I never expected that in 2022, I could actually see such an earthy Hong Kong drama full of feudal.
In line with the principle of not spitting unhappiness, and not selling Guanzi, the new drama that I want to talk to you about today is the long-lost Hong Kong "specialty" on the market, a family business war drama that tells the grievances of the giants -
Family glory
From the perspective of the cast, this drama belongs to quite a row in Hong Kong dramas, including Zhang Zhilin, Yang Xiyao, Li Caihua, Luo Ziyi, Xiong Dailin, Huang Haoran and many other familiar Hong Kong stars.
From the perspective of the production team, although the drama is not from TVB, but jointly produced by Youku Video and Huanya Media, from the director to the screenwriter, it is from TVB.
Liang Jiashu, one of the supervising producers of the series, may not be familiar to everyone, he was once the theater production director of TVB's production department, and classic works such as "Genesis", "Search for Qin", "Criminal Investigation Files" and so on were created by him.
Looking at these alone, do you have any expectations for this "Family Glory", after all, who does not have a Hong Kong plot.
However, after watching fourteen episodes of Patience, I must tell you not to have too many illusions about it.
The whole story takes place in a Ma family that claims to be a century-old chaebol.
Ma Shihong, a rich man, has four children, namely his three sons Ma Yaozong, Ma Yaozu and Ma Yaotang, whom he and his eldest wife have, and Ma Zhaoci, the daughter he and his younger wife.
A brief introduction to the situation of these children.
The elder Ma Yaozong has long been married, his wife is Ye Caiwei of the Ye Group, the two have two daughters, and the daughter's name is very devastating when he hears it - Zhao Di and Lai Di.
Doesn't that mean you want a boy?
Look at the state of the child, not after 00, but also after 95, you giants prefer sons to daughters, I hope that a boy inherits the incense, I should be able to understand, but what age, can you not be so superstitious, do this kind of article on the child's name?
You want me to wear a soul for a second!
The second eldest Ma Yaozu and the third Ma Yaotang were just married at the same time at the beginning of the series, and their marriage partners were the champion of the beauty pageant Zhen Xin and the runner-up Jia Luoyi.
Zhen Xin and Jia Luoyi are plastic sister flowers, and both have a bit of a story.
Zhen Xin itself has no black spots (the plot shows that it is actually a black lotus), innocent, good character, outstanding ability, and always better than Jia Luoyi.
There were two things she didn't know, one was that Ma Yaozu actually had a woman outside and had secretly given birth to a daughter.
The other is Ma Yaozu's cousin Ma Zhanhong, who not only liked her before Ma Yaozu, but also carried a deep blood vendetta against Ma Shihong, believing that his father was killed by Ma Shihong's brother.
Jia Luoyi is relatively complicated, on the one hand, she is very jealous of Zhen Xin, and in order to win over Zhen Xin, she will always secretly play some tricks.
On the other hand, her mother was once Ma Shihong's mistress, and after it was found that the child she was pregnant with (that is, Jia Luoyi) was not Ma Shihong's bloodline, she was abandoned and gradually developed mental illness.
A few years later, the young Jia Luoyi witnessed her mother jumping off a building to commit suicide, and she married into the Ma family, and like Ma Zhanhong, she also had the purpose of revenge.
Compared with the three brothers, in the Ma family, the younger sister Ma Zhaoci is not much valued because she is born of a little wife and is a woman, and she has a boyfriend, that is, the kind of "phoenix man" who wants to climb the branches.
First of all, as soon as these characters appeared, they stunned me.
Everyone is accompanied by subtitles for identity introduction, and words such as ma jia's second young master and ma family's third young grandmother are written with cheap and exaggerated special effects, accompanied by the sound effects of Buling Buring, which is simply suffocating.
Second, since it is a story of giants, let's not say anything else, you must at least convince the audience that it is indeed a giant.
But what is the effect of this drama?
