Ethan was more serious than I had imagined.
According to my idea of opening remarks, I should have told him that "Ji Cunxi" is a very important role in the youth of our generation of girls.
But I didn’t mention that character in the end, because it was out of date for the current Ethan Ethan.
The temperament of Ruan Jingtian himself was a little far from that naughty boy and noble boy who had been popular all over Asia, and even his voice felt thicker and hoarse than before.
When we meet Chen Guilin in 2024, we see a character who is more special than Ji Cunxi, than the "monk" in "Monga," and than any stereotype.
At the beginning of the movie, a killer who swallows his food like a middle school student who has just finished playing football still has a bit of a crazy and flamboyant youthful atmosphere left on his body; after four years of absconding in the story, Chen Guilin, who decided to find a good ending for his life, has a huge stone in his heart, sharp and alienated to the point of being unfamiliar.
Since the second half of last year, Ruan Jingtian has released four major new films in a row. When he returns to the public’s field of vision, he has a different aura from before, like a ferocious animal. Looking into his eyes, there is still water flowing deep.
If you ask Ethan, what’s going on? I guess he will shrug his shoulders slightly and say, There is no reason, this is God’s will.
Before the movie was released, Ruan Jingtian gave an exclusive interview with Nanfeng Window. It’s hard to say why "providence" has become the keyword of our interview.
The actor’s current emphasis and understanding of the cause and effect of life is brought by Chen Guilin, by Huang Jingfu, or by age and experience? But you can also learn his method: we will mention "providence" here and now, which is arranged by providence.
The story that Ruan Jingtian wants to tell us even dates back more than 1,700 years.
"It will come to you"
Jin Dynasty (in the middle of the 3rd century AD), Yixing Yangxian, there was a stubborn teenager named Zhou Chu, who lost his father since he was a child, neglected to discipline, and his mother doted on him, "not weak, strong, good galloping field hunting, not cultivating fine line, indulging in lust", famous for his ferocious willfulness in the countryside.
The villagers called this violent young man and Nanshan White-fronted Tiger, Xishang Long Bridge Jiaolong "Yixing Three Evils". Some people persuaded Zhou to assassinate the dragon tiger, but in fact they hoped that the three evils would fight, leaving only one.
Zhou Chu killed the tiger, and fought with the flood dragon in the river for three days and three nights. When he returned from the downstream, he heard that the villagers thought he was buried at the bottom of the river and applauded, only to realize how disgusted he was. Zhou Chu repented, and later became a virtuous and loyal minister, and died in battle.
In 2023, the Hong Kong director Huang Jingfu, inspired by the allusion to "the three evils of the week", created a story about the underworld killer Chen Guilin, who had been on the run for many years and learned that he was suffering from advanced lung cancer, so he wanted to do something big and leave the world openly.
He went to the police station to turn himself in and saw his wanted notice. As the third of the three most wanted criminals in Taiwan, no one recognized him. He tore down the notice and decided to find the first two people who had absconded so far to kill the people, and then he would submit to the law.
Ruan Jingtian, who connects the two stories, was also once a prodigal son. In the interview, Ruan Jingtian began almost every sentence with "I think", as rigorous as answering an essay question on a test paper – the latter may have been his worst thing in the past.
Ruan Jingtian, a Taichung child, was once a "problem teenager". He had a talent for swimming, spent a glorious adolescence in the blue swimming lanes, and was once accepted as an Olympic reserve member of the Chinese Taipei swimming team. He swam all the way to the best high school in Taichung, but still dropped out of school due to his bad personality. He didn’t go home because he was addicted to online games, and asked his mother to post a missing person notice to find him for more than three months.
One day he woke up in an Internet cafe and found that his wallet key had been stolen. He had nothing in the real world, which made him realize that virtual stimulation was worthless. He deleted all his accounts and walked home slowly.
A few years later, at the age of 20, he accompanied a friend to Taipei for an audition, but he was selected to enter the acting industry as a model. At that time, Taiwan’s idol drama was hot, and he followed the trend and started to become an actor, but it was not easy: "When I swim, as long as I try hard, no one can beat me, but why have I tried so hard, and I still can’t beat others?"
For Ruan Jingtian, the impression left over from the beginning of his acting career was that he was helpless and helpless. Every time he was in a play, the scene was set and the lights were on, he would feel so lonely, "Others will film, only you will not."
