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Jul 28, 2021 23 tweets 16 min read Read on X
Thread about junzhe’s amazing 眼神戏 (gaze acting?) bc with every rewatch of SHL, i just get more and more appreciative of it

(honestly, you can pretty much just throw it under the whole “acting” umbrella so you could also take this thread as me 🌈 farting junzhe’s acting 😌) ImageImageImageImage
so what exactly is 眼神戏? it’s basically when a simple gaze is all you need to understand the emotions of the character, without needing any words

for example: here, without saying anything and with his measuring gaze alone, you can tell that wkx is intrigued by zzs ImageImage
why is it so important??

眼神戏 is a weird little thing where if the actors excel at it, it takes their acting to a whole new level and the viewing experience is immersive (for us) but if they dont, we, as viewers, have a hard time buying the emotions or getting into it
but no fear with junzhe bc they happen to be excellent at it! (and probably these gazes are a main reason we’re still on this 🏔)

starting off with gj, he has the advantage with his puppy eyes where whenever he looks at zzs as wkx, his gaze just drips honey ImageImage
but he doesn’t just have that one type of loving gaze where he looks like he wants to consume zzs, no

if you compare the previous look to this one from ep 25, you can see that both are love, but ep 25 is lot softer and his conflicted state at the time is reflected in his gaze ImageImageImageImage
if you contrast the way he looks at zzs with the way he looks at his subordinates, it becomes even more apparent (how he flips between wkx cold and untouchable side, and his unpredictable bouts of insanity)

even when he smiles, his eyes are hard as steel ImageImageImageImage
you can also make the comparison with the way he looks a cwn

he didn’t say a single word at the start of this exchange but just from his gaze alone, you can sense his disdain and dislike towards the person he perceives is trying to steal his little sister/daughter away ImageImage
now onto zzh!

this man did not become the nation’s laopo for nothing, he fully leveraged his acting experience to bring out zzs’s softness, warmth and delicateness

with just a side-eye or furrowed eyebrow, he makes us GET zzs’s little moments of playfulness or pettiness ImageImageImageImage
and just like gj, the way he stares at wkx as zzs just spells so much love and fondness, it’s literally making him softer

this is why people always say “SHL did not speak of a single word of ‘love’ between wenzhou but everything between them can be nothing but love” ImageImageImageImage
ep 33 was just a fkn masterpiece, a true testament of zzh as an actor

he barely spoke in the ep but he didn’t need to bc his gaze said everything you need to know

from his disbelief at wkx being alive, to his anger at the deceit, to his forgiveness, it’s all there, clear as day ImageImageImageImage
ep 34 was just as amazing, zzh used his eyes alone to convey all the regrets he felt towards his situation (note how when wkx hugged him, zzs didn’t look down, almost as if he couldn’t bear to) but even then, his eyes still held so much love when he did look at lao wen ImageImageImageImage
also people criticized his acting in ep 1 bc they said he was too frozen… just take a look at his various zzs’s, from his relaxed carefree attitude at first, to his youthful hope of changing the world, to his emotionless state, to his anger towards the man who took everything ImageImageImageImage
(fuck i love zzh. and gj. and the two of them. oh my god i cant)

now, let’s get into how their 眼神戏 literally explodes in potency and chemistry when put TOGETHER

((posting the thread now so that you guys can start reading while i continue working on the rest))
you cant talk about junzhe 眼神戏 without talking about whatever happened in ep 8 bc oh my god

i won’t talk about the way wkx looked at zzs (see 1st screenshot) but instead, just by shifting his eyes and avoiding eye contact, zzh is able to show zzs’s bashfulness at the question
from ep 7, when zzs said “just what kind of relationship are we in for me to pay your bill?”, he has the tiniest smile playing on his lips like you can’t convince me he isn’t flirting

meanwhile, wkx’s expression says all you need to know about what he thinks (“really a-xu?”)
jumping to ep 14 and straight into a pit of knives, we only feel knived because their acting is on point

wkx is smiling in P1 but is he really happy? it’s more self-deprecating than anything else

and P2, he just looks so… lost. so empty, like he really just lost everything. ImageImage
meanwhile, zzs goes through much more of rollercoaster of emotions

although his tears are swimming in his eyes, we don’t just get “sad”: we also get tired acceptance and anger that’s laced with so much sadness

they are both just hurting so much here ImageImageImageImage
you can’t talk about SHL without talking about ep 27 so here it is (im using the bts bc i can):

note how zzs is looking at wkx in both but it’s so obvious how different the emotions are

