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Wen 丨 Shock Institute, author 丨 Bai Lu
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The global suspense fever caused by "Squid Game" has not completely dissipated, and the first unlimited stream-themed film and television drama "Beginning" in China has recently detonated major social platforms, taking the lead in launching a suspense drama ratings war between major video websites in 2022.
In this drama, the male and female protagonists are caught in the "time loop", and the plot setting that tries to unravel the mystery of the bus explosion is not complicated. However, the dividends of the first unlimited stream-themed film and television drama and the attention of fans of the original have provided traffic support for the explosion of "Beginning".
As the audience began to spontaneously discuss the content related to the plot, behind the popularity of "Beginning", it also revealed the new changes that are taking place on the battlefield of suspense dramas between the three major video websites of "Aiyouteng".
1. The C position of "Mist Theater" is not guaranteed
Looking back at the development of Chinese suspense dramas, 2017 and 2020 are two important nodes.
In 2017, Youku's "White Night Pursuit" and iQiyi's "Undocumented Crime" verified the possibility of suspense dramas in the Chinese market with super popularity, laying the market foundation for the overall outbreak of suspense dramas later.
In 2020, the suspense drama industry collectively exerted its strength, and in this year alone, as many as 50 suspense dramas were launched, and the "Mist Theater" created by iQiyi in the second quarter also successfully entered the audience's vision.
The "Ten Day Game" with a Douban score of 7.1 points sounded the clarion call of iQiyi to seize the battlefield of suspense dramas, and the "Zhang Dongsheng" hot stem of "Hidden Corner" throughout the year also completely polished the signboard of iQIYI's "Mist Theater".
When "The Silent Truth", which scored 9.1 points on Douban, won five nominations at the Third Asian Content Awards at the Busan Film Festival and finally won the "Best Streaming Original Drama Series", iQiyi also jumped from a number of video websites to become the best suspense drama video website in China.
What is unexpected is that even when the audience is looking forward to the acceleration of the inner volume of the suspense drama in 2021, the suspense drama is collectively muted, and iQiyi's situation is particularly embarrassing.
Of the three suspense dramas launched in the second season of "Mist Theater", the Douban scores of "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog" and "Fatal Wish" did not reach the passing line of 6 points, and the score of "Fatal Wish" was as low as only 4.1 points. Although the Douban score reached 7.1 points, it also refreshed the station heat record of the "Mist Theater", but only three days after the start of the broadcast, it apologized twice because of poster plagiarism and prop problems, which defeated word of mouth and passers-by, and finally the Douban score stayed at 6.3 points that had just passed.
What makes the situation even more unfavorable is that iQiyi was exposed to large-scale layoffs in December 2021, and the personnel changes involved multiple core departments such as IP, games, film, film and television, and the proportion of layoffs was as high as 20%-40%. This also directly provides new variables for the pattern change of the suspense drama market and even the entire online video industry in 2022.
2, 2021 collective dud, 2022 can turn over?
According to media statistics, in 2021, the four major video websites of "Youai Tengmang" launched a total of 92 suspense dramas throughout the year, and the output was nearly doubled compared with the same period last year, but the quality was not satisfactory.
Some insiders have analyzed that after the outbreak of 2020, video websites have increased investment in suspense dramas, but the content is not like products or services, and the doubled cost investment does not necessarily achieve a significant improvement in content quality, and in the case of the surge in the number of suspense dramas, the problem of repetitive plot and mode settings also makes the audience go with expectations and disappointment.
A more typical example is that iQiyi's "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Fog" adopts a "high-configuration" film team: from director Wang Xiaoshuai to starring Duan Yihong, Hao Lei, Zu Feng, etc., the main creators are almost all filmmakers. However, in the story mode, it still uses the most commonly used "case within case" setting of suspense dramas.
If only this film is so much, it is not a big problem, but the "Who is the murderer" and "Double Detective" that were launched in the same period have adopted the same story mode, and naturally they will face the audience's "lack of novelty".
In addition, in order to pursue the creation of a suspenseful atmosphere, some episodes adopt high concepts and strong settings, but the story itself is not told in depth enough when combined with concepts and settings, giving people a feeling of being mysterious, which leads to the audience's difficulty in understanding and loss of interest.
