The filming location of "The Legend of Heroes" is inside the Qingming Shanghe Tu scenic area in H Film and Television City. When Zhao Keping drove Tao Mu to the set, director Zhao Xin was explaining the play to the second female lead. The second female lead was someone inserted by the investor. I heard that he used to sell Donkey brand bags and had no acting experience. However, her performance in front of the camera is terrifying - in Zhao Xin's opinion, judging from the way this woman kept staring and pouting in front of the camera in fear, it might be more appropriate to change it to a horror movie or a disaster movie.
However, with a check of 10 million signed by the investor in his pocket, Zhao Xin had to patiently teach the second female lead over and over again even if he was dissatisfied with her performance.
When Zhao Keping brought Tao Mu to Zhao Xin, Zhao Xin was already so angry at the second female lead's dull performance that his high blood pressure was about to relapse. Why can't a piece of wood who can't learn anything just stand in front of the counter and sell her Donkey brand bags, or let the coal boss wave his hand and give her a shop and let her be the boss's wife? Why do you have to be so unreasonable and come here to embarrass him?
"Is this the newcomer you were talking about?" Zhao Xin glanced at Tao Mu with anger in his eyes, and said meaningfully: "He looks good, but he only has one face. My crew is shooting a TV series, not a PPT."
The second female lead who was still at the scene had her face flushed red and her eyes were filled with tears, almost crying.
Zhao Keping patted Tao Mu's shoulder calmly and laughed, "Director Zhao has also seen the video that Director Chen sent you. I don't need to say much about Xiao Mu's performance in front of the camera. Compared with the cooked duck that flew away before, it's more than enough, right?"
More than enough!
Zhao Xin glanced at Tao Mu's face, and then thought back to the video material that Director Chen had sent him. It could be said that as long as Tao Mu could perform one-tenth of what he did in the video during the audition, the role would definitely be his.
"Let's try on the clothes first!" Zhao Xin was in a bad mood at the moment and was too lazy to talk nonsense. Of course, the more important reason is that Tao Mu's current status and position are not yet to the point where Zhao Xin needs to pull him aside to talk.
"Hey, take him to the fitting room to try on clothes." Zhao Xin stretched out his hand and called a stagehand. Although Tao Mu performed well as a stand-in in "Zixiao", Zhao Xin still had to see Tao Mu's martial arts look with his own eyes. After all, there are many actors who are very handsome, but they only look good in certain styles. It would look weird if they change their style.
Zhao Xin is making a martial arts film, not a martial arts comedy. Therefore, it is very important that the actor's temperament matches the role - after all, not all actors play the second female lead and have the support of investors behind them.
When he had ample funds and no fathers interfered, Zhao Xin still had very high requirements for his own work.
Zhao Keping patted Tao Mu's shoulder again and said gently, "Go."
Then she pleaded with the makeup artist: "Then I'll leave it to you."
The protective meaning behind the words was so deliberate that anyone who was not blind could see it.
Zhao Xin waved his hand to signal the second female lead to take a ten-minute break to adjust her thoughts, and then gossiped with Zhao Keping: "What's going on? The newcomer you're optimistic about? The one Xia Xing will promote in the future? Is there any investor mother backing him up?"
Facing his old friend's malicious joke, Zhao Keping just shook his head calmly: "Don't talk nonsense, this kid just turned 18."
After a pause, he smiled and said, "I am very optimistic about him. But unfortunately, he is too ambitious and doesn't think highly of Xia Xing's small temple."
Zhao Xin was a little surprised this time: "Even Xiaxing Entertainment doesn't like him. Could it be that he is an artist of Longteng? Are you planning to change jobs?"
"The contract hasn't been signed yet." Zhao Keping sighed, "The kid got admitted to Beijing Film Academy. He has a deep love for his alma mater and plans to follow the school rules of Beijing Film Academy. He won't take any acting jobs before his junior year."
Zhao Xinyi laughed: "This is a good thing." Don't think that anyone can be an actor. In the past few years of filming, Zhao Xinke has had enough of those artists who rely on their good looks to act blindly in front of the camera. Tao Mu's mentality gave Zhao Xin a natural liking for him.
"It's a good thing for actors to have ambitions. Those who have graduated from professional schools will definitely go further than those without a solid foundation. I think you talent agencies shouldn't be too short-sighted. Sometimes you have to pay attention to the career planning of actors."
Zhao Keping snorted coldly: "This is a good seedling. Not only me, but also Wan Meihong and Wen Shijin are eyeing him." It's just that he, Zhao Keping, took the initiative.
Having known each other for many years, Zhao Xin immediately understood Zhao Keping's cunning mind and said with a smile, "It's not a good deal to be the one who is chasing after him! Okay, for the sake of our friendship, I'll let this kid pass as long as his performance is not too bad."
As he was talking, Tao Mu, who was in costume, had already come out of the dressing room.
"The Legend of Heroes" is a martial arts novel from the 1990s. The author is Bai Xiaosheng, a famous martial arts writer in Taiwan Province. There have been countless remakes over the years, and the character of the Nameless Killer can be said to be the most outstanding supporting role besides the male protagonist and his several good friends.
The reason why it is so brilliant is because of the character setting. In the book, Bai Xiaosheng set up that the killer Wuming's mother was the most beautiful woman in the world, but she was raped and gave birth to Wuming. Wuming was abandoned in the wild when he was born. When he was eaten by wild beasts, his cries startled the green python which was grieved by the loss of its cub. Qingmang rescued Wuming and raised him. When Wuming was seven years old, he was discovered by a killer organization and abducted to the headquarters. After training, he became an ace killer.
