Yiqing | Author Straight Three | edit
In September 2021, a series called "Squid Game" entered the public eye, a story based on "battle royale", through the simplest games such as "one-two-three wooden man", "sugar cake" and "tug-of-war", to spy on humanity at the end of the road.
Within a month, the show was all over the world, not only creating 111 million viewers, becoming the most watched series in Netflix's history, but even pushing Netflix's stock price above $640, setting a new high in the 20 years since its listing.
Whether in terms of broadcast volume or influence, "Squid Game" can be called a global hit in 2021. In 2022, domestic dramas also contributed amazing works in the theme of "infinite stream".
On January 11, 2022, "Beginning", starring Zhao Jinmai and Bai Jingting, was launched, from the music "Cannon" that sounded at the time of the explosion, the discussion of Zhao Jinmai's acting skills after 00, to the love of a supporting role for a middle school teenager, this short drama with only 15 episodes stayed on the hot search every day during the broadcast.
"Beginning" with suspense and science fiction colors, tells a story of a time loop. Li Shiqing, who experienced an explosion on the bus, woke up again and found that he had the burning sensation and tingling sensation caused by the explosion, but in fact he was unscathed.
Li Shiqing did not dream, but entered the system of time loop. The girl, who looked weak, was not intimidated by the fear of the explosion, and she decided to join hands with Xiao Heyun, another game designer who entered the circulation system, to save the lives of the whole car.
Image source: Sina Weibo @ Beginning
After watching this drama, the push book blogger @ Yanshu Girl began to be crazy amway on her 400,000 fan account, even if there is no emotional line, the freshness of the time loop and the shaping of people are enough to attract her, "Can Amway one is one." She enthusiastically told Yu Shi'er (ID: yuci-er).
Lucid, the leader of the Douban Infinite Stream Novel Group, feels that "Beginning" is not an infinite stream in the narrow sense, and the plot design is relatively single, but also recognizes that it is an adaptation that conforms to the original setting.
In the audience's expectations, "Beginning" received nearly 100,000 comments within five days of broadcasting, and Douban opened with a score of 8.2. The highest praise of the short review uses the analogy of the "Little White Boat" in "The Hidden Corner" to describe the degree of the show's out-of-the-loop: "Congratulations to Cannon for becoming a new round of Yama King Summoning Song after Little White Boat and Wish You Peace." ”
From 2021's "Squid Game" to 2022's "Beginnings", "Infinite Stream" is completely on fire. But can such a test of the script, the actor's acting skills, and the team's theme really become a port for being copied?
Why does "The Beginning" catch fire?
Even though the audience has defined "Beginning" as an "infinite stream", the official blog of "Beginning" is still cautious about popularizing itself that it is not an infinite stream in the strict sense.
Baidu Encyclopedia explains "infinite flow" in this way, "Infinite stream novels are generally unique spaces created by technology or abilities unknown in the world, summoning people in this world to the past, and sending them to the virtual spaces created by this space for training. ”
Lucid tells Yu Thorn that in her understanding, the infinite stream genre is usually to trap people in a system with a sci-fi or fantasy energy.
On the one hand, the protagonists who come to this system often have greater survival pressure and are always hanging on the line. For example, in "The Beginning", Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun are both victims of the explosion, and they need to save their own lives or the lives of others through the circulatory system; on the other hand, in this system, the task of breaking through the level is the core and eternal theme.
Lucid explained it more bluntly, "Good levels, like suspense stories, have a strong sense of brain-burning and confrontation, and will reverse and reverse." "The thrill, suspense and excitement brought by this genre deeply attracted her."
Lucid didn't particularly like "The Beginning", but she felt that the expression of realistic content in the play was not common in the field of infinite streaming, which was more special.
On the bus to death, in addition to the two protagonists, Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun, there was also a teenager sitting in the back seat of the bus, dressed in black, carrying his backpack on his chest. Because of his mysterious behavior, he was once suspected by the two protagonists to be the culprit who caused the bus to explode, but when the truth was revealed, it was discovered that he was only a cat-loving, secondary two asthma patient, calling himself "Lou Cat's Apostle, Asthma Terminator, Chosen Man of Light , Flute".
