The art department of this newspaper launched ten worthy TV series in 2021: "Crossing the Yalu River", "Mountains and Seas", "The Age of Awakening", "Little Shedd", "Rebel", "I Am Good in Other Places", "Sweeping The Black Storm", "Ideal City", "Meritorious Service", "Boat of Peace" (in order of broadcast time)
The Chinese TV dramas in 2021 are synchronized with the deepening of the context of the times and the integration of industries, and the overall appearance of key planning, reduction and quality improvement, and big drama competition. This year, under the theme of the centenary of the founding of the party, the main theme of the TV series was created and broadcast in a large number of departments, the scale was large, and the high-quality works were produced one after another. The government management department has further strengthened the comprehensive management and market supervision of the entertainment industry, and under the principle of giving priority to social benefits, the "de-traffic" effect of the drama industry is obvious, the creation returns to the story base, and the lean creative force is returning. A number of works that echo the annual theme and reflect the propositions of the times have won the empathy and resonance of the whole people; realism has led the main tide of creation and produced a new wave of fruits; the drama market has taken mature genres as the forerunner, breaking through innovation, reflecting the strong expectations of vertical brand appeals.
The annual theme unites the national spiritual strength
The historical theme of major revolutions has always been a unique narrative landscape of Chinese TV dramas, and is an important carrier for discovering and inheriting the national spirit. In 2021, in the context of the centenary of the founding of the Party, there is an unprecedented high tide of main theme creation, these works attach importance to the refinement and creative development of historical values, transform the passion and spirit of the revolution into the empathy of the times, and contribute to recasting the national historical memory and condensing the spiritual strength of national rejuvenation. Its grand and deep sense of history, majestic speculative temperament and poetic symbolic lens language once again construct and highlight the unique aesthetic style of major themes.
"The Age of Awakening", which attracted the attention of the whole people, vividly reproduced the historical situation from the New Culture Movement and the May Fourth Movement to the establishment of the Communist Party of China, and made a profound interpretation of the logic of party building from the perspective of ideology and culture. The details of the whole play are real, the atmosphere is vivid, and many vivid historical figures make the thoughts and times gain souls, and exude the charm of historical style. Li Dazhao, Chen Duxiu, Mao Zedong, Chen Yannian, Chen Qiaonian and other revolutionaries portrayed the fate of their homeland as pondering, resisting, and sacrificing themselves in flesh and blood, and the feelings and spiritual personalities of "taking advantage of the life and death of the country" were written magnificently and sincerely. It can be said that "The Age of Awakening" stimulates the most surging patriotic feelings and grand righteousness on the screen in 2021, and uses idealism that is enough to penetrate the history of ideas and social history to summon today's youth to gaze at dialogue with the "new youth" of a hundred years ago, and produce strong empathy.
The TV screen in 2021 also gave birth to the first panoramic display of the feats of the War to Resist US Aggression and Aid Korea, "Crossing the Yalu River". The drama combines the creative experience accumulated over the years of major revolutionary historical themes, and uses the two lines of battlefield and diplomacy to cover political decision-making, five battles on the east-west front, and talk while fighting, and composing a heroic epic of the Chinese People's Volunteer Army defending the country with life and blood under extremely difficult conditions. In addition, focusing on the great course of the birth of New China, there are also many works such as "Armageddon", "The Great Wave and Sand", "Glory and Dreams", "Top Secret Mission" and so on.