The first time he made a music video, he didn’t know how to understand the characters and emotions at all, so he relied on the director to guide him with a password: "Look here! Look up! Okay, shout!" Ruan Jingtian did the same. When filming "Green Forest", director Feng Kai reprimanded him on the set because he couldn’t play a simple love scene: "Hey, Ruan Jingtian, do you know how big my fist is!"
Of course I’ve been in love, but how can I perform that non-existent emotion with an unfamiliar person? For the basic logic of "empathy", Ruan Jingtian’s enlightenment in performance came not early.
Change happens little by little. I found a passage from him describing his acting revelation: "It’s like time slows down, you can see fine dust in the air, you get goosebumps all over your body, numbness from your arms all the way to your shoulders to the top of your head. That’s when everything you do and say is right."
It was during the filming of the 2007 Taiwanese idol drama "I am in Kenting with Clear Weather." Model Xiaosheng, who thought he was nothing but young and handsome, experienced the wonderful feeling of acting for the first time, making him want to come again and again.
However, when I asked Ethan in 2024 "how to accumulate experience and energy for performing," Ethan suddenly asked back: "How old are you?"
I was immediately taken aback by the question, and even had to react for a while before I remembered that I was 26 years old.
He replied with a kind chuckle: "Then it hasn’t found you yet."
He used an honest tone: "Of course I can tell you a lot of beautiful things. I tell you that I will pay attention to every event and every emotion in life, and then put it into my role, but I want to say that many things are not what you expected. You don’t know when you will like someone, and you don’t know when the person you love will leave this world.
Two years ago, "Removing the Three Evils in the Week" came to him.
Maybe he didn’t understand Chen Guilin so well in the early years of this script. Over the years, Ruan Jingtian has used proximity to judge whether a script has fate with him, and he prefers characters that can be connected to him in certain places.
Ruan, 40, accepted Chen Guilin.
Who is Ethan Ruan?
"Getting rid of the three evils around" is a story about finding value.
Chen Guilin in the movie has an obsession to tell everyone that he has "a name and a surname".
At the beginning of the story, Chen Guilin learns that he is suffering from cancer and will not live long. The turning point of the story takes place when he turns himself in to the police station. Among the people who came to the police station to pay back the money, Chen Guilin, except for his special height and appearance, no one knew his fame in the world. He saw a notice on the wall of the three most wanted criminals in Taiwan. He was in third place, and half of his face was covered by other notices. He could not accept that he was as light as a piece of paper and that no one in the world knew him.
Near the end, Chen Guilin was handcuffed. He raised his hands, revealing a cheerful smile that was rare after four years of absconding, and shouted to everyone, "I am Chen Guilin!"
In addition to the desire to be famous and respected, Ruan Jingtian felt that this desire to be "famous and surnamed" also pointed to a search for self.
He seemed to be recalling himself slowly: "Look, everyone is born with a name from their parents and needs to know who they are. When I was young, having a name was also very important to me. I would want to know who I am, what I want to do next, and accepting myself may be a more important topic."
This is where Ethan Ruan can best understand Chen Guilin.
Because before he encountered the question "who is Chen Guilin", he had spent most of his life trying to figure out "who is Ruan Jingtian".
When we ask this question to the outside world, we may get some simple answers: the former idol drama brother, the young Golden Horse Best Actor, the often violent role of the actor, the handsome star with constant scandals… But there must be some elusive reality, like water slipping through the fingers, scattered outside these labels.
The turning point for Ethan’s career came in 2008, with "Destined to Love You," a Taiwanese ratings record. Before that, because his acting career had not improved for a long time, he wanted to leave the industry and go back to study. It happened that the play gave him a chance to play the male lead. The simple idea that "you will not regret playing the male lead once and then leaving" unexpectedly led him to the first peak of his career.
In 2010, Ethan was named Best Actor of the Golden Horse for his role as "monk" He Tianyou in "Monga." The honor came earlier than anyone expected, so much so that some seniors at the time even said, "Ethan himself doesn’t know what this award means."
At the same time, tasting pain and glory, this actor not only brought him a broader career, but also expanded the depth of his life.
The first thing that came was self-doubt. When he got this trophy, his first reaction was that it all came from the director’s guidance to him, and he was just put in the right position. It was not until he got the best actor that he began to face the question of "whether he is qualified". Proving himself is a choice that he will definitely make if he is strong, and also completing his explanation of his identity as the "best actor".
