This period coincided with the centenary celebration, and the major platforms launched a variety of main theme film and television dramas, which made people boil with blood. For example, "Ideals Shine on China", "Glory and Dreams", "The Age of Awakening", and "Hundred Refining into Steel", which is now popular.
I never thought that the red classic was better than the sadomasochistic bureau, and it was better than the sweet pet drama. This not only benefits from the efforts of the ancestors, creating a touching heroic deed, but also indispensable to the efforts of good actors. Among them, the most discussed is the chairman image of hou Jingjian and Wang Lei.
However, before talking about Hou Jingjian and Wang Lei, the two rising stars, I want to take you back to the past two people who played the chairman and are most deeply rooted in the hearts of the people: Gu Yue and Tang Guoqiang.
Gu Yue was originally selected by Ye Jianying to be Mao Zedong's special actor, which was enough to see how close his appearance was to the image of the chairman. The reason why Gu Yue's mao zedong is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people is not only because his appearance is highly similar, but also because of the softness and cordiality that emanates from his hands and feet, which makes people see the other side of the great man.
In the face of aggressive female reporters, he always has a calm attitude, not annoyed or angry; he laughs in the face of friends who have fallen into the ravine with him; in the face of peasant friends, he always smiles and talks kindly with everyone.
In Gu Yue's body, we don't see the sense of distance of the leader, some are just the intimacy of ordinary people. With his gentle and delicate performance, Gu Yue showed the ordinaryness of Mao Zedong hidden in greatness extremely moving.
Unlike Gu Yue, Mao Zedong, played by Tang Guoqiang, is a little more domineering and majestic. Although Tang Guoqiang did not resemble him in appearance, he captured the essence in his demeanor. He does not copy it one by one, but will carefully ponder the inner emotions of the characters and then use artistic processing.
Tang Guoqiang's speech is always calm and powerful, the words are straight, and the pace is always heroic and steady, firm and resolute. Every move, every word and deed, reveals a domineering spirit, which makes people feel awe.
Gu Yue and Tang Guoqiang, one soft and one rigid, one pays attention to historical restoration, one pays attention to artistic processing, both have their own strengths and weaknesses, but both portray the personality characteristics of the chairman from different angles, which is why they are so deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Hou Jingjian, a rising star, is a rare good seedling among post-85 actors. He has played Mao Zedong no less than 7 times, and each time he has received rave reviews, especially Mao Zedong in "The Age of Awakening", which has been officially certified.
Hou Jingjian has his own views on how to play the role of Mao Zedong well. He feels that playing this role should learn to throw away the baggage, do not need to deliberately imitate some of the signature actions, but should spend more energy on the struggle and thinking in the character's heart, really feel, with a good feeling, can be naturally reflected in the performance.
Hou Jingjian has played Mao Zedong a lot of times, and it is expected that he will be familiar with this role and win the recognition of netizens. For the "newcomer" Wang Lei, it is more difficult to play the image of the chairman.
The reason why Wang Lei is "new" is because he has only played the young Mao Zedong in the "Fenghua Zhengmao" broadcast in 2001, and after 10 years, playing Mao Zedong for the second time in "Hundred Refining into Steel" is undoubtedly a big challenge.
Because Wang Lei is going to act from 26 years old to 71 years old, spanning up to 45 years, the mental journey and character state of each age stage will undergo great changes, and how to play Mao Zedong in each period is Wang Lei's biggest challenge. Fortunately, Wang Lei successfully grasped this role with his many years of acting experience.
Wang Lei's first scene as Mao Zedong was when he sent 24-year-old Cai hesen to France for work-study. At this time, he was only 26 years old, and he had a momentum of a newborn calf who was not afraid. Although it is dark at the moment, but he is full of hope for the future, he said that China's problems are the most complex in the world, and it depends on Chinese to solve them by himself, and after shaking hands with his friends, he embarked on the road to find Li Dazhao.
With just a few words and a few actions, Wang Lei vividly expressed the youthful spirit and the tenacity of not yielding.
After becoming a leader, Wang Lei played out the kind of leadership of the chairman again appropriately.
When the soldiers raised the flag of the Nanchang uprising, he said passionately that the banner had lost the hearts of the people, the workers and peasants looked frightened, and now it was time to cut them off. When he said this, his eyes were resolute, his expression was serious, and his words were sonorous and powerful.
Although the chairman of Wang Leiyan has a strong aura, he occasionally reveals a frank and interesting side.
When he was in Fujian, the chairman was wearing a quilt and smoking a cigarette, looking at the information, but he did not expect that the kerosene lamp next to him lit the quilt, but he did not know. It wasn't until Jude came in to find out that he put out the fire, saying that this was also a spark that could ignite the plains.
The chairman also jokingly responded when he saw the situation: "It is good to have a big fire, and the Red Army has also reached the time to burn the fire."
On his birthday, the soldier brought longevity noodles to the chairman. Due to the lack of materials, there was no good condiment, only a red pepper, but the chairman ate it with relish, took a bite of the pepper, took a bite of powder, and ate it happily.
With his family, the chairman became a father again. He lovingly held the children, watched them take family portraits, and helped his wife coax the children.
When he and his wife Yang Kaihui are separated from each other, he will also look up at Mingyue and tell him about his thoughts about his wife.
There are two scenes in "A Hundred Refining into Steel" that are very impressive. One scene was the death of yang Kaihui, the wife of the chairman, which was the first time to see the chairman in tears. The moment he heard the news, he couldn't believe it at first, but looking at the huge words in the newspaper, he had to accept the reality.
Wang Lei added several details in order to perform the chairman's emotional changes. One is a falling cigarette that is lit, the other is a long bench that falls, although there are not too many lines to describe, but only from these two shots, the audience can also feel the tenderness and heartache of the characters.
And another scene that has to be said, that is, the moment the chairman of the late years learned of his son's sacrifice, it was the second time he shed tears.
After learning of the sacrifice of his son Mao Anying, his body trembled slightly, and the soles of his feet trembled all the time and could not stand, so he had to support himself against the wall. His eyes looked into the distance, full of tears, but he didn't want to fall in front of outsiders. He desperately tried to find a cigarette to ease his mood. The subordinates saw the situation and comforted him to hold on, but the chairman said: "It doesn't matter, if there are undead people in war, who calls him my Son Mao Zedong." "When you're done, let your subordinates leave."
When there was no one around, he took out the cigarette, but the smoke in his mouth was shaking, and he couldn't even hold the matchbox, and dropped it several times before picking it up. It was hard to pick it up, but the smoke never lit. Only then did the chairman stop crying.
In this moment, he was not a leader, just a father. Wang Lei portrayed the helplessness and loneliness of the chairman who painfully lost his beloved son in his old age into three points. Without too many words, just from the trembling smoke and the matchbox that fell several times, one could feel the heartache of the chairman as a father.
The image of the chairman is not easy to act, neither can it imitate other actors, blindly rigidly set it, and it cannot only follow its own understanding and not conform to historical facts. Actors must have faith, belief, and must be very familiar with the subject matter and characters, and most importantly, they must have their own interpretations, so that the audience can be convinced.
The interpretation of Wang Lei in "Hundred Refining into Steel" not only allows us to see the chairman's heroic and ambitious side, but also lets us see his tender and interesting side. The ordinary of the great, the greatness of the ordinary may be so.