The camera of "Beginning" turns and begins to depict the family of this middle school teenager. His mother's excessive control of him has led him to have few friends and can only communicate with stray cats. And this middle school teenager, because he has seen too many anime about "looping", has also become the fastest person to accept this setting in the whole drama, and on the basis of reality, he is a little more cheerful.
This is also one of the reasons why @ Yanshu Girl likes this drama, all the character settings have a "sense of substitution", "Xiao Heyun and Li Shiqing are both ordinary people, with their own imperfections, not fake big empty people, very close to life." ”
After Xiao Heyun realized that he had entered the cycle, he ignored Li Shiqing's persuasion and took a series of measures such as jumping out of windows and smashing doors, which was due to people's normal fear of death.
With the help of Li Shiqing, the two successfully escaped from the bus that was heading for death. At this time, Xiao Heyun was unwilling to enter the cycle again, as he said: "Am I afraid of death, is it not human nature to seek advantage and avoid harm?" I can't be so kind as you, am I just bad? ”
When presenting the kind side of the character, he also sincerely faced his cowardly side, which made @Yanshu girl feel very real. The depiction close to reality also makes the fresh concept of "time loop" accepted by the audience without any threshold.
"I've seen Horror Cruises and Happy Death Day before, and I think it's interesting to keep repeating one thing and then finding the real culprit." For @ Yanshu Girl, "Beginning" is more attractive to her in the freshness of the subject matter, even if it is not the noonday sun's team production, she will also "test" the results of film and television.
In 2019, the broadcast of "Qing Yu Nian" successfully broke the imagination of the film and television industry for the difficult adaptation of male frequencies; in 2020, suspenseful short dramas such as "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" refreshed their reputation on Douban, and even set off a wave of short dramas; and in 2021, the domestic drama field continued to be excellent, but there was almost nothing new.
On the list of yunhe data 2021 serial dramas effectively playing the screen, from urban, suspenseful, male frequency adaptation to the main theme, domestic dramas have no sudden themes, and the emergence of infinite streams has broken the bottleneck of innovation in themes and content, injecting fresh blood for domestic dramas, and also bringing freshness to everyone.
Behind the popularity of "Beginning" is the audience's desire for new content.
Infinite Stream Atlas
In the all-encompassing infinite stream, the most common is the "game breakthrough", such a theme combines reasoning, thriller, and science fiction, but it is more complex in the performance of the script.
In 2017, as early as "Beginning", a series with an infinite stream theme was broadcast in China - "Telencephalon".
Image source: Sina Weibo @ Telencephalon
In order to save his girlfriend Qingzhi, the male protagonist Xia Chi entered a virtual game system called Telencephalon, and in the test of a game of life and death, the male protagonist could only save his girlfriend if he saved his life.
The series, adapted from the comic of the same name, focuses on reasoning, suspense and brain-burning, such as in the "Agatha's Dinner" session, the game stipulates that twelve players need to find the virtual person in time, otherwise they will face the threat of death. At this time, the male protagonist needs to protect the virtual person with 1 to 10, and in the layers of countermeasures and temptations, in order to win. This is only one of the levels, after successfully breaking through, the male protagonist will start other games of life and death.
"Telencephalon" is a typical infinite flow drama framed by games, but due to the premature birth time, in the era of the prevalence of realistic themes, the domestic audience's cognition of it is only a suspense + science fiction + campus love episode, coupled with the special effects of fu hua Dao and fifty cents, "Telencephalon" has been silent in domestic dramas.
On this basis, foreign film and television films of the same type have more blood and violence. In Alice in the Land of the Dead, a group of people enter the game of "life and death". In the first level, if you break through a wrong door, you will be killed by shooting and exploding, while the remaining intruders will face further upgrading of the game.
Even in such a niche subject matter, it is inevitable to repeat it. In the 2014 film "Listen to the Words of the Gods", high school students all over the world have to participate in a game of life and death, and the first game is the well-known "one-two-three wooden man" in "Squid Game", and the vicious-looking human face will turn into red marbles as long as it sees a mobile person.
