Fed up with the drudgery of his sales job in southern China, Lu Qi quit and traveled 1,000km north to one of the country’s biggest film studios with hopes of making it in movies.
That dream remains a work in progress for Lu and thousands like him who eke out a precarious living as extras at Hengdian World Studios.
Just as moviegoers use film to escape reality, so too do many of Hengdian’s army of more than 6,000 extras.
Photo: AFP
“I failed so many times [in sales] and haven’t made much progress,” said Lu, his head shaved bald save for a knit cap keeping it warm.
“Most people here have no degrees, skills or relations. [We] can’t do any business either, so we are just here to escape the reality and the competition out there,” the 24-year-old added.
Hengdian, in Zhejiang Province, was once a poverty-stricken town amid rugged hills, but in the mid-1990s the investment firm Hengdian Group expanded into movies.
Photo: AFP
It bulldozed the landscape and erected the mammoth studio complex, which now claims to be the world’s largest film and TV shooting base.
Sometimes dubbed the “Hollywood of the East” or simply “Chinawood,” local media reported more than 70 percent of China’s films and TV shows have been at least partly shot on a 330-hectare site.
Sets range from ancient palace complexes that can accommodate casts of thousands to contemporary mansions and modern green screens.
“You can complete a Beijing-Hong Kong trip in one day,” Hengdian tour guide Wu Rongrong said as she stood before a life-sized reproduction of Beijing’s Forbidden City while gesturing toward a replica of an old Hong Kong street complete with opium bars.
The studio has been the backdrop for Chinese blockbusters such as Hero (2002) and has been graced by A-listers like Jackie Chan (成龍) and Fan Bingbing (范冰冰).
Its growth has outrun the local supply of manpower.
“At first, we recruited mostly locals as extras. Now the majority of them come from out of town,” said Zhou Fenglai, a Hengdian town official who deals with performer management.
An estimated 6,000 to 8,000 people are on hand daily to serve as extras at Hengdian.
Lian Chunyu grew up on horseback on the plains of Inner Mongolia, before parlaying that experience into work as a Hengdian stunt rider for eight years. Even though his face is never seen in movies, it is still a thrill to be part of it.
“It would be difficult for me to get used to doing something else after this,” he said.
Lu, who spends a few months a year in Hengdian and the rest at home in Guangdong Province, checks his WeChat group messages each morning for studio work, usually finding something daily.
Lu and Lian make about 100 to 200 yuan (US$15 to US$30) per day, enough to cover rent and meals, while those with more acting experience can make more.
Male extras get an additional 40 yuan each time they shave their heads — partly to make sure there is ample manpower for often used scenes requiring the Manchu-style shaved head and braided queue.
As well as the extra cash, Lu also likes that such a specific look rules him out of military roles.
“It’s very uncomfortable running around in the mountains wearing armor and being blown up,” Lu said, comparing it to work as a “coolie.”
Between scenes, Lu shoots videos of himself with props and costumes, which he uploads to social media.
Many of the extras do live online broadcasts and performances, making additional money via digital payments from their followers, he said.
One downside: being barked at and herded like cattle.
“Most film crews are really terrible, cursing people and such. That’s despicable. The bigger the production team, the worse they are,” said Wang Xiaopin, a 47-year-old extra from Henan Province.
“It doesn’t matter how well you perform. In their eyes, you will always be unqualified,” he said.
China’s entertainment sector has blossomed in recent years as the government looks to build up the domestic industry and replace imported foreign content with homegrown fare.
However, many projects have been put on hold after the central government last year began cracking down on alleged widespread tax evasion and exorbitant pay for big-name stars.
That has made work more scarce for now, and while sources at Hengdian say some extras have left, Lu remains optimistic.
“I still want to be an actor,” Lu said. “I believe the future will be better than the past.”
Four people jailed in the landmark Hong Kong national security trial of "47 democrats" accused of conspiracy to commit subversion were freed today after more than four years behind bars, the second group to be released in a month. Among those freed was long-time political and LGBTQ activist Jimmy Sham (岑子杰), who also led one of Hong Kong’s largest pro-democracy groups, the Civil Human Rights Front, which disbanded in 2021. "Let me spend some time with my family," Sham said after arriving at his home in the Kowloon district of Jordan. "I don’t know how to plan ahead because, to me, it feels
‘A THREAT’: Guyanese President Irfan Ali called on Venezuela to follow international court rulings over the region, whose border Guyana says was ratified back in 1899 Misael Zapara said he would vote in Venezuela’s first elections yesterday for the territory of Essequibo, despite living more than 100km away from the oil-rich Guyana-administered region. Both countries lay claim to Essequibo, which makes up two-thirds of Guyana’s territory and is home to 125,000 of its 800,000 citizens. Guyana has administered the region for decades. The centuries-old dispute has intensified since ExxonMobil discovered massive offshore oil deposits a decade ago, giving Guyana the largest crude oil reserves per capita in the world. Venezuela would elect a governor, eight National Assembly deputies and regional councilors in a newly created constituency for the 160,000
North Korea has detained another official over last week’s failed launch of a warship, which damaged the naval destroyer, state media reported yesterday. Pyongyang announced “a serious accident” at Wednesday last week’s launch ceremony, which crushed sections of the bottom of the new destroyer. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called the mishap a “criminal act caused by absolute carelessness.” Ri Hyong-son, vice department director of the Munitions Industry Department of the Party Central Committee, was summoned and detained on Sunday, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported. He was “greatly responsible for the occurrence of the serious accident,” it said. Ri is the fourth person
At a calligraphy class in Hanoi, Hoang Thi Thanh Huyen slides her brush across the page to form the letters and tonal marks of Vietnam’s unique modern script, in part a legacy of French colonial rule. The history of romanized Vietnamese, or Quoc Ngu, links the arrival of the first Christian missionaries, colonization by the French and the rise to power of the Communist Party of Vietnam. It is now reflected in the country’s “bamboo diplomacy” approach of seeking strength through flexibility, or looking to stay on good terms with the world’s major powers. A month after Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) visited,
RSS