Han Zong played to a new height.
"Blood Game" (or translated as "Blood War"), a smart survival variety show that just started this month, co-produced by MBC and Wavve, South Korea's largest video platform, and widely called "live-action version of "Squid Game" + "Parasite", is making all Korean fans crazy.
"Absolutely, at the same time, drawing on the two successful cases of Korean culture going to sea", "It is too shocking for the people who went to the basement after elimination to create a class", "There are many reversals, Han Zong has indeed been innovating"... Douban comment area five-star praise frequently, this new variety show that received a Douban score of 9.0, once again let us appreciate what is called "Han Zong has no ceiling".
Since the phenomenon of "Squid Games" exploded globally this year, the "variety version development competition" around the show has never stopped, and the "Blood Game" that is not willing to "reproduce" "Squid Games" seems to have greatly exceeded our expectations.
Drawing on the "Squid Game" style "only 1 person survives" rule, the program uses the "old liar wisdom fight" full of intrigue and betrayal, the simulation of "class inner volume" in the upper and lower spaces of "Parasite", the independent women rebelling against the rebellion of male strongmen and other multi-dimensional content innovations, and makes a variety show with a suspense movie-like high-level texture.
From the era of "Where Did Daddy Go" to the present, in addition to the copyright introduction of programs, domestic variety shows have long fallen into the public opinion circle of "plagiarizing Han Zong", and many self-proclaimed original programs often cannot get rid of the shadow of similar Han Zong. On the contrary, the new Han Zong, represented by "Blood Game", has been constantly bringing innovation and surprises, what is the reason behind it?
Before Game of Blood:
The evolutionary history of Korean wisdom fighting variety shows
Game of Blood is somewhat of a masterpiece.
It absorbs the essence of the elements of the wisdom fighting variety show, gathers the resources of the past head variety show players, and draws on the production techniques of high-quality suspense film and television works, which is the victorious fruit of Han Zong's diversified content exploration and integration innovation in the past few years.
Han Zong's old audience is estimated to understand when they see the poster, and the MC group of the observation room of "Blood Game" is composed of the "high play" of the past wisdom fighting class Han Zong: Lee Sang-min is the champion of the second season of "The Law of The Game", Zhang Dongmin is the champion of the third and fourth seasons of "The Law of The Game" and the "God Dongmin" who plays people's hearts in "Social Game", and park Ji-yun and Choi Suri-na, the two female high school players, walk out of the "Thriller Girls' School Reasoning Reality Show" "Female High Reasoning Class".
You don't look at the domestic "Star Detective" and the recent script to kill the variety show, its origin is inseparable from the early years of Han Zong's exploration of the various subdivisions of the wisdom fighting variety show.
One of the earliest representatives of the wisdom fighting category is "The Genius: The Law of the Game" (hereinafter referred to as "Youfa"), which premiered in 13 years, which is still regarded as the "peak of the industry" by many Korean audiences, and the Douban score of the whole series of four seasons is maintained at 9.3-9.6, which is destined to be a "beginning is the peak" series that is difficult to be surpassed.
"Youfa" first envelops a variety of intellectual games and board games around the world to form a competition format, and secondly, it brings together high-IQ elites in all fields of society to participate, and several seasons of programs present a "brain-burning feast" of top psychological warfare games. It is also because of the rare reputation of "Youfa" in the same type of variety show that "Youfa" players were once promoted to "variety show regulars", and many of the first wave of audiences of "Blood Game" were running to the "Youfa" guests.
By 14 years, south Korea's JTBC television created "Crime Scene" became a sign of the maturity of the suspense reasoning variety show, the show consisted of 6 guests in a confined space in turn to complete the task and find the suspect. It sounds very familiar, yes, it was introduced by the domestic Mango TV two years later, and became the later famous "Star Detective".
Also two years later, in 16 years, South Korea's tvN TV launched the "Korean original version of "The Great Escape Room"" "CODE-Secret Room", the content of the program is to lock the artist in the secret room, get prompts to complete the task and then get the password to open the door to escape from the secret room, which is the first attempt to "variety" the escape game.
In the same year, zheng Zhongyuan, the director of "Youfa", launched an ambitious survival variety show, "Social Game", placing 22 actors in a simulated society to carry out a 14-day game duel to compete for 100 million won, which is very interesting for "Big Brother"; and the second season of the show has greatly upgraded the experiment, exploring the pros and cons of "society determined by the majority opinion vs minority rights leading society" in circular villages, as if it were a social experiment simulating political operation.
18 years is the year of the outbreak of the Great Escape han Zong. Netflix's "Prisoner is You" invited Liu Jae-seok, Lee Kwang-so and other popular guests of the national Han Zongrunning man to serve as resident MCs, helping the escape variety show to be known to more international audiences; in the same year, tvN TV launched the "6-person large-scale escape room escape reality show" "The Great Escape", and this year has done four seasons Of which the series is the hottest and longest-lived escape variety show so far.
This year is another explosive year for the survival of the wisdom fight variety show. At the beginning of the year, Zheng Zhongyuan PD recreated the "Female High School Reasoning Class", setting off a campus reasoning boom with the content of "immersive horror women's college", and the image combined with drama and synthesis was quite textured. In the middle of the year, the "online comprehensive version" of South Korea's 18-year-old popular horror comic "Money Game" appeared on the YouTube platform, and the darkness of the content scale once aroused questions from netizens. But in fact, this network synthesis also helped the birth of "Blood Game" in a sense.
In the Update of Game of Blood:
Four episodes have been sealed, and the first appearance of the explosion
"Any lies and thefts in this game will not be held accountable", this is one of the core rules that hit the screen at the beginning of the online version of "Money Game", and the idea of "Blood Game" is derived from this "bottomless survival" model.
