01
Not long ago, a recent photo of Scylla in a wheelchair went viral!
The netizens all thought she had a serious illness, have to lament the fleeting, once on the screen graceful and noble empress dowager, now deeply afflicted with pain and suffering, sad.
She once stated in an interview.
“I’ve fallen three times, leaving my left leg semi-disabled, with injuries to my face, cervical spine, and head, and I almost lost my life!”
Many years ago, there was a scene where she was riding a horse, and she insisted on not using a body double. Because of the heavy props and long clothes, as well as the sudden change in camera position, she fell off the horse several times, causing her coccyx to break, and even more alarmingly, several horses passed over her head.
She was in poor physical condition, and although she was not terminally ill as rumored, she was forced to use a wheelchair because of her leg disability.
Through the screen, we can also feel the impact of her leg injury on her life and health.
Speaking of Ms. Sichingaova, everyone must be familiar with her. She is a veteran actress who has grown up with several generations and is known as “the top actress of the Chinese pyramid”.
Over the past forty years, she has played thousands of roles with almost no similarities, and has always been able to bring surprises to the audience.
She is the gentle and majestic Yuzhen in “The Arrow in the Heart”.
Also the vulgar and spirited tigress in “The Camel’s Mascot”.
In the Kangxi dynasty, she is the wise and virtuous Xiaozhuang who supports her young lord to support the whole country.
She is also the far-sighted and decisive Bai Wen in The Apartment….
Why is Scyngova such a good actress?
She likes to think of herself as a piece of material, to be cut, kneaded, crushed and reshaped by the director, no matter what the cost, she is willing to do it.
In her eyes, the basic quality of an actor is the process of being constantly “smashed and re-broken and re-broken and re-broken again”.
“Acting is about unconditional obedience to your character, as long as you agree to it, don’t say no to this and no to that.”
Simply put, only an actor who unconditionally obeys your character can be called an actor.
02
Actually, Sigengova is not from a science background, but she was exposed to film acting by coincidence as a dancer.
Her parents were both soldiers working in the field, and her father passed away when she was five years old.
Mongolians are bold by nature and can sing and dance, and Sigengova is no exception, especially good at dancing a “cup bowl dance”, after secondary school was selected to dance in the district dance troupe as a dancer, aspiring to shine on the stage.
But after more than a decade, she finally got her chance, at the age of 30, later than most actors today.
At that time, the assistant director of the film “The Heart is Like an Arrow” was looking for a female lead, “Yuzhen,” and when he met Stsyngova, he knew what to expect.
With her wonderful performance in the film, the fledgling actress became an instant hit on the silver screen, and since then, she gave up dancing and began a different life in film.
Two years later, she co-starred with Zhang Fengyi in Lao She’s Camel Xiangzi, in which she played the spirited and straightforward “Tigress”, even though she had to dress up.
This won her a Golden Rooster Award and a Hundred Flowers Award, and the golden age of Sichingaowa began quietly.
Next, she starred in the Hong Kong film “Years of Love”, in which she played a Hong Kong woman who travels to China to find her roots, and the theme song of the same name was composed by Japanese musician Kitahiro and sung by Anita Mui.
The film, which was named the “Top Ten Hong Kong Business Cards of the 1980s,” was the first co-production between Hong Kong and mainland filmmakers to reflect contemporary life.
As a result, the film won six awards, including Best Actress at the Hong Kong Golden Statue Awards, and Sigynskova became the first mainland actress to win a Golden Statue Award.
After “Years of Love”, she continued to change freely among various characters and was invited by Guan Jinpeng to star in “Man in New York” together with Maggie Cheung and Zhang Aijia.
She was invited by Guan Jinpeng to star with Maggie Cheung and Aijia Zhang in “A Man in New York.” She collaborated with Xie Fei in “Soul Girl,” which won the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival, while the Berlin Post can only award the Silver Bear for a balanced film.
In support of Jiang Wen’s debut film “Sunny Day”, she played the small but impressive role of Xiao Jun’s mother, and then in Xie Jin’s “The Old Man and the Dog”, she transformed into a fugitive woman who is tortured by life.
In 2006, at the age of 57, Scyngova once again turned her screen image on its head when she starred in Hong Kong director Ann Hui’s The Postmodern Life of Auntie, in which she played a lonely middle-aged and elderly woman and once again won the Golden Statue Award for Best Actress.
03
In her early years, Stsyngova mainly fought on the big screen, and almost all of her appearances after she was over 50 years old were in TV dramas.
In her mind, however, there is no distinction between movie and TV drama performances; everything is scripted and character-driven.
She is best known for her roles in The Kangxi Dynasty and The Great Apartment, which led her to the pinnacle of her career, and as Xiaozhuang and Bai Wenji, respectively.
In “The Big House”, she played the complex and twisted character of Bai’s second grandmother, which became one of the audience’s favorite characters, and the drama became the CCTV ratings champion that year.
However, Stsigova almost missed out on the role because she was too fat.
She was suggested to play the role of the second grandmother, but director Guo Baochang turned her down when he saw her, simply because she was too fat, and in the director’s mind, the second grandmother should be a thin and lean woman.
