On the martial arts stage, Li Boda was dressed entirely in black—black jacket, black trousers, and black shoes—with only a red headband tied around his short hair. With a look like that, let alone in a historical wuxia drama, you would not find it out of place at all even in a modern series.
Yet in Wind and Cloud, such a look on Li Boda did not feel out of place in the slightest.
Because there were simply too many people with looks similar to Li Boda's.
If he had been the only one in the entire production dressed that way, his style would naturally have stood out as exceptionally jarring.
However, since the majority of the supporting cast in this entire production sported this exact look, the effect was remarkably harmonious.
"Please!" Standing opposite Li Boda, Zhao Wenzhuo appeared gentle and refined, with a mild smile as he cupped his hands and offered a single word to Li Boda.
In contrast to Zhao Wenzhuo's politeness, Li Boda came across as fiercely martial. Without uttering a single word, he immediately assumed a stance, launched into an opening posture of Tai Chi, and then took the initiative to attack Zhao Wenzhuo.
The reason for this lay in the demands of the plot itself, which required Li Boda's performance to set off Nie Feng's character.
Slap—
"Cut!"
Just as Li Boda and Zhao Wenzhuo's hands and feet made contact, the word "cut" rang out from nearby.
Li Boda and Zhao Wenzhuo came to a halt, while the surrounding cameras, lighting, and other equipment began to shift.
Half an hour later, once the cameras, lighting, and other equipment had been repositioned:
"Action!"
Li Boda and Zhao Wenzhuo clashed once again.
Li Boda struck a Tai Chi pose, while Zhao Wenzhuo, suspended on wires, executed a nimble flying kick.
"Cut!"
After trading blows for two rounds, they stopped once more. Then came another adjustment of the cameras, lighting, and other equipment.
Another good half-hour passed.
Once the adjustments were complete—
"Action!"
Just like that, an action sequence that totaled only a few minutes—no, perhaps even less than a minute of screen time in the television series—was shot by Li Boda and Zhao Wenzhuo for an entire day.
That's right: one minute of action choreography filmed across a whole day.
The actual time Li Boda and Zhao Wenzhuo spent exchanging blows, or rather the time spent on actual filming, was very short.
The vast majority of the time was consumed by the movement and setup of cameras, lighting, and other equipment.
In other words, the amount of this labor depended entirely on how many sets of camera angles or close-ups a fight scene required.
Because every time the angle changed, they had to stop so the cameras, lighting, and other apparatuses could be adjusted.
Every single close-up required readjusting the cameras, lighting, and equipment.
In reality, film crews from Hong Kong actually preferred shooting long takes when making wuxia dramas.
The kind of shot where the action goes continuously from start to finish.
Why shoot that way?
Naturally, to save trouble!
That way, there was no need to constantly adjust cameras, lighting, and all sorts of messy equipment back and forth, saving a tremendous amount of shooting time.
Yet such long takes placed exceptionally high demands on the actors and their martial arts skills, which was why most Hong Kong martial arts actors needed genuine kung fu; if you lacked real skills, the crew simply wouldn't hire you.
This fight scene between Li Boda and Zhao Wenzhuo, which lasted less than a minute, was filmed for an entire day.
Even though it felt rather slow.
In Li Boda's view, the time taken to shoot this scene was actually quite fast.
If it were in a Jin Yong adaptation produced by Zhang Jizhong, such as The Smiling, Proud Wanderer or The Legend of the Condor Heroes, shooting a sequence like this would easily require double the time or even more.
That was because Zhang Jizhong's Jin Yong dramas favored frequent angle changes, close-ups, and the liberal use of wind machines.
That was why other wuxia dramas could be wrapped up in a month or two, whereas under Zhang Jizhong, a single production could take six months or even longer to complete.
"Li Boda, you really have a lot of talent. Give serious thought to what I told you. Also, if you ever want to go to Hong Kong to act, you can look me up." Zhao Wenzhuo truly thought very highly of Li Boda.
