Actor gets people talking by mimicking global accents(2)

Web celebrity and actor Mike Sui performs in accents from different parts of the world in 12-minute short film he produced last year. He works on the production of the video. In the film, some social issues such as high housing prices are highlighted. (Photo/China Daily)

According to Sui, to imitate so vividly, one needs to pay close attention to people in daily life and practice different accents for hours.

He chose to imitate people from places with large populations, such as the provinces of Sichuan and Guangdong in China's south, because he wants them to feel a part of the "big cultural picture".

"It's a place where various people would gather together," he says of the old green trains. "I thought a plane would be fun too, but the train is a specialty and there are very few green trains still running now. I appreciate tradition."

It took only two days to shoot the short film in January last year, but Sui didn't unveil it online until a month ago. "You need the audience to be in the same mood. I put the video online in January 2015 because it's time to go home and celebrate Spring Festival with families. The train will remind them of that too," he says.

The video highlights subjects that Chinese people care about, but in a lighter vein, such as someone singing songs while begging, a swindler with fake injuries to trick people and high housing prices.

"When the public talks about these things, they sometimes express their frustration, such as not being able to buy a house. I point these things out but don't have a solution," he says.

"It is just to show that competition is fierce in China. It's hard to provide for yourself so sometimes people just cheat others for money."

In February, Sui posted a video of himself greeting people for Chinese Lunar New Year in 34 different Chinese accents. The short film, which cost him less than 100,000 yuan to make, became an online hit.

His research for that video involved meeting with one person from each province or region and chatting with them to discover the key phrase from that place, he says. He tried to understand the culture behind each phrase and recorded it and kept practicing from morning to night for about 20 days.

Other than making online short films and working on commercials, Sui works for Chinese TV serials and in movies. He played the second lead in a romance movie by Hong Kong director Jingle Ma, and it will premiere later this year.

"I'm at an awkward moment when people say I'm still an Internet celebrity. It's important to take it to the next level to be mainstream."