Poster of the costume suspense drama "Wind Rises Luoyang". ◆ Poster of the movie "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau". ◆ Stills from the TV series "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an". Draft: Feng Xiaoyu
The costume suspense drama "Wind Rises In Luoyang" has just been launched, the movie "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" has followed, and on the list of online dramas and the single-day box office of the movie, these two works marked "Ma Boyong's novel adaptation" have led the way at the same time.
In fact, counting the new works, there are more than 20 film and television projects whose source points to the post-80s writer. The tv series "Secret of the Three Kingdoms: The Hidden Dragon in the Yuan", "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", the animation "Whale Riding in the Four Seas" for two seasons, and the drama "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" have been met with the audience; waiting to be unveiled include the TV series "The Wind Rises in Longxi", "Fenjing", "The Fifteenth Day of the Two Capitals", "Daming under the Microscope", "Lychee in Chang'an", "Daming Bookseller", the movie "Nezha Legend , The Dragon and the Subway", "Dunhuang: Heroes of Guiyi", the animated series "The White Nightcrawler of the Twelve Hours of Chang'an", etc. Started in 2018, after the broadcast of "Chang'an Twelve Hours" in 2019, it was pushed to a new heat, and the "Ma Boyong Universe" of the film and television world gradually appeared, not only with diverse genres and styles, but also participated in this IP hoarding competition, but also included several major online video platforms such as iQiyi, Tencent, Youku, and Station B.
In the past two years, affected by internal and external factors such as "quality improvement and reduction" and "de-trafficization" and the epidemic in the film and television industry, big IP has long been not the key to victory, and hoarding projects in a pile of stockpiles inevitably needs to bear the risk of aesthetic fatigue. In this context, behind Ma Boyong's novel being so hot and amazing on the road of film and television, things may have to be looked at in two: why him? Does the film and television creation of the "Ma Boyong Universe" belong to the typical ip dependence?
The development of the film and television industry has allowed the imagination between the lines to flourish freely
"Wine putty" wish and "five pulses of orthodox" medicine or the same scene of treasure, the movie "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" review, this scene appeared frequently. The contest between the connoisseur's hands to fake the truth must be turned into a good play in the eyes of the layman. The audience's perspective follows the lens into the past and present lives of antiques, and the references in the protagonist's mouth about the flying dragon, glazed rendering, scroll lightman, etc. are full of special terms, becoming readable and perceptible. Similarly, although "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" has a dispute over word of mouth, it is praised for the art design, scene construction, and imagination and carving of the romantic Oriental philosophy in the play for the gorgeous Tang Dynasty and the divine capital Luoyang.
In the gap between the historical reality of the mosaic magnificent imagination - this is the charm of Ma Boyong's novel, but also "Ma Boyong" as the most obvious film and television gene of IP.
As one of the most popular best-selling novelists today, he has more than once expressed his creative view: many historical events, the real motives hidden behind them may not be recorded in the history books, which gives the novelist a space to move, and can generate endless legends from them. As a result, the words of his work are full of strange imaginations. "The Yin merchant fleet conquered the Maya" "If a ton of gold is found in the desert, how to divide it?" How to go through the security check? All of this amazes the reader. Once, because he knew the last question "What would it be like if Assassin's Creed happened in ancient China", he opened his mind and wrote the Tang Dynasty version of "24 Hours of Counter-Terrorism" and "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an"; the well-known Tang poem "A Red Dust Concubine Laughs, No One Knows It's a Lychee Coming", which fell in his eyes, triggering the association of a red dust, "Chang'an's Lychee" came into being; and because of a record of more than 40 words about Zhu Zhanji in the "History of Ming", he created a "parkour" story of four people from Nanjing to Beijing. Fifteen days of the two capitals".
If the writer's own text layout full of picture sense and imagination make his novels have a visual allure, then today's increasingly mature film and television industry system can be achieved in both directions. Taking "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau" as an example, the original novel is nearly one million words, and the story content not only has the encounter of three generations of the Xu family guarding the valuable national treasure, but also carefully structures the ebb and flow of the "five pulses" of the authoritative organization in the cultural relics industry seventy or eighty years ago. Previously, the novel had been transformed into a trilogy of 116 episodes, which had been online on Tencent Video for three years. Now the two-hour long movie version is released, and the treasure protection and treasure hunting wonders unfolding on the giant screen, especially the scorching brilliance of rare treasures, provide an audiovisual experience that is difficult to replace in the drama version. The creation of the Mingtang Jade Buddha Head in the film alone is made by hand carving combined with 3D printing, which takes seven months to make.
Collecting the evidence of historical details, the rhythm of online novels, the literariness of traditional literature and the diverse elements of genre literature, Ma Boyong's works combine historical background and novel Internet brain holes to form a unique style. It also happens that in recent years, a new generation of creators such as Wubai, Luyang, and Cao Dun has emerged in batches. They grew up in the Internet era and are familiar with advanced film and television industry processes and production communication mechanisms. What they and Ma Boyong have absorbed is not only the common long-standing traditional Chinese cultural supply, but also the high-density information supply from the same Network era and the film and television industry era. Because of this, the author's imagination between the lines of words can bloom freely in the hands of a group of "two creators" who resonate at the same frequency.
