In 1998, in a small village in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, a 13-year-old girl Wei Minzhi was directedZhang YimouSelected and starredThe movie "No One is Missing".The heroine of the same name is a temporary substitute teacher in the countryside.
At a young age, he took on the heavy responsibility of far exceeding his years, from a temporary worker who was just for dozens of "substitute fees" at the beginning, to Teacher Wei, who insisted on running around in order to make every student study.
With her simple and natural performance and feedback full of sincere emotions, she almost completed the answer sheet of this movie perfectly, so that the image of "Wei Minzhi" jumped into the audience's mind vividly and endured.
However, just as it was just emergingThe "basin of cold water" poured by the director woke her up, making her ignorant step into the entertainment industry and retract itand chose to withdraw from the circle at the most prosperous time.
Now twenty-three years have passed, and the once rural pig feeding baby and the short-lived new star "Mou Girl" have lived a life that is beyond everyone's expectations.
"No one is missing".
At the end of the 90s, in a remote village in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province, the already internationally renowned director Zhang Yimou was leading the crew to find actors for his new film.
At that time, Zhang Yimou was experiencing a low time, and the word-of-mouth box office of newly released movies fellcoincided with the death of his father, and the whole person was a little depressed.
It was in this way that he read **"There is a Sun in the Sky".
Moved by the vitality of the character and his dedication to commitment, he decided to adapt this work into a movie and use non-professional actors to play it.
The news of "big director casting" caused quite a stir in the local village, including Wei Minzhi, who was only 13 years old.
What she doesn't know is that her life is about to change drastically because of this movie.
Wei Minzhi is a native of the village, with an ordinary family background, and needs to feed pigs, cook, and do farm work every day.
She had never been exposed to film, hadn't even watched TV a few times, and had never even set foot in her home village before that.
However, she has always had a strong curiosity and desire to explore the outside world.
On the day of the audition, it was a spring morning, and when Wei Minzhi and her sister Wei Congzhi were wandering around the village after finishing their work as usual, they happened to pass by a room full of people, and they curiously squeezed in.
The assistant director Li Hong, who was calling the villagers to audition, fell in love with Wei Congzhi, who was clever and lively in the crowd, but after talking, she found that she was too shy and couldn't let go of her hands and feet in front of the camera.
Li Hong, who was a little disappointed, turned to Wei Minzhi next to her, but saw that Wei Minzhi, who was originally timid, was very open.
She not only sang a children's song in person, but also accompanied by a dance choreographed and danced on the spot.
Li Hong was impressed by her and asked her:"What about you, do you dare to act in a movie? ”
Wei Minzhi replied loudly without thinking about it:"I dare! ”
That's all,Wei Minzhi stood out from more than 10,000 candidates and became the film's eponymous heroine.
But in the face of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Wei Minzhi's teacher's family was very worried, feeling that making a movie was too far away and delayed learning.
The conservative mother, fearing for her daughter's safety, kept repeating:"You can't go, you can't go! ”
Luckily, her father was an open-minded man, and after hesitating for a while, he encouraged his daughter to seize the opportunity – and since there was such an opportunity, you should try it. ”
Eventually,Wei Minzhi plucked up the courage and embarked on her film journey.
In 1999, the movie "No One is Missing" began to be released nationwide.
The story is about a teacher in charge of teaching the whole school in Shuiquan Primary School in a remote village, and the teacher Gao who is in charge of teaching the whole school has to take a temporary leave due to family affairs.
The teacher was not there and the students still needed to attend classes, so the village chief brought in Wei Minzhi, a 13-year-old girl from the village, to substitute for her, because she was the only one in the village who had completed primary school.
Because of the ** of "50 yuan substitute teaching fee", the young Wei Minzhi firmly agreed to Mr. Gao's request that "no one is missing".
Zhang Huike, a 10-year-old boy in the class, had to drop out of school with his relatives to work in the city because of his family's poverty.
After Wei Minzhi found out, she set out on the road to the city alone desperately, just to find Zhang Huike and complete the promise to Teacher Gao that "no one is missing".
The film caused a sensation upon its release, and received numerous praises not only at home but also overseas.
Venice International Film Festival, Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Award, Huabiao Award, São Paulo International Film Festival ......The spotlights at various film festivals at home and abroad dazzle her eyes.
She even won the Best Performance Award at the 21st U.S. Young Artist Awards in 2000.
With the halo of "Mou Girl", advertisements, invitations, and scripts have been foundSeeing that this former rural girl is about to enter the flowery entertainment circle.
At this time, a basin of "cold water" was poured down, and it also extinguished Wei Minzhi's "star dream" that was still in ignorance.
Fade the halo
The bright starlight has not yet been extinguished, and Zhang Yimou found Wei Minzhi first.
His words poured like a basin of cold water on her, and she was beaten by all directions
Minzhi, you are in the spotlight for the success of a movie, but this is just a unique experience in your life, and it can't change your fate.
