Two days ago, the new version of Li Xiaoyao's positive Reuters photo was exposed on Weibo, and the new generation of "Runaway Brother" finally revealed the true face of Lushan.
With it comes the conceivable spit, from appearance to temperament, from height to clothing, and even hairstyles, which have become the focus of netizens' firepower. A large number of netizens are convinced that the 2005 version of "The Legend of the Paladin Sword" (hereinafter referred to as "Immortal Sword I") cannot be surpassed.
This mentality is not difficult to understand, the more classic the IP, the more the audience is afraid that it will be "destroyed".
Although the "Immortal Sword" has not been in the jianghu for a long time, the jianghu has always circulated its legend. Especially in the current situation of the flood of fairy tale dramas, the most sincere things in the "Immortal Sword" series show more lasting power. On Douban, 364,000 people gave "Immortal Sword One" a high score of 9.1. This is also the only fairy drama with a rating of more than 9 so far.
The evolution of the Immortal Sword Male Protagonist
As an RPG (role-playing game) based on male perspectives, the most recognized and well-known male protagonist of the "Immortal Sword" series so far is None other than Li Yaoyao.
Li Xiaoyao, originally a small second in a rural inn, dreams of becoming a hero like his father Li Sansi who fights swords and lakes and punishes evil and promotes good.
When people mention Li Xiaoyao, they can always immediately think of the scene of Hu Ge at the beginning of the film: holding a sword and smiling, dashing and uninhibited.
Yao Zhuangxian, the "father of the Immortal Sword", commented on Hu Ge: "I picked him out at a glance from the pile of people, tall and handsome, looking at people and thieves. ”
This is a well-known story of "Immortal Sword One" fans. At the beginning of the casting, internal opinions tended to choose Nicholas Tse, Zhang Weijian and other popular students. Cai Yinong, the owner of Tang Dynasty Film and Television Company, vigorously defied public opinion and advocated the use of new people. It is this film-side adventure that has made Hu Ge stand out.
In 2015, in "Xianjian Inn", Li Xiaoyao's role reappeared in the jianghu. This drama is a web series of the same name adapted from the spin-off game "Paladin Inn".
The original game is not a traditional work of the "Immortal Sword" series, but a new form of game that borrows elements such as characters, place names, backgrounds and other elements from the series of works, focusing on healing management. The show continues the style of the game: warm and funny.
At that time, the sixteen-year-old Wu Lei was very compatible with the role of Li Xiaoyao in "Immortal Sword Inn", but because Hu Gezhuyu was in front, Wu Lei was still questioned a lot.
This phenomenon occurs in every actor who has played Li Xiaoyao. For example, Tong Mengshi in "Actors Please Take Place", Jin Wen in the 2021 version of "Xianjian Inn" and so on.
"No Hu Ge No Immortal Sword" has become a spell that cannot be solved in the "Immortal Sword" series. In 2009, "The Legend of the Immortal Sword" (hereinafter referred to as "Immortal Sword III") arrived as scheduled, and Hu Ge once again played the male lead.
The story timeline of "Immortal Sword III" was not postponed, but was instead dialed to fifty years ago of "Immortal Sword I". Interestingly, although the male protagonist of this drama is still played by Hu Ge, Jingtian and Li Xiaoyao present a fundamental difference.
Compared with the poor and white Yuzhou miscellaneous little two, it seems to be Yong'an's errand boy' sedum, but in fact has a very brilliant past. A thousand years ago, he was the Divine Realm General Fei Peng, and because of the private fight with the Demon Respect Lou, the Demon Realm invaded the Divine Realm and was relegated to the human world, becoming the Crown Prince of the Ancient Jiang Kingdom, Long Yang. Long Yang died fighting to protect the land, and eventually reincarnated as Sedum.
The partners around Sedum have come from an extraordinary background. Yukimi is Fei Peng's only confidant in the Divine Realm, Xi Yao, who replaces her with the sedum of the human world; Long Kui is the princess of the ancient Jiang Kingdom, sealed in the magic sword for a thousand years, just to wait for a reunion with her reincarnated brother; Shigeru is a demon who looks at everything and comes to the mortal world in order to find his only opponent, Fei Peng.
By the time of "Immortal Sword and Cloud Fan", Hu Ge has begun the road of transformation, and the male protagonist is Han Dongjun. At this time, it has been ten years since the broadcast of "Immortal Sword I" and six years since the broadcast of "Immortal Sword III".
In this drama, the identity of the male protagonist changes again. Jiang Yunfan was the son of the demon king Jiang Shili, and he was cultivated as the lord of the Wild Wind Village since childhood, and his life was exposed after he came down from the mountain. It is difficult for a small person like Li Xiaoyao to become the protagonist of the "Immortal Sword" series.
What exactly are you missing when you miss The Immortal Sword?
To a certain extent, the evolution of the male protagonist image of the "Immortal Sword" series is also the history of the flow of the Xian Xia drama.
