Positive Energy + True Emotions, How did Xiao Zhan get out of his comfort zone and bestow “Ace Charm” on Gu Yiye

Original Article: https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/mZZGn9hTSyfxZDKhVV-cAw
Original Author: 彼黍离离
Translator’s note: This article appeared on Vlinkage’s Weixin Official Account on 18 Jan 2022.

Recently, as the trend of mainstream works begin to return to the market, military dramas became one of the hottest genres currently. The recent popular “Ace Troops” uses the hot blooded core and vivid details from the daily lives of the high spirited youths, to accurately target the viewing needs of the audiences, rousing endless internet discussions as wave after wave of hot topics attacks with the drama’s progression, making the drama undoubtedly the center of attention for the New Year season.

As the main lead, Xiao Zhan uses the precision of his sensitivity, detailed and immersive performance to move the audiences, a unique “Gu Yiye” allowed everyone to see the broadening of his acting range, and the vivid energy from his performance style unrestricted by genres.

Top #1 of viewership and popularity, the persistent “Gu Yiye” takes the audiences

To gauge if a television drama is popular, the ratings is the most direct tool, “Ace Troops” started airing on Jiangsu TV on 26 Dec, and the viewership was consistently high throughout, continuously being on top of the ratings, with the highest at 3.560% (on CSM 63 Cities), the highest of all dramas airing at the same slot.

In the streaming platforms where young adults are the main audience, this drama displayed the effect at the level of explosive popularity even, shooting to the Top 1 spot in the Vlinkage television ratings, and broke 9,000 heat rating within iQiyi platform.

To be able to receive such an excellent results in viewership, naturally a portion of it comes from the drama’s portrayal of the team spirit of the army, the positive energy from the strive for progress and the realistic depiction of the scenes. These deep meanings were able to influence youths in reaffirming their faith in their country, taking on the responsibility with passion in their hearts, and receiving affirmation from mainstream media such as “People’s Daily” and “Guang Ming Daily”. In the article from “Guang Ming Daily”, “Ace Troops” wrote a “a new era’s song of praises for boosting the army”, the Southern District Battle Zone also posted a “Gu Yiye highlights video” exclusively on its official Weibo.

As one of the main leads for “Ace Troops”, it could be said that Xiao Zhan perfectly embodied “Gu Yiye” as the entire drama’s spiritual character, the actor and the role mutually complemented each other. Hence, let us analyze why Gu Yiye was so well loved by audiences.

Firstly, based on the character of Gu Yiye, we could see that he was very complex and dynamic, a standout character within the drama. He came from a military family, he was proud and polite in his everyday life, with firm theoretical foundations in his profession, brave and tactical, and gains respect with his “intelligence”, and most importantly, when he first appeared he was full of ambition, foresight. In order to realize his goal to serve the people, he was willing to go through hardship and tribulations in the army, his persistence and never-give-up spirit influenced audiences.

Secondly, the growth in Gu Yiye also bestowed a strong dramatic power, from inexperienced, ambitious, to experiencing the tribulations of life, sacrificing his love in order to take care of his platoon leader’s widow and child, he also learned to take on burdens, and became more sturdy, calm, which increased the charm of the character even more.

Although this is the first military drama character for Xiao Zhan, his compatibility with Gu Yiye gave all the audiences a pleasant surprise, his warm and gentle, steady and clear temperament allowed him to create this unique image of a soldier with his soul, and unsurprisingly received all round praises from people in and out of the industry. Actor Zhang Zhijian, who portrayed Gu Yiye’s father, posted on Weibo and encouraged him, “No matter a hero or a winner, you are always the pride of the Gu family”, whereas director Liu Yan commented on Xiao Zhan during an interview, “He had respect for the drama and role, he had his own unique thoughts and understanding, and therefore he could create a character with flesh and blood.”

In addition, the popularity of the role and influence was visible on all major social media platforms, the related topics to the drama became a common sight in Douyin’s hot search list, suddenly, all major fire safety official Douyin accounts were participating in the topic “Ace Troops Button Up Challenge”, the activity “Wear a Red Dress for Gu Yiye” even broke through circles and evoked heated participation all over the internet.

Not just “physically” but also “mentally”, then there will be precise characterization

The vividness of the character and the charm of the actual personality, a lot of them came from the actor’s pursuit for excellence, with layers and layers of crafting and analysis, Xiao Zhan was able to completely present the layers of complexity on Gu Yiye, and the precision on degree of continuous growth of the character, it was obvious that he devoted a lot of effort and homework on this character.

“Physically”, in order to accurately present the temperament of a soldier, Xiao Zhan entered the project for military training before filming started, and never forgot to keep his straight posture and steadfast gaze throughout the drama, working hard to stay close to the image of a soldier in real life.

