Among all the celebrities appearing in China's premier entertainment show of the year, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala on February 6, Wang Baoqiang stands out as something special. And it is his very ordinariness that makes him extraordinary.

The 24-year-old Chinese mainland actor burst onto the screen after a Cinderella tale fraught with struggle and perseverance, and ended up starring in his own happy ending. Wang, born in an ordinary peasant family in a village of North China's Hebei Province, has not only realized his childhood dream to be a movie star, but also has achieved unexpected success that others in his profession and the country's moviegoers completely amazed

Because of his passionate and down to earth performance in Soldiers Sortie, one of the most popular TV series in 2007, Wang became a household name with Chinese

audiences. In the TV series, Wang plays one of the major characters named Xu Sanduo, an army recruit from rural China, considered a country bumpkin by the other troopers. But Xu's simple personality, sincerity and persistence in doing things finally pays off and he becomes an excellent soldier and a favorite with the others in his unit.

This raw performance won Wang the Most Favorite Actor in a TV Series 2007 award in a survey hosted in January by sina.com, one of the leading websites in China.

The character that Wang plays shares many resemblances with the actor. At the age of 8, Wang made up his mind to go to the Shaolin Temple, an old monastery in Central China's Henan Province famous for its Chinese kungfu tradition, to learn martial arts. He wanted to be an actor in kungfu films like his hero Chinese superstar Jet Li.

Wang's parents, seeing their son's determination, let him go on a journey which seemed to them to the other side of China. The move kept Wang and his poor parents apart for many years as neither had the money to afford the travel expenses.

After six years of temple life Wang decided it was time to pursue his acting dream. He went to Beijing, one lonely face in an army of migrant workers who flooded into the capital. The only difference is that Wang did not apply for a waiter's job in restaurants or go to a construction site to be a builder. Wang joined the lines outside film universities and film shoots, hoping to find a job as an extra.

He struggled on for two years in this way, until one day when he was 16 years old, his luck changed. Wang was chosen to play a coal miner in a film named Blind Shaft directed by avant-garde director Li Yang. Wang won awards for his performance at film festivals in China and internationally.

But it was in A World Without Thieves, a blockbuster in 2004 by the famous Chinese director Feng Xiaogang, that brought Wang squarely into the public eye. In the film he plays an unsophisticated Henan Province migrant worker, and although his performance brought him fame, audiences did not take him seriously, with many people thinking he was just a country boy who got a lucky break playing a character similar to himself.

But that was soon to change. Wang's next role was as a blind decoder in Plot Against, a spy TV series in 2005, which became a big hit that year. He followed this with Soldiers Sortie, a major turning point in his life.

During the shooting of Soldiers Sortie, Wang encountered daily difficulties. He insisted on doing all his own stunts and was injured on many occasions, once almost drowning during the shooting.

Lan Xiaolong, the screenwriter of Soldiers Sortie later said that choosing Wang to play Xu Sanduo was the wisest decision the director had taken.

Both the experience of the role of Xu in the TV series and Wang's life story have made an impact on Chinese youths. The spirit and values that both the fictional character and the actor embody are considered a good example for contemporary Chinese youth.

At the end of last year, the netizen club of the pcpop.com, an IT products-focused website in Beijing, conducted a survey to find the top 10 figures born in the 1980s that had the most important influence to the public in 2007. Wang emerged as the top choice. In blogs across the Internet, people write that Wang was chosen as he represents the heart of rural China and gives hope to hundreds of thousands of young people who are striving for a better life.

After Soldiers Sortie Wang appears once again in Director Feng's new year film for 2008, called The Assembly. But this time, he is a leading actor in a story that is also about a group of soldiers. His performance now makes audiences appreciate him as a genuine actor with talents, something he has striven for throughout his short life.

Despite his fame, Wang still looks like a real country boy, with his local accent, plain dress style and shy childlike smiles.

Looking back at his past, Wang said that to him success meant doing everything earnestly no matter how negligible the task was. "You must hold on when you are feeling down or when you feel hopeless, because success may be just around the corner," he said smiling shyly.