What kind of actor is Zhou Dongyu?

Author |Weinica.

Edit|Li Chunhui.

Zhou Dongyu, who won the "Three Golds" three years ago, is proud, I am afraid it is difficult to imagine that three years later, she will become the actress that the audience least wants to see. This year, Douban has made an upgraded version of the "Golden Broom Award" - Leziren Film and Television Awards, Zhou Dongyu was nominated for "the actress who wants to take away the most", and the number of votes is even higher than that of the fairy female director Min who was ridiculed by the group.

And this year should have been an explosive period for Zhou Dongyu's career. The inventory of movies made in the past three years because of the epidemic has almost been backlogged until it will be released this year. In 2023, Zhou Dongyu will release a total of 6 participating movies, excluding supporting roles and cameos, and there are also 3 starring movies.

But the result is that the audience has avoided the word "Zhou Dongyu" since then. The "Burning Winter" and "Parrot Killing" starring her have a worse reputation than the other, so that when "Solid as a Rock" and "Hot Search" were announced, they didn't dare to post Zhou Dongyu's materials.

Zhou Dongyu, whose popularity has fallen to the bottom, can now be said to be to blame at every turn. For example, at this year's Golden Rooster Awards, when Zhou Dongyu presented Ge You with no emotion and read the manuscript according to the script, he was angrily criticized by the masses as "arrogant and rude" and "unworthy of morality".

It's been a long time since the film industry has said "box office poison". Because nowadays, since movie actors generally can't talk about box office appeal, the negative effect of "don't watch it if you have it" is also limited. And Zhou Dongyu seems to have re-deserved the term, she herself represents a certain type of movie, although it is the kind that many people are not very interested in.

Some people also argued against Zhou Dongyu: Zhou Dongyu should not be measured by box office results, Zhou Dongyu is not an actor who carries the box office on the commercial track, but a Tsing Yi actress on the acting track. It can be said that she has had trial and error in taking on the role recently, but it cannot be denied that she has worked hard in acting.

So, what kind of actor is Zhou Dongyu?is the only actress of 90 flowers, the darling of capital who stepped on the industrial outlet, and the muse of literary films or the direct creator?People are tired of Zhou Dongyu, or tired of fake literature and art.

There are limited actresses

However, Zhou Dongyu's three works "Burning Winter", "Parrot Killing" and "Hot Search" are all failures from both commercial and artistic perspectives. The Douban scores are all lower than 65 points, and the highest box office stopped at more than 63 million.

In the early years, when Zhou Dongyu's predecessor Zhang Ziyi filmed "Very Lucky" and Zhou Xun filmed "The Best Life of a Coquettish Woman" and "My Early Girlfriend", they actually experienced a movie reputation overturn. But ** generally still hopes that they will receive more high-quality plays, and few people criticize the personal problems of actors. But after Zhou Dongyu's works overturned this year, ** was almost one-sided and blamed on Zhou Dongyu.

The treatment is so different, probably because Zhou Dongyu does have great limitations compared with the conditions of Zhou Xun and Zhang Ziyi, these "big flowers". This year's three works just exposed all her shortcomings.

"Burning Winter" exposes the shortcomings of Zhou Dongyu's physical condition - his juvenile body shape, which is difficult to interpret the role with sexual tension. It's not that the audience can't understand the triangle, but it has to be convincing.

First of all, the female character who wanders between two men has to be a "muse" with sexual tension. In the classic "triangular relationship" movies in history, "Zu and Zhan" and "Drama in Paris", the heroines Jeanne Mona and Eva Green are all well-known screen goddesses. Imagine, if Zhou Dongyu is replaced with ** and Ni Ni, the story of "Burning Winter" will be much more reasonable in an instant.

"Parrot Killing" is also about swimming between two men, and Zhou Dongyu was once again confirmed to be the lack of "sexual tension".