The reason why he is called a supporting role is that this character does not appear very many times in the book, only three times in the whole book. In the first episode, he was ordered to assassinate the virtuous king, but the action failed due to being disrupted by the male protagonist. Then the male protagonist chased Wuming in a fight scene that amazed all the book fans. This part of the plot mainly sets the tone for the hero who is highly skilled in martial arts, suave, cynical and unruly. Of course, as a foil for the hero, the character of the killer Wuming naturally cannot be really an unknown person. As a result, Bai Xiaosheng unexpectedly achieved success. Many book fans, especially female ones, immediately fell in love with this killer Wuming, who only said a few words when he first appeared, but whose looks and martial arts skills were comparable to those of the male protagonist with half of his face.
The second appearance of the killer Wuming was when the male protagonist and his confidante and gay friends were trapped in the headquarters of the evil cult. The killer Wuming was ordered to assassinate the leader of the Demon Cult, but was discovered by the male protagonist halfway and was fooled by him into helping attack the Demon Cult's water prison to rescue people for no apparent reason. During this period, the killer Wuming, because of his loyalty to his professional ethics, did not forget to kill the cult leader with his own hands. Before his death, the leader of the demon cult recognized Wuming, whose face was half disfigured. In order to take revenge on Wuming, he revealed Wuming's life experience before his death - his biological father was the leader of a cult, and his mother was the most beautiful woman in the world.
After the death of the cult leader, the news that the killer Wuming assassinated his biological father was also spread by the cult members. The entire Central Plains martial arts world was shocked. The most beautiful woman in the martial arts world, who was already the wife of the leader of the martial arts world at that time, could not bear the rumors and committed suicide. The leader of the martial arts world lost his beloved wife and took his anger out on Wuming. A hunt order was issued to hunt down Wuming.
Wuming's last appearance in the book is at the end of the book, when the male protagonist and his confidante and good friends expose the shocking secret that the martial arts leader wanted to overthrow the court at the martial arts conference, and that the most beautiful woman in the world did not commit suicide, but was killed by the martial arts leader himself after discovering the secret. The leader of the martial arts world ordered everyone to be killed. At the critical moment, the killer Wuming suddenly appeared and died together with the leader of the martial arts world.
In Bai Xiaosheng's writing, there are only a few words describing the killer Wuming. "The man in green shirt is unkempt, half demon and half fairy. He wears a green snake sword and his life is worth one penny." This means that the killer Wuming wears an inconspicuous green shirt every time he appears, and half of his face is disfigured because he was bitten by a wild beast when he was young, but the other half has inherited the beauty of his mother and is as beautiful as a fairy. His weapon is a soft green snake sword forged from ancient green steel. When it is soft, it is like a boneless poisonous snake, but after the internal force is input, it becomes as hard as steel and indestructible. Because of the special weapon, the swordsmanship is fierce and every move is deadly. Every time the killer Wuming appears, there is an ultimatum issued by the killer organization in advance - an ancient bronze coin, so life is worth one coin.
Unlike the male protagonist who is described in great detail in the book, Bai Xiaosheng used extremely concise words when describing the killer Wuming. It can be said that every book fan has a different killer Wuming in their hearts. It is precisely because everyone’s imaginations are different that after each version of "The Legend of Heroes" is broadcast, the actor who plays the killer Wuming cannot satisfy everyone. In order to create hype, some crews will enrich the side storyline of the Nameless Killer when adapting the script and add the Nameless Killer into the group of protagonists. There was even a director who had a wild idea and simply changed the killer Wuming's gender and had a touching love story with the male protagonist. Bai Xiaosheng was so angry that he protested fiercely during an interview with reporters and declared that he would never work with that director again.
Zhao Xin's version of "The Legend of Heroes" is based on the banner of respecting the original work, so naturally he will not add more scenes to the role of the killer Wuming. This is also why, even though this role is very famous, few people are willing to audition. On the one hand, the matter happened suddenly, and the crew who was stood up by the actor had no way to make schedules with suitable actors. On the other hand, Zhao Xin had too high requirements for the actors - perhaps he was angry about the previous actor's behavior of standing him up, Zhao Xin required that the actor who filled the position must be handsome and have martial arts skills. These two requirements basically passed more than 90% of the interviewees. Finally, the input and output are not proportional - according to Director Zhao's filming method that respects the original work, the character of the killer Wuming appears too rarely in the play, and the actors who agree to the requirements would rather spend their time playing the leading male or second male role in other crews, and are too lazy to play supporting roles in "The Legend of Heroes".
Because of the above reasons, the entire "Heroes of Legends" crew, including Zhao Xin, did not have high hopes for the actor to play the killer Wuming. And this idea didn't come until I saw the killer Wuming played by Tao Mu——
It was the height of summer and the sun was scorching hot. Tao Mu walked over in a leisurely manner, dressed in a green shirt. Because it was a martial arts costume, Tao Mu's hair was messy and scattered, which gave him a sense of wildness. The makeup artist had carefully painted half of his face with hideous, disfiguring makeup. It is the hideous ugliness of this half that further contrasts with the handsomeness and depth of the other half of the face. Under the sunlight, there is actually a visual shock of half demon and half fairy, and the amazing beauty that comes with it.
The most important thing is that Tao Mu's temperament perfectly expresses the requirements of the role. So much so that when Director Zhao saw Tao Mu, the description of the killer Wuming in "The Legend of Heroes" flashed through his mind: "Wuming stood there, his hands drooping respectfully, maintaining a harmless posture, the snake tail hilt of the Green Snake Soft Sword softly wrapped around his wrist. A gust of wind blew, the shadows of the trees swayed, and Wuming blended into the night like a venomous snake waiting for an opportunity to move, taking advantage of the prey's relaxation of vigilance to bully himself, and the Green Snake Soft Sword rolled towards the newcomer at lightning speed, just like a venomous snake spitting out its tongue, the sword light was cold and chilling."
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