"Zhao Liying is no longer the Zhao Liying of the past."
Zhang Yimou's evaluation, Feng Xiaogang also realized it.
19 years ago, she was just 0 years old, she was an amateur, participated in the draft, became the champion of Feng Xiaogang's group, and only made her debut; Today, this young Hebei girl has become a high-profile actress who holds many awards such as the Feitian Award, the Golden Eagle Award, and the Hundred Flowers Award.
兜兜轉轉多年，一個大明星，一個大導演，緣分甚深的兩人，合作也算水到渠成。《向陽·花》去年拍攝，今年清明檔上映，並成為該檔期國產新片冠軍，更是達成春節檔後首部破億元國產電影的成就。
However, the box office of 60 million yuan and the evaluation of Douban with a score of 0.0 are really not ideal. For actors, the role of the mother "Gao Yuexiang" in "Xiangyang Flower" is more like a repetition of Zhao Liying's past screen image, rather than a breakthrough.
Is she trapped?
"Sunflower" is the name of the women's prison theatrical performance team, the WeChat group name of the people released from prison, and the livelihood of them after they regained their lives - Sunflower Car Wash, and it is also the symbol of the lives of Gao Yuexiang played by Zhao Liying and Heimei played by Lan Xiya.
They are rooted in the mud, devastated by wind and rain but not falling, the frost is coercive and does not break, watering the soil of the roots with blood and tears, growing section by section, and finally ushering in their own autumn, fearless and bright.
The whole film is about how they were born in the "mud" and how to realize the "bloom" of life.
The mud floor, the prison and the way they came.
Feng Xiaogang's methods were old and spicy, and he confessed his "sins" in only ten minutes.
Gao Yuexiang was sentenced for spreading obscenity and pornography, Heimei was imprisoned for theft, and her roommates were involved in drugs, abducted and trafficked children, and so on.
But the protagonist's "sin" is different from everyone else, and they are morally "excusable":
高月香被當做“彩禮”送給了瘸腿丈夫。婚後，丈夫不工作，還家暴；女兒因腦膜炎聾了。她想籌錢給女兒買一副20萬的人工耳蝸。打工時，結識了叵測之人，引入裸聊一行，雖賺的虧心錢，但為了孩子，哪怕火坑，她亦不旋踵。
Being caught, not wronged, but pitiful.
Heimei is similar, raised by a criminal gang with strict family law since she was a child, it seems to be a "family", but in fact she is a slave, she seems to be a deaf and mute, but in fact she is pretending to be for crime and dealing with the police, after getting acquainted with Gao Yuexiang, who knows sign language, the two help each other and become one.
They were originally the best people, but they were born at the wrong time, and they were trampled by fate, so they were imprisoned. But the prison did not trap them, but cleansed and atonement for their previous "sins", and when the prison gates were open and the sun was shining, they ushered in a new life-
It's a new life, but it's also a bloody tear, and the story comes to the second act.
The child abandoned by her husband was adopted by a welfare institution. Gao Yuexiang wanted to visit the child, but was told by the principal that you have no money or a house, so it is better not to bother.
If you want to get the right to "disturb", you have to make money, make a living, gain a foothold, and become a person. But the criminal record has become an invisible prison that she has to carry:
Working as a cleaner in the hotel, she was slandered for stealing her watch, and asked to strip to prove her innocence, even if the misunderstanding was clarified, the manager still swept her out of the house.
sold medicine and alcohol on the street, danced in the carriage, but encountered a disgusting boss, deducted her wages, and even tried to force her.
Relying on the black sister for her life, living in a leaky and dangerous building for eight hundred and one months, carrying garbage bags, stepping on sewing machines, and selling anti-theft locks, finally got better, and the thief "Daddy" of the black sister found her, put her under house arrest, couldn't be rescued, couldn't escape, and the "Daddy" even had to detain them and let the two give birth to a child, so as to redeem themselves.
Finally, Gao Yuexiang couldn't bear it anymore, picked up the big ingots enshrined by "Daddy", and smashed it into the face that symbolized sin that refused to let them go and refused to give them a way to live.
She was imprisoned for the second time.
Gao Yuexiang redeemed Heimei's life with the courage and ruthlessness of breaking the boat, washed away the mud around her, and was released from prison after six years, and she finally ushered in a real and unburdened new life.
