Author | Horn tip
Douban 7.1, friends recommended 86%... Last week, the most popular word-of-mouth in the drama market was not the third work of iQiyi's "Mist Theater", "Who is the Murderer". The popularity value of the premiere iQiyi station broke the record of the premiere of past works of "Misty Theater", the market share of the whole network drama broke 17% (3 days after going online), the highest public opinion in history was 1.11 million, and the number of Weibo main topic readers exceeded 1.2 billion, all of which confirmed the reputation and traffic of this work.
Admittedly, "Who's the Murderer" is indeed "good". Especially when the whole suspense drama this year is bleak and the "mist theater" is constantly throwing at the street, "Who is the murderer" at least proves that as long as the story is told well and the skills are not deliberately shown, it will win the applause of the public.
But the praise also stopped there. Decent suspense reasoning, insufficient suspense cases, Zhao Liying's acting skills with mixed praise, and the props and storms of the "outside the play" of this drama have jointly built the B side of the reputation of this drama.
In other words, "Who is the Murderer" may be reluctantly regarded as the "façade" of iQiyi's "Mist Theater" this year; but if you look at the entire suspense drama market, the Douban score has just passed 7, and the actor's acting skills are mixed, which is far from representing the current suspense drama production level in the mainland market.
But what is slightly sad is that as of now, there are only 5 works that have scored 7 on the mainland suspense drama Douban this year. On the other hand, "next door", whether it is the British and American regions on the other side of the ocean, or Hong Kong and Taiwan, have successively created excellent works such as "Squid Game" and "Reverse Game" this year.
The creation of domestic suspense dramas, "Spring", is still on the way.
"Who's the Murderer" passed, and then what?
Set against the backdrop of a 17-year-old serial murder case, 17 years later, when the protagonists of the story have grown up, the "truth" that was once hidden in the darkness is about to come out.
This is the main story line of the suspense drama "Who is the Murderer", and it is also the "suspense buried stem" that can best mobilize public emotions and trigger the resonance of the drama. But in addition, the "main line" plot is mixed with various "suspense side lines", such as the death of Shen Haiyang, who is the culprit of dog abuse, etc., which makes the whole case more confusing.
As mentioned above, "Who is the Murderer" has a good logical reasoning and suspense, which is a surprise work of the main "Benguet reasoning" in the recent market. For example, the serial murder case presented at the beginning of the play, the iconic "death smile" that the murderer let the deceased show when he committed the crime, the quiet recording of the last life time of the deceased with an alarm clock, and the "animation" meaning taken at the beginning of the film, all of which make it quite similar to the intention of competing with the "Hidden Corner" of iQiyi's "Mist Theater".
But the "praise" also came to an abrupt end. Whether it is the reasoning case that appears in this drama, or the "sense of suspense" laid by the language of the camera, it weakens the atmosphere of the public's pursuit of the drama. In short, "Who is the Murderer" does not have obvious case reasoning logic bugs, but focusing on 17 years old cases, adopting a "case within a case" narrative method, and expressing criminal psychological statements have long been strange in the suspense drama market. Borrowing from netizens, "there is no impulse to find out who is the murderer", which seems to have become the biggest problem of the show.
Why is there a current problem with Who's the Killer? A little drama reading believes that this lies in the "weakening" of the suspenseful atmosphere of the whole play. Just like Natsuki after becoming an adult, he saw the death of his relatives throughout the year, and returned to the police station many years later to become a criminal policeman, and an audience can guess that he came to "overturn the old case". But in this case, if it appears in British and American dramas, the creators often use the "lens language" to maintain a sense of suspense and give the audience the truth.
This is the gap between the creative level of domestic suspense dramas and British and American dramas. In addition, the operation of the whole drama in the "outside the play", such as the poster plagiarism incident pulled out by netizens on the day of the premiere, and the appearance of loose props such as Song Qian, Yu Hewei and Wang Likun in the follow-up plot, all of which lowered the creative atmosphere that a suspense drama should have.
The addition of "traffic transformation" actor Zhao Liying also made this drama "tear up before broadcasting" on Douban - on Douban, Zhao Liying has not yet officially appeared, and the comments about her poor acting skills have been invaded in waves, which also corrupts the "passers-by" of a work from the perspective of passers-by. To be fair, if it were not for these appearance factors, the Douban score of "Who is the Murderer" was between 7.5-7.7, which should not be a problem.
This is also the public's current regret for this work. But even so, "Who is the Murderer" still "can't save" the mist theater, let alone save the current domestic suspense drama market.
