It is also a "Death Penalty" role. If you watch actors such as Deng Chao and Zhang Yi together, the difference will come out.

At the end of 2021, CCTV produced a program called "Forty Years of Interviews with the Golden Rooster Awards". The guest of the interview on December 3 was Deng Chao.

In the program, Deng Chao revealed the details of the execution scene he filmed in the movie "Heart of the Sun".

Deng Chao is undoubtedly a dedicated actor, but Brother Pi never expected that he would be so dedicated.

The execution scene lasted 7 minutes. During these 7 minutes, in order to pursue reality, the crew injected Deng Chao’s arm with real injections, and even the blood regeneration was clearly visible.

What drives Deng Chao’s body is glucose.

This scene was shot three times in one shot. At intervals between each shot, Deng Chao had to wait until the eye of the needle was better before he could shoot the next one.

Because the filming took a long time, his arms were swollen by the end of the filming.

In order to appear more realistic, Deng Chao's face and mouth are crooked.

At the end of the filming, Deng Chao's face began to convulse uncontrollably. After the scene was finished, the scene was completely silent. After a while, the assistant director came up to hug him and murmured: "It was so real at that time." I thought you were dead."

Because of one scene, Deng Chao experienced a physiological reaction and filming experience that he had never had before in his life, which seems to be rare for every actor.

It is actually difficult to interpret "death" in the execution ground. In order to exaggerate the atmosphere, enhance appeal, and better express the character's characteristics, some film and television works often need to present the entire death process.

But for actors, "death" can never be experienced, so the evaluation criteria for performing "death penalty scenes" have no real basis to test and can only rely on the audience's perception.

In Pi Ge’s impression, there are four very classic “death penalty scenes” in the Chinese film and television industry.

Today we might as well put them together to see what the characteristics of each actor's performance are, and what are the advantages of their interpretation of "death", which method is more advanced.

Without further ado, let’s start with Deng Chao.

1. "Heart-Scorching Sun" Deng Chao

Deng Chao's death penalty scene is recognized by the mainstream.

For his portrayal of Xin Xiaofeng in the film, he not only won the Golden Rooster Award and the Hundred Flowers Award for Best Actor, but was also nominated for the Golden Horse Award for Best Actor.

The execution scene in "Heart of the Burning Sun" was also selected into the acting teaching materials of the Beijing Film Academy, becoming a truly "textbook-level" acting skill.

Xin Xiaofeng in the film is a "little co-policeman". He is thoughtful and introverted, but he is burdened with moral shackles.

life.

He really wants to be a good father and a kind person, but he cannot find inner peace.

Because a long time ago, he raped a girl and indirectly caused the death of the girl's family.

When he was convicted, the only crime he committed was rape, which would not lead to death. However, burdened with heavy moral shackles and feeling infinite guilt, he finally decided to embrace death to complete his own redemption.

Thus, there was this famous "death penalty drama".

For the first time, the audience saw the entire process of a person being executed on the big screen. It was both shocking and terrifying.

But more importantly, it is because Deng Chao's performance infinitely amplified ordinary people's fear of death and the death penalty.

This 7-minute scene has three obvious levels.

The first level is physiological rejection and tension.

The needle penetrated into the flesh and before the medicine was injected, Deng Chao started to tremble.

Because the body was tightly tied to the bed, the iron bed and the floor made a harsh sound as Deng Chao shook and rubbed against each other. The sound was so sharp that people instinctively began to feel disgust and fear.

The second level is the contradiction between the pleasure of "relief" and the torment of waiting for death.

At this time, the artificial drug injection has been completed, but the machine toxin has not yet been injected.

Knowing that he was about to die, Deng Chao smiled. The heavy shackles of so many years were finally being let go.

But this smile was a bit ferocious and crazy before death.

There is not a single line on the entire screen, and there is no soundtrack, only Deng Chao's rapid breathing and faint laughter.

A character who sounds the death knell for himself with laughter has already brought a great sense of depression and suffocation to the audience.

The third level is the true expression of death.

As the toxin was injected, Deng Chao's smile gradually disappeared, and then turned into a strange expression of neither crying nor laughing, and unable to control twitching.

It was in this paragraph that Deng Chao's face cramped.

One eye is half open, and the other eye is closed. The range of movement becomes smaller and smaller due to the arrival of death, until it disappears.

Deng Chao's performance was very realistic, and the audience seemed to experience a "death penalty" with him. The subjective emotions of helplessness and despair overlapped with the physiological reaction of spastic facial paralysis, and the fear of death was maximized.

That's not all. In the end, director Cao Baoping also arranged for a beam of warm light to shine into the half-open eyes of the dead Xin Xiaofeng.

This scene shocked Pi Ge as much as the death in any movie he had seen before.

This is the beam of light that confirms Xin Xiaofeng's death. In fact, it also metaphors that Xin Xiaofeng finally gave up the darkness and used death to pursue the light.