P1 is serious and deliberating while P2 is almost playful, a hint of teasing ImageImage
im tired of saying it but gj’s expressions in this scene are so good…

wkx’s surprise when zzs defended him, his disbelief when zzs chose to die with him followed by his smile (he accepted zzs’s feelings, he validated them), his relief when yby let him off… fuck. ImageImageImageImage
bc this thread can go on and on for literally every single ep (and i will likely add to this thread later) but I think you’re all starting to get the point, im going to conclude with ep 36 since we clearly haven’t been knived enough yet 😌
ive heard that it’s actually quite common for actors nowadays to take a break if they partner is filming close-up shots since they won’t be in the shot anyways

but gj has said in their bazaar interview that he acted in every scene with zzh so think about that in terms of ep 36
that means that for this scene, even though we don’t see it in the close-ups, they were looking at each other as their expressions changed from love to pain and regret, from shock and confusion to absolute despair

they brought that out of each other ImageImageImageImage
not a single word was exchanged (except maybe the unspoken 爱你) but they don’t need to for us to understand

that’s the extent of how amazing junzhe’s 眼神戏 is, they really breathed life and depth into wenzhou with every single one of their expressions

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More from @manggaetteok96

Jul 30, 2021
#ChineseRestaurant5 watch thread!

Can’t believe I’m saying this but I already can’t wait for Junjun to arrive just to save them in the kitchen 😂 looking at HXM’s previous season cuts, this man seems like a menace in the kitchen lmfao
YAN = 2nd princess (BC ZH IS REAL PRINCESS!!!!!)

LMFAO YAN is talking about how she doesn't want to wipe her face bc her makeup's gonna get smeared but HXM hit her with a "don't be too delicate bc once you start working, then your makeup's REALLY gonna get smeared"
ZHOU YE DAUGHTER IS HERE AHHHHHHH LIL BALL OF SUNSHINE SO PRETTY 😭😭♥️♥️♥️♥️
Read 58 tweets
Jul 29, 2021
#ZhangZhehan Clinique livestream thread (we’ll see how much I do since it’s like 2AM here 🙃)

wondering how long he’ll be on for, 30 mins? 1hr? also currently it’s just the host and a female guest (host?) chatting, lp hasn’t come on yet
they’re presenting those mini hand-fans and all i can think about is lp’s small red fan that he had on him 24/7 on shl set hhhhhhhhhhhhhh
cant see these names but I think I see JZ in there 😂😂😂

LP IS COMING!!!
Read 37 tweets
Jul 28, 2021
since i wasn’t needed to find a lg flavour, how about a tiny restaurant AU? 🌝

imagine lg and lp running a small hole in the wall restaurant, a blink and you miss it kind of place but every person who’ve had food there once would unfailingly make another reservation
lg is in charge of the kitchen while lp acts as the host, waiter and sommelier

people who go there for the first time would question how the two came to work together when they… clearly don’t seem to get along?
lg would never let lp step one foot into the kitchen while lp would rather dance the chacha for 2 hours than let lg anywhere near his precious wine collection

while watching their constant bickering about one thing or another makes for amazing dinner entertainment,
Read 10 tweets
Jul 27, 2021
Reading this thread just made me think about how SHL’s ending really gave wenzhou the power of choice, and this time, it’s with no strings attached.

Because if you think about it, circumstances out of their control kept pushing them into a certain direction.
You can’t say that they never had a choice because they clearly did, but it always felt like they were stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the choice was never truly up to them?
ZZS made a choice to join Prince Jin because if he didn’t, the Four Seasons Manor would not have survived the constant attacks.

He also made a choice to nail himself in exchange for freedom but that was because the alternative was to continue killing for someone else.
Read 8 tweets
Jul 17, 2021
i think one of the funniest things to me is how a portion of seasoned cdrama watchers went into the SHL concert all jaded like “🚬 bet they’re gonna try and break cp 🚬 let’s just hope they do it gently 🚬”

then concert happened and so many people turned into lld shippers 😂
like i wonder if you understand just how unconventional that whole experience was?? while i was hoping to get fed with maybe just a few crumbs, we instead got a full 9-course meal’s worth of food (im mean, im STILL rewatching concert content and dying)
and this just absolutely blows my mind? the fact that not only did lld not lose a bunch of fans post-concert, it actually managed drag a whole new group in?? to get a bunch of people to go from “nahhhh” to “okay wait a sec maybe there’s really something there oh god 🤡”
Read 7 tweets
Jul 16, 2021
thinking about enemies-to-lovers (kinda) wenzhou where zzs’s a highly respected cultivator while wkx’s known as one of the most prominent cultivators of the demonic arts

and they’re just perfect opposites, constantly at each other’s throat bc zzs’s the only one able to stop wkx
if zzs isn’t stopping wkx from doing something bad, then it’s probably because he’s on his way to stop wkx from doing something bad

it got to the point where it’s become a thing for them, where if one of them shows up, the other one’s probably not far behind
if zzs’s on a relatively easy mission to get rid of some pesky demonic beasts terrorizing a small village, wkx’s probably going to show up and make things a hundred times worse

and if wkx’s trying to terrorize a village, zzs’s probably going to appear to stop him
Read 38 tweets

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