In the early days, martial arts were dominant, but with the change of the audience's aesthetics, the original fist-and-foot comparison was no longer enough to see, and the design of the moves became more and more mysterious and ethereal. After all, human ability is limited, even if the internal strength is deep, it is still impossible to go to the sea. Xian Xia drama solves this problem.
But the existence of "immortals" and "chivalry" is full of contradictions. "Immortals" do not enter the red dust, and "chivalrous" want to save Cangsheng, and this sense of contradiction creates the entanglements and choices in the "Immortal Sword" series of stories.
The road to saving cangsheng in "Immortal Sword I" is the struggle, desperation and sacrifice of a group of small people. Li Xiaoyao took the world as his duty and vowed to inherit his father's legacy to become a generation of heroes; Zhao Ling'er left to protect the people of Nanzhao in spite of the dangers ahead, and died with the enemy in the final decisive battle.
In "Immortal Sword III", Jingtian is no longer Li Xiaoyao with a heroic dream, but is shaped more ordinary. He is greedy for money and afraid of death, and his dream is to buy back Yong'an Dang and honestly become a treasurer. Under the pressure of fate, he embarked on the road of chivalry.
But this kind of compulsion precisely emphasizes the chivalrous heart in Sedum's daily nature. When Yukimi commented on Sedum, he once said: A person is born with extraordinary skills, and if he can do anything easily, he is certainly not a hero. Only a person who will be hurt and afraid, trying his best to do a thing, can be considered a hero.
In addition to the growth path of Sedum, the love story of this drama is also more romantic and unforgettable. Jingtian and Xuemi's love and killing, Feipeng and Xiyao's missing each other, Changqing and Zixuan's Three Lives III, etc., are all indelible memories of a generation of audiences.
In the finale, Xu Changqing dances his sword in the snow, Zi Xuan is full of white hair, Sedum and Yukimi lean on each other, watching the snow falling outside the eaves, which is still a classic scene often mentioned in Xian Xia dramas.
By the time of "Immortal Sword and Cloud", it seems to have become a drama that both game fans and drama fans will subconsciously ignore. On the contrary, it is often mentioned that it is another drama in the same year as it - "Flowers and Bones".
Marked by the popularity of "Flowers and Bones", xianxia dramas have entered the peak of creation since then. However, the protagonist of the story began to become a woman, and the theme of the story also changed. The chivalrous spirit represented by Li Xiaoyao and Jingtian is no longer the mainstream, and the love story with Cangsheng as the bet has begun to flourish.
Obviously, the protagonists of the "Immortal Sword" series have increasingly strong backgrounds, and the narrative route of juvenile growth is no longer popular. Instead, there are those who are born strong, noble, and family heirs, and the audience watches them in the cycle of life and death, entangled in love, and sinking for hate.
After 2015, the "Immortal Sword" series withdrew, and more and more fairy tale dramas began to emerge. The miracle of the Immortal Sword has never been copied again.
Has only the Xian Xia drama changed?
In the past two years, people have been nostalgic for the TV series around the turn of the millennium. Most people feel that after "Immortal Sword", there is no longer a "fairy" in domestic TV series. Someone always commented on the "Immortal Sword" series: "I thought it was the beginning, but I didn't expect it to be the peak." ”
But what has changed is not only the Xian Xia drama?
If you look at "Immortal Sword" again with the current vision, you will find that it has a strong masculine color in the shaping of the emotional line.
In the original game, Li Xiaoyao and Zhao Ling'er, Lin Yueru, and Anu all had a certain emotional relationship between the three women. In the play, this setting was changed to an intricate love story between four men and four women, but Li Xiaoyao's emotional entanglement between Zhao Ling'er and Lin Yueru was retained.
At that time, the dispute between white moonlight and red roses was a romance that people could not give up. As Asan sang in "Always Quiet", "Obviously it is a movie of three people, but I can never have a name." The feelings between the three people can always make fans argue endlessly.
From the end of the "Immortal Sword One" drama, no matter which platform, "Li Xiaoyao loves Lin Yueru more or Zhao Ling'er more?" You can see that the "Ling'er Sect" and the "Yue Ru Sect" are tirelessly "fighting", until now they have gradually evolved into a more direct value evaluation: Lin Yueru is "bitch" and "no face", and Li Xiaoyao is "scum" and "flower heart".
How innocent, and how brutal.
Li Xiaoyao's responsibility, responsibility, helplessness and pain in "Immortal Sword One" are no longer difficult for today's audiences to feel empathy. After all, what they need is "only one person in life and one lifetime."
In the final analysis, the peak created by "Immortal Sword" has the emotional shaping of actors, the core of the "hero" of Xian Xia drama, and the influence of the background of the times, which is the result of the joint action of multiple elements, and it is indispensable.
Just as the highest praise of the Douban short review was written when "Immortal Sword Cloud Fan" was broadcast: The Immortal Sword is still the Immortal Sword, the Poor Tang is still the Poor Tang, and the Five Cents is still the Five Cents. But the jianghu is no longer that jianghu, and the audience is no longer those audiences.
【Text/Pomegranate】