The beginning of "Who is the Murderer" is full of bloodshed.
It does not refer to the case, but refers to the storm of public opinion outside the play.
▲ "Who is the murderer" crew apologized for the suspected plagiarism of the poster on Weibo hot search
The crew was unfavorable, and it was controversial due to the "poster plagiarism" storm in the early days of the premiere. One of the posters of "Who is the Murderer" and the Japanese drama "Legal High" were filmed in groups of two people, which are also "fingers gaging" and "covering ears", from the character's position, expression to posture, almost exactly the same.
▲ "Who is the murderer" A group of posters suspected of plagiarizing the Japanese drama "Legal High", source: Sina Entertainment (Weibo)
Although the poster designer immediately issued an apology statement and completely removed the poster, the audience did not buy it.
Wave after wave of unevenness rises again.
After six episodes were broadcast, "Who is the Murderer" was successively pulled out by the audience to abuse the photos of artists Song Qian, Wang Likun and Yu Hewei, and it appeared on the wall of the victim's photo wall that flashed by in the play, which was uncomfortable. The drama party urgently came out to stage a series of apologies on the grounds of negligence.
▲ The use of old photos of Song Qian in the play "Who is the Murderer" has caused controversy
These "extra-dramas" undoubtedly greatly affected the public's overall evaluation and perception of the play, and the audience ridiculed with sarcasm: "I originally wanted to see 'who is the murderer', but I did not expect to see 'who apologizes'." ”
▲ Song Qian responded to the apology letter of the web drama "Who is the Murderer" with memes in the Weibo comment area
But it cannot be denied that since the first day of Douban's score, the score of 7.1 points for "Who is the Murderer" has become the bare and only qualified work of this year's "Mist Theater", which is better than the 5.7 points of the opening "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog" and the new low of 4.1 points "Fatal Wish".
How to say, a bit of a short boy pulling out the feeling of a general.
▲ "Who is the murderer" Douban score 7.1 points
These 7.1 points, at least 5 points, are all brilliant performances given to Xiao Yang and Dong Zijian. There are 2 points left, 1 point for the narrative and suspense that started still tightly, and 1 point for a filter without messing around.
This year's Mist Theater is more than halfway through, but the quality is confusing: Is this really the Mist Theater that surprised last year?
Looking at the domestic suspense dramas in recent years, their narrative forms are mostly "variants", that is, they consciously deviate from the path of "police detectives", start from the perspective of the parties in the mystery, and cut into the suspense plot with life-like fragments.
But "Who is the Murderer" returns to the most traditional criminal investigation drama mode, and the main body of puzzle solving and detective is the criminal police.
There were homicides as soon as they came up, and they were serial killers.
▲ Poster of "Who is the Murderer"
The murderer can be said to be quite perverted, each time he kills, he will make the victim's body lose the ability to resist, but retain a part of the sober consciousness, and then cut the victim's wrist. Even more cruel is that the killer will put a watch in front of the victim's eyes and let him see the end of his life.
The killer's goal is to make the victim feel the double extreme fear of the body and mind.
▲ The murderer will place a watch in front of the victim's eyes and let him see the end of his life.
Leng Xiaobing (Xiao Yang), two police officers who joined the criminal police team 17 years apart, and Xia Mu (Dong Zijian) unfold, echoing and connecting in time, outlining the character relationship that is not inherently complicated (before the character played by Zhao Liying appeared).
17 years ago, in 2000, Xiao Yang, a newcomer policeman, failed to shoot and kill the murderer in time because of a moment of timidity, and witnessed the death of his beloved colleague and the victim of a serial murder case;
At the same time, Natsuki, a 7-year-old student who was in love with the victim, witnessed a uniformed policeman entering the house with a gun and releasing the prisoner, leading to the tragedy.
From this day on, "self-blame" and "remorse" wrapped around Xiao Yang, and "hatred" wrapped around the little boy Natsuki, a case derived from the obsession with finding the murderer, implicating the fate of the two.
▲ A case derives from the obsession with finding the murderer, implicating the fate of the two policemen.
After 17 years, Leng Xiaobing has become the captain of the Haizhou City Criminal Police Team, and after graduating from the top three of the police major, Natsuki also came to the police force to report that he wanted to become a criminal policeman.
In fact, in addition to the hatred and irritation of witnessing the death of a beloved, natsuki's reason for becoming a policeman also has a layer of remorse: "If I hadn't gambled with her and hid in the attic, the teacher wouldn't have left the door for me." This added to the little boy's guilt.
One is "could have been", the other is "chance", Leng Xiaobing and Natsuki both have their own guilt and hatred, determined to pursue it to the end.
Just like Captain Chen, Leng Xiaobing's master, said before leaving his post: What is needed in this case is "a person who bites the case and does not let go, no matter how many years have passed, has been tracking down, and will never give up until the murderer is caught."