Instead of getting discouraged, she did everything she could to slim down quickly and eventually succeeded in playing the female role.
Her interpretation proved to be very successful, portraying a reclusive and strong second grandmother, who became the anchor of “The Big House”.
Those who have watched “Kangxi Dynasty” have a deep impression of Empress Xiaozhuang, and when it comes to Scylla, the first thing that comes to many people’s mind is Empress Dowager Xiaozhuang.
Zhu Sujin, the screenwriter of Kangxi Dynasty, once said: “If the full score is 100, her performance can score 110.”
The young Kangxi Emperor Kangxi was educated and nurtured by the Empress Xiaozhuang, who was a key figure in the drama, and it was her education and training that helped him to become a sage and wise ruler.
Sichingaeva’s performance is so masterful that the audience blurs their identities and becomes an unsurpassed character for posterity.
She can go from the soft and majestic Yuzhen to the vulgar and spicy Tigress, and from the bitter and sad Xiang Er’s sister-in-law to the humorous and witty Auntie.
She can jump from the lowly Erlengma to the 9-to-5 empress Wu Zetian, or from the graceful and noble rich woman to the rural northwestern woman.
Each role is so classic, so believable and so memorable.
Some people commented that she acted as if she was possessed by the character, but Scylla bluntly said.
“The so-called secret, perhaps, is a devotion to the art, even if it is a small role, never stand in front of the audience without being silent to the point where the character is possessed.
If you don’t play a role to the point of being possessed, you can’t play it well and you feel sorry for the audience.”
It is her obsession with acting and her reverence for her role that has made her one of the most popular actresses in China.
04
Love is not a theme in Scyngova’s works; her characters are endowed with so much dignity, responsibility, power, and strength as women, but they always fall out of love.
While her career was going well, her road to love was also quite tortuous.
When she was still in the Inner Mongolia Dance Troupe, she met a young director, Sun Tianxiang, who was nine years older than her, and everything went on as before.
Sichingaova and son Sun Tie
At the age of 18, she and Sun Tianxiang registered their marriage and soon gave birth to a daughter, Sun Dan, and a son, Sun Tie, but she did not expect that her husband would be violent and would often beat and kick her.
As a result, her 4-year-old son was given to her husband and her 5-year-old daughter lived with her.
Shortly afterwards, Sigingaova fell in love with Ao Xingchen, a Daur actor, and they married within half a year of meeting.
relationship, so she stopped thinking about remarriage and only wanted to develop her career and bring up her children.
Sometimes she missed her son, so she contacted her ex-husband to bring him to Beijing, but Sun Tianxiang said.
“Are you divorced again? No one wants you! My son and I are doing well, and I hope you won’t disturb us…”
Later, with the introduction of director Ling Zifeng, Sigingaeva met the famous Swiss-Chinese musician Chen Liang Sheng, who graduated from UC Berkeley and received his M.A. from Princeton University.
At their first meeting, Chen Liang Sheng fell in love with her at first sight and expressed his love for her, but Stschengova said.
“I’m basically disabled, I’ve fallen off a horse three times, broken my ankle twice, have a bad spine, have been divorced twice, have two children, smoke and drink…”.
However, Chen did not back down after hearing this, and was eventually impressed by his sincerity, and they married in 1986, and Stschengova and her daughter immigrated to Switzerland.
Today, they have been moistened by each other for more than 30 years, living a happy life of “holding hands with their son and growing old together”.
Their daughter, Sun Dan, was brought along by her mother and later studied abroad.
Sun Tie, on the other hand, lived with his father, who was imprisoned for intentional injury when he was 13 years old. Due to the lack of supervision, he dropped out of school at the age of 16 and went to work in Shenzhen, where he almost lost his life.
Due to the lack of love from his mother as a child, and the bitter experiences of his childhood, Sun Tie harbored a grudge against his mother, Sichingaova.
After more than ten years, the relationship between mother and son eased, and with the help of Sigingaova, Sun Tie went to Belgium to study film and television.
After that, he entered the acting world on the recommendation of his mother, and appeared in several productions, including The Legend of the Eastbound Hero and Mother.
Many of them were small supporting roles, and he didn’t make any splash in the showbiz, but only lived under the aura of his mother, but he couldn’t change the fact that he was the son of Scylla.
05
After decades of acting in classics, there is not a single play in her life that is more exciting than Scyngova’s. Her career has been remarkable, but the price she has to pay has been enormous.
Her career achievements have attracted the world’s attention, but the hardships and the price she had to pay behind the scenes were enormous, not only in terms of emotional hardships, but also in terms of physical pain and suffering over the decades.
But there is no such thing as a perfect life, and you can’t have it both ways.
No matter what you go through, you should not lose hope for the future, nor should you give in to difficulties, there is no obstacle in life.
Even though she can only travel in a wheelchair and needs support from others, 70-year-old Sichingaeva did not bow to fate, and still went to the front line of performance, giving play to her remaining enthusiasm.
This is an old artist worthy of respect, so let’s wish her the rest of her life happiness and health!
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