I hope you can look at all this soberly and not get carried away by the praise from the outside world. I don't recommend that you step into the entertainment industry, you are not suitable.
But if you can get into a good school and study hard, it will be the most solid foundation for your future. Now, that's all that matters. ”
These words are like a key, opening the faint confusion in her heart under the recent noise and flowers
The success of this movie is actually just an "accident" of the right time, place and people, Wei Minzhi, who bravely took this step, has reaped the results and opened up the world of new cognition;
But if you are dazzled by the flowers and try to go to the world that your ability and capital cannot bear, you are likely to be "beaten back to the original shape" in one day.
She figured everything out and was surprisingly sober :Continuing to study is the best way out for her.
Therefore,Wei Minzhi became the first "Mou girl" to quit the circle as soon as she became popular, back to the familiar school, busy with school.
Fortunately, the film brought her far more than a few months of popularity, but threw out an opportunity to really change her fate.
The principal of an elite private school in Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital, invited her to study and promised to pay for her tuition and fees and her family's living expenses.
Wei Minzhi agreed.
In order to change her fate through studying, she poured all her mind into studying after entering the school, because even if she has a poor foundation, she needs to work a hundred times harder than others.
Although she was exhausted from her busy study during the day, she still insisted on studying every night when she returned to her dormitory, even after the lights went out, she still studied hard under the bed with a flashlight, and refused to stop until her eyelids fought.
In the three months before the college entrance examination, she used three broken flashlights alone.
However, in between studies,She is still thinking about her "movie dream", but it is not the dream of being a big star actorIt's about becoming a director.
Wei Minzhi's parents had hoped that she would apply for a normal school, and felt that it was "unrealistic" to enter a film school, but she did not compromise easily this time.
This time, her dream of a movie is to be down-to-earth rather than in the air, so why can't she give it a go?
The first time she tried to apply for the Beijing Film Academy, because of her lack of professional foundation, she failed in the third test, but she still did not choose to give up.
After adjusting her goals, she was admitted to the choreography and directing major of Xi'an University of Foreign Affairs and Chinese with an excellent score of 200 points above the cut-off score, and became a reserve in the film industry.
During her college years, Wei Minzhi also got the opportunity to study abroad, but her English foundation was poor and she almost couldn't make the trip.
For this reason, she began a painstaking journey of learning English, repeating test papers every day, practicing speaking, and squeezing out time to go to the computer room to check materials.
In the past two years, classmates often recalled seeing her hurriedly walking into the study room with an English dictionary to study.
Her hard work paid off in the end, and she was able to study abroad.
23 years have passed,Wei Minzhi studied, graduated, got married, had children, and eventually became a first-class practitioner in the film industry.
She also used her own experience to direct and shoot a documentary "Miracle Daughter" to fulfill her childhood dream.
Many years ago, when Zhang Yimou took the film "The Love of the Hawthorn Tree" to the Hawaii International Film Festival, the person in charge of interviewing him was Wei Minzhi, who had settled abroad.
After the reunion, he couldn't help but sigh:
"She was very young when she was making movies with me, and now she's here asking me questions, and it makes me feel like I'm in a dream. ”
Maybe he didn't expect that a kind reminder back then really changed the fate of a girl.
Teach your child how to make choices
Wei Minzhi's life has experienced three important forks in the roadEach choice has had a huge impact on her life.
At the casting meeting of "No One is Missing", if she has a little stage fright and can't let the assistant director notice her, then she will lose the opportunity to appear in the movie;
Without participating in the movie, her life trajectory was probably the same as many girls of the same age in the same village at that time, she was better able to complete compulsory education, and was finally arranged to marry early and have children, and she and her husband both went to the city to work;
When she suddenly became famous and famous, if she did not listen to Director Zhang Yimou's persuasion, but insisted on staying in the entertainment industry, then there is a high probability that it will be fleeting like fireworks in the end;
The third important fork in her life was the choice of the college entrance examination major, she did not follow the requirements of her parents and teachers to apply for the normal major, but chose to pursue the possible "dream";
If it weren't for this persistence, she might be living an ordinary life now, but the "movie dream" has become her eternal regret and obsession ......
Looking at these three choices and outcomes, it is not difficult to see the problem.
Although nowadays there is always an emphasis on "respecting" and "satisfying" children, but in real life,These respectful satisfactions must be based on reality.
In ordinary or even poor families, the trial and error rate of children in life is far lower than that of children from well-off families, which is a helpless reality that we must face head-on.
In such a situation, parents with more life experience should do more than blindly "respect".It is about communication, weighing the pros and cons, and making a good bottom line for children.
But when children have the ability to take responsibility for the consequences of their life choices, they don't need to continue to bind them with our ideas, but let them make their own choices.
The reality may be full of helplessness, but there is still a chance to break through the clouds and shine into the daylight.
Ignorant and rebellious children may not be able to make their own choices correctly, but as parents, we should at least escort their future, not let the ship be easily swept over by the wind and waves, and do not lock their oars for a long voyage!
What do you have to say about Wei Minzhi's story?