▲ In "Who is the Murderer", Captain Chen, the master of Leng Xiaobing, had a dialogue with Leng Xiaobing before leaving his job
This insistence on the truth is a bit like last year's Mist Theater's highest-scoring drama "The Silent Truth".
Different from the order of the first "Octagonal Pavilion" of the Misty Theater, "first outline the family relationship and then enter the case", "Who is the Murderer" first directly throws out a murder case, and then establishes a character relationship around this murder, which is more open in the opening narrative than the misty "Octagonal Pavilion" in the cloud.
▲ Stills of "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog"
In addition to the eerie smiling face that makes people's backs chill, the ticking death countdown clock sound, the inconsistent frame photos of the murder scene, the silver ring under the bed, the strange red imprint in the mirror...
This time, the fog is finer, clearer, and less territorial.
In just ten minutes of the scene, the case, regret and trauma occur one after another, and at the same time, the relationship and basic settings of the main characters are brought out with a series of strokes, and the audience's suspense is firmly grasped, which shows the skills of the screenwriter and director.
Many details are connected by follow-up reminiscences or even second brushes, or by netizen brainstorming combined with the plot before and after.
For example, the plaster portrait and clock of the psychological counselor resemble the layout of the murder scene 17 years ago, and the uniform worn by the murderer when he went upstairs was slightly different from the uniform of the caller.
▲ The uniform worn by the murderer when he went upstairs was slightly different from the uniform worn by the caller
I have to sigh a word, watch more suspense dramas, this session of netizens, one by one incarnated As Sherlock Holmes.
However, Holmes also picked a case. Sometimes, whether a mystery has something to attract him or not is even more important than the truth.
In the first four episodes alone, the plot seems to be obscure but clearly makes the audience guess towards a clue: Shen Yu's father, Shen Haiyang, is the serial killer.
▲ Audience speculation: Shen Yu's father, Shen Haiyang, is the murderer of the serial killer.
However, the occasional flashback of the vaguely speaking childhood clips and the slightly exaggerated high-tension bgm allow the audience to feel that the "strangeness" of the characters comes from their childhood experiences, but they are slow to figure out what kind of vein runs through them.
In a relatively calm narrative, it is difficult for the audience to really walk into the fog just through the investigation and suspicion of the characters' "sneaky", if there is no excellent acting skill.
Shen Yu, the key role played by Zhao Liying, is quite important to the cases around 17 years ago, but her performance in countless clues or accidents only stays at the level of calm and wisdom of "as if she knows everything and is not moved".
Combined with the plot, Shen Yu's ultra-calm psychological quality is from childhood, but also brought about by childhood experience, but in the face of Leng Xiaobing and Natsuki 17 years later, she is forced to pull out of her own world, like a beast that has been lurking for many years and is targeted by two hunters.
She had to step out of her comfort zone and take on the challenges and battles that followed with a more resistant and alert posture.
▲ Shen Yu, the key role played by Zhao Liying, is quite important to the cases around 17 years ago
Most of those challenges and battles are psychological, which undoubtedly puts forward higher requirements for the actor's skill of using micro-expressions to convey changes in mental activity.
Indeed, for a moment, Zhao Liying broke away from the kind and resolute roles she used to play, revealing a complex and cunning charm.
But in the next few consecutive episodes, no matter how much he learned and how much he was known, Shen Yu's emotional state seemed to stay in that charm forever.
When she used this charm to gaze at the corpse of the boy she had been caring for, negotiating with the professor as a pretender, to excavate or recall clues about her father, it was hard not to feel empty.
The same is the protection and care of a mother's eldest sister, and Gao Lu's care for Xia Mu in just a few minutes at the beginning is also more infectious than Shen Yu's care for Xiao Huajun.
▲ At the beginning, Gao Lu's care for Natsuki, which appears for just a few minutes, is more infectious
It's not hard to push the plot forward. Dr. Shen Yu has his own arm - a hacker friend whose identity is yet to be determined.
However, the bridge section of "using computer black technology to get everything you want" is inevitably a bit lazy and sloppy at the level of narrative logic for the suspense reasoning genre.
According to the plot setting, the appearance of the psychologist Shen Yu suddenly has a blowout clue in the 17-year-old unsolved case. The appearance of Shen Yu was pulled out by a murder case related to animal cruelty.
In other words, all breakthroughs and the emergence of new clues can be regarded as accidental.
▲ In the play, Shen Yu and Xia Mu spy on each other
Natsuki's joining the criminal police team and the suspects in street fights have become new clues, and this series is an accidental side branch, and there is no logical and inevitable connection with the main line.
The plot continues to advance, but most of the parties act alone, Leng Xiaobing and Natsuki in the light, Shen Yu and the disappearing Shen Haiyang in the dark, separate investigation, one speculation on one secret, one into the past of another, although the mother-in-law's nonsense is less, the clues of careful thinking are more -
But you don't feel that these threads, past and present, are very closely related to each other.
▲ Leng Xiaobing and Natsuki are in the light, and Shen Yu and the disappearing Shen Ocean are in the dark
What's the problem?