He filmed Hou Hsiao-hsien and Director Tsui Hark, and worked with different teams in Hong Kong and mainland China. His career situation was opened up, and the roles he received were getting richer and richer. He could no longer make mistakes on the set, nor could he consider himself a newcomer and a learner. The world’s requirements for an actor were completely different from those for a cream boy.
However, the subsequent attempts were not all so satisfactory. "Blood Drop" lost word-of-mouth at the box office, "Military Paradise" was not nominated, and the response to the costume drama was poor. Absent from the photo of the best actor and actress on the "Golden Horse 50" occasion, he encountered the most severe criticism from the outside world since his career, and he was away from the stage that brought him his first glory for a decade.
He occasionally appeared in entertainment variety shows. Although he had a sense of variety shows and a good personality, for an actor who had high hopes, it was inevitable that he would waste time in variety shows.
Burying his head in the water, the outside world was isolated, and the world flowed slowly around him in a jelly shape. He held his breath and dived deeply. He was no stranger to this.
Wait a minute, it’s time to take a deep breath out of the water.
Stills from the movie "Hunted"
Western Moment
Ruan Jingtian’s return was steady and ambitious.
Wen Tianxiang, chief executive of the Golden Horse Executive Committee, saw Ruan Jingtian in "Hunted" and felt that he was very different from before. "He can be said to be the best person at crying now."
If the difference is captured more carefully, it is probably that in the original play, Ruan Jingtian was performing "a person", but now he can perform a period of time on a person.
In "Hunted", human agency Lin Yousheng experiences the death of his ex-girlfriend at the beginning of the story. This character, who mixes labor issues, low-level ecology, and a sad past, makes you feel that there are traces of time passing on him as soon as he appears.
In "Raging Tide" at the end of last year, Ruan Jingtian played the police officer Mai Langwen, showing another decadent style, jumping onto the screen like a wolf dog. At this time, Ruan Jingtian was soaked in salt water, rolled in blood, choked in boiling water, and washed away the dust on his body. There was a result of precipitation in his eyes.
A more mature Mr. Ruan meets Mr. Chen. Last year, with "Removing the Three Evils in the Week," Mr. Ruan returned to the Golden Horse after a decade-long absence and became a candidate for Best Actor again. He bows deeply to the stage, past entanglements disappear, and the actor Ruan Jingtian regains recognition with a humble and calm posture.
After "Mengka", the people on the show were different from yesterday. He performed Chen Guilin’s life history, "able to use his own outlook on life to collide and compete with other characters."
At the beginning of the movie, Chen Guilin was already a bit of a celebrity.
And Ruan Jingtian imagined a history for Chen Guilin: a third generation who grew up in another province, perhaps because of the intergenerational upbringing, was very close to his grandmother. Therefore, he would have an ordinary name like "Chen Guilin", which should not be uncommon among children in the village.
Mr. Ruan, who also grew up with his grandparents in Jiancun, was 10 years old. He starred in "Paradise in the Army" for his grandfather because the story was about the history of Taiwan’s first generation of foreigners. He shares Mr. Chen’s origins, so he understands things that the characters hide in their hearts, like the cartoon watch his grandmother bought and a suit that symbolizes brotherhood.
An ordinary child can become a killer, and Ethan believes that he "must have never understood why he did it" – maybe he became a younger brother under the coaxing of friends, or maybe out of the "justice" purpose in his mind, maybe to protect his boss and a certain friend. He may indeed be a "bad guy" in the secular sense, but he "must be a little more romantic than the average person."
Killing and overselling goods, fighting and chasing, the movie begins, Chen Guilin is not hesitant but not afraid, with strong colors and fast pace. Wait until four years of exile pass in the time and space of the story, and then to Chen Guilin on the road to kill the damage, the tone has changed a little. Chen Guilin’s hair is slightly curled, his beard is messy, and his thin face is pressed under the cap. He is silent and forbearing but decisive, like a cowboy with a gun in a Western.
The English title of the film "The Pig, the Snake, and the Pigeon" not only uses three animals to correspond to three wanted criminals, corresponding to "greed, hatred and delusion", but also pays tribute to "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" (The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly). The soundtrack is quite ingenious to use harmonica, guitar, trumpet, whistle and other instruments to create a Western style. It can be seen that Huang Jingfu really intended to graft a Western soul for this story that was born out of Chinese folklore. In the wilderness sand where public order and good customs have not yet been established, money and fame become the targets of the soul. Drawing guns and life and death are instantaneous. Every close-up between good, evil, good and evil shows his opponent and himself.