Thus, he didn't mind extending a bit of goodwill toward Li Boda.
Of course, given Zhao Wenzhuo's standing, the most he could do was help Li Boda land minor roles and small supporting parts. Anything higher than that was beyond his own capability.
Mainly because Zhao Wenzhuo himself was currently stuck in a middle-tier position in Hong Kong; otherwise, he wouldn't have crossed over to the Mainland to star in the television series Wind and Cloud.
"Thank you, Brother Zhao, I will think it over carefully," Li Boda said with an expression of gratitude.
And so, Li Boda quietly arrived on the set of Wind and Cloud and just as quietly left it. Aside from Zhao Wenzhuo, practically no one even knew he had been there.
As for Zhao Wenzhuo's suggestion about attending a sports academy or trying his luck in Hong Kong, Li Boda had indeed considered them, but ultimately he decided to put those matters aside for the time being.
Because there was an upcoming production that Li Boda cared about a great deal.
It was the Jin Yong drama The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber.
Li Boda had caught wind that The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber was about to start filming and was currently holding auditions for various roles.
Perhaps because the triggering of his first Golden Finger had originally been tied to a Jin Yong drama, Li Boda held a different sort of—well, sentimental attachment toward Jin Yong's works.
In any case, he attached great importance to Jin Yong adaptations.
Whenever a Jin Yong drama was in production, he wanted to thrust himself into the middle of it.
Not to mention that this time The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber was still holding auditions, and he was pondering whether he could snag a role—well, at least one somewhat more important than that part in Wind and Cloud.
...
"You say you've played Yu Daiyan?" Director Lai Shuiqing looked at Li Boda with a mixture of curiosity and keen interest.
"Yes, I played Zhang Sanfeng's third disciple, Yu Daiyan." Li Boda nodded very earnestly.
"As far as I know, in the Ng Kai Wah version of The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber, the role of Yu Daiyan wasn't played by you. You don't look the right age either, not to mention earlier versions—when those were filmed, you hadn't even grown up yet. So where exactly did you play this Yu Daiyan of yours?" Lai Shuiqing looked at Li Boda with interest, tinged with a hint of skepticism.
The only reason Lai Shuiqing had agreed to audition Li Boda was because Li Boda had written on his resume that he had previously played Yu Daiyan. That was why Lai Shuiqing felt a glimmer of interest when Li Boda came to audition again; after all, bringing back an actor from a previous version to re-film the role meant he could easily play Yu Daiyan once more.
Yet Lai Shuiqing hadn't expected Li Boda to be so young. Clearly, Li Boda was plainly ineligible to have played Yu Daiyan in any other version of The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber.
"I didn't play Yu Daiyan in The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber; I played Zhang Junbao's disciple Yu Daiyan in Young Zhang Sanfeng, which starred Dicky Cheung," Li Boda explained.
"...Young Zhang Sanfeng." Lai Shuiqing was left momentarily speechless. Granted, that character was indeed Yu Daiyan, but the Yu Daiyan in Young Zhang Sanfeng and the Yu Daiyan in The Heaven Sword and the Dragon Saber were two completely different concepts, wouldn't you say?
"Alright then, what role do you want to audition for? Surely not Yu Daiyan again?" Lai Shuiqing asked, at a loss for words.
"Director, I'd like to audition for the role of Song Qingshu."
"Well, well! Skipping Yu Daiyan and going straight to Song Qingshu—you've jumped an entire generation right there. But tell me, what do you have to show that makes you think you can pull off Song Qingshu? You've only ever played minor supporting roles up until now, just some insignificant bit parts." Lai Shuiqing flipped through Li Boda's resume, then raised his gaze to look at him. "And the role of Song Qingshu is a remarkably important one."
"I know Tai Chi, and I'm very skilled at it. I also know various other sword techniques, palm techniques, and saber techniques." Li Boda eagerly showcased his strengths.