Diverse Charms of Movie Icons over Time

Diversity

Since opening-up and reform at the end of 1970s, movie stars from Hong Kong and Taiwan, such as Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin and Joan Lin, have frequently appeared in Chinese mainland film productions. Appreciation of feminine aesthetics among moviegoers has thus broadened.

Joan Chen (now an American citizen) was the first Chinese actress to appear in English-speaking roles in Western mainstream films. Before going to the U.S. to study she had gained fame in the mainland for her role in Little Flower in 1979, and received best actress award at the 1981 Hundred Flowers Awards. In 1987, her role in Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor, which won nine academy awards, brought Chen international fame.

Chinese director Zhang Yimou’s selection of leading actresses stands testament to changes in audience appreciation of feminine beauty over the years. Gong Li and Zhang Ziyi have been his first choices. Gong Li was for years the Chinese actress that most appealed to Western audience’s sense of feminine beauty. When Mo Yan, author of Red Sorghum, first met Gong Li he doubted Zhang Yimou’s choice of her in the leading role – that of widow of a rural distillery owner who has an affair with one of her workers and later dies with her lover while resisting Japanese invaders. To Mo, Gong seemed antonymous with the character in his novel. But Gong’s performance proved Mo wrong. Gong Li took main roles in most of Zhang Yimou’s award-winning movies of the 1980s and 1990s. Zhang’s fellow fifth-generation director Chen Kaige also picked Gong Li to perform in his acclaimed Farewell My Concubine, the Chinese-language film that won the Cannes Palme d’Or. Zhang Yimou cast Zhang Ziyi in her cinematic debut at the age of 19 in The Road Home, which won two awards at the 2000 Berlin International Film Festival, that of the Jury Grand Prix (second best film) and Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. After starring in Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon Zhang became a presence on the world stage. She later took main roles in Zhang Yimou’s Hero and House of Flying Daggers, both of which won her worldwide recognition.

Zhang Yimou’s later choices of leading actresses in his movies have all accorded with generally held ideals of feminine beauty and consequently helped generate high box-office returns.

Actresses Dong Jie, Li Man, Zhou Dongyu and Ni Ni are all blessed with unlined foreheads, clear eyes and irresistible feminine charm.

Heroes and Underdogs

Tang Guoqiang was a film idol in the 1970s and 80s, largely by virtue of his good looks that were well suited to the revolutionary roles he played. Since reaching middle age his parts have included Chairman Mao Zedong and ancient military strategists, each time displaying a profound understanding of these characters.

Ge You.

Ge You and Jiang Wen are two of China’s most successful actors. Born in 1957, Ge You has won audiences not through movie-star looks but through his innate sense of humor. His rosebud mouth, high cheekbones and, in most movies, shaven head indisputably equip him for anti-hero and underdog roles that often display resilience and unconventional life wisdom. Ge is regarded as one of the best actors in Chinese film history, having acted in more than 50 movies, including Farewell My Concubine, To Live, and The Big Shot’s Funeral. In 1994, Ge You became the first Chinese actor to receive Best Actor at Cannes for his performance in To Live, which also featured Gong Li.

Ge You’s popularity proves that a pretty face is not necessary prerequisite to a successful acting career. He is now synonymous with Chinese blockbuster movies.

Jiang Wen, who graduated from the Central Academy of Drama in 1984, is another actor who is not regarded in China as particularly handsome. Before starring in Red Sorghum, he won accolades for his performance in Hibiscus Town (1986), themed on the “cultural revolution.” Red Sorghum, which won the coveted Golden Bear at the 1988 Berlin International Film Festival, brought him further acclaim. In the late 1990s, he began directing movies in which he also acted. They include In the Heat of the Sun, based on a novel by Wang Shuo, Devils on the Doorstep, The Sun Also Rises, and Let the Bullets Fly. He is highly respected as both an actor and director. Devils on the Doorstep won the Grand Prix at Cannes Film Festival in 2000, and Let the Bullets Fly brought in box-office returns in 2010 amounting to RMB 700 million.

Wider Appreciation

The new century ushered in rapid marketization and commercialization of Chinese films. Audiences now have more diversified standards of aesthetic and artistic appreciation. Movie stars from Hong Kong and Taiwan have taken a big share of the mainland film market, and new waves of stars relentlessly supplant those whose fame only yesterday seemed bound to last decades.

The exquisite looks of Zhang Ziyi and Fan Bingbing do not exercise a monopoly over filmgoer preferences. Actors and actresses with distinct individual appeal are also popular. Yao Chen, for example, who has a huge following on Weibo (China’s Twitter), has a wide mouth, which is undesirable by traditional Chinese aesthetic standards, and is sassy and opinionated. Having come to fame through performances in TV dramas, she has also taken lead roles in such movies as Lurk and Caught in the Web. Her humorous delivery and attractive personality have won her 29.9 million fans on her Weibo.

Chinese moviegoers appear to have moved on in their assessment of film actors from the traditional desire for little more than good looks to a broad range of acting accomplishments. Well-known comic actors Xu Zheng and Wang Baoqiang are living proof of this new diversity of audience appreciation. The 2012 movie, Lost in Thailand starring Xu Zheng, Wang Baoqiang, Huang Bo, Fan Bingbing and Tao Hong generated box-office returns of RMB 1.2 billion just one month after going on general release.

Cinema gains an ever-broader Chinese audience as a hugely popular entertainment medium both now and in the future. An expanded market is a growing trend, which explains the wider appreciation for more diversified performers. In such an era, with its vast spectrum of individual tastes and choices, any one with acting talent now has star potential.