We have no way of knowing whether our beloved characters are medals or shackles for the actor himself.
On November 20, 2022, Beijing time, the US media announced that Jason David Frank had passed away at the age of 49.
When it comes to Jason David Frank, domestic audiences may not be familiar with it. But if you put it another way, it may awaken many deep memories of the post-80s and 90s: he is Tommy Oliver (Hong Kong and Taiwan) in the “Dinosaur Team” (currently translated as “Extraordinary Team”) series introduced by the mainland in the last century. Translated as “Da Ming”).
For foreign audiences, the significance of this special camera actor is even more special. Fans who saw the news were devastated and took to Jason’s Twitter account to pay their respects. They remembered this childhood hero with words full of respect: “You are a true legendary warrior, and you will never be forgotten.”
For a time, people’s love for him flooded in like a tide.
However, the actual situation is somewhat different from the language of praise. Looking through Jason’s account, one can find that this legendary warrior seems to have been forgotten by people. Until his death, each of Jason’s tweets had only a few comments and likes, which seemed extremely deserted.
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Tommy Oliver is Jason’s most successful role in acting history.
In 1993, the American company Saban purchased the copyright of the Japanese “Super Sentai” series, and the adapted American version of “Dinosaurs” quickly set off a “dinosaur craze” once it was broadcast on TV.
Tommy Oliver, played by Jason, is the most legendary character in team history. In the play, he is a warrior in green who is both righteous and evil, and the soul leading the team. For a while, Tommy became the role that all American boys yearn for, and almost everyone is imitating his classic action “continuous roundabout kick”.
He may have been as important to American kids in the ’90s as Batman and Spiderman, until a twist came.
In 1997, perhaps out of consideration for his personal future, perhaps dissatisfied with the salary, or both, Jason chose not to continue participating in “The Power Rangers”. In the play, Tommy, who has just acquired a new power and is the core of the team, can only hastily choose his successor, and the turning point of the plot seems very blunt. And this turning point may have planted the seeds of dissatisfaction in the hearts of many viewers.
Jason hasn’t had any other influential roles since leaving Power Rangers. People’s impression of him has always been fixed on the green warrior Tommy, but not many people care about his own situation.
Until 2004, Jason returned to the “Character Rangers” series, and the seeds planted in the early years began to germinate gradually.
After returning, Jason continued to play Tommy, but Tommy’s role in the play became more and more important. He played multiple warriors in green, white, and black in succession, and frequently appeared to steal the limelight that should belong to other characters. , there is one person who carries the momentum of the whole drama. Therefore, many foreign fans began to hate the role of Tommy, and even hated Tommy’s actor Jason.
Netizens make spoof pictures to satirize Tommy for playing too many roles, which shows his dissatisfaction with Tommy
Moreover, the “crimes” committed by Jason did not stop there. Netizens also criticized him for privately participating in the filming of the fan drama “Fortunate Forces”, using the popularity of the characters in the drama to develop his own online reality show, and cooperating with other team members to shoot online movies ,and many more.
“Super Showdown” starring Jason is a work of chaos across various themes
Back then, Jason resolutely left “Fortunate Team”, but after his return, he took the initiative to get involved with various fan works. Such behavior made many netizens dislike him. He was accused on the Internet of “eating characters” and “selling feelings” more and more voices.
Such personal attacks are often seen under its tweets promoting new activities. They called Jason’s behavior “shady shit.”
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If the behavior of special camera actors eating character bonuses is “dark shit”, the screenwriter of “Ultraman” Masato Uda once more or less satirized this “shit behavior” in “Hetero Superman Utman” .
In this movie, the protagonists are three special actors who have played “Otterman”. After retiring, the three have been using the popularity of their roles to hold meet-and-greets and sell high-priced peripherals to seek benefits, but in the end they became the real heroes who saved mankind because of reasons such as “I don’t like Utman”.
Retired special-shot actors in “Otterman” sign autographs on female fans
There are many actors who have played special roles, but bluntly say that they don’t like special dramas. After all, no actor wants to be limited by one or two roles in his life. Many of them have stood on a higher stage through hard work, and the special shooting drama they once starred in has become an ordinary and somewhat special fragment of their lives.
However, the reality is more complicated. Neither the actor himself nor the audience can completely separate the connection between the actor and the character. And because of the uneven quality of actors, the phenomenon in “Otterman” is being truly staged in Japan.
Kurata Tetsuo, who played the leading role in “Kamen Rider BLACK” and “Kamen Rider BLACK RX”, is like the portrayal of the script of “Otterman” brought into reality.
Today, when special camera actors hold fan meetings and charge high tickets, and sell self-made peripherals to collect money, it has become a routine operation today. The audience has long been familiar with these behaviors, but Kurata Tetsuo seems to be moving towards a higher level in the cause of harvesting fans. high dimension.
For example, auctioning off used items at high prices on Twitter.
Another example is to force fans to brush gifts in the live broadcast room.
When he was live broadcasting, he often pretended to be Nam Kotaro. If he was dissatisfied with the number of gifts sent by fans, he would give a low pressure to his fans: “Is your love for BLACK limited to this level? Is this still my Nam Kotaro’s fan? I don’t need the fans who are pulling my legs, thank you.” Fortunately, after the fans pay the money, he will quickly change his face and return to normal.
Kurata Tetsuo is not without his own main business. In addition to the occasional sideline business of auctioning his second-hand items and forcing krypton in live broadcasts, he also runs his own steak restaurant in Tokyo, and commissioned a designer to make a life-like statue of Kamen Rider BLACK for this purpose.