In the eyes of Ruan Jingtian, Chen Guilin is similar to the cowboy in the western story because of the characteristics of a marginal person. In the past, Chen Guilin had his own set of rules, romantic and fierce, but he was also cut off from the order of modern society. He wandered on the edge of this society and was an outsider. In one scene in the movie, Chen Guilin went to the park to find his doctor Zhang Guiqing. He could only look at the normal family under the sun from a distance, like a shadow. Dissociation, edge, loneliness, "this is Chen Guilin’s western moment."
And Ruan Jingtian knew that loneliness was not just a legend. No matter how many friends a person has next to him or how many social relationships he is in, he will eventually encounter that moment that he can only face alone.
"Everyone has their own western moment."
Everything is cause and effect
Looking at the past, Ruan Jingtian found it very interesting that sometimes the harder he tried to prove his work, the worse the result was, and when he didn’t know how he did it, he did it instead.
At the beginning, the script of "Removing the Three Evils in Zhou Chu" was not like this, and this character was not Ruan Jingtian, but by chance, he was the one who played it in the end.
Ethan Ruan was involved in the birth of Chen Guilin.
In the movie, he intersects with two female characters, and to describe this connection, Ruan Jingtian only says it is "cause and effect." Chen Guilin himself walked into his own destiny. By the end of the story, we know that the root cause of all this is a black humorous lie woven by Zhang Guiqing, but Ruan Jingtian believes that the fate of creating this lie still comes from Chen Guilin’s past choices in his life.
Characters and roles, actors and roles, coincidence drives coincidence, and there is a cause and effect, "You will become the cause of others, and others will become your cause", life is like a cycle.
Ruan Jingtian now felt that it was destined for a character to find him, and it was also destined for him to choose him. For him, drama and life seem to be inseparable.
He used his own body to carve Chen Guilin into a flesh, contributing a very imaginative action scene to "Three Harmful Things in the Week". One is Chen Guilin stabbing Chen Hui’s eyes with an incense burner in the fight with the police; the other is chasing Aberdeen, the most wanted criminal, Chen Guilin wins miserably and bites off Aberdeen’s tongue.
Ruan Jingtian often shoots action scenes and loves to shoot, and he likes to prepare for action scenes. But in addition to developing muscles and strength for fighting scenes, he is more concerned about everyone using a different style when fighting. For example, Li Liren’s police officer probably learned to fight in school, so he has rules and skills, while Chen Guilin is more like a beast.
When he was young and arrogant, Chen Guilin was not in awe of life and death. As a "simple" killer, as long as he won, he only needed to live. Therefore, he would have an unrestrained animal nature. Ruan Jingtian recalled the chase and street-to-street battle with Li Liren at the beginning of the movie, and felt that it was actually more relaxing than playing a fugitive with worries.
When Chen Guilin and Aberdeen were fighting, the purpose of exterminating the harm might be even later, and the revenge for the humiliation under the razor the day before stimulated the blood in the madman. Ruan Jingtian really wanted others to feel the suppression and violence of Chen Guilin, so there must be some way to convey a kind of physical fear and pain, he thought, "with a bite."
So, at the moment of life and death, Chen Guilin bit off Aberdeen’s tongue, and at the same time completed the counterattack, revenge and extermination. Before filming, Ruan Jingtian persuaded Aberdeen’s actor, Yuan Fuhua, to cooperate and "met a good opponent" in the play, so he could complete this vision.
You will feel Chen Guilin’s pain and determination here: after being abandoned by the world, the trapped beasts are still fighting, and this must be done.
But the story took a sharp turn at this point. On the way to find the second wanted criminal, Chen Guilin was deceived in the new mind, and once let down his guard in front of the Venerable One, abandoned his external belongings, and let go of his obsession with eliminating harm.
This beast has its own weaknesses. Suffering from "lung cancer", he not only has a desire to survive, but also longs for respect from the outside world. As a wanted criminal, he used to be a mouse in a dark corner, but now he has a chance to wear new white clothes and become a "new creation". In an irreversible world, the temptation of intense "expectations and begging" to turn things around in an instant is so great that any blatant deception can be believed to be true.