Compared with China,Japan-South Korea's infinite stream film and television, Lucid feels that there is a cruel "perverted aesthetic" in Japan's infinite stream film and television dramas, while China's "Telencephalon" is relatively mild. However, from the perspective of online text, China's infinite streaming network text is walking in front of the global infinite stream film and television, and the brain hole is very large, "such as the online article "Doomsday Paradise" that was serialized at the starting point, it will also involve alien planets, and the structure of the level is also unexpected. ”
Japan's Infinite Stream Film and Television wins the complexity and pathology of the game level; South Korea's Infinite Stream Film and Television, represented by "Squid Game", stages a full-staff battle royale in a simple game. The domestic drama "Beginning" stands out in the "time loop".
Although the setting of the time loop is rare in domestic dramas, there are already many precedents in Japan, Europe and the United States. They are better at exposing the evils of human nature than "The Beginning."
In 2018, a time-lapse film "Happy Death Day" was released in North America. The heroine is a scumbag woman who wanders among all kinds of men, and after being killed on her birthday, she finds herself able to come back from the dead. So she had fun and even ran naked around the campus. In the process of finding out the real culprit, she learned to cherish the people around her, from "scum" to "good".
In the same year, Japan broadcast a suspenseful short drama of "Fatal Kiss", and one of the most common comments received by the male protagonist Eight was "scum". Taking advantage of the uncertain prophet and resurrection brought by the time loop, Eight kissed the heroine again and again, and after going to death and being reborn again and again, he reached the peak of interests and successfully married Bai Fumei.
Source: Douban
In contrast, although the protagonist in "The Beginning" has retreated, he is more about showing the beautiful side of human nature than showing the cruelty of human nature with pen and ink.
This is not without reason. According to titanium media reports, Wang Xiaohui, president and chief content officer of iQIYI's professional content business group (PCG), once pointed out, "'Squid Game' is not suitable for China, it is reflecting the evil side of human nature, although there are some good awakenings in the ending, but in the overall environment of our country, we still want to put the mainstream value output of 'truth, goodness and beauty' in the first place." Especially at this stage, we must pay attention to some of the worries and anxieties we face in the current society, such as social problems in the direction of the original family. ”
When the infinite stream comes to the domestic drama, the producer Fang Zheng noonday sunshine gives the most "flattering" way to produce, replacing the cruelty in human nature with truth, goodness and beauty.
In "Happy Death Day" and "Fatal Kiss", the protagonists in the time loop have been fighting alone, and the criminal investigation has played a small role in it. In "The Beginning", the police station outside the time loop is the place where the protagonist most often goes.
The noonday sun integrates the special time cycle setting with the realistic theme and criminal investigation theme that they are best at, so that a bus becomes the connection point of ordinary people, police and even the whole society, but makes "The Beginning" an innovation and feature in domestic dramas.
Domestic dramas can also produce their own unlimited streams.
Unlimited streaming, can't shoot
Lucid was only formed in 2020 to form the Infinite Stream Novel Group, and now in a year's time, the group has only more than 5,000 members, and there are not many readers who pay attention to this subject. In the film and television industry, compared with urban, ancient costumes and other themes, infinite streams are more niche.
Lucid does not think that the popularity of "Beginning" can make the infinite stream theme a kind of "blockbuster", "These novels are actually very thresholded in adaptation. ”
The first threshold is how niche themes are becoming popular. And this threshold, "Squid Games" and "Beginnings" both give satisfactory answers - a "game setting" that is easy for most people to accept.
In the "Squid Game", from "one two three wooden people", "sugar cake" and "tug-of-war" to the final "squid game", the game operation of each level is derived from daily life, very simple and easy to understand, no need to waste time explaining the rules of the game, and there is no need to enter the threshold in the setting.
The setting of "Beginning" even happens on a bus that is not crowded, not even a game, the audience only needs to follow the setting of the "time loop" and sit on the bus again and again.
In 2018, starring Li Yifeng and Zhou Dongyu, the film "Animal World" adapted from the Japanese manga "Gambling Apocalypse" has a plot very similar to the battle royale elements in the infinite stream, and the rules of the game in this movie are simpler - through the way of winning cards to decide the life and death of the other party, the card surface is not JQK and other letters, it is simpler "stone, scissors, cloth".
In the end, this film accumulated 509 million at the box office, becoming one of the representative works of li Yifeng's transformation of fresh meat.
The rules of the game of "Telencephalon" are relatively more complicated, which is the appetite of fans of reasoning and suspense, but for most people, there is actually a high threshold for entry.