During the commissioning process, Kurata Tetsuo repeatedly promised to the designer that “the statue will only be kept in his own home and will never be used for commercial purposes.” But after receiving the statue, Kurata immediately arranged it in a steak restaurant , in order to be able to successfully sell the “Knight’s Steak” in the restaurant that is several times higher than the market price.
Fans who were tolerant of the above behaviors lost control during a live broadcast by Kurata Tetsuo.
In 2021, when the remake of “Kamen Rider BLACK” “Kamen Rider BLACK SUN” is about to be broadcast, some fans asked Kurata Tetsuo what he thinks of this new drama. Perhaps because it was obviously a reset drama but he did not let himself participate in it, or maybe he realized that his position was about to be replaced, Kurata Tetsuo replied impatiently: “I am not a Kamen Rider, I just happened to act in it before, but I really I don’t like Kamen Rider very much, so don’t ask me in the future.”
At this moment, he still didn’t know what kind of disturbance his blurted complaint was about to cause. The matter of “Kurata Tetsuo doesn’t like Kamen Rider” quickly fermented on the Internet, attracting a hail of bullets mixed with anger and sadness from fans. Kurata Tetsuo can sell unlicensed peripherals and force fans to make money, but he can’t help but like Kamen Rider. Because his source of income still relies on the fan base, “not liking Kamen Rider” itself has become his biggest problem.
After the “violent words”, Kurata Tetsuo only persisted for three days and then quickly lost. Three days later, he issued an apology statement on Facebook and Instagram, saying that he “has walked with Kamen Rider for decades, and hopes to I can keep going. Even though “Kamen Rider” is very important to me, but I said that, and now I hate myself. The previous behavior was very immature, and I hope the fans can forgive me.”
Although this does seem like a temporary compromise in order to continue to make money, many fans do not buy it, but in fact, what people rarely know is that in the early interviews, Kurata Tetsuo also made no secret of his love for the “Masquerade”. Knight’s love.
In 2006, in the “Interview with Tetsuo Kurata”, he once said piously, “‘Kamen Rider’ is his origin, and it is because of ‘Kamen Rider’ that Tetsuo Kurata is today.”
Maybe even he himself forgot, at the end of the last interview, when the reporter asked “What is “Kamen Rider BLACK” to you?”, he pondered for a moment and raised his head and said, “It’s my treasure. “At least for that moment, the gleam in his eye wasn’t acting.
Kurata Tetsuo became famous as “Minami Kotaro” as a young boy, but this role gave people too strong an impression. The title of “starring knight” brought him both honor and shackles. In an interview in 2009, Kurata Tetsuo mentioned that he also tried to rebel, wanted to remove the label of a hero, and wanted people to see “actor Kurata Tetsuo”, but in the end that feeling gradually faded away.
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In fact, this “fading” sense of powerlessness is not unique to Tokusho actors. Many actors are either voluntarily or forced to be bound to the roles they have played for a lifetime.
Not long ago, the actor Lu Shuming who played Guan Yu in the 94 version of “Romance of the Three Kingdoms” passed away. But in fact, when Lu Shuming was still alive, he was also questioned for “eating characters”.
In 2016, Lu Shuming played Guan Yu as the endorsement of the mobile game “Heroes of the Three Kingdoms” and sang the theme song “Big Man”; in 2020, he played Guan Yu again as the endorsement of “Three Kingdoms: Zero”; The first film and television drama “Qinglong Yanyue Knife” was launched. Many netizens couldn’t stand it any longer. They thought that Lu Shuming made a bad drama, and called out “the childhood filter is broken”, and rushed to Douban to give this drama a low score. In the end, the drama received a low score of 3.7.
Some radical netizens even directly attacked Lu Shuming personally, criticizing him for using the image of Guan Yu to endorse mobile game advertisements and filming online dramas.
However, the reality is that Lu Shuming, who is not rich in his later years, not only needs to support himself, but also takes extra care of his “third brother” Li Jingfei.
From 2012 to 2015, Li Jingfei, the actor who played Zhang Fei, had a cerebral infarction three times. Although he saved his life, he was plagued by sequelae and almost lost his ability to take care of himself.
In 2015, Lu Shuming, who learned the news, flew to Shijiazhuang to visit his old friends in person, and raised money to see a doctor for Li Jingfei. Later, Lu Shuming took Li Jingfei to a nursing home in Xi’an in order to provide better health for the unattended Li Jingfei. During that time, while he had to take care of his mother who was suffering from cancer, he also cared about Li Jingfei.
(From right) Lu Shuming, Li Jingfei and Zhao Yun’s actor Zhang Shan
Since 2016, Lu Shuming has embarked on his road of “evening festivals are not guaranteed”, not only filming mobile game endorsements, acting in online dramas, and even traveling around to accept commercial performances. Someone photographed him appearing at a rural birthday party, singing for others; someone photographed him playing the role of Qin Shihuang in the city that never sleeps in the Tang Dynasty. Although he was sitting on a chair, he was already exhausted.
Regarding the fact that someone accused him of taking a lifetime of role bonuses, Lu Shuming just smiled calmly: “After more than 20 years of this role, everyone still remembers it vividly, that’s enough.” Perhaps for him, there is a lot of unwillingness and false fame As early as when I saw my mother suffering from cancer and an old friend who was seriously ill, I “faded gradually”.
We have no way of knowing whether our beloved characters are medals or shackles for the actor himself. Maybe they had to put on the old outfits again because of their livelihood, or maybe they were simply lost in their own desires, and they used the roles they played as a tool to deceive fans. These things may never be discussed clearly, and only I know the real situation.
For the audience, perhaps it is still necessary to separate the character from the actor himself, and pay attention to the charm that the actor bestows on the character.
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