The author | Like its editor | Li Qiuhan
As the grand finale of Tencent Video at the end of 2021, "Knife Line in the Snow" did not perform as expected.
From 2012 to 2016, the original novel was serialized in zongheng Chinese network, gaining high popularity, ranking ninth in the 2018 Hurun Literary Value IP list, surpassing the original novel of the previous blockbuster drama "Qing Yu Nian", which ranked only 21. Coupled with the proximity of the main creative team to "Qing Yu Nian", there are also screenwriter Wang Ti, actor Zhang Ruoyun, and a number of the same supporting roles, which also indirectly raise the audience's expectations and attract attention from the outside world.
But after it aired, the series fell into word-of-mouth controversy.
The first is the protest from fans of the original book. After the episode was broadcast, in the Douban long review, many fans gave one-star and two-star evaluations to express their dissatisfaction with the design and casting. In particular, the actor Li Gengxi, who plays the heroine Jiang Ni, looks at the neighboring family in the eyes of some viewers, and cannot bear the title of "peerless beauty", which is inconsistent with the original role.
Secondly, as a martial arts drama, martial arts drama is very different from traditional martial arts, which also causes dissatisfaction among some audiences. Many viewers said on Weibo, "The martial arts drama is slow to play, and it needs to be watched at 1.5 times the speed." "In Station B, "Knife In the Snow" has 50 pages of related videos, most of which are around the rhythm of the episode, martial arts and filters.
Although with the broadcast of the series, the popularity of "Snow Knife Line" has warmed up, which is a recently hot episode, but compared with the highest market share of "Qingyu Nian" network broadcasting market share of 29.4%, "Snow Knife Line" is not a hit, the two Douban scores are not small, more than 80,000 people to "Snow Knife Line" score, currently staying at 5.7 points, and "Qing Yu Nian" scored 7.9 points, the number of ratings reached 910,000.
What about "Knife In the Snow"? Using the explosive rules that the market has already verified, why did it not become the next "Qing Yu Nian"?
(Minor spoilers below)
Another "Celebrating the Rest of the Year"?
The episodic version of "Knife Line in the Snow" and "Celebrating Yu Nian" have many similarities.
In terms of original novels, it has been mentioned that both books are the best of the male novels. Under the relevant questions of Zhihu, there are high-vote answers that mention that the brushwork is borrowed from "Dream of the Red Chamber", and the two works are "very similar in some aspects". Some people even specifically asked, "Is there anyone who can answer why the novel's snow knife line and Qing Yu Nian feel so similar."
In the series, the same screenwriter and similar actor configuration add more importance to this similarity. "Knife Row in the Snow" has some similar advantages to "Celebrating the Rest of the Year".
For example, the main line of the shuangwen is clear. The protagonist has a "Jack Sue" aura that is higher than the general male frequency drama configuration. Fan Xian in "Qing Yu Nian", when the imperial power minister Fan Jian was his adoptive father, when the Emperor Qingdi of the Dynasty was his biological father, the world recognized as the most poisonous Fei Jie as his enlightenment master. In "The Sword Line in the Snow", Xu Fengnian is the son of Northern Liang, his father Xu Xiao is the "human slaughter" who destroyed the Six Kingdoms, the master sword Jiuhuang is his servant, the sword immortal Li Chungang is his guide, and Wang Chonglou, the head of Wudang, voluntarily sends the gong method "Da Huang Ting".
The main line of the story is based on the two people who have gone through various tests and tempers in the family, rivers and lakes, and temples, and have the confrontation between father and son, and they have to take on the responsibilities that they have to bear, which is a typical heroic growth history. And because of the actor Zhang Ruoyun's acting skills and passers-by, it seems that Hanger Lang is actually concerned about the world, so that the common "Jack Su" personality in this kind of male frequency has not yet attracted complaints.
For example, they all like to create group portrait characters with a sense of contrast. For example, in "Qing Yu Nian", Fan Ruoruo, who seems to be overbearing and domineering, is actually simple in his heart and single-minded toward money, and Fan Ruoruo, who is proficient in piano, chess, calligraphy and painting, is an "IQ basin" with his own cute points. In "The Sword Line in the Snow", Lao Huang, who seems to be some rogue and good wine, was actually a swordsman master who walked the rivers and lakes alone, and Xu Xiao, the "human slaughter" who destroyed the six kingdoms and the world, did not appear before he appeared, constantly rendering his human slaughter image, and when he finally appeared, he was extremely afraid of his son's father. Xu Xiao's righteous son Chu Lushan was cruel and absurd, but he was a "Lu Qiu'er" who obeyed Xu Fengnian's words.
In this sense of contrast, the creators are also using the interesting personalities of the characters to dissolve the heaviness of the power plot, so that a seemingly conspiratorial drama is also "positive" and "evil", lowering the viewing threshold.
For example, they all like to use reverse techniques to advance the plot and arouse the audience's interest in watching. The ending of "Celebrating the Rest of the Year" is a typical example. When Xie Bian confronted Fan Xian, Yan Bingyun, who seemed to be a positive character, reversed and stabbed Fan Xian, and Fan Xian's life and death were uncertain, leaving suspense for the second season of "Qing Yu Nian".