Of course, while being close “physically”, there was a need to be close “mentally” as well. At the end of the drama’s airing, Xiao Zhan posted his thoughts via Weibo, and expressed his “sense of empathy” with Gu Yiye for a long period of time, he exclaimed, “The you in front of me is like a giant mountain, no matter how the storm blows, you would be unwavering. It felt like all the turbulence and storms would only become the fertilizers for the ‘old pines and green cedar’ on the hill tops,” and only with such a character, that Gu Yiye was able to “become even more steadfast and full of energy when faced with every adversity.” It was precisely such thorough analysis that allowed Xiao Zhan to complete the character with flesh and blood, full of spirit, and gave a piece of work that satisfied both fans and audiences.

At the same time, because of the unique “scholarly temperament” of Gu Yiye, it meant that he would not be an in-your-face or unrestrained archetype, Xiao Zhan spent a lot of effort in conveying the inner strength and inner thoughts of the character, every phrase, every gaze and every movement were all full of soul, the excellent control of emotions and detail, allowed the audiences to easily empathize throughout the drama viewing. In the drama, it could be said that there was a lot of memorable acting “highlights”.

And, during his lockdown, the scene where he had a “hypothetical conversation” with his father, Gu Yiye was softly humming a song, his gaze steady as he recalled the teachings from his father, and decided that he would do “the right thing”, Xiao Zhan handled this difficult scene easily with “micro expressions” and “gaze control”, and instantly presented a clear headed soldier with ambition on screen.

Xiao Zhan was also commendable in controlling and conveying the character’s emotions for the heavy scenes. Upon hearing the news of his platoon leader’s sacrifice, at the start he was unwilling to believe, and raged that the doctor was a liar, to when realizing that he had lost his comrade in arms forever, broke down in tears, encompassing his deep guilt towards his platoon leader and the accusations of the cruelty of war, he conveyed the real sensation exquisitely, and was able to make the viewers feel for them in spite of themselves.

From a young actor to a national actor, acting skills is his foundation

In 2019, Wei Wuxian from “The Untamed” appeared suddenly, and actor Xiao Zhan came into audiences’ view, after which the proud and faithful Ji Chong from “The Wolf”, the pure minded Tang San from “Douluo Continent”, all witnessed an actor exploring endlessly, from inexperience to maturity, and within this process, Xiao Zhan’s growth and improvement was evident in the roles he had presented.

To him, “Ace Troops” was a choice totally out of his comfort zone, from period fantasy to contemporary genre, soldier Gu Yiye was refreshing, and totally broke through the general audiences’ perception of him, and also displayed Xiao Zhan’s strong creation capabilities in his performance, once again proving that he is an actor with unlimited potential and endless possibilities, and he would be at ease in dramas of different genres. At the same time, the role of Gu Yiye was also able to to expand his influence from the youth, to every age range, and even broader spectrum of audiences.

These types of transformation in Xiao Zhan, came from his focus in drawing the essence from life details and experiences, and also came from his endless study in acting, just like his words during interviews, he had always kept to an attitude of “truthful” performance, and also endlessly learning how to convey 100% of his sensation to the audience, “you cannot simply just have passion, when you feel that emotions have reached 100%, but the audiences can only feel 50%, how do you express the rest of the 50%?”

As such, he chose to accumulate himself, and walked into theater to participate in executive producer Lai Shengchuan’s play “A Dream Like A Dream”, staying down-to-earth and training his professional abilities, trying more possibilities for himself as an actor.

Off the screen and stage, Xiao Zhan continues to be understated in his daily life, humble and polite, clear minded and self aware, sincere and bright, using his roles and actions to guide his fans. In 2021, he became the Asian Games Dream Ambassador; In 2022 he became the Beijing Winter Olympics Ice Hockey National Stadium Winter Dream Promotion Ambassador, and Ice Hockey Sport Promotion Ambassador as a part of “The Promise of Winter Dream”, calling for the entire nation to follow the ice hockey sport, conveying positive energy constantly.

Worthy mentions for the 2 dramas currently awaiting broadcast on Xiao Zhan’s hands, “The Oath of Love” and “The Longest Promise”, 1 contemporary and 1 period, with totally different styles. Based on the available materials on these two characters, they are also not one dimensional, they are layered with depth, and from this we can see that Xiao Zhan’s acting range starts to become more varied as time goes on, with the ability to take on different types of roles with ease, and there will always be an unexpected new point of view every time he appears on screen.

In this era of fragmentation, it has become harder and harder to capture and focus audiences’ attention, everyone also have more and more strict expectations of artists, whereas Xiao Zhan, as a young actor with massive fan influence, is using his capabilities to convert his influence to positive energy, completing his metamorphosis from a niche artist to an actor with high national recognition.

He dares to breakthrough his comfort zone, and also dares to take on challenges, the future that belongs to Xiao Zhan, is on its way here.