In the era of story spectacle, suspense dramas must break through the bottleneck of creation

This year is the year of the suspense drama, and a large number of suspense dramas such as "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog", "Twelfth Second", "Double Detective", "Truth", "Two-Faced Detective" and "Fatal Wish" have emerged in domestic dramas, but the overall standard and reputation are far lower than expected. In particular, the "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog" and "Fatal Wish" with the aura of "Mist Theater" have been folded successively, and people can't help but wonder: Why did the domestic suspense drama that had just struck the boom encounter a creative bottleneck so quickly?

In the era of streaming media, small-screen drama viewing has become the mainstream model. In order to cater to the interests of distracted audiences, while avoiding the disadvantages of small screens in presenting scene spectacles, creators increasingly prefer to create compact and exciting story spectacles, thus providing fertile ground for the development of suspense dramas. Because the suspense elements can be freely grafted with various genres such as crime, reasoning, action, and science fiction, suspense dramas reflect a very broad space for growth. It is not difficult to understand why there has been a "suspense fever" around the world in recent years. In the author's opinion, the core of suspense drama lies in suspense, in the presentation of various uncertainties, such as the confusion of the story, the secrecy of human nature or the complexity of reality. A good suspense drama should have a meticulous suspense story, complex character images, or in-depth social observation. The reason why many domestic suspense dramas have fallen short of expectations recently is precisely because they have not achieved an organic combination of several aspects.

Lack of story intensity: unintentional suspense or pretend suspense

Suspense drama creation naturally pursues audiovisual effects, such as eye-catching crime scenes and gripping soundtracks. But the fundamental measure of its level lies in the color of the story. A good suspense drama should have sufficient story intensity, that is, to be logical, reasonable and innovative in the plot. However, the domestic suspense dramas that have recently flocked to it have more or less some content hard wounds.

One is unintentional suspense. In some works such as "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog", the suspense element only plays a supporting role for other types of elements. Like many suspense dramas, "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog" also deliberately chooses a small town as a narrative space, trying to use the complex interpersonal relationships of acquaintance society to weave suspense. However, the whole work focuses more on the ethical relationship of the family with the help of the murder of the young girl Xuanzhen, focusing on the influence of the original family on individual growth, and somewhat ignoring the weaving of the suspense reasoning level. In other words, the drama is cloaked in the cloak of suspense drama, but it has the core of a family drama. This is largely due to the fact that director Wang Xiaoshuai himself prefers to observe the changes of the times with family ethics narratives, and his previous films such as "Qinghong", "Intruder" and "Heaven and Earth" are no different. To be fair, "The Mystery of the Octagonal Pavilion" is still a relatively in-depth dissection of the complex relationship between Chinese families, and it excavates the hidden emotions and unspeakable traumas between the characters. But the show has the aesthetic taste typical of the "sixth generation" directors: a preference for handheld photography, attention to everyday details, and attention to emotional rendering. This kind of literary and artistic style and life flow of "slow suspense" inevitably makes many audiences who expect suspense concentration and plot stimulation fall behind.

The second is to pretend to be suspenseful. Although there are many creators of domestic suspense novels, there are very limited high-quality works that can be adapted for film and television. Perhaps eager to catch up with this "suspense fever" shuttle, many suspense dramas, especially original dramas, generally lack the patience of intensive cultivation, resulting in obvious routines and homogenization. For example, some works are not suspenseful enough, and can only be combined by photography and soundtrack; Some works suffer from "reversal obsessive-compulsive disorder", reversing for the sake of reversal, and the plot is forcibly advanced, lacking reasonable logic. The sci-fi suspense drama "Fatal Wish", which succeeded "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog", provides another negative case: the story lines of the first few episodes are inexplicably chaotic, the explanation of the relationship between the characters is vague, and the core suspense is not quickly derived, resulting in the suspense effect basically relying on the reason to be mysterious, and the audience is also disturbed by various chaotic and unnecessary plots.

Lack of character depth: paper people and tool people are in charge

In addition to the plot stimulation brought by the continuous suspense, the charm of the suspense drama is that the genre is very suitable for creating a complex and multi-faceted character image. The suspense often points to the change of the human heart and the subtlety of human nature. "The Hidden Corner" takes the young Zhu Chaoyang falling into the abyss step by step as the main line, touches the most hidden corners of human nature, and shapes many complex and plump character images such as Zhu Chaoyang and Zhang Dongsheng. But unfortunately, the recent emergence of domestic suspense dramas generally lack depth in character image shaping, and the characters are mostly reduced to paper people and tool people.

