"Beginning" was launched, and the noonday sun played the "infinite stream" concept film and television drama for the first time

Yangcheng Evening News all-media reporter Gong Weifeng

"National Opera Facade" Noonday Sunshine is out of a new drama! The time-space loop drama "Beginning", adapted from the novel of the same name by Prayer Jun of Jinjiang Literature City, recently landed on Tencent Video. The drama tells the story of game architect Xiao Heyun (Bai Jingting) and college student Li Shiqing (Zhao Jinmai) who "came back from the dead" after encountering a bus explosion, and constantly experienced the time cycle of time and space during the time period of the bus accident, from getting off the bus to saving themselves to breaking the barrier and fighting side by side, trying to stop the explosion and find the truth.

The main creative lineup of "Beginning" is very new, although the producer is still Hou Hongliang, but the director is not Kong Sheng, Li Xue, Zhang Kaizhou, who are familiar to the audience, but a young team composed of Sun Molong, Liu Hongyuan and Suan, and the screenwriting team is composed of the original author Qi Jun and Qiu Yujie, Suan and Huang Kaiwen. The young creative lineup picks up the beams, which shows the determination of the noonday sun in the development of the theme.

The show broadcast 8 episodes of good reputation, although Douban has not yet opened a score, but the rating is stable between three stars and five stars. After all, in mainland film and television dramas that play the concept of "infinite stream", the noonday sun counts as the first one, and the encouragement points are always given.

A "Infinite Stream" works are quite sought after

In short, the concept of "infinite flow" points to the cycle of time and space. According to the book "Breaking the Wall: Keywords of Internet Culture" edited by scholar Shao Yanjun, "infinite flow" began in zhttty's "Infinite Terror" (2007). This work builds the basic framework of infinite flow: the protagonist enters the mysterious "reincarnation space" and travels to the dungeon worlds of movies, games, anime, and novels to complete tasks, thereby gaining extraordinary powers, but has to never stop adventure and reincarnation in other worlds. The setting framework of infinite stream is clear and clear, with great room for expansion, which triggered a creative boom of infinite stream in that year, and countless imitators have followed it so far.

Similar to the concept of "infinite stream", it has often appeared in European and American film and television dramas before, and many works are quite sought after by film and television enthusiasts. Released in 1993, "Groundhog Day" (also known as "Stealing The Sky") is a classic in the hearts of many fans.

Since 1887, every year on February 2, people have waited for the groundhog to come out of the cave as a "weather forecaster" predicting how long spring will come. Generations of marmots have a common name – Phil. The movie "Groundhog Day" turned the groundhog "Phil" into the weather forecaster "Phil". In the story, Phil is tired of more than a decade of life, he does not like his work, life, the people around him, and even has no good feelings for himself. On February 2, Phil went to the town to report on the News of Groundhog Day, and has been caught in a time-space loop ever since. When he woke up, he found that time had stopped at the day before, and that everything from yesterday had been repeated. The film won the Best Original Screenplay Award at the 47th British Academy Film and Television Arts Awards, and the time loop phenomenon in the film is known as the "Groundhog Phil Effect".

This kind of film and television drama is not uncommon in foreign countries. In the 2011 film Source Code, researchers used the brainwaves of the seriously injured pilot Colt to repeatedly "traverse" into the body of a train bomb victim and return to the train before the explosion to find the perpetrator and prevent the next bombing. TVB's 2016 broadcast of "EU Overtime Mission" is also a similar setting, the heroine's father accidentally died of a stray bullet, she encountered an astronomical vision when she was in grief, and got the opportunity to save her father three days before repeatedly crossing the incident.

B The sense of suspense is firmly grasped

"Beginning" revolves around the setting of "time and space cycle", the protagonists Xiao Heyun and Li Shiqing enter the time and space cycle in the bus explosion case, the two on the one hand to find out the real culprit of the bus explosion, to prevent the explosion, on the other hand, to find a way out of the cycle.

The setting of "Beginning" is similar to that of "Source Code", which belongs to the closed space crime solving journey: game architect Xiao Heyun and college student Li Shiqing both experienced an explosion on the No. 45 bus and no one survived. The first to realize that she had entered the loop was Li Shiqing, who tried to escape, but could not get out of the car after several attempts. In one cycle, she lied that Xiao Heyun next to her was a "sex wolf" and finally succeeded in getting the driver to stop. But even if the two get out of the car, they will still return to the loop, and the two have to form a "puzzle solving partner" and begin to check the passengers and drivers in the car one by one, looking for the real culprit and stopping the explosion.

