The Country Boy Movie Star
A still from Buddies in India. courtesy of the film production team
In 2014, Wang took the lead role in Monk Comes Down the Mountain, directed by renowned Chinese director Chen Kaige. He vividly portrayed a naïve and simple young Taoist monk. IC Wang Baoqiang stands in stark contrast with his peers in the Chinese movie industry. He never formally studied acting and can hardly be classified as a heartthrob. Since he lacks certain star qualities, “simple,” “unadorned,” and “a little silly” have become the most commonly used adjectives to describe Wang.
In late January, during the Spring Festival holiday—China’s blockbuster movie season—Wang’s directorial debut, the action adventure comedy Buddies in India, hit big screens in China. Starring and directed by Wang, the film grossed more than US$100 million in just three weeks after its release. Whether acting or directing, Wang consistently brings pleasant surprises to his audience.
A Dream Comes True
In 1984, Wang was born into a povertystricken family in Xingtai City, Hebei Province. According to his mother, the family was so poor that young Wang always wore hand-me-downs from his elder brother and sister. As a child, Wang watched The Shaolin Temple, a 1982 Hong Kong-Chinese mainland kung fu movie starring Jet Li, countless times, inspiring the boy to dream of studying martial arts and film.
In the hope of realizing this dream, Wang began learning martial arts at the age of six. From age eight to 14, he studied at the Songshan Mountain-based Shaolin Temple in Henan Province as a secular disciple. During his six-year stay at the Buddhist temple, Wang woke at 4:00 a.m. in summer and 5:00 a.m. in winter for a morning jog. And his twice-a-week stamina training required him to run more than 20 kilometers each time. Because of such grueling training, Wang could only return home once a year, for the Spring Festival, during the entire six years — even though the temple is only a few hundred kilometers from his home.
When interviewed by the media after Buddies in India was released, Wang revealed his motivation for making the film: “It was my childhood dream.”
Wang and his younger brother were greatly influenced by actor Liu Xiao Ling Tong, who is best known for his role as the Monkey King in the iconic 1986 Chinese TV adaptation of the 16th-Century novel Journey to the West. Both boys fantasized about becoming the Monkey King and having his martial arts skills. However, the family could only afford to send one boy to the Shaolin Temple to study martial arts, so Wang promised to teach his brother after completing his studies. Unfortunately, his younger brother passed away before Wang completed his study at the Shaolin Temple. Wang could never fulfill his promise. He hoped that Buddies in India would be a start.
The film follows a humble Wu Kong (Wang Baoqiang) as he accompanies the son of a recently deceased wealthy businessman to India to find his will.
Although Wang has been a revered actor for years, Buddies in India was his directorial debut, so it posed many challenges. The film was mostly shot in India. Under the scorching sun, with temperatures regularly exceeding 40 degrees Celsius, cameras frequently broke down and actors and crew complained endlessly. Wang was injured while shooting one scene and received 10 stitches around his mouth. Another scene featured a chili-eating competition. To make the character’s reaction as authentic as possible, Wang swallowed a whole tray of chilies. “They were so hot that I felt something like a volcanic explosion in my body,” Wang sighs.
Wang even accepts criticisms of the film peacefully; critics consistently cited a clichéd plot and abrupt ending. “Few were born to make films. My directorial debut was certainly a learning process.”
In 2015, Wang won the Best New Action Actor award at the closing ceremony of the Jackie Chan Action Movie Week Gala Night during the 18th Shanghai International Film Festival. CFPStruggles of Rural Youth
Today, even after more than a decade in the entertainment industry, Wang remains honest and simple, and treats others with sincerity and kindness. His own life stories are often as fascinating as the characters he has played.
About 14 years ago, country boy Wang arrived in Beijing to pursue his movie dream like so many of his peers. Compared to his childhood idol Jet Li, who also studied martial arts at a young age, Wang was unassuming. Jet Li won his first national martial arts championship as a teen and became famous overnight after the release of The Shaolin Temple. Wang was just a poor guy without any experience or connections.
During his first days in Beijing, Wang often waited under a big tree at the entrance of Beijing Film Studio in the hope of being spotted by a casting agent looking for extras. When he was lucky enough to get a chance to play a walk-on character, he was paid only a few dozen yuan a day. When he didn’t have an acting job, he worked at construction sites, transporting bricks and sand. “Sometimes, I even didn’t know where my next meal would come from,” he recalls. But the young man knew that he had to persist. “I told myself to hang in there. I would become a star one day, and I would be recognized by everyone on the street.”
In 2003, Wang was cast in his debut role in the movie Blind Shaft, which later won him the Best New Performer prize at the 2003 Taipei Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards. The movie not only admitted Wang into film and television circles, but also helped him build self-confidence. “After that, I knew that I could be a good actor,” he adds.
In 2004, one of the most renowned working Chinese directors, Feng Xiaogang, cast Wang as the lead in his film A World Without Thieves. Wang played a naïve village boy working as a construction worker in Tibet and taking his five years of savings, in cash, home with him on a train. The boy declares that he does not believe there are thieves, even as a team of profes-sional pickpockets competes to steal his money and two others seek to protect him. In the movie, Wang got the chance to work with A-list Chinese actors and actresses from both the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong, including Ge You, Andy Lau and Rene Liu. Unsurprisingly, the role brought him immense popularity and made one dream come true: “By then, I was recognized when I walked on the street.”
In 2006, Wang starred in the 30-episode TV series Soldiers Sortie. He vividly portrayed Xu Sanduo, a young military recruit who is brave, upright, and kindhearted. The soldier is not highly intelligent, but invests profound devotion in any task assigned to him. Wang’s natural acting style proved a crowd favorite and tremendously successful, winning him countless fans.
Wang says that when he first saw the screenplay for Soldiers Sortie, he felt like it was written specifically for him. “I am already Xu Sanduo,” he laughs. “I didn’t even need to act. The role and myself merged into a single existence. ”
The concept of “never giving up” promoted by the TV series moved millions of Chinese spectators. The blunt, persistent, and simple Xu Sanduo is similar to Tom Hanks’ Forrest Gump. He does what he believes is right and sticks it out to the end, providing food for thought and inspiring viewers to reflect on their own lives.
In his autobiography Moving Ahead: Struggling Youth published in 2008, Wang recounted his dreams, struggles, and episodes of growing up. Even now, every time he passes Beijing Film Studio, he is still moved by the sight of extras waiting at the entrance. Wang has never denied that despite all of his efforts, it still took a major serving of good luck to earn his success. It may be hard to replicate, but Wang’s story has already motivated many young people to follow their dreams.
Working as a director for the first time, Wang watches the monitor with his production staff on location for Buddies in India. courtesy of the film production team
Wang is interviewed by the media after the press conference for A World Without Thieves in 2004. CFP