The set is cheap, the costumes are rustic, the color of the mirror is not exquisite, and there are few large scenes in the play, and most of the time it depends on the actors to output the plot through the mouth cannon indoors.
In this way, it feels like the biggest cost of the crew, in addition to the actors, is to rent such a large villa.
I also deliberately went to check it out, some people say that this mansion is located in Shenzhen Dameisha Tianlu, has been selected as China's top ten mansions for two consecutive years, well, it is indeed better than TVB's ancestral mansion trench.
But even so, the series still made a kind of rustic style.
Of course, the texture of the soil is still secondary, the important thing is to shoot the high society's deception and intrigue, and use the story to let the audience enter the grudges and hatreds in these giants.
Unfortunately, in this regard, the performance of the play is also difficult to say.
For example, as soon as the series began, the three Ma brothers were accused of conspiracy to pay bribes, and after much deliberation, Ma Yaozu decided to take the blame for one person and go to prison.
Therefore, with the assistance of Ma Zhanhong and Ma Shihong, Ma Yaozu's wife Zhen Xin became the new CEO of the company.
Subsequently, at an auction, Zhen Xin stole Jia Luoyi's limelight through a painting of his mother-in-law.
Jealous, Jia Luoyi showed Zhen Xin the photos of Ma Yaozu and his lover secretly taken by someone, and later designed to expose the matter, resulting in Ma Yaozu having a lover and an illegitimate daughter.
Originally, Zhen Xin was so sad that he was considering divorce.
But at this moment, Ma Shihong suddenly came to an insulting audience's IQ-style exhortation (washing) guide (brain):
In the eyes of others, Yaozu has a woman, and he still wants to chase you and marry you, which is to cheat feelings.
But what I saw was that Yaozu couldn't get rid of being entangled with this woman, and he still insisted on being with you, wanting you to become Ma Yaozu's wife, you can imagine how much he likes you.
Uncle, you're all right, what are you talking about.
For another example, Zhen Xin found that Ye Caiwei's Ye family cut corners and demanded that Ye clan could not bid for any project of the Ma family within two years, which bankrupted Ye's family and Ye Caiwei's father died of a heart attack.
At that time, Zhen Xin and Jia Luoyi were both pregnant, and if they gave birth to a boy, it would be expected to "inherit the unification".
However, in order to get revenge on Zhen Xin, Ye Caiwei gave her mother-in-law to Zhen Xin's high heels, and as a result, the shoes were mistakenly worn by Jia Luoyi, causing Jia Luoyi to miscarry, and her hatred for Zhen Xin could not be repeated.
Wait, how is this drama so familiar?
In fact, in the whole series, at least from the first fourteen episodes, the three Ma brothers do not have much sense of existence.
Ma Yaozu was imprisoned for less drama, and Ma Yaozong and Ma Yaotang, basically every show operation, was almost the role of Ye Cewei and Jia Luoyi blowing wind in their ears.
Combined with the feudal big family setting of the Ma family, if this is changed into ancient costumes, it is a palace fight drama!
However, as far as this pediatric general palace fighting level is concerned, if it is placed in "Golden Branch Desire", I am afraid that it will be destroyed in less than half an episode.
Overall, "Family Glory" feels decayed and old," presenting an old-fashioned falsehood and a family-like child's play.
This is not because the actors are generally older, but because its story is deliberate and shallow, there is no flow of character changes, only the forced setting of things for the sake of doing things, the materials are quite familiar, but the spelling together is just a shoddy fake.
Looking back at the classic family dramas that used to be TVB, although the production cost is not high, it seems to be very simple now, but the characters and stories are extremely moving.
Just a few examples.
In 1992's "Big Times", a certain petal score was as high as 9.3, through the grievances of two families and two generations, outlining the turbulent changes in Hong Kong society in the past 30 years, using the ups and downs of the financial industry to depict the entanglement of fame and human nature.
