Tao Hong once broke the news in an interview that the reason why Xu Zheng became a director was not because of his noble dream of directing, but because no one was looking for him to act!
Xu Zheng's most impressive TV drama roles are some costume dramas, such as "Eight Precepts of the Brilliant Pig in Spring", "Li Wei as an Official", etc., which are very classic, but he rarely plays modern roles, of course, because of course, it is inseparable from his hair.
He used to be very proud of his dark and thick hair, but this hair gradually left him in his 20s, when Xu Zheng was inferior to the extreme.
In his own words, he had almost worn hats of all colors except green hats during that time! Until one day, he finally plucked up the courage to shave off all his hair, and since then, China's film and television circle has had an extra bald head, but no one expected that this bald head has gradually become the "bright light" of the industry!
In 1994, Xu Zheng graduated from acting, and he successfully entered the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center and became a drama actor.
Through his own talent and hard work, Xu Zheng successfully won the Best Actor award in the drama stage, and since then he has gradually become famous in the circle.
So Xu Zheng took advantage of the situation to turn to the film and television circle, and after making cameo appearances in several TV series, Xu Zheng gradually became dissatisfied with the status quo, and he wanted to be the male protagonist!
In 2000, "The Eight Precepts of the Splendid Spring Pig" began to be filmed, but this drama is different from the original mythological drama, and it is indeed a bit of a spoof to pair the Eight Precepts of the Pig with the Little Dragon Girl.
However, Xu Zheng's vision is different, when almost all investors gave up this drama, Xu Zheng took all his savings and became the male protagonist of this drama.
Because the producer Fan Xiaotian said that as long as you have money, you can play the male lead!
But Xu Zheng's decision is no less than a big gamble, in that era when the costume mythological drama is still stuck in "Journey to the West", how Xu Zheng's ugly "pig" looks is not reliable.
But who could have imagined that it was precisely because of this role that he made a name for himself, and not long after the launch of "Spring Brilliant Pig Eight Commandments", it set a rating record at that time, all the investors who withdrew their investment regretted it, and Xu Zheng's reputation was shocked at the same time, he also realized the unusual industry information!
Because after this drama exploded, "Love Through Time and Space" found him again, followed by "The Story of the Eight Immortals of Laughter", all of which are costume mythological themes, and in addition, Xu Zheng also filmed a costume light comedy such as "Seven Pins of Chincha", but it is conceivable that the scripts that followed him were also "Li Wei as an Official".
As Tao Hong said, you play an eggplant, and all the purple things will come to you! And Xu Zheng is like being under this spell, although the ratings of his works are very good, but he does not want to be fixed by the role.
Coincidentally, just when he was eager to change the status quo but did not know where to start, a piece of heavenly "stone" just happened to hit him, and it was no one else who threw an olive branch at him, it was the ghost director Ning Hao, but at the beginning, Ning Hao was an olive branch thrown to Tao Hong, and Xu Zheng just dipped it!
In 2006, the movie "Crazy Stone" was released, and this film, which only invested 3 million, finally earned more than 23 million at the box office, becoming the dark horse of the box office that year.
At the same time, this film has also made a very important contribution, it has won the stars such as Huang Bo, Guo Tao, Wang Xun, etc., making Ning Hao a rare ghost horse director in China, and also allowing Xu Zheng to go to the big screen.
With this movie, Xu Zheng won the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Supporting Actor, and also made him a close friend with Huang Bo and Ning Hao!
After that, Xu Zheng participated in many comedies such as "Crazy Racing", until after filming "People on the Road", he keenly discovered the code to make money.
So he hit the iron while it was hot, wrote and directed himself, and produced the movie "Tai 囧", which won 1.2 billion yuan at the box office after the film was released, becoming the first film in Chinese film and television to exceed one billion at the box office, and was therefore received by the Thai prime minister.
Since then, his films have become a milestone in the history of Chinese cinema, but this is only the beginning of the controversy over other people's character!
In 2018, "People in 囧途" sued Xu Zheng for infringement of "Tai 囧", and Xu Zheng was sentenced to 5 million yuan in damages, and it turned out that "Tai 囧" released under the banner of "People in 囧途" was not the second part of the "囧 series", but a complete "pirated movie"!
In 2010, the movie "People on the Road" starring Xu Zheng and Wang Baoqiang was released, directed by Ye Weimin, and although the box office of this movie is not high, he is indeed a classic in the hearts of many audiences.