And the previous blood and tears have already watered a future that belongs to them - the sunflower car wash, the daughter's cochlear implant and the great reunion in front of the statue of Guan Yu.
Female group portraits, female narratives, female sunshine, and life towards death, Feng Xiaogang's new film is different from the past, and it is so strange that it seems to be shot by Feng Xiaogang in parallel time and space. And these actresses, their performances are remarkable, especially Zhao Liying and Lan Xiya.
Lanciya has an untamed wildness, and Zhao Liying is the same, but she is more restrained, because she has to take into account the soft light of motherhood, which is more demanding and higher standards for actors. Obviously, Zhao Liying withstood the gaze of the big screen:
When she walked, she felt like she would be blown down by a strong wind at any moment;
When pulling goods, he looks like a migrant worker who will be buried in a sack;
When the mall is selling, the standard is a little stiff smile, as if it has been practiced by life for a long time;
In times of despair, the hateful eyes and revenge are like a dead volcano erupting suddenly;
The most touching thing is a back, a moment before the prison performance, hearing the child's cry, she couldn't help hiding in the bathroom, banging her head against the wall, choking and convulsing, she couldn't see her face the whole time, but you clearly felt that the weak back was trembling.
從2024年春節檔的《第二十條》開始，這一年多時間里，我們似乎一直在銀幕上看著這樣的一個趙麗穎，掙扎、絕望、憤怒。
Looking at Zhao Liying's screen image, her early film works, such as "The True Love Formula of a Female Man", "Riding the Wind and Waves", "Journey to the West", etc., are all the continuations and variants of her TV image: young women, national first love, girls next door, and newcomers in the workplace.
Until the divorce in 2021 years, she consciously pierced into reality, trying to erode the "youth" aura on her body through more diversified film and television works that are closer to the current era. As a result, its TV image has transformed into a rural woman in the new era, a female entrepreneur in the wave of reform, etc. And this also paved the way for her to make a smooth transition to film - both proving the plasticity of the actor and retaining the aura of "idol".
Then, Zhang Yimou re-"invented" a "Zhao Liying", which belongs to Zhao Liying on the big screen.
在《第二十條》中，她飾演的郝秀萍，不會說話，素顏打扮，皮膚黢黑，瘦到脫相，隨時在承受暴力和壓抑帶來的痛苦折磨。為了給孩子籌手術費，她成了卑微的犧牲品，只能逃跑，躲藏，像一隻被標記的羊。
In the end, there was no way to retreat, and she poured out her despair in sign language on the rooftop, knowing that the only weapon she could trust was this "cheap life". So she jumped, and at that moment, the sheep became a wolf. Even if the price of the counterattack is her life, for the sake of her children and family, the mother has no hesitation.
Hao Xiuping made Zhao Liying complete the mutation: she faded off the coat of youth and stepped into the force field of motherhood.
In the subsequent movie "The Road to Fire", she played a desperate mother, the child was lost, she chased everywhere, formed an ambiguous and dark alliance with other child seekers, made money in the gray area, suppressed the need for love, risked her life for the sake of the child, broke into the den of thieves with a knife, and fought with criminals.
and "Qiao Yan's Heart", the theme of this movie is very different from the realistic texture of the previous two films, telling the current situation and past of a female star who wants to cover up, entangle for it, and not be free. Playing an absent-minded and inextricable female star is not difficult for Zhao Liying.
In the film, she is unmarried and childless, but she is still a symbol of some kind of maternal image. In the climax, as an aunt, she broke into the wolf's den, confronted the evil owner of the agency, and was almost raped and beaten, but she was still able to save herself calmly, picked up the object at hand, and smashed it at the disgusting person.
With the blood of sinners on her face and the child in her arms who are desperately guarding, this scene has almost become a strong symbol of Zhao Liying's screen image in the past two years:
Round-faced, fair-skinned, thin, and with a body like a sheep, but with reverse scales - children, "if a person has a baby, he will kill", so the sheep that protects the cubs can turn into a wolf at any time and fight desperately.
Feng Xiaogang's request for Zhao Liying did not deviate from this symbol, and it can even be said that Gao Yuexiang is an extension of Hao Xiuping: both characters love children deeply, both raise money for children and go to the edge of crime, and they are deeply entangled with criminal gangs and kind-hearted public prosecutors, and they are desperate at the cost of suicide to desperately resist injustice and crime.