The so-called "paper man" refers to the character's flat and thin personality, flowing on the surface. Taking "Twelfth Second" as an example, the character image of the play appears to be the opposite of good and evil, black and white. Criminal police captain Zhao Yichen and other positive figures are awe-inspiring, while underworld leader Zeng Jingyuan, criminal Yang Qian and other negative figures are completely bad, and the background and depth of each character can be seen at a glance. Even though the play sets up the Xu Han/Xu Lian twins, which brings some suspense and tension to the plot, it still lacks in-depth excavation of the inner world of the characters. In other words, the show's flaw is that it does not depict the gray and wandering of human nature. In addition to the "paper man", there is also a kind of "tool man" deliberately set up purely to advance the plot. If "paper people" emphasize the flatness of character personality, then "tool people" emphasize the singleness of character functions. For example, in "The Mystery fog of the Octagonal Pavilion", Liu Xinli, who can always give the idea of solving the case at the critical moment when the case falls into the fog, is a typical "tool man". This character seems to be outside the complex character relationship in the play, and the main function of existence is to promote the development of the case, and its growth background and emotional state are lost.

In addition, the reason why it is difficult for domestic suspense dramas to produce high-quality dramas recently is that the actors' performances may be hard to blame. Suspense dramas are different from ordinary idol dramas, it needs a face with a story, not a delicate and glamorous face. The success of "The Hidden Corner" is inseparable from the calm and solid acting skills of Qin Hao, Zhang Songwen, Wang Jingchun, Liu Lin, Li Meng and other actors. In this year's suspense drama, the performances of the actors in "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog" and "Double Detective" are quite remarkable. Especially whenever Duan Yihong appears, the picture seems to have a texture, as if his vicissitudes and deep face were born for suspense crime dramas. In contrast, in "Fatal Wish", Feng Shaofeng, who has passed the age of confusion, still practices the exaggerated performance method of blowing his beard and glaring, and the young Fan Chengcheng seems to be reduced to an expressionless line machine. Even Wen Qi, who has performed well in literary and art films, does not have much room to play because of the limitations of the play.

Lack of realistic strength: The sense of reality is greater than the reality

In addition to exploring the subtleties of human nature, excellent suspense dramas can always trace the roots of social reality behind complex human nature, so as to promote the stability of social order and the improvement of social legal system. In fact, each film and television drama genre essentially reflects a certain anxiety in real life, and its social function is to satisfy the public's desire imagination and anxiety removal. Suspense dramas, especially crime suspense dramas, often show some structural problems in social development. For example, the value of "The Silent Truth" is that it depicts how a group of small people watch out for each other in the cold long night, tirelessly seek the dawn and truth, and think about reality through the protagonist Jiang Yang's cancer and tragic sacrifice.

However, recent domestic suspense dramas generally lack realism while presenting a sense of superficial reality. The so-called reality here refers to the active intervention of the actual situation and social issues around the characters. Although "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog" relentlessly interrogates the emotional relationship between individuals, this emotional relationship stops at the family space and does not show a gaze that further extends to society and reality. Although "Twelfth Second" deals with the issue of human trafficking, it mainly uses it as the background for the heroine's growth, while focusing the narrative on the contest between good and evil that does not have much scheming to speak of. "Double Detective" seems to use the space and history of Northeast China to create a sense of gloomy, rough and fierce reality, but it lacks in-depth exploration of the realistic soil and social structure of the growth of characters. Xiao Ser's northeastern border city, the distant state-owned forest farms, and the scattered brothers are just the background board of this story of revenge and murder. In fact, in recent years, some regional spaces that have frequently appeared in China's suspense film and television dramas could have loaded more historical and practical issues. But in "Double Detective", some are more realistic to create with space and tone, rather than really sinking into the crowd and observing the reality of society.

All in all, due to the lack of follow-up in terms of story intensity, character depth and realistic strength, the domestic suspense drama in 2021 failed to achieve the expected results. This may be an inevitable situation under the genre boom, but it is a bit unexpected. It reflects the production inertia of domestic dramas that are still deeply rooted in heavy quantity expansion and light quality development, and provides a mirror for the survival of suspense dramas in the future: content and quality are the way to win. At present, a large number of domestic suspense film and television works such as "Who is the Murderer", "Gold Rush", "Flames on the Plains", and "Wind Rises Luoyang" have been or are waiting to appear. Whether these works can get rid of the creative dilemma currently facing suspense dramas, we wait and see.

Author: Li Ning (The author is a postdoctoral researcher in literature and art, lecturer at the School of Arts and Media, Beijing Normal University)