The Ding crab effect has even become a stock market phenomenon.
"Big Time"
1994's "Laughing at the Wind and Clouds" is wonderful and deeply rooted in the portrayal of business wars, friendship, love and human nature.
Among them, bao Wenlong and Lin Zhenlie's delicate and touching poignant love has made countless people sigh, and the theme song of the same name has become a rare classic.
"Laughing at the Storm"
Speaking of this, I have to focus on director Qi Qiyi.
His "Heaven and Earth" trilogy, "Heaven and Earth Boys", "Heaven and Earth Pride" and "Genesis" series, pushed TVB's family business war drama to the peak.
Among them, "Heaven and Earth Boy" gathers Zheng Shaoqiu, Luo Jialiang, Zhang Zhilin, Chen Songling, Xuan Xuan, Gu Tianle, Zhang Keyi and other heavyweight actors.
"Heaven and Earth Boy"
The drama interprets the entanglement of love and hate through subtle and introverted emotional expression, even in Xu Jiali (Played by Luo Jialiang), who has done all bad things, we can see the incomparably moving purity and affection.
Now it seems that even if it is directed at the appearance of "Bai Gu", it is worth revisiting.
In contrast, the Genesis series in the "Heaven and Earth" trilogy is the most epic.
The show invested up to 150 million Hong Kong dollars, invited a well-known financial team to participate in the guidance, both in terms of cast and production, unambiguous, the first of which, a certain petal score of 9.0.
The drama focuses on the real estate field that has plagued generations of ordinary people, and deeply presents the struggle and degeneration of people in the face of capital and desire.
When Xu Wenbiao (Chen Jinpeng) is forced from a self-denying and self-disciplined sunshine man to a collapse and blackening step by step under the pressure of the external world, the audience sees the despair and cries of the toiling masses under the cover of capital's hands.
Genesis
It is undeniable that in order to look good and wonderful, these classic family business war dramas naturally have a "dog blood" side, such as life encounters with ups and downs, extreme paranoid distortions and madness.
But this kind of "dog blood" is based on the clear growth or transformation of the characters, with enough environment, encounters, personality, etc., rather than being blunt like "Family Glory".
This kind of excavation of human nature not only does not make the audience frown, but makes the audience empathize with the characters and immerse themselves in the ups and downs of the plot impact.
What is even more valuable is that these dramas also have a higher pattern and a certain transcendent call.
Taking Qi Qiyi's works as an example, the series does not arrange a happy reunion ending for the audience, but carries out cruelty and darkness to the end, showing the power of deafening and deafening and the compassion and care for fate.
By the way, the aforementioned originator and peak of the palace fighting drama "Golden Branch Desire" is also from the hand of Qi Qiyi.
Why does everyone want to escape from the palace at the end of "The Desire of the Golden Branches"? For it is the hell where humanity is imprisoned, the abyss that leads man to the abyss of loss and depravity.
"The Desire of the Golden Branches"
Returning to the topic of family dramas, after the new millennium, with the rise of the mainland economy, culture, entertainment and other aspects, a large number of resources have begun to shift.
Due to the serious brain drain, the extreme shrinking market, and the lack of its own innovation ability, TVB's overall drama level and influence are visibly lower.
But even so, in the early years, there were still many good works.
In terms of family dramas, compared with the big strokes of mainland dramas, TVB does seem a bit shabby, but like the "Pearlescent Treasure" and "Storm of Hearts" series, etc., it is also solid to make the giants stand.
Storm of Hearts
Compared with this "Family Glory", these dramas are not a little better.
Perhaps, with the decline of TVB, family dramas have become the tears of the times, but the story of "three hundred and sixty lines, line out of the giants", I think there are still many people who love to watch.
If you're like me, expecting TVB to cheer up and make another classic family drama and other episodes, then give it a thumbs up!
That's it for today!
Bye bye!
The picture in this article comes from the network
EDIT: Swamp