"Mountains and Seas" breaks the stereotype of poverty alleviation themes, consolidates the tone of reality, and uses almost documentary-style lens language to solidly restore the arduous and tortuous poverty alleviation process. With a simple and realistic realist style and a combination of tragedy and joy, the whole drama has created a group of distinctive characters like reliefs, and new immigrants such as poverty alleviation cadres, "going to the countryside" professors, and rural teachers have jointly opened up inch by inch in the extremely harsh environment of the northwest Gobi, and built a new home from scratch. In addition, "Jingshan Lihai" reflects the growth of grass-roots party members and cadres with more sinking details; "So Many Delicate Rivers and Mountains" and "Warm Taste" pay attention to the youthful voice, update the rural visual image with the hometown of fish and rice, green water and green mountains, and rediscover the cultural value of local themes. These stories of building new rural areas have updated the tradition of telling rural stories with a more affinity tone, summarized and reflected on the country's rural revitalization policies and governance experience to a certain extent, and thought about the road to the future transformation of rural areas, highlighting the "Chineseness" characteristics of the era of globalization.
"Meritorious Service" is based on the true stories of the first eight recipients of the "Order of the Republic", intertwines the "highlight moment" of the characters' lives with the fate of the Republic in the past 70 years, engraves the spiritual strength of the exemplary figures into the major nodes and important events of the development of New China according to the logic of life, and witnesses the glorious journey of New China from a hundred wastes to a hundred industries to prosperity with the history of the people. At the same time, the great projects of socialist construction were also described in "The Fiery Red Age" and "Red Flag Canal"; "Chasing Dreams" and "Chasing Dreams and Blue Skies" that recorded the vitality and creativity brought about by reform and opening up.
There are also some works that record the enthusiasm of youth and depict the progress of the new era. "Our New Era", "Ideal Shines on China", "Hundred Refining into Steel" does not choose to trace the grand narrative of history, but focuses on the slice of the times, and the three works all adopt unit drama styles, from the perspective of youth, using the narrative strategy of the present tense, folk, and youth expression, reflecting differences in a number of thematic works. "Chasing Dreams and Blue Sky" and "Ebola Frontline" show the ambition and ambition of young people to "build a country of youth with youth" based on ordinary party members, which directly echoes the vigorous and upward weather of the new era. "Ace Troops" uses the military careers of three new recruits who joined the army in the early 1980s to depict the road to a strong army in the past 40 years, and writes the reform and innovation process of the Chinese army and the style of the military soul. "The Boat of Peace" uses the cohesion and mission of the Chinese Navy to overcome disasters to tell the story of the "community of human destiny". These works from different industries and different perspectives tell the style of the new era, which fully shows the responsibility of the times of literary and art workers, among which the maturity of creative ideas and mentality comes from the strong recognition and self-confidence of their own history, culture and aesthetic spirit.
The era of realistic creation is strong and profound
As another important protagonist of the screen in 2021, the reality-themed TV series continues the fine traditions of the three major domestic dramas of the times proposition, realism and epicness, and intervenes in the construction of the times and society with a deeply cultivated art form. Some of these outstanding works are more in the historical vision, sincerely depicting the dual evolution of the times and the people's livelihood, summarizing and reflecting on the practice and historical experience of the process of social modernization in China, constantly enhancing the realistic energy of the dialogue between works and society, and exploring the atmosphere of pitching heaven and earth, and making a portrait of the people and the generation of the times.
"Great Rivers and Great Rivers 2" continues the profound proposition of "people and times". Whether it is the writing of the fate of the characters or the laying out of the narrative of reform, a more depth of exploration has been realized. The ups and downs of the fates of the three main figures of Song Yunhui, Lei Dongbao, and Yang Tour connect the development trajectory of the state-owned economy, collective economy, and individual economy in the 40 years of reform and opening up, and reveal the test of the times borne by the brave people who move forward under the wave of reform. In addition, "Children of the Qiao Family" attempts to reflect the changes in Chinese society in the past 30 years with the epitome of an ordinary Chinese family in the 1970s. The history of national development hidden behind the life history of the Qiao family and the Qi family has been presented like a trickle of water, and it has resonated with many audiences because of its sense of age and déjà vu.
Another special annual drama "Sweeping The Storm of Organized Crime" is adapted from a number of real cases, telling the story of the great war between the central anti-gang crime supervision group and the front-line cadres and police and the evil forces in Luteng City. The drama has a strong realistic warning effect, highlighting the resolute attitude of the party and the state to sweep away criminal syndicates and eliminate evil, so that the people can truly feel the people-centered ruling concept.
