Author / Spirit
"Love" is a subject that Korean TV dramas are very good at, whether it is a realism or a fantasy genre, Korean screenwriters always have a unique perspective on the theme of love.
Recently, there is a Korean one-act drama "The Impact of Playing the Brain Gate on The Breakup" (hereinafter referred to as "The Bullet Brain Gate"), which is a very simple love triangle story, but it is not so cheesy due to the addition of the gimmick of "bullet brain gate".
One-act drama is a form of theatrical work, the plot of the whole play should be completed in one act, the structure is compact, the dramatic conflict requires rapid development, the formation of a climax after the abrupt end, no sub-scene and no change of set, the famous one-act play has John Qinguo's "The Man Riding the Horse into the Sea" and so on. Later, after the rise of TV dramas, the form of one-act dramas was also applied to TV dramas, generally one episode, like China's first TV series "A Bite of Vegetable Cake" is a one-act drama.
The difference between one-act dramas and short films in the field of television dramas is not big in terms of perception, it is an attempt in the emerging period of television art, and later when China's television art became more and more mature, long-form TELEVISION dramas rose, and one-act dramas gradually disappeared. However, South Korea still retains the tradition of shooting one-act dramas, KBS, MBC will play a large number of one-act works every year, and even KBS2 has a "special one-act" program on weekends, and various one-act plays will be played every weekend night.
One-act plays are limited by time and space, and need to have a clear and unambiguous main line, very concentrated character relationships. Although "Bullet Brain Gate" is only 60 minutes, it takes place between the three main characters, and there are only two or three commonly used scenes, but many viewers feel very healing and moved after watching it, and some people can clearly see the meaning of love in it, so how does the show do it?
The "bullet brain gate" is only the last straw that crushes the camel
"Bullet Brain Gate" tells the story of Wu Zhen, a health teacher at the female middle school, who has been with her boyfriend for many years, but suddenly broke up with her boyfriend, and in school, she is pursued by the physical education teacher Che Min, and has a realistic resonance romance with the car min who has not been enlightened by love.
Perhaps due to the limitation of time, the contradiction between Wu Zhen and her boyfriend is not very clearly laid, so Wu Zhen's sudden breakup not only catches the boyfriend in the play by surprise, but also makes the audience unclear, so her reason is even more difficult for the audience to touch their heads.
Anyone will feel that the heroine must be in love with others, especially in the school there are handsome physical education teachers and small milk dogs to pursue, and the students also like the CP of the physical education teacher and the health teacher.
However, before the title of the film, some details reflected that the relationship between the two people was wrong.
Because the boyfriend often plays the heroine's brain door, the heroine proposed to break up, at first glance it feels that the heroine is very "made", but after tasting it, it is found. The heroine left the male protagonist not because of a simple "bullet door", but let her think of many details of the two people getting along, and her departure was nothing more than because of disappointment and saving enough.
The couple at the beginning of the episode is still very sweet, the heroine came home from work and began to make love to the male protagonist, but afterwards the two people lay on the bed, the female protagonist shared her things at school with the male protagonist, the male protagonist pretended to sleep with his back to the female protagonist, there was no response to the things the female protagonist said, and then suddenly looked at the time to say that the football game began, and then went to the living room to watch the ball.
The female protagonist caters to the male protagonist, and also comes to the living room to watch the ball together, the female protagonist is also very excited, and watching the ball seems to be a common hobby of the two. Subsequently, the team that the male protagonist likes wins, and the female protagonist is required to fulfill the agreement. Betting on the ball game seems to be a small love interest of the two, and the person who loses the bet will be shot in the brain, but the male protagonist has no mercy, and after the play, the female protagonist's brain door is red.
The heroine drew the conclusion from this matter - you don't love me.
Love and unlove are hidden in the details, in contrast, the physical education teacher in the school seems to give the heroine the love she wants. When the two of them were walking on the road, the billboard on the side of the road fell, and the physical education teacher naturally guarded her. When the heroine met her ex-boyfriend when she was having dinner with the physical education teacher, the ex-boyfriend still thought of returning the bullet brain door owed by the heroine to her, and the physical education teacher took several bullets for the heroine without any position.