"The Beginning" currently broadcasts 8 episodes, and the presentation of the concept of "infinite flow" is basically qualified: in the play, the protagonist has experienced more than ten time and space loops, and the presentation of each cycle is not repeated, and the plot development always points to "finding the real culprit" and "getting out of the loop". As the number of cycles increases, the "puzzle partner" gradually grasps more information, and the story behind the people in the car gradually appears. This method of creating suspense satisfies the appetite of the audience.

Under the C brain hole is a strong warmth

In this kind of "infinite flow" concept film and television works, the time and space cycle and parallel time and space are only the forms of "storytelling", and the highlights often lie in emotional expression and humanistic thinking.

In "Groundhog Day", Phil still can't escape the cycle after committing suicide, and he finally realizes that since he can't escape, he can live every day. He tried to straighten out his life, change himself, and then get to know more people, and many interesting stories happened. He realized that even if the time stayed forever on February 2, every day could be a new day. Every seemingly uneventful day is worth treating with your heart.

The same is true of "The Beginning", outside of the sci-fi setting of the "time loop", the show attaches great importance to emotional expression. As the plot progresses, the life experiences of all the victims of the No. 45 bus are revealed one by one - Lu Di, who suffered from asthma since childhood, was protected and raised by his parents, his mother did not let him keep cats, but he always participated in the rescue of stray cats; Ma Guoqiang was just released from prison, his wife and children were pointed out during his imprisonment, and he heard that his son sent a circle of friends to miss the watermelon he planted, Ma Guoqiang took a snakeskin bag of watermelons and sat on the No. 45 bus to find his son; Migrant worker Jiao Penggang was driven out of the garage rental house by the landlord. I learned that my daughter, who had excellent grades, decided to drop out of school to work...

"The Beginning" presents the difficult life faced by ordinary people, but under the premise of the concept of "infinite flow", the emotional concentration rises sharply. There is a scene in the play where, after a cycle, only Xiao Heyun, Li Shiqing and Lu Di escape from the bus, and they witness the sad atmosphere of the other victims' families being investigated at the police station. If there is no cycle, the life stories of these victims will come to an abrupt end, leaving endless regrets. Only by solving the case and stopping the explosion during the cycle of time can the passengers have a chance to redeem themselves and make up for their regrets.

D involves ambitions in social topics

The social hot topics of "Beginning" are widely extended. In the choice of character identity, the play shows the ambition to intervene in social topics: the story of the two-dimensional teenager Lu Di presents the generational gap between children and parents. Many parents and children lack communication and understanding, and although they are under the same roof, it is like being in two worlds. At present, the eight episodes broadcast also present hot issues such as the living conditions of migrant workers, the return of labor reform personnel to society, and the elements of violence in online games. In terms of presenting human nature, the observation of the play is also quite sharp. In one cycle, in order to prevent the suspect from pulling the explosive device, Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun were stabbed by the suspect, and the passengers in the car were left unsound to help, watching the incident happen.

Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun's bus rescue was not a natural and overnight success, and they repeatedly experienced soul torture and painful choices in one cycle of failure after another. As passengers on the bus who can enter the time and space cycle, do they choose to retire alive or bravely take responsibility? "Beginning" also leads the audience to think about a question: "If you were the protagonist, would you choose to save others or save yourself?" ”

In the play, the rescue of the No. 45 bus explosion case is not only the strength of Xiao Heyun and Li Shiqing, but also the police force headed by Zhang Cheng and Du Ju, showing the professional quality of the people's police in their mission. "If you get a text message from a stranger, will you call the police right away?" When Li Shiqing asked this sentence, Zhang Cheng's answer was firm and powerful: "I will not hesitate to go to the police!" "If it's true, if we go to the police, we may save the lives of a carload of people." After repeated cycles, Xiao Heyun and Li Shiqing gradually found the working ideas and methods of the police force, and the police and the people cooperated to prevent the bus explosion.

Link loop password

"Cannon"

In the play, Li Shiqing will always hear the melody of "Cannon" before the bus explosion, which makes people shudder. Some netizens commented: "Congratulations to "Cannon" for becoming a new round of Yama Wangye summoning tracks after "Little White Boat" ("The Hidden Corner") and "Wish You Peace" ("Sweeping The Black Storm"). In fact, "The Beginning" chose "Cannon" to be unique. You know, "Cannon" is a kind of polyphonic music, the tune of one voice, chasing another part from beginning to end, repeating and looping, until the last chord of the last bar, fused together.

Circular building

In the play, Xiao Heyun and Li Shiqing left the bombed bus and went to the circular building of the nearby Qingshui Park to regroup the matter. At that time, the two combed through the timelines of the previous time-space cycles on the building, looking for patterns. The camera repeatedly gives a circular vista of the building, symbolizing that the two will continue to experience the cycle.

Editor: Wang Yu