Jia Dongyan, the screenwriter of the suspense drama "The Sound of the Wind" and "Hunting Crime Picture Book", once summed up the common points of the success of suspense dramas as: strong correlation with social issues, brilliant group portrait portrayal and interlocking narrative structure.
For example, the various crux of Korean society explored in "The Squid Game", the "bad boys" and family group portraits presented in "The Hidden Corner", and the one-link reasoning narrative in "Undocumented Crimes". And these "necessary" conditions, in the suspense drama in 2021, almost did not appear.
It is worth mentioning that the currently popular "Beginning" has just shown the highlights and advantages in sociality, group portrait portrayal and narrative structure, which also explains the reason why "Beginning" started the annual meeting.
3. Youteng "dug the foot of the wall", and iQiyi withdrew
Although video sites have collectively kicked the iron plate in 2021, the open struggle for the suspense drama market has begun.
After iQiyi launched the "Mist Theater", Youku also quickly followed up with the launch of the suspense theater, but several suspense dramas launched since then have failed to cause a great response.
At the same time, as a sequel to Youku's ace IP, "White Night Pursuit 2" has been announced in October 2017, but it is still not eyebrows from the launch. In order to seek a breakthrough, Youku waved a hoe at iQiyi.
At the Youku 2022 Boutique Preview Meeting, Youku announced that it will cooperate exclusively with suspense writer Zijin Chen, and said that while creating the "Zijin Chen Suspense Universe", 10 dramas will be launched in the next five years.
Previously, iQiyi's "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" were adapted from Zijin Chen's original novels, and many fanatical fans of suspense dramas were themselves fans of Zijin Chen's novels. Therefore, Youku's direct poaching of Zijin Chen is no less than tearing down a wall of iQiyi's "Mist Theater" and pulling the core fans of suspense dramas into their own platforms.
In the 2022 film list released by Youku, the suspense theater contains a total of 8 dramas, including "The Gate of Rebirth", "Ligong • Northeast Demon Mountain Zhiyi" and "Cowards" and other popular dramas that gather heavyweight creative teams, and the intention of continuing to exert suspense tracks has emerged.
Although Tencent Video has not been "theatricalized" so far, the number of suspense dramas in 2022 is as many as 12 works, and the richness of content far exceeds that of other friends. Among them, the large-scale suspense dramas adapted by phenomenal IP such as "The Three-Body Problem" and "Psychological Crimes 3" have been full of fans' expectations.
From the perspective of segmentation, Tencent Video's resources in 2022 cover more than 6 different types of suspense themes such as science fiction, criminal investigation, family, women, adventure, fantasy, etc., and it seems that it wants to start from the segmentation audience and open up a new market situation.
It is particularly noteworthy that Tencent Video also collaborated with Xin Shuang, the director of "The Hidden Corner", on "The Long Season". After Xin Shuang announced the "Long Season" character recruitment poster in August 2021, some Reuters news showed that the director, screenwriter and even camera and editing of "The Long Season" seemed to be the original team of "The Hidden Corner". It has also led to the conjecture that "all the members of the team behind "The Hidden Corner" "jumped ship" to Tencent".
In the case of being dug into the wall by friends one after another, and encountering a capital chain crisis, iQiyi's "Mist Theater" wants to continue the golden signboard.
According to the information previously released by iQIYI, the suspense dramas planned to be launched in 2022 include "Gold Rush", "Crime Hunting", "Nightcrawler", "Lost" and "Moses on the Plains", but in the latest list of "Mist Theater", only the upcoming "Gold Rush" is left, which inevitably leads people to wonder: Will iQIYI continue to insist on building the sign of "Mist Theater" in 2022?
At the beginning of 2022, the delay drama was again strictly supervised, and the suspense drama, which is an important content pillar of the video website, will naturally become an important direction for the platform to concentrate its efforts. And after experiencing last year's collective decline, video sites are also eager to try to fight a turnaround battle, but at this time, iQiyi, which is "short of money and lack of people", seems to have no longer the confidence to compete with its peers.
From the creation of the era of suspense dramas to the stage of temporarily withdrawing from the competition of suspense tracks, can iQiyi complete the reversal in a state of surprise and regret? Perhaps it is the biggest suspense and question that iQiyi has left for users now.