Since Zhang Yimou discovered Zhao Liying's unique maternal strength, the follow-up directors have continued and consolidated this genius insight, the difference is only the length of the scene and the theme of the story, of course, for Zhao Liying, the biggest difference is that she has successfully become the first protagonist from the supporting role of a big director.
Will Zhao Liying, who is trapped in her mother's figure, get tired of this repetition?
We don't know.
But is the repetition of roles necessarily a bad thing?
Not necessarily.
Most of Wu Jing's works are tough guys with one to ten; Most of the works of Duan Yihong and Zhang Yi are either military or police; Wang Baoqiang is a local comedy, Xu Zheng is an urban comedy, Huang Bo is a comedy at the junction of urban and rural areas, and Shen Teng is a small town comedy; Lei Jiayin is mostly an upright person with a hint of trickiness, and Xiao Yang is simply a professional family with a bitter father.
Above: "People in Embarrassment" photos; Below, the shot of "Crazy Aliens".
All the actors who are active in today's film industry have to enter a cycle of role repetition. It can be seen that repetition is not terrible, what is terrible is that it will only be repeated mechanically, without any change, and even the movie will not only not create performance space for the characters, but will drag the actors back due to the defects of the main creative talents such as script, production, and director.
Gao Yuexiang is a character who has been dragged down.
This character, starting from selling herself to marry, has suffered a serious illness from her daughter, made money on the edge of crime, unfortunately went to prison, and was discriminated against, beaten, insulted, and even fought hard to get a second time in prison, and finally ushered in the dawn. In terms of the arc of his role, his fullness and richness, life and death are far better than any of Zhao Liying's previous roles, and they can almost be called Sheng Minglan and Xu Banxia in the film field.
From left to right: Gao Yuexiang, Sheng Minglan, Xu Banxia
It's a pity that the chess game is one move short.
The sin is not in the actors, but in the drama itself, or Feng Xiaogang's lack of ability.
For example, in terms of character setting, Gao Yuexiang is the best person, and the crime is purely forced by the situation, and there is no room for discussion of morality and human nature here.
A lotus that comes out of the mud and is not stained, it is clean, but the strength is obviously insufficient. If she finds out that the other party is a student - another child, under the dilemma of conscience and maternal love, what should Gao Yuexiang do?
There are no such entanglements and struggles at all. can only portray an innocent sinner with moral holiness, which is where Feng Xiaogang is cunning and weak.
Moreover, there is a fatal flaw in the relationship between the characters, in the plot of more than 100 minutes, Gao Yuexiang's mother and daughter have never been in the same frame, and only in the reunion part of the finale, the mother and daughter appear together. Maybe the director has his considerations, but for the actors, they are undoubtedly deprived of an important opportunity to act:
She loves her daughter very much, and she can only be empty from front to back, without rivalry.
In addition, there are many illogical things in the storyline, such as a major scene, Gao Yuexiang wants to work with Heimei to make a video selling anti-theft locks in order to make money faster. The black girl refused. She insisted on filming, but she insisted on not shooting, so the two broke up, kicked the bench, lifted the table, and scolded each other for bitches and thieves, so that the two broke up.
"Break" is the standard cinematic narrative – the protagonist forms a team, encounters difficulties, joins forces to fight the enemy, suddenly breaks up on the eve of the decisive battle, the protagonist introspects, then recalls his teammates, and wins the final battle. So Feng Xiaogang wrote a rupture scene, no problem, the problem is the screenwriting skills, which are too clumsy, and would rather let the protagonist reduce his intelligence and lose empathy, without asking why he is unwilling to make a video, just quarrel, he will be angry, and he will have a forced "break".
A protagonist who is intellectually reduced and has no empathy will only disgust the audience and think that she is "sick", so how can we talk about the charm of the role and the play of the performance?
What's even more regrettable is that "Xiangyang Flower" is already the one with the best quality, the most scenes and the largest performance space among the four movies that Zhao Liying has participated in. Therefore, it is not so much that Zhao Liying is trapped in the image of "being a mother is strong", it is better to say that the directors and screenwriters who handed Zhao Liying a notebook, please use snacks again.