Author | Sugar fried hawthorn
This year should be the "big year" of male frequency costume dramas. At the beginning of the year, "Son-in-law" and "Douluo Continent" were out of the circle of hot stems, fans were carnival, each with its own heat; at the end of the year, "Snow in the Sword Line" was quite a posture of booking "explosive quotas" in advance.
The market's expectations for this drama are not difficult to understand. On the one hand, the combination of "Zhang Ruoyun + Wang Tian" is like the light of male frequency IP after "Qing Yu Nian"; on the other hand, the original novels of the Princes of Beacon Theatre have been praised by the peak works of martial arts novels in recent years, and "after the snow, there is no more jianghu" is especially seen in the high evaluation of book fans. Coupled with the blessing of many old drama bones, the basic disk is superior.
Recently, "The Knife In the Snow" premiered online, from the presentation of the first 8 episodes, the rivers and lakes, temples, plots, love and righteousness are intertwined, Xu Fengnian, Xu Xiao, Lao Huang and other colorful characters have appeared. Objectively speaking, the story is grand and the characters have distinct personalities, leaving enough space for the subsequent plot development, and famous scenes such as the meeting of the father and son of the Xu family and the farewell of Xu Fengnian by the old Huang also make people break the defense.
The audience's enthusiasm for chasing the drama is self-evident. Maoyan Professional Edition shows that as of now, the number of episodes played has exceeded 280 million, winning the daily crown of the Cat's Eye popularity list for 2 consecutive days, reaching a maximum of 9570; lighthouse data shows that the highest proportion of the show's main film playback market is 14.99%, and the highest single-day public opinion exceeds 2 million. After the Douban short review cleaned up the water army data, it still quickly broke through 10,000.
Whether it is from the story or the market heat, "The Knife In the Snow" confirms the influence of the head drama. But on the other hand, controversy surrounding the show's filters, action scenes, and casting is also unfolding. No black, no exaggeration, how is this drama really? Can it carry the banner of the male frequency costume drama at the end of the year?
The familiar "Zhang Ruoyun + old drama bones", will it be the same group of portraits moved?
Zhang Ruoyun, who was a god in the first world war of "Qing Yu Nian", is like a male frequency network IP harvester, and has won the two head IPs of "Snow Knife Line" and "Daming Under the Microscope". Now that "The Knife In the Snow" has been broadcast, can Xu Fengnian, played by him, stand the test of the market, and can he keep the Jiangshan laid in the male frequency field?
In the plot currently broadcast, Zhang Ruoyun presents three states of the character: Xu Fengnian, who appeared in a beggar costume, escaped with wit in the face of many pursuits and killings of the Western Chu people; back to the North Starling, on the one hand, he is a cunning Shizi who eats and drinks and enjoys himself, surrounded by countless red faces, and on the other hand, the layers of analysis behind the three assassinations are directly approached by the murderer, showing the hidden side of the character's hidden patience and sharp chest and the gulf.
It seems that many people saw Fan Xian's shadow in it. Zhang Ruoyun also said in an interview with the media, he once began to look for the difference between the two characters for the first time after getting the role of Xu Fengnian, in his opinion, Xu Fengnian was cold and hot outside, pretending to be a bad child under the appearance is a sad and compassionate heart, Fan Xian is pretending to be a good child, and the heart is actually "bad and bad".
And such an interpretation may need to be glimpsed in a more complete character growth. However, in the play, the father-son love between Xu Fengnian and Xu Xiao, who is also father and son, and the master-servant love between Lao Huang and Lao Huang, will firmly attract the audience, especially in the plot of Lao Huang's farewell, it is the first to poke the audience's tear glands.
Compared with Xu Fengnian, many viewers were the first to be amazed by the old drama bones in the play. Xu Xiao, the Starling King of the Northern Starlings played by Hu Jun, seems to be more three-dimensional. He was a great general who destroyed the Six Kingdoms with one army and was brave and good at war, and he was the father who was cautious and slightly flattering in front of Xu Fengnian. And when the truth behind the three assassinations is gradually revealed, when he asks Xu Fengnian and Guanli to worship only his deceased wife, the character's scheming and deep affection are amazing.
In the plot that has been broadcast, "The Sword Line in the Snow" has created a huge group of characters: the treacherous and slippery Lao Huang is a hidden master sword Jiu Huang, who was beaten to the subjugation by Xu Fengnian's Lao Kui released from the bottom of the lake, Li Yishan, a military master who lives on the top floor but has insight into everything, and Wang Xianzhi, Li Chungang, Deng Tai'a, who are about to appear in their mouths, which are the rivers and lakes of the previous generation, and the masters are frequent and amazing.
