Chapter 262: Can she act?

After hugging Chen Nuo and crying for a full minute, the faulty cognition in Liu Yifei's brain finally reconnected with reality.

But this reconnection was still a gradual process.

During this process, she kept her arms wrapped around Chen Nuo's waist, her face resting on his shoulder, hiccuping from crying while sobbing intermittently.

Chen Nuo didn't mind, gently hugging her shoulders and comforting her: "Alright, alright, you acted very well. Calm down a little, it's time for the next scene, you'll have to cry again then."

Liu Yifei hiccuped while savoring the man's body heat, feeling her heart slowly calm down, though she still had lingering fears and couldn't help but say: "Hic... I... I, just now, hic... really thought you were going to die, hic."

Chen Nuo chuckled: "That's right, that's acting; that's the normal situation. Like you were before, that's not acting, that's a puppet show."

Liu Yifei hummed, tapped him lightly on the back, and said: "You're the one acting... hic... a puppet show."

In the next shot, the two actors playing Lao San's parents, as well as some extras from the exploration team, would appear.

At this time, these actors, old and young, also walked into the set room on tiptoe.

Chen Nuo smiled at them and signaled with his eyes, so in the whole room, not a single person made a sound.

Even the staff slowed their pace, walking on tiptoe.

In fact, everyone was used to this.

After all, the human body is not a machine; it's not that easy to switch on and off. Liu Yifei's crying scene just now could be called a long one; she cried for nearly a minute and maintained the most abundant emotional state throughout.

This inevitably required genuine feelings to act as the driving force.

Therefore, a period of calming down was definitely needed afterward, which is why Zhang Yimou said to let her rest.

After a while, Liu Yifei finally calmed down.

She pushed Chen Nuo away, her whole face flushed, her thoughts like a tangled mess that couldn't be unraveled.

Chen Nuo rubbed his shoulder: "What are you doing? Use less strength."

Liu Yifei ignored him, stammered for a moment, and then said: "What I said just now, you... Chen Nuo, don't think it's true. I was just playing around, I was filming."

Isn't that nonsense?

Didn't you just change those weird lines and improvise?

How could I take it seriously?

Chen Nuo was stunned, not understanding, and was about to ask for the truth,

when Zhang Yimou came over.

Wow.

What happened afterward made Liu Yifei feel embarrassed.

It could be said that in her life, from *The Noble Family* to *The Message*, she had never been praised like this.

Especially when Zhang Yimou took her and Chen Nuo to the monitor to watch the playback.

After watching, Director Zhang Yimou said with great emotion: "Yifei, when Chen Nuo called me and said you were fine and could perform well, I didn't believe it. Now it seems he was right and I was wrong. You acted this scene really well."

Liu Yifei saw Chen Nuo smile and start saying some polite things that only adults would say to Director Zhang.

However, she didn't hear a single word of what was specifically said.

The next filming task was to finish this scene at the very end of the film.

This scene was not long, with only five shots in total.

Moreover, the most important crying scene had already been filmed; the remaining shots were of Liu Yifei following an extra from the exploration team to the hospital to visit Lao San.

She would run from the corridor into the room, and then, at the request of Lao San's father, walk to Lao San's sickbed.

A very short scene; the difficulty lay only in how to walk this path so that the audience could feel Jingqiu's mood.

Preparing to clap the slate.

At this moment, an inexplicable emotion surged in Liu Yifei's heart, a feeling she had only realized and experienced half an hour ago.

It was also an experience she had never had in her 21 years of life.

She felt that what she had experienced was different from what was written in books, and different from what was acted in movies and TV shows.

She had acted in so many TV dramas, played lovers with so many boys, and had once pretended to be in love with them.

Let's count: Chen Kun from *The Noble Family*, Jimmy Lin from *Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils*, Hu Ge from *Chinese Paladin*, and Matsumoto Jun and Oguri Shun when she filmed *Hana Yori Dango* in Japan...

Including when she first started filming *The Return of the Condor Heroes*, acting opposite him, it was the same.

At that time, she thought she was pretending well and acting quite well.

But until this moment, she knew,

she was like the emperor wearing new clothes, forgetting herself after the flattery of others,

unaware that perhaps everyone was laughing at her in their hearts.

How could love be such a shallow thing, and how could it so easily float on the surface?

Liu Yifei followed Lao San's comrade and started running in the hospital corridor, heading to the ward where Lao San, who was waiting to see her for the last time, was located.

She was panting, and even though she hadn't seen him yet, tears were already falling.

How could she not shed tears?

From the moment she entered the hospital, who would run like Zhou Dongyu, baring her teeth and looking blank, when coming to see their lover for the last time?

The film camera followed Liu Yifei, filming from front to back, clearly recording every tear sliding down her cheeks onto the high-texture videotape.

Although the camera was very close to her, Liu Yifei felt that this wasn't acting at all, or perhaps, this was the true acting she had never experienced.

As long as she recalled the image of Chen Nuo lying on the sickbed in her mind, tears would naturally slide from the corners of her eyes without any pretense.

Crying while running was as natural as breathing to her.

At the door of the ward, Lao San's comrade who brought her pushed the door open.

Many people were gathered inside; hearing the movement, they all turned back to look at the young girl at the door, her face covered in tears, incomparably moving.

Chen Nuo was next to Zhang Yimou, watching the monitor with him. Because these few shots didn't require him to be present.

