Wang Xun 王迅,王讯

Wang Xun has a line that people in China still remember even if they've forgotten the name of his character. In Crazy Stone, his bespectacled secretary, upon discovering a dent in his car, suggests reading BMW as "Don't Touch Me." Before that film, Wang had spent years performing in Sichuan and writing comedy sketches. After it, he was still mostly stuck with supporting roles on screen for a long time, and it was the TV show "Extreme Challenge" that made him a household name across the country. Wang met Huang Bo on the set of Crazy Stone, later appeared with him many times, and helped him prepare his directorial debut The Island.

Wang Xun was born on November 27, 1974, in Chengdu, into a working-class family. As a child he became obsessed with the violin. The instrument cost 41 yuan, while his mother's salary at the time was 18 yuan a month, but his parents bought it anyway. At first Wang threw himself into it with enthusiasm, but then he stopped liking the way he played, and after about three years he gave up his lessons. After school, in 1992, he went into service and was assigned to the ensemble of the People's Armed Police of Sichuan Province. There he performed, staged numbers and wrote skits himself. From Shen Fa he learned the Sichuan comic theater xieju, and from Yang Ziyang — xiangsheng, the art of comic dialogue. To be able to speak without a Sichuan accent when necessary, Wang says he read dictionary entries aloud.

In 1998, on the strength of a viewer vote, Wang was named one of the ten best comedians of the Bashu region. He was the youngest on that list. Around the same time he began appearing in local TV series in which the actors spoke Sichuanese, and at the start of the following decade he turned up in Hua Er Ge Yu Liu Duo Jin Hua. He was already recognized in Chengdu when he was invited to audition for a feature film. At first Wang thought someone was playing a prank on him. He was told the film had Andy Lau Tak-Wah's backing, and the audition took place in a cramped room packed with people. Wang hurried to get the audition over with, and Ning Hao cast him as the secretary.

Crazy Stone came out in 2006. The line that people later kept repeating to Wang on the street came about because a Mercedes couldn't be found for the crash scene. A BMW was brought over from a repair shop. Wang improvised a play on those letters on the spot, and the director polished the pun into shape — the result was "Don't touch me," bie mo wo in Chinese. On the same shoot Wang met Huang Bo, who played one of the thieves. They would meet again more than once on the sets of Ning Hao and Guan Hu. In Crazy Racer (2009) Wang played a policeman in a cameo, in Design of Death (2012) an artist, and in The Chef, the Actor, the Scoundrel (2013) once again a man in glasses. When Huang Bo opened his own studio, Wang became the first actor it took under its wing.

In 2015 Wang, together with Huang Bo, became one of the six regular cast members of the show Go Fighting! (极限挑战). At first he worried that viewers wouldn't understand how he had ended up among far more famous performers. What they remembered was how diligently he carried out the tasks and how he guarded the money handed out for the game to the very last. Wang himself said he had been used to saving since childhood and the army, though with the first serious sum he managed to put aside he bought an expensive Japanese bicycle. Television made Wang far more recognizable. That same year saw the release of the comedy Lost in Hong Kong, in which he appeared. He played his first leading role, the writer Meng Dawei in Kill Me Please, two years later.

In August 2015, on the wave of the show's popularity, posts from an account attributed to Wang spread online. Judging by those posts, journalists and internet users concluded, he had begun dating his future second wife in the spring of 2013, a few months before divorcing his first. On August 20 the actor wrote on Weibo that both wives had supported him at different periods of his life, and that he had hurt them both. He took the blame on himself and asked that the women be left alone. Three years later his second wife published an ambiguous post. According to Sina Entertainment, the post was taken as a hint at a new affair. The next day Wang's wife explained that she had been joking and said that she and her husband were doing fine.

In Detective Chinatown Vol 2 (2018) by Chen Si-Cheng, Wang played the New York gangster Lu Guofu. To the HKCinema reviewer, the villain seemed flat. That same year, The Island came out. Wang had known about the concept several years before shooting, had read the script, offered advice and helped come up with the title. In the film he plays office manager Lao Pan, who, even on a deserted island, quickly works out whom it is best to side with. The shoot lasted more than four months, the signal on the island was poor, and when the actors had talked about everything under the sun, Wang recalled, all they had left to discuss was the scenes. In January 2019, almost simultaneously, came The Big Shot by Wu Bai, in which Wang played the assistant to a wealthy heir, and the drama Save Your Soul, in which his character's son dies during an earthquake. The second role earned him a best Asian actor award at the New Vision festival in the Netherlands.

In Never Say Never (2023), Wang Bao-Qiang played a coach who opens a sports school for poor kids, and Wang Xun played his old friend and business partner. The director had to ask Wang Xun to give up details he had invented for his role. For instance, Wang Xun wanted to eat a sweet potato with such appetite that the children in the frame would want to try it too. Wang Bao-Qiang asked him to just eat. Wang Xun said it was hard for him to give up the habit of using every second of his time on screen. Still, knowing his partner helped him play old friends without unnecessary explanations. Later he appeared in the comedy Johnny Keep Walking!, in the crime picture The River of Fury and in The Lychee Road (2025), where he played a Tang dynasty official. In Chengdu he continued to be involved in the affairs of the local film industry. In the spring of 2026, he gave an interview already as vice chairman of the Sichuan Film Association.