Among the younger generation, the Nangong servants who are "obsessed" with martial arts, Jiang Ni, the princess of the fallen country who is ready to assassinate Xu Fengnian, the white-clad soldier Chen Zhibao, known as the "Little Man Slaughter", and the sweet potatoes and blue birds with different personalities will gradually appear, and they will be the new forces stirring up the world. However, public opinion has also questioned the casting and acting skills of some actors.
At the beginning, when "Qing Yu Nian" premiered, the blessing of Chen Daoming, Wu Gang and other old drama bones took the lead in stunning the market and became an important step in the TV series out of the circle; now "Knife Line in the Snow" with the configuration of "Zhang Ruoyun + Old Drama Bones" once again made the audience move, sigh and shine in it. Of course, this is also a law that the market has verified many times.
A grand narrative based on light comedy, can "In the Snow" tell a good story?
The biggest problem in male IP adaptations is often the structure of the grand world view and the complex narrative of the temple and the intertwining of the temple and the jianghu. It is particularly difficult for "The Sword In the Snow", not only in the original work there is the height of the temple far away from the rivers and lakes, but also the selfish morality of the individual family, and there is also the reincarnation of past and present lives. However, from the current plot advancement, the narrative rhythm of the drama version does not seem to be hurried and eloquent.
Starting from Xu Fengnian's return to Beiling, a 38-episode TV series has spent about 5 episodes describing three seemingly "pediatric" assassinations: the Western Chu people are not afraid of death, the Huakui sword dance assassination that does not know martial arts, the street insults of Tanhualang and the assassination of Huxin. On the one hand, this is a comprehensive display of Xu Fengnian's character mentality, allowing the audience to clearly see the character gap behind The Emperor Shizi.
More importantly, it is precisely with these three assassinations as the traction, the rapid appearance of various characters, the gradual clarification of different countries, political forces, military forces, and jianghu feuds, and the map of the world on the ground painted by Xu Fengnian at the beginning of the TV series is really structured in the audience's mind. It was not until Lao Huang left in episodes 6 and 7, Huang Man'er was sent away, and the mastermind behind the three assassinations continued to reverse until Xu Xiao, the line between the rivers and lakes and the temple really unfolded.
In the different father-son relationship between Xu Xiao and Xu Fengnian, who will take the lead in breaking this balance? The huang man'er who was sent away and the two people's completely different ways of doing things were actually hidden fuse. Xu Fengnian, who had been laid out many times before, refused to learn martial arts, how did the conceptual change occur? As well as the hatred of the subjugated country between the male and female protagonists, when all the "hooks" have been buried, it is waiting for the mystery to be solved.
In addition, in this story of undercurrent surging powder, it is also injected with elements such as light comedy and famous scenes. The Nangong servant played by Zhang Tianai is a representative of the high degree of character reduction in public opinion, and her double knife introduction, "This knife is called Rust Winter, blunt and simple, such as the world's Tao; this knife is named Spring Thunder, blowing hair and breaking hair, such as people's hearts poison", which is the representative of the classic line. But around her, there is also some controversy about action scenes.
Light comedy elements are particularly common in film and television dramas in recent years, and the male frequency dramas "Qing Yu Nian" and "Son-in-law" are even more classic cases, of course, this is also closely related to the actor's temperament and character personality, and is not a personality element that is forcibly structured on the protagonist.
The person who shouldered this heavy responsibility in "The Sword Line in the Snow" was probably the father-son relationship between Xu Xiao and Xu Fengnian. Xu Fengnian and Xu Xiao's "first meeting", the father who has been known as "human slaughter" will be a harsh and angry image, who ever thought that it was nervous to let the maid sort out the clothes repeatedly, the housekeeper read out the house rules "Wang Ye is killed, and when he did not see", the maid's expression is probably the audience's perspective.
The food war between Xu Fengnian and Lao Huang, the "money transaction" between Jiang Ni, the trio of eating melons and even watching their own hilarity, etc., also have the laughter of netizens in the poke. At least from the current point of view, the drama version of "Snow In the Knife Line" has indeed achieved the expansion of the user group, and a large number of non-original fans in the public opinion market have expressed interest in the drama.
Jumping out of the framework of the original work, objectively speaking, the narrative structure of "Knife Row in the Snow" is actually interlocking and suspenseful, but at the moment when it is accustomed to quickly chasing dramas, its laying out requires more patience from the audience. Perhaps it can be expected that as the plot really unfolds, the excitement and reversal of the story is probably the real "taste of wang tiredness". It's just that in this market where the big dramas are fiercely competing at the end of the year, how much patience the audience has is also a question mark.
We hope that good dramas will not be hidden, and we also hope that creators respect the audience's preferences.