that there are tens of thousands of little girls who have seen it,
In the end, she and another little girl were left behind.
Another little girl can act, but Zhang Yimou likes Wei Minzhi's simplicity and innocence.
It was difficult to choose for a while, and Zhang Yimou thought of a way.
Two people were in a room, each with a camera in front of him.
Zhang Yimou told the two children: shouting at the camera.
The first little girl did not let go, so she did not shout loudly.
Wei Minzhi, many years later, said in an interview that at that time she had called out her voice to the point of silence.
So, she joined the crew.
Next, it is about half a year of filming time.
She went out of her hometown for the first time,
The director told her to do whatever she wanted and say whatever she wanted, and she did it all.
This new attempt opened the eyes of a 13-year-old girl.
She didn't understand it, and after the shooting, she was sent back to her hometown by adults.
So she resumed her monotonous life of running after school and mowing grass outside the village.
She's not an actress and doesn't think about what will happen to the film after shooting.
At that time, Wei Minzhi was just awkward, and his class had fallen a lot, and if he couldn't catch up, it would be bad.
In 1999, the film "No One Can Be Less" based on the novel was released, and the 14-year-old Wei Minzhi became a hit.
And she has also become a new "girl".
Subsequently, a large group of reporters with long guns and short cannons suddenly poured into the village entrance.
Such a scene can be said to be unprecedented.
Many strangers, telling her over and over again
Your film won an award in Venice and an award in China.
Someone else told her that you had become the new girl who was popular.
Where Venice is, Wei Minzhi does not know.
As for what the girl was, she didn't know.
Originally in the village, her courage was great.
And yet suddenly looking at so many strangers appearing,
For the first time, Wei Minzhi didn't know what to do.
Some people even offer millions of dollars to let her go out and shoot movies.
It was at that time that Zhang Yimou found her.
Zhang Yimou told her that going to school well and going to a good school is what you should do most at the moment.
Just one movie doesn't change anything.
You should focus your attention on learning.
Zhang Yimou's remarks played a key role.
Again to those who want to interview or invite filming,
Wei Minzhi knew what to say to them.
She continued to start her own rhythm of life.
However, even if she goes to school, her original rhythm will not exist.
At that time, the principal and chairman of a private school in Shijiazhuang knew about Wei Minzhi.
And I also watched the movies she shot.
After learning about Wei Minzhi's family situation, he said that Wei Minzhi and his sister could come to Shijiazhuang to study.
He covered all the tuition.
In this way, the two twin sisters came to Shijiazhuang.
Wei Minzhi's parents also became school workers.
At the age of 14, Wei Minzhi's life has changed drastically because of a movie.
However, her Mandarin is poor.
Just arrived in class, whether it is to ask questions or answer questions,
It can all cause the students to laugh.
She is very strong, and she can definitely pass this level.
So, next, the classmates in the same dormitory as her knew,
This girl from the countryside learns in the bed every day with a flashlight.
This hard work made her successfully admitted to high school.
For the next three years, her life was also in order.
It was copied from the original hometown to the private elite high school in Shijiazhuang.
Wei Minzhi, who grew up, also understood what a movie was.
More importantly, she also had a new understanding of Zhang Yimou's words that year.
So in her third year of high school, one day she told her parents that she was going to apply for the directing major.
Parents very much disagreed, in their vision, daughter should apply for normal school,
When he grew up, he became a teacher safely and steadily.
Her class teacher also disagreed with Wei Minzhi's application for the directing profession.
After all, doing literature and art is not something that can be achieved by hard work.
However, Wei Minzhi has grown up.
Not to mention that when she was a child, she was the one who had the opinion.
Whether it is a parent or a teacher, in the end, they can't help her.
So in the year of the college entrance examination, she set her sights on the Beijing Film Academy.
That spring, she went to Beijing to take the first round of exams.
At that time, more than 800 people applied for the directing profession.
Both the first and second rounds of exams went well.
But the final exam got stuck.
Whether it is professional film knowledge or reading volume, she is at the most disadvantaged state.