Before the protagonist enters the virtual telencephalon world, it is necessary to use a letter and a piece of paper full of numbers to solve the mystery, and the male protagonist uses the information in the letter that "three blocks before each paragraph is empty" and finally opens the door of the telencephalon with the way of "Caesar encryption".
Such a brain-burning process may require the reader to watch repeatedly to keep up with the speed of the plot. Focusing on reasoning, on the contrary, "Telencephalon" can only be the favorite of niche suspense reasoning fans, but it has never been able to go to the public.
A niche subject, in order to go to the majority, can only become more "commercial".
Squid Games chooses to look at things from a human perspective.
Removing the cloak of the game, "Squid Game" is about the extreme good and evil of human nature. People at the end of the road, because of greed, come to the game of life and death, some people form gangs to fight against the vulnerable groups; some people are willing to put their lives and deaths outside and help each other.
In the ultimate duel of the squid game, the male protagonist Cheng Qixun originally had the opportunity to win the game, but at the critical moment, he decided not to have money and chose to take the hair to escape.
As a survivor of multiple games of death, Cheng Qixun is ultimately faced with only the choice of "friendship" and "interest". And this choice, each of us may also face.
The same is true of "Animal World", Zheng Kaisi, played by Li Yifeng, redeemed an old man who was of no use to himself with three stars worth ten million on the gambling ground. His reason was simple: he didn't want the animal world, which was full of benefit exchanges and predations, to discipline himself.
"The Beginning" does not produce a chain of interests, but in the process of each explosion, the audience can spy on everyone's life, and it uses a close approach to life to make domestic audiences empathize.
The uncle carrying the suitcase is a person who once lived in the warehouse to make a living; the uncle with the watermelon on his back, who was once imprisoned for murder, was told by his family to stay away from them after early release; the middle school teenager sitting in the back row is just an optimistic and cheerful cat messenger who is willing to save the world. The appearance of these group portraits makes the story full.
There is also no shortage of discussions about human nature in "The Beginning". In the eighth episode, when Xiao Heyun and Li Shiqing risked their lives to save the lives of all the people in the car, the two were unfortunately stabbed by the murderer, but none of the people in the car helped. If you want to save a group of people who are not worthy, then do you want to risk death to save each other? The two protagonists gave an affirmative answer.
In the face of the weakness of human nature, Xiao Heyun, Li Shiqing, Cheng Qixun, and Zheng Kaisi all showed a more glorious side of human nature.
Use a setting that is ahead of the curve or with suspense elements to depict the appearance of social groups, so that "Squid Game", "Animal World" and "Beginning" will go to the public. And their essence, which is not difficult to summarize, is to express "people".
Domestic novels with unlimited stream themes have long entered the stage of film and television. In Jinjiang Literature City, online articles such as "Global College Entrance Examination" with a collection of up to 1.39 million, "Death Kaleidoscope" with a collection of more than 950,000, and "Earth Up" with a collection of 640,000 have shown film and television signings, but compared with the frequency of signing sweet pet films and televisions, infinite streams are still in the minority.
The difficulty of infinite stream film and television is not only in the niche of the content, the thriller and bloodiness of the plot, the special effects of the plot, which is also a big problem in the process of adaptation, which is a great test of the team.
"The restoration of some science fiction scenes is also a test of technical production. The film and television of the infinite stream theme is facing a problem of production ratio, a copy is actually very much in need of production or special effects to support, if you do not do well, it will be very expensive, and the output is difficult to say, after all, there is no more work to verify. Lucid said.
Niche means more unknowns, while in the film and television industry, unknowns mean higher risks. The script of "Squid Game" was written as early as 2009, but in 2020, with the help of Netflix, it was successfully launched; the domestic drama attempt of "Beginning" also began with the noonday sun. Without a strong team and economic strength, it is difficult to open up an unlimited stream OF IP.
In the face of uncertainty, whether "infinite stream" will become a new hit of domestic dramas, no one dares to easily judge, the only certainty is that the blockbusters will always be in our lives - those true, warm, no routine human life stories.
It's just that no one knows what new form it will take.
(In the text, The Girl and Lucid are pseudonyms.) ）
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Entertainment Thorn is an entertainment observation and research account under Xiao hedgehog Technology, focusing on the observation and research of cultural entertainment industries such as variety shows, film and television, and music, and exploring the direction of the future entertainment industry.
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