Douban has only 5 works with 7 points, and domestic suspense dramas have not really "exploded"?
The "decentness" of "Who is the Murderer" has also been exchanged for a wave of condolences in the market for iQiyi's "Mist Theater". It must be admitted that "Who is the Murderer" cannot support the current "Mist Theater", but it also saves the slightest face for its successive "street fighting" works this year. A little drama read in the previous "The start is not as expected, where will the mist theater without 'Zijin Chen' go? In the article, iQiyi's "Mist Theater" has been interpreted, and there will be no more words here.
Another reason for the public to have high hopes for "Who is the Murderer" is actually from the addition of traffic actor Zhao Liying. This also caused the day of the premiere of the drama, all kinds of heat broke records, douban ushered in the status quo of "black powder". In fact, the traffic-oriented actors entered the "suspense drama label", which is not a new thing this year. This is like a large number of young actors in the genre after the gift theme has become the market outlet, and suspense dramas are becoming the biggest head in the market.
Lighthouse data shows that as of November 21 this year, the number of suspense works in the drama market has reached 92, with a similar market share of 9.31%, second only to the four major types of love, costumes, drama and urbanity. From the current market suspense drama layout, in addition to the major platforms are actively layout "label" (theater), the works broadcast in a decentralized manner still account for more than half, which means that suspense dramas are not only unique to the "platform", satellite TV or satellite TV, platform cooperation, is still a norm.
A rather surprising result is that among the 92 suspense works online this year, in addition to Chinese drama works such as "Reverse Game" and "Hua Lantern Chu Shang", the quality of locally created suspense drama works is basically below the passing line, and the works with Douban scores of 4 or 5 points occupy the majority; there are only about 10 works with more than 6 points on Douban, and 7 points are basically this year's suspense "hits", just like the "Who is the murderer" currently on the air.
From the perspective of popularity, this year's suspense dramas ranked first in the satellite TV drama "Rebel", with a maximum market share of 20.04% in the 40 days on the line, and the reputation of douban rating of 7.8, making the drama second only to this year's two suspense word-of-mouth dramas "I am good in other places" and "small cost" dark horse drama "Edge of the City". Among the hot top 5 works, the suspense drama created by the platform occupies 3, but from the perspective of Douban word of mouth, in addition to "Twelfth Second" just reached the passing line, the other two are hovering at 5 points.
This also seems to hint at a phenomenon, although most platforms are actively laying out "suspense theaters" at present, but from the perspective of broadcast reputation and popularity, the "label effect" cannot replace its position in the market. In other words, perhaps the mature theater model can pull "advertising sponsorship" for its works, but it cannot open up the public's favorability because of this. The only perception of the market for this film is still to "break through by word of mouth", which is an important factor for "Rebel" to become popular in the market and become the head of the suspense drama as of now.
In fact, from the perspective of the overall market of suspense dramas this year, the "suspense" effect is not prominent. Especially compared with 2018 and 2020, this year's suspense drama market can only be regarded as a "small year" - there is a clear contrast with the previous "suspense" explosion.
Why has the creation of suspense dramas gone downhill? In addition to the clichéd problems of censorship and the lack of relevant professionals, there is also an obvious problem in the lack of high-quality suspense dramas in the past two years, that is, the excessive involution of the platform. Of course, from the perspective of theme development, it is necessarily a good thing to be able to get more and more market attention; from the perspective of the suspense drama creation cycle, at least 5 to 7 suspense reasoning works need to be polished a year (Note: the number of works updated by each platform suspense theater in a year), which is really squeezing the talent in this area.
For example, the five-yuan culture of the head player of suspense dramas recognized in the market has been newly installed in the past two years, with an average creative rhythm of 5 parts a year, which has also made this film and television company that was once enshrined in "White Night Pursuit" go mediocre. This is a serious violation of the law of suspense drama creation, the negative effects brought about.
The industry is recognized as the creation time of suspense scripts is about three years, and even if it is an IP adaptation, it takes one to two years of creative cycles. Including "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth", which launched the "Mist Theater", the script development began three years ago (around 2017), which is a necessary condition for ensuring the birth of a high-quality suspense script.
When creators' heels begin to follow the "market" frequently, it means that their creative rhythm will also be infinitely disrupted. This has become a major reason why many suspense themes are difficult to pass at present. Therefore, the platforming of "suspense theater" has disadvantages and advantages. However, from the perspective of long-term development direction, the increase in scope is bound to affect the creative trend of this type of subject matter. "Suspense drama" is becoming a major outlet in the domestic drama market.