So Xu Zheng firmly seized this business opportunity, two years later he and Wang Baoqiang with "Tai 囧" won 1.2 billion box office, and the audience saw the original class of people, but also has been a film and "People in the Way" is the same series, and "Tai 囧" in the promotion, has always been in the name of "people in the way".
And then Xu Zheng also carried out this series to the end, "Hong Kong 囧" and "囧Mom" were released successively, both won a lot of box office, but the original "People in 囧途" has a real second part, but Xu Zheng did not pass the consent of the producer, he filmed "Tai 囧" without authorization, confusing the audition, infringing the copyright of "People in 囧途".
However, despite this, the popularity of "Tai 囧" is an indisputable fact, but coincidentally, when "囧Mom" was released, Xu Zheng's personality once again caused controversy, and this time he was boycotted by the whole industry!
In the Spring Festival of 2020, several popular movies competed for the box office champion at the same time on the first day of the New Year, which was originally the default rule in the industry, but just a few days before the release, Xu Zheng suddenly announced that "囧Mom" was raised to the Chinese New Year's Eve.
Immediately afterward, Chen Sicheng, the director of "Detective Chinatown", posted that "Tang Detective 3" will not be mentioned and will be released on the first day of the New Year as scheduled, but at the same time, Chen Sicheng also posted: "It is the industry that does not do things that damage peers!" ”
The four words "damage to peers" are undoubtedly in the connotation of Xu Zheng.
But the file has just calmed down the storm, due to the epidemic, the major movies can only choose to withdraw the file, but Xu Zheng did a good thing to benefit netizens at this time, he sold "囧Mom" to the online platform, that is to say, netizens can watch movies for free!
On the surface, Xu Zheng did another thing that won the hearts of the people, because the fans learned that this good news supported him more, but at this time the offline theater was not satisfied, after all, before "囧Mom" as a cinema film, the cinema also invested a lot of manpower and material publicity in the early stage, originally affected by the epidemic, the cinema has suffered a huge impact, coupled with Xu Zheng's downfall, it is even worse.
The Zhejiang film industry issued a statement expressing its resistance to "囧Mom" and condemning Xu Zheng for seeing profit and forgetting righteousness and ignoring the overall situation of the industry.
Three days after the movie was released on the online platform, 23 theaters jointly asked the Film Bureau to "ban" Xu Zheng!
But in such a situation, Xu Zheng only responded with one sentence of "serving the audience"! At this time, the audience he benefited also supported Xu Zheng very "clearly", saying that since the theater boycotted Xu Zheng, then we boycotted the theater line.
However, although Xu Zheng offended the theater line for the audience this time, he also took remedial measures afterwards, but after the cinema reopened, Xu Zheng made a decision to sell fixed film tickets live on the Internet, supporting the theater line to resume profitability as soon as possible, I have to say that good people let him do it!
Xu Zheng is not a director who can only make comedies, just watch "I am not a medicine god".
After the film was released, the People's Daily only used fourteen words to evaluate, but this high praise was the first time ever.
"I haven't had such a classic Chinese movie in a long time!"
It has been three years since the film was released, but today's Douban score is still a high score of 9.0, and it is with this movie that Xu Zheng won the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor.
But most importantly, through this film to promote the reform of medical insurance, some expensive anti-cancer drugs have also been included in the medical insurance directory, which is the biggest contribution of this movie, in addition, "I am not a medicine god" also donated more than 9 million yuan to public welfare organizations for the treatment of leukemia patients.
Xu Zheng once said that he had found an actor when he was supervising the production of this film, but he did not expect that the actor said that he only acted in films with a box office of more than 1 billion, and Xu Zheng was quite helpless.
After the release of the movie, it received a lot of repercussions, and the final box office was as high as 3 billion, which was a complete blow to the actor's face, no traffic, no small fresh meat, and the success of "I Am Not a Medicine God" also allowed Xu Zheng to successfully reverse the reputation.
In 2021, Xu Zheng directed one of the units of the film "My Father and Me", and he also successfully became the second 10 billion box office director in China through this film.
Nearly 30 years into the industry, Xu Zheng's acting experience can not be without controversy, but as a director with a non-professional background, Xu Zheng can have such a good result has been extraordinary, has won the film emperor, and has a high-grossing movie, the next step, probably the best director, right?