Before embarking on the road to extermination, Chen Guilin once fell at the feet of Emperor Guan Shengjun and threw nine holy grails in an attempt to confirm his fate. He needed an external belief from the beginning, and the reason was that he "couldn’t find himself".
When Chen Guilin, like Uma Thurman, who pierced the coffin in "Kill Bill," escaped from the ground and returned to the New Mind House, the cowboy with the gun not only took back his own destiny, but also the destiny of others.
He shot Lin Luhe and slaughtered all the believers. There is just a choice, if you encounter a jam, you can go; if you don’t run, you will die in the second load.
Ruan Jingtian did not consider these believers to be "commoners". Their choices created their own identities, and they were given a choice in the face of the truth. When they made a choice, there was a result, and everyone was responsible for that choice. There was no God or executioner in this story, only the independent will that everyone should have.
This kind of existentialist way of thinking was an important acquisition for Ruan Jingtian from "The Three Evils" or from director Huang Jingfu.
Ethan enjoyed working with Huang Jingfu very much. He interacted with the director a lot, but he rarely talked about the play. They listened to Ryuichi Sakamoto, exchanged movies, and talked about the taste of life. The director would give him a set of clothes that he would wear, whether hot or cold, like the skin of Chen Guilin. When playing Chen Guilin, Ethan was asked to retreat to that state of suspicion and fear and disliking himself, and he learned to get along with himself again in the play.
He was already very familiar with Chen Guilin.
Stills from the movie "The Three Evils"
Farewell to Chen Guilin
But it will still come to the moment when he is destined to bid farewell to Chen Guilin.
When an actor is very interesting, the actor gives something to the character, and the character leaves something in the actor. When the next play is played, Ruan Jingtian knows that he is going to say goodbye to Chen Guilin. But it doesn’t have to be a goodbye. Seeing clips on the Internet again, I remember how I used to operate this character, and a part of that character’s life will come back to life.
Maybe this encounter and separation did bring overlapping and rich colors to his life, "but after all, the life of an actor is so ordinary, just like everyone else, it is a one-way street."
Ruan Jingtian is in his 40s, his appearance is still handsome, and his soul has gained weight. Sometimes when faced with the same thing, the 20-year-old option is still there, but the 40-year-old will no longer choose. Whether it is actively choosing or passively accepting, he has been silent and meditated, accompanying his family, facing himself, and feeling all this well. The result is that at least he is now more able to accept himself.
He has a desire to express himself in the world, and acting is still the best – if not the only – way. When he was in his twenties, he wanted to go back to school, but he didn’t expect to play a leading actor who was very popular in Asia. Later, he thought he would have to film for at least 20 years before he could win the best actor, but at the age of 28, his dream came true. He once planned to stop acting at the age of 50, but unfortunately this career has treated him well. Now he thinks about it, not acting after 50 is also very boring.
During the filming of "Mengka", there was a heavy crying scene. He really cried so hard that his snot "snapped" and fell on Feng Xiaoyue’s head in his arms. Fans laughed and asked "dirty", while the young future actor asked the director why we had to be so painful and open our old wounds to complete a performance. The director said that you cut the wound, but the people who saw you in front of the screen will be healed. Later, they will come to heal you.
This is probably the interaction of life. Ruan Jingtian was not a good student in the past, but he really learned how to be a person and do things in the process of being an actor, which may enrich his life better than "borrowing roles to live one more time".
Ruan Jingtian has told a short story of his experience after being awarded the Best Actor in many places. At that time, he came to the mainland to film and was able to cooperate with many actors who graduated from the profession. He had an open-minded desire to seek advice, but was ridiculed by the actors in the same group, "Golden Horse Award, that’s it". After a few hours of suffering, he decided to ask the actor out for a swim – in the face of his best sport, he thought maybe he could be more confident to communicate with others. As a result, the actor said, you have to relax, how can you act so stiff. Ruan Jingtian suddenly realized, and later they became good friends.
In fact, he should have known the truth of "relaxation" very early on.
As a child, he reigned supreme in the swimlane, and the water would teach him the wisdom of life. "Never fight against it (water), but follow it. In the water, if you use more power, the more you resist it, the less you will move."
The 40-year-old’s life was summed up in "Removing the Three Harmies Around the World". After ten years of diving, he came out of the water once, so-called "returning to everyone’s field of vision", and only he knew that in fact, he had been crawling underwater.
This is life, and this is God’s will.
He went with the flow.