In terms of look and feel, it has achieved a double sublimation. For this performance alone, Deng Chao deserves more than one Best Actor trophy.

2. Louis Koo in "War on Drugs"

If Deng Chao's background is kind, then the poison master Cai Tianming played by Louis Koo in "War on Drugs" is completely evil .

He is greedy for life and afraid of death, scheming and ruthless. In order to survive, he will kill anyone who blocks his way. In order to reduce his sentence, he can also cooperate with the police and tell all the information as soon as he is caught.

Cai Tianming is a sophisticated egoist. All his behavioral motives are to gain benefits for himself, including cooperation and betrayal.

He can shoot his godfather, or shed tears for his dead wife. In "Drug War", Cai Tianming is the most fleshed-out character, bar none.

The reason why it is plump has a lot to do with the final death penalty scene.

Like "The Sun", the death penalty in "Drug War" is also a lethal injection.

However, compared with the exaggeration of the emotion of death penalty and the amplification of fear in "Scorching Sun", both the execution process and Louis Koo's interpretation in "Drug War" are closest to the real death penalty.

Cai Tianming, who was lying on the execution bed, still had no luck with his own survival, so when the executioners tied his hands and feet, he still talked incoherently about information that was no longer valuable.

Even as he was being injected, he was still begging, "Wait, wait, I have news."

His eyes were covered with red bloodshot eyes, because prisoners rarely sleep peacefully during executions.

The information that was constantly coming out of his mouth was in sharp contrast to the indifference of the police around him. A kind of helplessness and despair in the face of death spread instantly.

In the close-up, his clothes were untied and covered with electrodes.

Facing the physiological fear of death, he couldn't help crying. Even so, he still tried hard to recall information about criminals that might help him escape death, as if he was trying to Looking for a life-saving straw.

The actual process of lethal injection is the same as in "Drug War". The first pump of drug must be injected first to make the prisoner lose consciousness and prevent him from convulsing or making excessive actions.

The second shot was the fatal drug that contributed to the prisoner's death.

So after the first injection, Louis Koo was speechless and his head was covered by a black cloth. Only the rise and fall of his chest told the audience that he was still alive.

With the injection of the second injection of toxin, the rise and fall of the chest gradually stopped, and death came completely.

In the face of death, silence is the most terrifying thing. The chattering in the first half is in sharp contrast to the deathly silence at this time.

Watching Louis Koo's chest rising and falling gradually stopped, a documentary-like sense of reality came to my face.

There are no unnecessary emotions, but the dramatic tension has reached its peak. What is more terrifying than death?

After watching this performance, I realized Goo Jai’s "documentary" acting skills, and I heard thunder in the silent place.

Although his acting skills are not as explosive as Deng Chao's, he used the restraint in this death penalty scene to complete another interpretation of death.

3. Wang Zhiwen in "Black Ice"

Unlike Deng Chao and Louis Koo, the death penalty of the drug lord Guo Xiaopeng played by Wang Zhiwen in "Black Ice" is the most traditional shooting.

"Black Ice" was filmed in 2001. At that time, there was no idea of ??lethal injection. Because of the need to enhance legal deterrence, executions were always carried out by shooting.

If the crime is extremely heinous, the prisoner will be brought to the people for a solemn public demonstration, and then executed.

Because there are many rumors about the death penalty among the people, such as the location of the shooting, whether to re-shoot, how to carry out the execution, etc., this also makes Wang Zhiwen's death penalty in "Black Ice" have some popular science and shock effects.

However, in the play, Wang Zhiwen's performance of this death penalty scene is still top-notch.

To understand the charm of this death penalty scene, we must also combine it with the character Guo Xiaopeng.

Guo Xiaopeng’s father is a writer and his mother is a famous actress. Later, his parents divorced. Guo Xiaopeng grew up in a twisted family and suffered all kinds of discrimination and humiliation, which led to his extreme personality.

He has all the advantages that a good person should have. He is patient, hard-working, and diligent. He is talented and has a doctorate from Princeton University. He has the temperament of a Western gentleman and an Eastern gentleman.

But in his inner world, he had long closed himself in dark shackles. This created his perverted and twisted character and his madness to use drugs to control everything.

During the performance, Wang Zhiwen injected his personal charm into Guo Xiaopeng, so that from beginning to end, Guo Xiaopeng exuded a great personal charm.

Before the execution, Wang Zhiwen even had an 11-minute inner monologue. This monologue has a full voice, a steady rhythm, a strong breath, and accurate pronunciation. It can not only show the full range of Guo Xiaopeng's character He is confident and can see Wang Zhiwen's profound script skills.

It is no exaggeration to say that Guo Xiaopeng is the image of film and television dramas, but his soul belongs to Wang Zhiwen.