The demand for cultural consumption markets opens up room for spillover effects for works
"The Wind Rises in Luoyang" is online, starting from a suspenseful case that occurred in the divine capital Luoyang, telling the story of a group of people from different classes in the Wuzhou Period who guarded justice in the process of finding the truth. The similar Background of the Tang Dynasty in the story, similar plot lines of different classes of people guarding the capital city, going through light and darkness, the same history, suspense, reasoning, action and other elements are mixed, and many people regard "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" as "Chang'an Twelve Hours 2.0". Such an analogy is not out of thin air.
There is a trace of the history recorded in the history books where "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" came from, and the hastily line in the notes "Kaiyuan Tianbao Relic An Lushan Deeds" written by the Tang Dynasty official Yao Runeng provides a "historical gap" for the novel. The reason why this story cloaked in the cloak of "anti-terrorism in ancient China" has boosted the upsurge of "Ma Boyong fever" is not unrelated to the high attention brought by the popular Xiaosheng when the series was broadcast, and the high interactive topic construction of the achievements of the media era. Two years ago, in the summer, "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" was launched on Youku, bringing crystal persimmons, water basin mutton, mint leaves, and also taking stock of the green jade hibiscus crown, Tang Sancai, etc., from "Chang'an on the tip of the tongue" to "Datang version of the national treasure", the arrival of the interactive viewing era has created endless topics for the drama. Even, the drama also pulled Xi'an's historical and cultural journey in 2019.
Because Ma Boyong's works have a considerable concentration of elements such as traditional culture, non-genetic inheritance, and historical cities, and can obtain the greatest common divisor between various propositions such as inheritance and innovation, history and imagination, evidence and reasoning, connotation and taste, his novels have the possibility of adapting to various forms in today's cultural consumption market. Nowadays, from live-action entertainment to script killing, escape rooms, live-action interactive dramas and other consumer segments, projects across the country under the name of "Changchang Twelve Hours" can be described as blossoming on all sides. When Youku verified the spillover effect of "Ma Boyong IP" through "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", the abundant storage volume of the author's novel became a fragrant feast for film and television exploration.
This year, at the project launch conference of Sunac Culture, Ma Boyong attended as a guest and announced the "Millennium Peach Blossom Garden" cultural tourism project that will be inspired by "Peach Blossom Origin" and carry out animation, live-action drama and live-action entertainment. Now, with the launch of "Wind Rises Luoyang", iQiyi's "Huaxia Ancient City Universe" series has also launched a corner of the grand plan. In this series, Luoyang, the ancient capital of the Thirteen Dynasties, is the first IP, and the platform is deeply tied to Ma Boyong, and will carry out multi-industry linkage development in 12 fields, including dramas, variety shows, documentaries, online movies, animated movies, theme hotels, immersive script killing, etc. In this sense, "Wind Rises in Luoyang" in the city of Nansheng, Qili Luoyang, in the food, clothing, carriages, horses, etiquette and other small places to build historical and humanistic details, but also based on the common birthplace of Heluo culture and Chinese civilization, radiation of China's Shangshui wind of cultural history volume - such a strong plot story is rooted in the historical atmosphere and customs and human feelings, in fact, "Ma Boyong IP" in today's cultural consumption market driven by domestic demand, to achieve value maximization, sustainability of another beginning.
The writer of "what to write about red" and the filmization of "what is red to shoot"
From the perspective of creation, "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" is fundamentally different from "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" two years ago, or from most of the film and television works in the "Ma Boyong Universe". In 2005, Ma Boyong opened his popularity with his debut film "Wind Rises longxi", but his film and television has not yet been completed. The entirety of Antiques Central Bureau was published in 2012, six years after the first series was released. The physical book "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" was released in January 2017, and the series began broadcasting two and a half years later. Other project texts that are on the road to filming have also been met with readers. "Wind Rises Luoyang" is quite special, the series has been updated for ten episodes, the title of the original book inscribed "based on Ma Boyong's "Luoyang" has not been found, critics have questioned whether "Wind Rise Luoyang" is tailor-made for film and television, actors and cultural tourism projects, or even the starting point of "selling before writing".
Since Ma Boyong's fame, what he wrote about red made him called "literary genius". But there is a subtle difference between a writer's "what is red" and a film and television work of "what is red and what is filmed". For the writer, Ma Boyong's "Luoyang" has not yet been released, and the novel has been rushed to be filmed, which is undoubtedly a trust in the writer's IP, but it can also see the creative imbalance caused by the IP dependence in the film and television industry. On the one hand, including Ma Boyong, Zijin Chen, Liu Cixin and other genre novels have almost all been bought out of film and television copyrights, and the approval of ten or even more intensive approval indicators in five years is self-evident for writers who focus on creative content. On the other hand, blindly chasing best-selling genre writers that have been tested by the market, and ignoring the development of original scripts, it is probably not far to go.
In fact, in addition to the "Pink and Black Wars" when it was first launched, "Wind Rises in Luoyang" was full of topical heat, in addition to the film-level texture and the admiration of the excellent costumes in the play, there are very few mysteries and moving places to explore the plot. "Langya List" early on the aesthetics of domestic costume dramas into the humanistic scrolls of Fengyasong, "Kyushu Muyi", "Tiansheng Long Song" and other online costume dramas also make "film-level quality" become the entry line for the head works of video platforms, under this premise, the "Wind Rises Luoyang" on the image should have and can have more faithful to the content of the appeal. This is a platform head production that highlights the industrial iteration while also calibrating the "artistic creation or commercial production".
Author: Wang Yan
Editor: Xu Luming