The project of "Blood Game" is YouTuber Jinlongchen, the planner of the online "Money Game" and has 2.2 million subscribers. The experienced online creators of MBC TV + YouTube seem to have given "Blood Game" a fresh texture that is different from other wit variety shows.
The first is to create a dark suspense atmosphere and give the audience a sense of experience similar to a thriller. First, all the contestants are blindfolded and taken to the car by the man in black, everyone including the observation room guests are not aware of the rules of the game, and the photography and editing repeatedly reinforce the sense of unknown fear brought to the players and the audience; second, when the TV sets light up without warning, the mysterious man says the setting of "only 1 of the 10 players will survive and win the prize money", who can not think of the fear of being dominated by "Squid Game"?
In addition, the unfairness of the game is deliberately strengthened to fully stimulate the player's competitive spirit. Unfairness and unreasonableness are the norm in society! The mysterious man opened the concept and disk of "very unfair and unreasonable game", "unfair" from the beginning of the "initial capital" distributed to each player ranging from 2000 to 10,000 began to highlight, and the subsequent "no elimination rights", "additional voting tickets" and other prop settings continued to amplify various injustices.
It is the enclosed living space of "injustice everywhere" that triggers the dramatic narrative of 10 players who live together and hug at any time but may be calculated and betrayed by their allies at any time. In the script killing game, there is a kind of "camp book", which needs to constantly chat with different players one-on-one, gangs and factions to achieve the goal of the game, and the new players must have had the experience of being fooled by the "old cheater player", and the good look at the beginning of "Blood Game" comes from the multiple accidents of this "old cheater wisdom fight" layer by layer.
Very different from other survival variety shows, the program group has repeatedly given the "X reversal factor" that determines the outcome of the game to female players Li Zhimin and the "female player squad", in the show, female players are no longer the embellishments attached to men in traditional wisdom fighting games, but really hide the big boss, "Blood Game" can be described as capturing the feminist traffic code.
In addition, what is even more absolute is that behind the "unfair" setting of "Blood Game" there is another layer of narrative reversal, which has become the core reason for the show's "four episodes of gods". The program sets up a dark line of the "Parasite-style bottom revenge" story of the eliminator going to the basement to fold the pizza box and waiting for the counterattack, which not only brings the audience unexpected psychological horror, but also hides the excavation of the dark side of human nature and the exposure of the truth of social class, so that a variety show transcends the effect of pure entertainment and is full of social care.
"I just want to see the underground part", "The police go underground and form an underground Avengers alliance with the doctor!" ”...... As "Game of Blood" is slowly updated to episode 4, the audience is more and more interested in the story of the "Underground Avengers", who does not want to watch the cool movie scenes of those who have been betrayed by their teammates and fall into the dirty basement, smell the aroma of pork belly upstairs, and are full of hatred in their hearts?
"Squid Game" style "battle royale" + "parasite" style "class grudge", Han Zong is also too good at pulling satirical content and engaging in audience mentality. The more the bottom people live in the gutter, the more they want to climb upstairs to abandon all etiquette and shame to live desperately, what will happen after the bottom few issues of the bottom people go upstairs, is this a variety show can broadcast the content?
After Game of Blood:
Survival variety shows are popular again?
"Blood Game" took Han Zong to a new level.
In recent years, the industry often talks about the concept of "drama-style variety", but seeing the rhinoceros of "Blood Game" understands that the so-called good drama-style variety show can not only take the elements of popular dramas for the design of variety games, but also make variety shows not inferior to the immersive perception of film and television dramas.
The ability to skillfully integrate the two major local contents with international influence of "Squid Game" and "Parasite" shows that the producers of Han Zong have the awareness of grasping national hotspots and understand the psychology of what local audiences love to watch, and secondly, they have the ability to develop local film and television content to be more aesthetic and universal, and continue to help culture go to sea. These two points are very worthy of learning from our counterparts.
Moreover, how to develop truly creative content with the help of popular IP, rather than blindly copying, "Blood Game" gives us a warning. On top of the fusion of "Squid Game" and "Parasite" elements, "Blood Game" has created a core game mechanism composed of a "money challenge" and a "elimination vote" every day, and the way the lower and upper levels are interconnected can also see the design of the original game carefully, which is where the variety show producers show their talents.
If "Blood Game" is regarded as the stage development of the "Squid Game" Variety Edition", the survival variety show development storm set off by "Squid Game" is still continuing. Last month, Kakao Entertainment launched the "Survival Of Men and Women: Split World" project, according to reports, the program will record the process of 10 days of survival competition between men and women in an isolated environment; MBC will launch the "Extreme Debut Wild Idol" that combines wild survival and "Wild Love Bean" idol reality show, which is jokingly called "Squid Game" draft version" by netizens.
The same is the development of the "Squid Game" style variety show, South Korea's unique development direction shows The tireless original spirit of Han Zong, compared with a new variety project "The Victory of the Squid" that broke out before the national synthesis, but almost copied the set of the series, encountered netizens group ridicule, which hopes that domestic variety show peers will learn a lesson.
In fact, there is no shortage of interesting content innovations in the national synthesis. For example, the survival variety show "Decisive Victory 21 Days" currently being broadcast in China, although the program model is old, but the "gold coin game war" has made certain local characteristics; this year, Mango TV announced a list of 2022 variety shows appeared in a "board game variety show" "Three Kingdoms Chronicles", according to Rhino Jun, the number of domestic and foreign board games as the main variety show is not much, such a new attempt is actually worth encouraging.
These days, the ratings of "Blood Game" continue to rise, and the popularity of "Squid Game" is still unabated, which indicates that survival variety shows are likely to be paid more attention to this year and next year, becoming one of the most potential content tracks. We still have expectations for whether domestic survival variety shows can get rid of plagiarism and explore unique content.