In "The Knife In the Snow", there are many such reversals. For example, Lin Tanhua assassinated Xu Fengnian, who seems to be an upright reader, and used the woman Shu Shame who was "obsessed" with him to carry the pot at a critical moment, which was the first reversal, but after winning Xu Fengnian's trust, he continued the next step of assassinating Xu Fengnian's plan, which was the second reversal, and finally, Shu Shame was actually Xu Fengnian's person, everything was under control, this was the third reversal.
Even the tones of the filters that have been spat upon are similar. A CEO of a film and television company told Shen Yan that it was difficult to imagine that "Knife In the Snow" was an S+ film and television project. General episode color grading will pursue colors close to reality, and the overall tone of the current episodes is green, and the characters are gray, which reduces the visual beauty. But in fact, it is not difficult to find that the style of "Qing Yu Nian" is similar, and its color tone is not bright and bright.
Stills of "Qing Yu Nian" and "Sword Line in the Snow"
In general, in these two dramas, many characters appear to be good people, but they are actually bad people, seemingly bad people, and actually good people. The protagonists seem to be in danger, but they are actually strategizing. In such a way, the characters and plot are like hooks to pull the audience, often surprisingly winning, and the cool feeling will not be bad.
Why can't it be compared to "Qing Yu Nian"?
So, why didn't "Knife In the Snow" not reproduce the popularity of the "Qing Yu Nian" period?
First of all, "Knife Row in the Snow" missed the opportunity to win over the audience in the first three episodes.
In the creation of online texts, the development of martial arts has now been mixed with mysterious elements on the basis of traditional martial arts, and this work is no exception. However, the official publicity focused on rendering the characteristics of martial arts, which made some viewers who rushed to see pure martial arts works feel that they were lagging behind.
The battle of "shape" in the martial arts of "Sword Line in the Snow" is very unpretty.
In the first episode, when Zhang Tianai played by the Nangong servant and the Chu people fought, too many slow-motion shots were used, one move and one style were connected with the camera, and the characters in the fight scene did not have any contact throughout the whole process; the fight between Jian jiu huang and Wu Emperor City to Wang Xianzhi was only completed in the commentary; in the 21st episode of the reed swing climax scene, it was originally a battle of fighting wits and courage, and I did not expect that all parties were fighting, and they were not close.
These scenes are too slow-motion, excessive pursuit of action beauty, and ignore the audience's perception.
For the martial arts presentation in "The Sword In the Snow", director Song Xiaofei explained in an interview with the media that this is in the category of "traditional martial arts", making the action scenes more ethereal and freehand, and there is no need to see so many technical details of the action. But judging from the one-sided bad review feedback, the audience obviously did not buy it. An industry insider analyzed the reasons and said that this also has the audience's emotional accumulation of the continuous decline in the quality of martial arts dramas in recent years.
A fan of the original novel said that his fantasies about the martial arts drama and jianghu drama of "The Knife In the Snow" began to be shattered in the first episode of the play. At the beginning of the drama version, Xu Fengnian's first "travel" scene is advanced, showing his personality of cold outside and hot inside. In the third episode, the jianghu line and the court characters began to appear. The pace was too slow, and he was running out of patience to watch.
Screenwriter Song Yuanyuan lamented that the painful lesson for the long series was that "the first three episodes must be sustained."
Missing the first three episodes, according to the word of mouth on the Internet, even if the follow-up plot and word of mouth improve, the audience that is pulled back is still not enough.
Source / Stills from "Knife In the Snow"
First, because the plot and rhythm of "Knife Row in the Snow" are not as good as "Qing Yu Nian". There are many characters in his original novel, the plot is scattered, and some characters do not have a complete plot series, which also makes some of the characters in the play dragonfly a little water, dispersing the display space of the group portrait.
One audience member mentioned that most of the first six episodes revolved around the plot of "who wants to assassinate Xu Fengnian", from the clues of assassination, failure, and assassination to lay out the characters. His perception is that the characters appear like horses and flowers, and they can't feel the feelings that the screenwriter pours into them, which makes the plot rhythm unattractive.
Both dramas add unexpected comedic elements to the power plot, but in contrast, "Knife In the Snow" is not enough. In "Qing Yu Nian", there are enough relaxed roles such as Fan Siru, Wang Qinian, and Fan Ruoruo, and in "The Sword Line in the Snow", among the people around Xu Fengnian, The Blue Bird has a calm personality, the princess of the fallen country, Jiang Ni, interprets it heavily, Li Chungang has a limited comedy role, and Lao Huang, who is more good at gags, dies early, lacks such a comedic role to mobilize the atmosphere, and the plot becomes heavier and heavier.
In terms of emotional drama, the casting of the heroine Jiang Ni is not recognized by some audiences, and some audiences reflect that the emotional drama "CP sense" of the two in the play is not strong enough and lacks a sense of substitution. This all made "Knife Row in the Snow" fail to pry a wider audience.
Especially in the drama market where "female audiences get the world", this is undoubtedly a big regret. According to Yien data, the female audience of "Knife Walk in the Snow" accounted for 33.2%, while the female audience accounted for 58% when "Qing Yu Nian" was popular, more than half.
