As far as lucky breaks go, former child actress Xu Jiao’s unusual debut at the age of 10 playing Stephen Chow’s son in the movie CJ7 seems to have served her in good stead for her recent gig on the dubbing program Voice Monster 我是特优声 where she’s currently a mentor. In a recent episode, Xu Jiao amazed everyone including her senior colleagues for effortlessly switching voices between a young woman and a little boy smoothly and sans difficulty, earning praise from the show’s dubbing professionals who recalled her excellent dubbing skills in CJ7.
However, Xu Jiao confessed that she actually saw dubbing CJ7 as her very own “childhood shadow” because the renowned Hong Kong filmmaker and actor was notoriously strict. “When filming a scene, it was common to take 20 to 30 shots of the same scene. After those three months of filming, I thought I wouldn’t have to endure any more torture, but who knew that there was still dubbing to be done?” says the actress.
Xu Jiao also adds that “for a ten year old child, dubbing is frankly too difficult, most particularly for the crying scenes which she says she couldn’t continue to do any longer at one point after all the takes. Director Chow even had to bring in my mom to “discipline” 家暴 me before I could continue filming the scene. I don’t know how I got over the dubbing.”
Looking back however, the actress says it makes sense now when everyone says that she “debuted at the highest level” because she never had such a strict director as Stephen Chow. “It really is the luckiest thing in my life so far” she says.