When he saw Liu Yifei's appearance in the lens, even though he hadn't seen the original *Under the Hawthorn Tree*, he dared to be 100% certain that Liu Yifei in this shot absolutely surpassed Zhou Dongyu by a lot.

Otherwise, even if this film, or this person, were buried at the time, in the later era of traffic, she would definitely be dug out and spread by thousands on Douyin, Weibo, and Toutiao.

Liu Yifei was wearing a white shirt, a maroon coat over it, and blue pants underneath.

She had two braids, and her face was like a camellia; it was a simple and pure beauty.

In the lens, tears gathered in her eyes, at first just a little bit.

She bit her lower lip hard, trying to suppress the overflowing emotions, not wanting to lose composure in front of so many people.

However, her eyes told the audience that the pain in her heart was like a breached flood, difficult to block.

Her eyelashes trembled lightly, and finally, a tear slid down quietly.

It flowed slowly along the curve of her cheek, slid past her cheek, landed on her chin, stayed briefly, and then dripped to the ground.

With this start, tears began to gush out uncontrollably, one after another, like broken pearls.

Her breathing became rapid, her shoulders trembled slightly; she was trying hard to suppress the sound of crying.

Her hands were tightly clenched together, her knuckles turning pale from the force.

Teacher Lu Shuming, who played Lao San's father, was saying his lines; after confirming Liu Yifei's identity, he sadly asked her to see his son for the last time.

However, no one would really look at the way he spoke.

Because everyone's eyes were fixed on the face of the young girl who was silent and weeping silently.

Her sorrowful expression was like a widowed egret. Her helpless eyes were as panicked as a frightened bird.

No one knew how to soothe her anxious and palpitating heart.

Finally, they could only let her pass through the crowd and walk toward the sickbed step by step.

Alright, maybe everyone wanted to keep watching this scene, but the walkie-talkie mercilessly transmitted a "Cut."

Director Zhang Yimou, who had seen countless big-name actors act, even if he only nodded slightly during the previous crying scene, this time, after calling "Cut," he praised very sincerely: "Really good, really good."

Since Director Zhang said so, Chen Nuo naturally had to praise the actress from his own company without hesitation, so as to deepen the impression.

Zhang Yimou's artistic life really has no other director in all of China who can compare.

Whether you love him or hate him, even more than ten years later, you have to admit that Old Mouzi's status in the Chinese film industry is irreplaceable.

If Liu Yifei really collaborated with him a few more times like Gong Li, her value would definitely increase exponentially.

Chen Nuo smiled: "Director Zhang, to tell you the truth, when I filmed *The Return of the Condor Heroes* with her, I saw it; she is really... let me think how to describe it, um, it should be said she has great potential."

"Not only does she have potential, but she also has ambition. At that time, she was mocked and called a vase. She told me, 'Don't bully a young girl for being poor; in thirty years, the river flows east, in thirty years, it flows west.' These words were truly resounding. That's why I later signed her to my company."

"Including this month, to be honest, I'm not afraid of Director Zhang laughing, it's not me teaching her, but her teaching me. I've benefited a lot; from her, I can really learn many things every day."

"Just look at that tear just now. Director Zhang, have you ever seen anyone who can shed just one tear and make it look so beautiful? I haven't, anyway. Hehe."

Zhang Yimou laughed and said: "I think that should be a coincidence, right?"

Chen Nuo said decisively: "Director Zhang, it's really not; she taught me. Wait and see me perform for you later."

Thus, Zhang Yimou sat by the monitor and really saw Chen Nuo's performance.

This was a close-up shot.

On the screen was his face.

Chen Nuo was slowly stopping his breathing.

His eyes closed naturally, and his whole face, under the makeup of his own black makeup artist, was deathly pale and gaunt.

Two camera positions, one for Chen Nuo, one for Liu Yifei.

This was the final scene of *Under the Hawthorn Tree*; under Jingqiu's gaze, Lao San finally died.

Zhang Yimou's handling of the lens was different from the original version.

When the male lead was Dou Xiao, he used a 45-degree side shot.

But this time, when the male lead was Chen Nuo, Zhang Yimou chose a top-down shooting method.

That is, when Chen Nuo was lying flat on the bed, he chose to let Chen Nuo's face fill the big screen of the cinema, flat and full.

This angle is an absolute death angle.

Anyone who can withstand a close-up from this angle can basically be said to have no dead angles when taking photos.

The reason Zhang Yimou used this method is the same as the reason Jiang Wen asked Peng Yuyan to take off his shirt and expose his upper body when filming *Hidden Man* ten years later.

"Such a beautiful thing, don't hide it; show it generously to people."

Under this death angle, Chen Nuo was truly like a dying person, his eyes closed tightly.

The way Dou Xiao acted like a zombie, which made people unable to watch, had a kind of unspeakable, tragic beauty on Chen Nuo's face, not only making Liu Yifei cry sadly but also making Zhang Yimou smile like a thief who had stolen a chicken.

He really wanted to say at this moment,

a salary of 15 million is really not expensive.

Even if because of this salary, he could almost no longer afford film cameras.

But, just by virtue of this shot, it would definitely make every audience member in the cinema feel the ticket price was worth it.

Especially when a tear suddenly appeared at the corner of this person's right eye and then rolled down quickly.

That was truly beautiful.

PS:

Thanks to "Bored Reading" for the 5000 Qidian coin tip!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 263 =====