In recent years, TVB, which has been criticized for its decline, has rarely appeared. Especially in the field of fantasy suspense, a niche genre that has produced many blockbusters, the series of "Descending Demons" and "Ancient Spirit Detective" are difficult to reproduce; although "Twelve Legends" and "Golden Tower" have crossed the qualification line, it is difficult to cause too many ripples in the hearts of most mainland audiences.
Until the emergence of the New Year's Eve fantasy suspense drama "Cleaner", it is considered to inject a shot in the arm into this genre. 13 episodes of short drama, Hong Yongcheng, Zheng Shijun in front of and behind the scenes are busy, this drama, whether from the volume or the cast, can not be compared with the past TVB fantasy suspense long episodes. However, the word of mouth with a Douban score of 7.9 points has left behind a number of Taiwan celebration dramas at the end of the year.
Giving up the small-scale short drama of the big actor Cass and the extreme grudge drama, only doing a good job is enough to "come out". Especially after learning from the experience of shooting short dramas in the mainland, in the past few years, TVB short dramas have developed rapidly, and there are signs of becoming a new force.
Dual space-time perspective + unit advancement, type maximization processing
"Cleaner" was originally called "Murderous House Cleaner", and it is not difficult to see from the title that it follows the fantasy style unique to Hong Kong dramas associated with the field of feng shui metaphysics. Because the plot picture is relatively large, it is not suitable for broadcast on the Emerald Stage, and eventually it is only broadcast on TVB's own streaming media MyTV Super.
The plot begins with a double time and space line: on the one hand, the protagonist Zhao Zai (played by Hong Yongcheng) plays the game of disc immortals with his playmate Hong Zai (played by Zheng Junhong) when he is young, and accidentally recruits a ghost to cause the death of his parents and the schizophrenia of his playmate; on the other hand, he is adopted by Master Yueping and has become a ghost-catching Taoist, and while catching ghosts and surpassing, he also hopes to uncover the mystery of the disc immortals that caused his family to be destroyed.
Maoping Mansion is the place where all the protagonists in the play meet, the housing agent Joe (Zheng Shijun) rents the empty house to the new tenant, Hong Zai is the substitute security guard of the building, and the pile of supernatural events encountered by the tenants points to a problem in the house, so Joe finds a friend Zhao Zai to catch ghosts, and Zhao Zai is also reunited with Hong Zai after the incident of the young Disc Immortal. While everyone is jointly hunting ghosts in the mansion, they are also approaching the truth of the Disc Immortal case of that year.
Almost one episode of a unit case occurred in the building: the new tenant found that there was a continuous dripping of black water on the ceiling, and there was a water ghost on the original upstairs; the mother and her daughter video chatted, and they could actually see that there was a supernatural thing flashing behind their daughter; the security guard inspected the empty house and found a girl sitting by the window... The fast pace and strong plot allow "Cleaner" to grasp the biggest features of suspense dramas, while at the same time dragging the protagonist and audience closer to the ultimate "suspense" mystery of more than a decade ago.
Of course, like all suspense dramas that have successfully gone out of the circle, "Cleaner" has achieved the "genre" to the extreme, but also does not stop at the perception of selling "suspense" and "supernatural". Rather, it explores the depth of how people should choose in the face of the changes around them.
"Cleaner" tries to use ghost hunters as a medium to open up the world of people and ghosts. Master Yueping and Master Ouyang, who are in the same door, are both ghost-catching Taoists, but they have different values.
Master Yueping's life was hard, and the fees charged after each practice were only for the sake of luck. Adhering to the ancestral precepts, he regarded the accumulation of virtue as his responsibility, believing that the purpose of learning the Tao was to pass on the torch. Master Ouyang believes that learning tao is a broken old and a new one, and the "Tao" that adapts to modern society can be recognized and preserved. He can use his ability to help the rich transport, and his "Tao" is more in line with the law of the jungle of modern human society.
In the 13-episode short drama, it is difficult to say which kind of values are more correct, but as long as these two values can make the audience feel a little dialectical inspiration, this is the success of this genre drama.
What is the development of TVB miniseries?
Hong Yongcheng, the lead actor and director of "Cleaner", once said that when making this drama, it will refer to high-level dramas of the same type, and the mainland suspense short drama "Hidden Corner" is one of them, "The whole play is full of pressure at every moment, and the overall atmosphere is well laid out." ”
As a result, we will find that the tone of "Cleaner" is similar to that of "The Hidden Corner": the dark picture carries a sense of oppressive atmosphere and mystery. At the same time, this style is reminiscent of the dim tones characteristic of Hong Kong ghost films in the past.
"The Cleaner" seems to have accomplished a mission that a long TVB series has not accomplished for many years: to organically combine the style of mainland short dramas with hong Kong's local stories.
Of course, this is not an accident. In recent years, although TVB short dramas have just started, almost every one of them has a good reputation.
In December 2020, the 12-episode TVB short drama "Hong Kong Love Story" allowed the audience to see the shadow of the Hong Kong version of "Snail Residence". Several protagonists want a house or a realistic choice of love, and overnight, TVB, which is good at telling the grievances of the giants, is pulled to the ground closest to ordinary people. After all, ordinary people open their eyes and see the chai rice oil and salt in the hundreds of square feet of rooms, not the yachts and mid-levels mansions of the top rich on TV.
The 8-episode TVB short drama "Absurd Theater Troupe" (formerly known as "Fraud Theater Troupe"), which was launched in April 2021, used seven down-and-out filmmakers to form an "absurd theater troupe" to raise funds to make movies, laying out one scam story after another to satirize the current situation of the entertainment industry. For example, one of the scams was to "use CG technology to replace deer with horses", which was actually an outrageous situation of a large number of "CG heads" in the mainland entertainment industry at that time. Such a setting may seem absurd, but behind the black humor, it is also thought-provoking.
Then to the newly updated "Cleaner" to win a good reputation, in fact, it is not difficult to see that even if there is no large investment and large card division, these small-scale TVB short dramas that integrate realistic elements but retain the "soul of Hong Kong drama" will still gain the love of the majority of audiences, and even the response is far beyond those long dramas and co-production dramas with large investment.
In addition, TVB has also begun to lay out its own streaming media channels, and the opening of online channels such as MyTV Super is bound to give greater tolerance to the content scale of short dramas. Therefore, insisting on doing a good job in genre and taking the path of reality is not a new solution for TVB.
【Text/Liu Bingqian】