Platform drama, copy and paste
"Knife Line in the Snow" and "Qing Yu Nian" are similar and too high, and in the final analysis, it is the excessive dependence of the team behind the explosive code.
Even now, many viewers are still relishing the birth of "Qing Yu Nian".
The male IP drama "Qing Yu Nian" was launched at the end of 2019, with screenwriter Wang Tian, and the starring lineup includes Zhang Ruoyun, Li Qin, Chen Daoming and so on. As of January 2020, the drama has been played 6.9 billion times on Tencent Video's single platform, which not only drives the reading volume of the original novel, but also the Reading Group, one of the producers, is also optimistic.
Since then, Tencent has opened the copy of the explosive model. After "Qing Yu Nian" exploded in early 2020, "Knife Line in the Snow" was launched in July 2020, and director Song Xiaofei publicly mentioned that the filming time of this drama was given 5 months, and it was completed at the end of November. Guo Qilin and Song Yi, who played an important role in "Qing Yu Nian", starred in the male frequency big IP "Son-in-law", and the style is similar to that of "Qing Yu Nian", which was officially announced in June 2020, killed in October, and started broadcasting in February 2021, which is not fast.
The three works of "Snow In the Sword Line", "Qing Yu Nian" and "Son-in-law" are all male frequency big IP in the online text, and behind them are the figures of Xinli, Reading Group, Tencent Pictures or Penguin Film and Television, which can be said to be highly similar in production.
The advantage of this is that it is quickly adapted from the original work, and the heat of the previous film and television works is used to continue the heat of subsequent works. Director Xie Fei even affirmed the importance of the production of seasonal TV dramas in the Douban review when "Qing Yu Nian" was popular. He said that from the perspective of the commercial operation of entertainment works and the "heat block", the second season of "Qing Yu Nian" needs to be broadcast in another year, or even the second year, and there is a problem of improper planning and no scientific law in the production and distribution methods.
Source / Stills from "Celebrating the Rest of the Year"
But this does not prevent the copy of the blockbuster, in the process of "Qingyu Nian 2" is still incubated, there are similar team projects, can follow closely behind.
Liu Yang, CEO of a film and television company, believes that the problems in the production of "Knife Line in the Snow" just expose that there are still many problems in the operation and replication of "explosive dramas" created by video platforms. A producer who has cooperated with the long video platform also mentioned that after the explosive drama came out, the team repeatedly used it, and the similarity of the drama produced was too high, and the audience would be aesthetically tired.
This has already been revealed in "Knife Row in the Snow".
As a screenwriter who is good at writing male frequency novels, Wang Tian is good at using human contrasts to create reversals, but the routine is obvious. In "Qing Yu Nian", there is Wang Qinian who loves money but loves his wife to talk about morality, and in "Snow In the Sword Line" there is a princess who loves money, Jiang Ni, the princess of the fallen country who loves money, all of which have spent a lot of ink on the author's money; the second prince played by actor Liu Duanduan in "Qing Yu Nian" is eclectic, and Zhao Kai, played by him in "Snow In the Sword Line", is able to flex and stretch, although these characters are based on the original work, but from the point of view, I have to admit that there are some similarities in the human settings.
In terms of casting, Zhang Ruoyun can be regarded as supporting the two roles of Fan Xian and Xu Fengnian, but similar characters and the same actors have a homogenization tendency, and more than one audience member said to Shen Yan that when watching the play, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish whether it is Fan Xian or Xu Fengnian.
Such similarity makes "Knife In the Snow" not new enough, nor strange enough, lacking freshness.
In order to catch up with the popularity of the previous works, follow-up works need to be strictly controlled by time, and on the basis of the lack of industrialization in the domestic film and television industry, it is difficult to maintain a high level of drama quality.
Some viewers mentioned that the pace of "Knife Row in the Snow" became sluggish in the middle of the period, and it can already be felt that some plots are reversed in order to reverse. An audience member told Shen Yan that the director of "Qing Yu Nian" had a better grasp of the rhythm, and the character image reversal was appropriately beneficial, but the rhythm of "The Knife In the Snow" was matched with the mysterious plot, which made him feel floating. Although the "Son-in-law" made by the same method was well received in the early stage of the Spring Festival in 2021, in the process of the later plot shifting from light comedy style to power plot, the quality of the script declined, and the reputation fell seriously.
Putting aside the martial arts drama and excessive similarity with "Qing Yu Nian" in production, it cannot be denied that "Sword Line in the Snow" has its merits, the quality is not bad, and the heat rises in the later stage, which is an example. But an audience member sighed deeply, after watching "Qing Yu Nian", watching "Son-in-law", and then watching "The Knife Line in the Snow", "I really can't see it".
This is the third template used by the explosive password of "Qing Yu Nian", how long can the follow-up audience pay for it? "Knife In the Snow" is just a microcosm of the platform copy of the blockbuster drama, but it will not be the last.
*The caption is from "Knife Line in the Snow". At the request of the interviewee, Liu Yang was given a pseudonym in the text.