After coming to America over 15 years ago, I watched tons of movies, TV plays, and sitcoms. On the sideline, I kept watching Chinese movies and TV series. The big difference I see is that American actors, either famous or unknown, acted more in a natural way so that we, as audiences, did not really feel that they were acting. On the other hand, the fellow Chinese actors, except a few well-known ones, the majority of normal actors just “acted” too much and made me feel either uncomfortable or nervous in a way that I could feel their frustration or pressure for trying to make their roles work.
It might relate to the fundamental cultural differences since American people appear to be more open-minded and care-free while we oriental people are more subtle and good at conceiving but not expressing.
Over the years, we have seen so many big-budget movies with all-star cast and captivating camera work, and most of them have very strong story lines as well. However, the effect is not very satisfying, one reason may attribute to the irrelevance of the content to real people’s lives when a movie tells a completely fabricated story from ancient time. For those movies, we audiences are at the mercy of the screenwriter and director because they can do pretty much whatever they want. Leaving alone those big screen movies, there were quite some TV series produced over the years that did tell stories of ordinary people’s lives. For those TV shows, acting skills would become really important.
Another interesting observation is that in a typical American TV or movie production, regardless of the importance of a role, big or small, actors would dedicate 100% and you don't feel that a story is broken into pieces because of inconsistent acting. But this is usually not the case for our fellow Chinese actors. We could easily spot a couple of non-professional actors who made us guess that they might be picked for a price, say, relatives of a sponsor.
It might relate to the fundamental cultural differences since American people appear to be more open-minded and care-free while we oriental people are more subtle and good at conceiving but not expressing.
Over the years, we have seen so many big-budget movies with all-star cast and captivating camera work, and most of them have very strong story lines as well. However, the effect is not very satisfying, one reason may attribute to the irrelevance of the content to real people’s lives when a movie tells a completely fabricated story from ancient time. For those movies, we audiences are at the mercy of the screenwriter and director because they can do pretty much whatever they want. Leaving alone those big screen movies, there were quite some TV series produced over the years that did tell stories of ordinary people’s lives. For those TV shows, acting skills would become really important.
Another interesting observation is that in a typical American TV or movie production, regardless of the importance of a role, big or small, actors would dedicate 100% and you don't feel that a story is broken into pieces because of inconsistent acting. But this is usually not the case for our fellow Chinese actors. We could easily spot a couple of non-professional actors who made us guess that they might be picked for a price, say, relatives of a sponsor.
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