In addition to this, there is the question of a sense of faith. Zhou Dongyu once revealed in an interview that when she was approached in this play, she asked the director Ma Yingxin about the suitability of the role, and she also knew that she gave the impression that she was smart and clever, which was very different from the girl who was deceived by the killing pig. In the end, Ma Yingxin, as a rookie director, did not solve the problem of Zhou Dongyu's suitability. Many viewers expressed their elusiveness about the heroine's feelings for the two male protagonists, and Zhou Dongyu was also jokingly called "the first wife of the year on the Chinese screen" by netizens.

"Hot Search" got rid of the plot of "triangular relationship", but exposed the problem of Zhou Dongyu's lines and aura. It is difficult for her to interpret the roles of strong women and entrepreneurs. In the movie tidbits, she also admitted that she had encountered great difficulties in playing Chen Miao, and director Xin Yukun had always been dissatisfied with her lines. Zhou Dongyu felt unfamiliar when she read a large paragraph of communication terms in "Hot Search", and she was about to catch up with her award speech for Ge You at the Golden Rooster Awards.

Zhou Dongyu's current performance is similar to her red carpet styling problems in her early years. In terms of hardware, she is not a clothes rack, and not all looks are suitable for her. In order to regain the goodwill of the audience, the drama must be like a changed makeup team to carry the reality and ideals, and find a new positioning that is not only suitable for its own hardware, but also can highlight the charm.

Trapped in youth

Zhou Dongyu's impressive characters are almost all "middle school students".

In 2010, 18-year-old Zhou Dongyu was selected by Zhang Yimou to play "The Love of the Hawthorn Tree", and was known to the world for the role of "pure girl" Jingqiu. I have to say that the "girls" portrayed by Zhang Yimou's lens seem to come out of a mold.

Zhou Dongyu, like his predecessor Zhang Ziyi and his junior Liu Haocun, is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people with the image of two braids. But the difference is that Zhou Dongyu's outgoing and bold personality in private is far from the screen image. This also made Zhou Dongyu the first rebellious girl.

Ning Hao gave Zhou Dongyu the first chance to rebel. In 2014, Zhou Dongyu challenged the image of a rebellious and murderous Matt girl for the first time in "Heart Flower Road", and unexpectedly received praise. So in 2016, she played a similar advanced version of the role in "July and Ansheng" - Ansheng, and successfully created an image of a "little sister" who smokes, drinks, and clubs, and won the recognition of the Golden Horse Award.

Zhou Dongyu, who won the actress, completely let go of himself, and the external performance mode was widely used to cover all kinds of roles. In 2017, Zhou Dongyu released 9 works in one go, including 6 movies and 3 dramas. But the year of the outbreak of this work did not leave Zhou Dongyu with a memorable role, only the role of the female chef in "Like You" can be regarded as letting people see the potential of Zhou Dongyu's ** Bai Baihe's "chick movie".

But Zhou Dongyu doesn't seem to be here, after all, the timing of her stepping on it is too good, and there are too many opportunities. After being sealed, it was in the bubble period of the film and television industry, and Zhou Dongyu at that time was chased by the sky-high salary, and even became the producer of the series. Previously, the financial report of Dinglong Culture, the parent company of Dream Star Shengyuan, the producer of "The King Behind the Scenes", disclosed that Zhou Dongyu's film and television culture communication Xinyi Studio was its largest ** business in 2017 and 2018, which exposed in disguise that Zhou Dongyu's salary for starring in the play may be as high as 10.9 billion.

It wasn't until 2019 that Zhou Dongyu cooperated with Zeng Guoxiang, the director of "July and Ansheng", to deliver a breakthrough role. In the movie "Young You", Zeng Guoxiang pulled back her overkill "external performance" and asked her to play a bullied introverted girl Chen Nian, which amazed many audiences.

From a shy girl to a rebellious girl, from a rebellious girl to an introvert *** Zhou Dongyu, all the outstanding roles can't escape the category of "youth films". The reason why Zhang Yimou and Zeng Guoxiang can make good use of Zhou Dongyu is because they give the most suitable role for Zhou Dongyu's appearance, and at the same time, they supplement their own training according to the actor's understanding.