Compared with the two men, the female protagonist chooses a physical education teacher is naturally a better choice, and the so-called "doing" persona in the past no longer exists. However, at the end of the play, the ending of the heroine and the physical education teacher is not clear, and the director adopts an open-ended ending.
The heroine's attitude of not taking the initiative, not rejecting, and not being responsible has made the audience begin to be confused, but such a "female" persona has not been puzzled by the audience, but many female audiences have expressed understanding. The heroine's decisive attitude towards love has made many viewers lost in love see more clearly the essence and true meaning of love.
Ten years of Korean one-act drama development history
In addition to feature-length TV dramas, there are japanese-Japanese dramas (which air every day from Monday to Friday, each episode is 30 minutes), special dramas (specially planned episodes to commemorate a certain person and a certain festival), mini-dramas (a drama from abroad), and special one-act dramas.
The number of episodes of special one-act dramas may not be limited to 1 episode, but generally no more than 5 episodes, and many are series of one-act dramas with the same theme. Due to its low cost, short duration and other characteristics, it has become a touchstone for many newcomer directors, screenwriters and actors to enter the industry, and many well-known TV workers who are now active on the screen have come out of special one-act dramas.
For example, in 2013,013's "Sirius", its heroine Yan Hyun-kyung was the first time to play the female lead.
However, the explosion of Korean one-act dramas began in 2016, many well-known directors and screenwriters began to enter one-act dramas, KBS began to produce special columns for one-act dramas, and production costs began to increase. In terms of genre, the theme of one-act dramas is no different from that of ordinary TV dramas, and the number of one-act dramas about love is the largest, followed by many other genres, such as suspense, music, medical treatment, etc.
In 2016, KBS's "Page Turner" consisted of three episodes, telling the story of a talented girl who won a piano competition and suffered a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree transformation in her life after an accident. Even if there are only three episodes, the show also invited the very well-known screenwriter Park Hye-yeon (representative works such as "Pinocchio") to write, and there are many reversals and ups and downs in the series.
Musical one-act dramas are not uncommon in South Korea, and another high-scoring one-act drama, "To Jenny", has only two episodes.
After the increasing attention of one-act dramas, many stars will also participate in one-act dramas, and it can be said that Korean one-act dramas have become more and more a perfect system. In 2018, Lee Jong-suk and Shin Hye-sun co-starred in a biographical one-act drama "The Praise of Death", which tells the tragic love story between South Korea's earliest soprano singer Yoon Shin-hyun and playwright Kim Woo-jin.
Last year, South Korea launched a GL-themed drama "Hello, Dracula", which shows that Korean one-act dramas are also advancing with the times in the choice of themes.
The development of TV dramas is consistent throughout the country, and they have gone through a process of "from short and long, from long to short". Especially after the rise of Internet platforms and short video apps, short dramas have become a new outlet in the TV drama industry, and for South Korea, it is quite distinctive for TV stations to set up special channels to broadcast one-act dramas.
The slogan of "content is king" has been shouted too many times, and the length of the repertoire is only a formal innovation, and fundamentally it still needs the support of high-quality content. Due to the short length of one-act dramas, there are actually higher requirements for plays, which is why even if the number of Korean one-act dramas is large, there are fewer high-quality content, and it is rarer to score more than 8.0, not to mention there will be 9.0+ high-scoring dramas.
The existence of one-act dramas is adapted to market changes, modern audiences have more limited time, such as "Big Long Today" such a long-form production has been unable to adapt to the current young audience, the audience prefers a tightly paced, plot-focused repertoire, so one-act plays need more screenwriting skills, and the state of this market will attract more powerful playwrights to enter the game. In addition, in addition to the attraction of capital, one-act dramas can play a bigger brain hole, the entry point can be more peculiar, and it is also convenient for screenwriters to try some novel ideas, and this attempt will not waste too much cost even if it fails.
In fact, there are two or three episodes of high-quality mini-dramas in China, such as Youku's "Girls That Summer", but this market has not been better developed, and the planning of such dramas is almost platform-led. South Korea's one-act drama creation model is worth learning from the country, based on the vibrato and other platforms of vertical screen short drama, China's TV drama creation form should also play a more diverse possibility.