In this 11-minute talk, Guo Xiaopeng vented his thoughts on philosophy, sociology, economics and various personal insights in an almost "perverted" way. Because of Wang Zhiwen's blessing, even Some viewers regard this monologue as a model.

From beginning to end, Wang Zhiwen showed no trace of acting. You seem to be watching a death row prisoner making his final statement to himself, calm and relieved.

This calmness immediately transformed into a huge and strong visual impact in the subsequent execution scene, because Wang Zhiwen almost performed the entirety of a prisoner who was about to be executed.

Baldheaded and wearing prison uniform, Wang Zhiwen was neatly escorted out of the detention center and then boarded a prison van.

The camera behind the bars shakes, and the execution site is surrounded by desolation.

During the whole process, Wang Zhiwen's expression did not change at all.

Only at the moment when he knelt down, he finally showed his shock and fear, especially the swallowing movement after closing his mouth, which was a god-level process, and the dry panic spread across the screen You can all feel it.

In the early days, he was so arrogant and unruly, but now he is also "embarking on the road to hell" in such embarrassment. This is a huge impact on ordinary people.

Wang Zhiwen was always in an extremely relaxed performance state, and the tension until the end with his back to the gun seemed to be just Guo Xiaopeng's tension.

That expression is as natural as the physiological reaction of the character itself, as if we are witnessing a shooting as a third party.

The hand-held photography and close-up techniques quickly amplify all of Wang Zhiwen's emotions. The tension of death is imminent at this moment, which is enough to raise the audience's heart to their throats, creating a thrilling atmosphere.

Wang Zhiwen’s textbook-like death penalty scene has been highly praised since then.

In Wang Qianyuan and Wu Yanzu's "Crash", this scene is almost a storyboard-style tribute.

From this, we can see the profound impact of Wang Zhiwen's scene on subsequent crime movies, and it also proves Wang Zhiwen's superb acting skills from the side.

4. "Above the Cliff" Zhang's translation

The first three death sentences are all related to crime to some extent.

Therefore, as an audience, when watching their execution, we will always unconsciously put ourselves on the side of justice, as if we have also participated in the trial and contributed to justice.

So although they all watch death penalty dramas, their understanding of death remains at the shallow level of "the disappearance of life."

The death sentence in "Above the Cliff" translated by Zhang is completely different.

Because this scene relies on a belief and mission, symbolizing a precious new life.

Our party comrade Zhang Xianchen, played by Zhang Yi, was arrested while executing the "Utra" operation in the Northeast.

From being caught to execution, Zhang Xianchen has experienced a lot of physical torture.

This electrocution scene was the most shocking to Pi Ge this year. Under Zhang Yi's interpretation, what was conveyed to the audience was completely the feeling of physical pain.

When the switch was pushed up, Zhang Yi began to shake all over.

This kind of shaking seems to be out of mental control. It is a knee-jerk reflex-like rejection reaction of the body, and it is an involuntary shaking.

During the subsequent questioning, I could feel that Zhang Xianchen was relying solely on willpower to support his body. However, due to the serious injury, he could no longer even control the opening and closing of his eyes, let alone Talk about speaking up.

When filming this scene, Zhang Yi entered the state very early.

Because he is a famous "experience actor", this electrocution scene was actually a moderate amount of electric current added, and it was not a complete performance. After the two electrocution scenes were filmed, Zhang Yimou expressed his heartache as he watched one scene.

It is also because of this scene that the final scene where Zhang Xianchen was executed was full of tension.

Zhang Xianchen, in front of the gun, raised his head high, and the arrogance supported by faith will never be lost. Before he died, you could clearly see the smile on his lips.

This is liberation, the nobility of our party’s soldiers, the sublimation of devoting one’s life to a great cause, and the final summary of one’s mission.

The moment the gun rang out, the smile disappeared. Yu Hewei next to him was startled. The two movie stars' dialogue-free scenes had a perfect tacit understanding, which added a heavier annotation to this death penalty scene.

Zhang Yi is a master of acting. He acts like anything. Even when his face is blurred, he can accurately convey his emotions to the audience through movements and micro-expressions, which is amazing.

Comparing the death penalty scenes of the above four actors, it is not difficult for us to draw conclusions:

When Deng Chao was executing the death penalty, he tended to embody the death process, amplifying the physiological fear of death;

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Louis Koo's death penalty drama focuses on the restoration of the real lethal injection and the shaping of the character's ultimate character;

Wang Zhiwen's death penalty drama has a strong look and impact, with a thrilling atmosphere in it ;

Zhang Yi's death penalty scene focuses on the character's attitude towards death. Through the contrast between the unrecognizable injury effect costume and the final smile, the matter of death is sublimated.

In the final analysis, these four "executions" all serve to shape the characters, perfect the story, and express the theme of the film.

They all showed the charm of top actors in their performances. Each has its own splendor and brilliance. It is fun to watch!

Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: Mayfly

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