She returned to Shijiazhuang from Beijing accompanied by her eldest sister on the same day.
Soon, the ridicule from the outside world also came.
Adolescent children are inherently sensitive, and failure is coupled with a lot of unfriendly voices,
She was a little overwhelmed for a moment.
Just when she was confused about the road ahead, xi'an Foreign Chinese College gave her a chance.
As long as she passes the college entrance examination and art exams, the school will admit her.
Moreover, she will be exempted from all tuition fees during college.
This is a new opportunity.
Wei Minzhi successfully passed the art exam, and it was time to fight for the college entrance examination.
In the months of the final sprint, three flashlights were used by Wei Minzhi, who studied desperately every night.
Her final college entrance examination score was 200 points higher than the art score line.
Wei Minzhi got the admission letter of the Department of Choreography and Directing.
She proved herself with practical actions.
In her second year of college, she directed the TV series "Mother's Wish".
If she follows this path, after graduating from college, she can also successfully serve the director's bowl of rice.
But at this moment, Heaven opened another path in her life.
By chance, Wei Minzhi entered a foreign school.
She successfully received a full scholarship.
Since then, this school has added a Chinese girl studying film and television choreography.
It was 2007, when Wei Minzhi was 22 years old.
In the new school, she not only continued to study film and television editing and directing,
At the same time, I also gained my own love.
At a party, the boy named Liu Jinhui caught her attention.
The two gradually became acquainted and began to communicate.
Liu Jinhui is of Chinese descent, so this exchange carries a natural sense of familiarity and closeness.
When the relationship was formalized, she introduced Liu Jinhui to her parents.
At that time, my parents were still working in the elite middle school where their daughter was studying in Shijiazhuang.
They approved of the boy.
So in 2008, Wei Minzhi and her boyfriend entered the palace of marriage.
And in school and about to start work,
Wei Minzhi was able to read more than four hundred pages of English scripts in three days.
Moreover, the script can be translated into Chinese.
After that, she took her husband back to Shijiazhuang.
Not only did I meet my former teachers and many classmates,
I also met another protagonist who had made movies together as a child.
Another of the actors is Zhang Huike.
After the filming of the film, it was also funded by the elite middle school.
Zhang Huike's university was studied at The Hebei College of Communication.
At that time, when he met Wei Minzhi again, he was still in a state of no fixed job.
After graduating from college, he interned for a time at a television station.
But most of the time, he was in the state of doing odd jobs.
Wei Minzhi was preparing to make a documentary at that time.
Compared to other contemporaries, she was luckier.
Once, in an interview with the media, the outside world asked Wei Minzhi what her childhood partner was doing.
Wei Minzhi said that some people work outside the home, and some people still work as farmers in their hometowns.
And she, along the way, became a teacher in college.
During that time, Wei Minzhi worked part-time in television, shooting movies and some short films.
Along the way, she has been improving.
This is the evaluation made by her university teachers.
In 2010, at the Hawaii Film Festival,
Zhang Yimou and Wei Minzhi met again after many years.
At that time, Wei Minzhi was already able to answer and ask questions in fluent English.
Zhang Yimou is also full of emotions.
This girl grew up, and her experience of growing up was like a story.
Zhang Yimou said that all this seems to be like a dream.
And Wei Minzhi has also made a summary of his life over the years.
She said that in the middle school stage, every night after the self-study lights went out,
When the flashlight in the bed lit up,
Although the light was very faint, it illuminated her way forward.
It definitely takes hard work to pay, and she feels that the process is worth it.
Even non-stop exams are a necessary process in her opinion.
Today, Wei Minzhi's children are also more than ten years old.
When Wei Minzhi was a teenager, she was still mowing grass in the fields of her hometown.
Her children, on the other hand, are in a different life situation.
Before 2013, she said in an interview,
Looking back on the growth of the past 10 years, I am still my original self.
No matter where you go in the future,
She's the kite that won't break the line.
Text | twenty-two
Image source network, infringement contact deleted