In the spring of 2002, Liu Lao Gen, the first TV series in which Zhao acted as the director and the leading actor, debuted on CCTV Channel-1, gaining an unprecedented audience rating. Following the success of Liu Lao Gen, he directed the sequel Liu Lao Gen II, which was also a huge success. Later, he shot another TV series Ma Dashuai and its sequel Ma Dashuai II.
In June 2005, Zhao Benshan started his new role as chairman of the Chinese Super League team Liaoning. He will help Liaoning build a training base in Hainan (island province in South China), which also will serve as a holiday resort, and cooperate with the club to establish a soccer academy, the first ever in China, at his movie production base.
Zhao is currently a First Class National Actor of the Tieling Folk Art Troupe, a member of the Chinese Ballad Singers Association, vice chairman of the Liaoning Provincial Ballad Singers Association, commissary of the All-China Youth Federation, a member of the People's Political Consultative Conference, and an image ambassador of Tieling City.
Zhao Benshan's Skirts
Ever since Zhao Benshan's performance at the 1990 CCTV's Spring Festival Party, Northern Liaoning's skits have taken root at this art gala. Over the past 15 or so years, Zhao has won widespread love from tens of thousands of fans.
Represented by Zhao Benshan, Northern Liaoning's skit is a special art form deeply rooted in the unique culture of Northeast China with a strong local northeast flavor and has successfully won over many people.
The strength of Zhao Benshan's skits lies in his language, which is the pure and typical dialect in northern Liaoning province. With the unique grammar, intonation, and pronunciation of his language plus his humor, hyperbole, and clownery, Zhao Benshan can always fascinate the audience.
The most conspicuous feature about Zhao's language is the rich and lively colloquialism, a heritage Zhao has inherited from the song-and-dance duets. He is not only able to grasp the rhythm of the traditional way of speaking colloquialism, but also can create styles from modern words and village slang according to the audience's aesthetics. Even the dullest of words can become funny in his mouth.
Though sounding light-hearted, Zhao's skit language is in fact profound in meaning. Based on his own understanding and feelings of life, Zhao is capable of correctly gripping the complicated relations between human beings as well as the audience's psychology and mood. His every word and sentence can match the audience's mental state.
Another point worth mentioning about Zhao's skit language lies in the comical sense of the language itself. In a series of skits, he has successfully played comic figures of different ages, identities, images, and personalities, with all the figures having one thing in common: their ugliness in appearance, language, or behavior. He plays such can't-be-more-ugly figures in a very serious way, resulting in a comic beauty that brings bursts of laughter from the audience.
For example, in A Blind Date, Zhao Benshan designed a series of body language for the leading role Xu Laonian, such as faltering steps and a hanging head to grind the floor with tiptoes, and so on. However, the audience never felt such body language ugly. Instead, they felt the body language, which showed the character's nature and genuineness, laughable and amusing.
The famous scholar Yu Qiuyu, a great admirer of Zhao's skits, once commented, "The laughter-maker is respectable. Zhao Benshan and his skits has brought Chinese people into an era of laughter."
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