He is also the "Mo Chengming" in this grassland drama, he is Ma Xiaoshuai and Li Hongliang from "Soldier Assault" | Inner Mongolia | Drama
When interviewing young actor Li Hongliang, he was on a highway heading to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. "The grassland is like a sanatorium, where you can temporarily put aside all your troubles and the noise of the world. You can also put aside any thoughts that are unclear. Being embraced by the grassland will make your whole body relaxed."
The reality drama "Father's Grassland and Mother's River" directed by Kang Honglei is currently being broadcasted on CCTV Channel 8. This is a play about grasslands, telling the story of the four siblings of the Mo family who came from Nanjing to Inner Mongolia to support construction in response to the national call in the 1960s. Li Hongliang played the male lead Mo Chengming.
Father's Grassland and Mother's River started on August 1, 2018. Ten months later, Li Hongliang received a phone call from director Kang Honglei. "The director said, 'Let's learn the cello, I said it's good. Let's learn the horsehead fiddle again, okay. Let's learn Mongolian again, okay. Then he asked me if it's okay with Nanjing dialect, right? I said it's okay.' Li Hongliang almost didn't ask about the details of the script, so he agreed.".
The collaboration between the two began in 2006 in "Soldier Assault", where Li Hongliang played the soldier Ma Xiaoshuai. In the following years, they collaborated on several works, including "My Captain, My Regiment," "Our French Years," and "Tuina.". "As long as it is a play directed by Kang, there is no need to read the script. He himself is a guarantee of quality." Kang Honglei was born in Inner Mongolia, and to some extent, "Father's Grassland and Mother's River" is a play he filmed for his hometown.
In Li Hongliang's eyes, Kang Honglei is like a brother and a father, not considered a prolific director. Sometimes it takes a few years to produce a play, but the quality of each play is commendable. "I don't have to study Nanking dialect any more deliberately, because I said it in Tuina. The hardest thing is to learn Mongolian, which is more difficult than the French I said in our French Years. I think my Mongolian has been exactly the same as that in the recording, but the teacher said it is still different. For a while, I doubted my hearing," said Li Hongliang.
"Father's Grassland and Mother's River" sets the historical background in the 1960s. In the city of Nanjing, the Mo family, with a large population, are squeezed into cramped old houses without any space for practicing the piano. Mo Chengming yearns to escape from the oppressive family environment and pursue the freedom he desires on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. When it comes to Mo Chengming, Li Hongliang admits that he is not the traditional male lead, without the protagonist's aura, but a person with many flaws. "At the beginning of the series, as long as there are bullet comments, no one likes Mo Chengming." After the series aired, Li Hongliang followed the drama while watching the audience's evaluation of the characters. In his view, Mo Chengming is a prism like character. "He can bow his head in front of Yu Zhen, or lift his head in front of his father, without looking straight at his father. When he reaches the grassland, he is also infected by his comrades Ning An, showing his passionate youth. Later, he becomes a family and a father, and he has a strict, kind, and soft side." Li Hongliang said, the main theme of this drama is to express the tolerance and integration between two ethnic groups through the transformation of Mo Chengming, who is influenced by his comrades around him and becomes a positive and powerful character rooted in the grassland and building the border. The process of blood being thicker than water.
The biggest difficulty encountered during filming on the grasslands of Inner Mongolia was waiting for snow. There is a scene in the drama where Mo Chengming is buried by a blizzard, but the production team can't wait until it snows on the grassland. It wasn't until the spring of the following year that a little snow fell on the grassland. "There wasn't enough snow, so we added plastic sheets and artificial snow, and then blew them with a blower. Our faces were covered in small plastic sheets, and we couldn't shout lines, not only couldn't speak, but also couldn't breathe. When we took a breath, sucking in plastic sheets would scratch our throat." Later, the snow scene took three turns to finish filming. Despite the hardships, Li Hongliang still felt satisfied. "When filming with director Kang Honglei, there is no such thing as' easy '. He has no room for negotiation in artistic creation. As someone who wants to become an actor, it is certainly a satisfying experience."
"This play shatters and reconstructs a person both physically and mentally." Mo Chengming is a character from a specific era, which is very different from Li Hongliang himself; In addition, this drama has a time span of several decades, and there are also personality changes before and after the characters. "I look for differences in my eyes, gestures, and gait." Li Hongliang gave an example. When Mo Chengming came from Nanjing to the grasslands in his youth, his voice was high pitched; After experiencing the baptism of time and the departure of his loved ones, his tone gradually decreased, "From his steady wearing of Mongolian boots to his calm wearing of leather shoes later on, his gait also changed."
This drama was completed on June 1, 2019, and it has been 4 years since it premiered. "Screenwriter Shamo passed away before the play was even finished, and there was also a financial breakdown in between. In the play, Xie Yuan, who played my father, and Tu Men, who played Uncle Renqin, including our production director, producers, and live producers, were unable to wait for the TV series to air..."
Looking back on the filming process, Li Hongliang felt that he had gained a lot from playing with his predecessors. "Teacher Xie Yuan is a person who is particularly willing to tell jokes in his life. When I go to his resting place and we finish the play, he always tells me a few jokes. Teacher Tu and I have also had many scenes, and he is a very talented person in acting. Every word is the finishing touch. When they act, I always watch them in front of the monitor and learn, especially the old actors' grasp of details and the degree of performance, which is worth learning from young actors."