Zhou Dongyu was 26 years old when he filmed "Young You", but he played *** but had no sense of disobedience, I don't know if it was a kind of luck or misfortune. Her figure and acting skills seem to be trapped in the "** era."

Except for *** Zhou Dongyu, most of the other characters interpreted are decent. Although his acting skills do not pull his hips, he has no character charm at all, and he is often criticized as a "little adult". For example, in "Solid as a Rock", the policewoman played by Zhou Dongyu has no deterrent power in the face of a group of armed gangsters, but she has to protect the "big head" Lei Jiayin. Not to mention the emotional drama with Lei Jiayin, like a grandson love who is a generation.

Zhou Dongyu, who is no longer in demand

At present, Zhou Dongyu's situation in the circle is clear at a glance. The sought-after actress in the past is now cold. In fact, Zhou Dongyu can become the only actress of 90 flowers, and there is a certain reason why this generation of Xiaohua is almost mainly in the field of dramas, and there is not much competition in the film industry. Because 85 flowers have established a successful traffic model, the 90 flower generation generally chases and follows this model, and the two traffic representatives, Yang Zi and Di Lieba, rarely get involved in movies.

And for a long time, there weren't many themes for female characters on the big screen. Bona's main theme blockbuster, female characters are dominated by borders. The low-cost love and youth films of the light are mainly based on holding their own small flowers and small lives. 90 Flowers, and few people can take the comedy route and keep up with Jia Ling, Ma Li, and Zhang Xiaofei.

Zhou Dongyu's resources were not good in his early years, and he had no works for a whole year after his debut. The turning point is to catch up with the Hong Kong circle, some people think that it is the credit of the brokerage company Taiyang Chuanhe, and some people think that it is related to Zhou Dongyu's former rumored girlfriend Dou Jingtong. Anyway, since 2015, Zhou Dongyu has indeed starred in many Hong Kong directors.

But this kind of Hong Kong film is actually difficult to bring out actresses. Wen Yongshan has mixed so many Hong Kong films, but in the end, she still has a name in domestic entertainment by relying on Chen Sicheng's suspense film "Disappearing Her". Xu Hongyu's "Like You" and Zeng Guoxiang's "July and Ansheng" and "Young You" are all unexpected surprises in the Hong Kong circle. But the two of them are not mixed in the love and youth film tracks now, Xu Hongyu was poached to shoot a TV series, and Zeng Guoxiang went abroad to shoot the Netflix version of "The Three-Body Problem".

In addition to the two of them in the Hong Kong circle, it is difficult for Zhou Dongyu to find suitable directors and plays. In addition, in recent years, the "00 Flowers" actress Zhang Zifeng has been menacing, and has become the first choice for bitter love dramas and **, which has further compressed Zhou Dongyu's space for receiving dramas.

Perhaps forced by the situation, or perhaps because of the "Big Three" actresses overseas, Zhou Dongyu's focus in recent years has shifted to the field of low-cost independent films, that is, literary films that focus on awards at film festivals. At the same time, she herself frequently goes to the venture capital of the film exhibition and personally selects the right book.

At present, only "Burning Winter" has made Zhou Dongyu gain something, and director Chen Zheyi took her to the Cannes Film Festival and was shortlisted for a kind of attention unit. And this road is not easy to walk, Huang Lu and Li Meng are examples of failure, they have acted in so many literary films but have no results, and they can only end up with a folk goddess of literature and art consolation prize.

Compared with them, Zhou Dongyu has other countermeasures. It is rumored that her next movie "Flower Pig" will be a movie produced and saved by Zhou Dongyu, which means that her voice has become greater. But being a producer is a test of aesthetics and ability, and we don't know what kind of works Producer Zhou will hand over, so let's wait and see.