Whether it is a major revolutionary historical theme or a major realistic theme, when the work insists on writing the era with a realistic pen, the collective fate of the group portrait constitutes a historical photo of large-scale social change, and seeks to discover the more essential nature of life in a broader space, and participates in the allegorical expression of the fate of mankind, all these efforts reflect the work's march towards a higher level of literature, which is the most dazzling progress and harvest of realist creation on the Chinese TV screen in 2021, reflecting the weight and pursuit of high-quality dramas.
Vertical recognition of mature types is improved
In 2021, under the pattern of major theme dramas occupying the communication advantage and quality highland, the aggressive space of the drama market is concentrated on the two keywords of "stability" and "vertical". Relying on the long-term stable ratings precipitation, high market maturity of industry dramas, spy dramas, family/topic dramas to open the way, the market track's main type-based strategy has withstood the test, showing a flexible adaptation to national discourse and market awareness. Some works break through the fatigue of the old model, and strengthen the vertical brand identity with a more hardcore professionalism and innovative narrative technique, which is refreshing and has achieved good performance.
The industry drama is represented by "Ideal City", with the perspective and experience of cost engineer Su Xiao, presenting the overall development of the construction industry and the urban ideals of young people. The career story runs through as the main line, abandons the "sense of suspension", examines the original intention and ideal of the profession through the reflection of the ecology of the construction industry, the growth of women's careers, and the relationship between the city and the city, and writes the atmosphere of the times, urban construction, and workplace disputes in a deep and dense way, becoming a veritable model of industry drama. The contemporary workplace drama "Win or Lose", broadcast at the end of the year, uses hard-core business war plots and outstanding video language to focus on the young sales group that grows up with the Internet, telling the story of two large Internet companies fighting for "winning and losing" in the fierce market competition. At the end of the story, the hero and heroine resolutely give up the life of the big city and devote themselves to the vast mountainous areas of the Great Northwest to help the rural economy revitalize. The story uses the "tenacity" from the depths of the spirit to constitute the idealism of the characters, conveys a future-oriented value to young people, and interrogates the value ideals of contemporary youth. The exploration of the professional connotation of these works and the deep depiction of the characters' hearts are rare in recent industry dramas. The urban emotional drama "I'm Fine in Other Places" sweeps away the usual luxury suspension of urban dramas, faces the reality of the survival of young people in a foreign country who are wandering and working hard, and tells the helplessness and exhaustion, warmth and healing, growth and harvest of the four women in reality. "Rational Life" strives to penetrate the ultimate meaning of workplace setbacks, emotional confusion, and women's pressure to reach happiness, and trigger the audience's emotional resonance.
As a mature and stable genre in domestic dramas, spy war dramas have appeared in 2021 with three refreshing quality works "Rebel", "Forwarder" and "Opponent".
"Rebels" uses the process of a "rebel" of the Kuomintang Revival Society to find true faith, writing a new chapter in hard-core national security dramas. The male protagonist, Lin Nansheng, starts from being in the dark, constantly examines the corruption and dirtiness of the environment, and thinks about what is the right path until he becomes a light chaser. The biggest novelty of the play is to write the spiritual journey of the young man who served the country into a staunch communist, and to show the characters' mental journey in a subtle, vivid and reasonable way. Many of the one-man shows about the characters in the whole play have a strong sense of age, and the emotional world is hot and deep. Faith, as the soul that runs through the whole play, highlights the courage and wisdom of life path choice. "Opponent" no longer pursues the strong plot and dangerous situation of traditional spy war stories, but condenses the contest between the enemy and us into the families, emotions and lives of both sides. The spies of the whole drama are ordinary people hiding in the social crowd, there is no ups and downs of the plot, and the fate of the villain is used to form the overall suspense. Thick details and emotions constitute a grounded "flow of life", creating a sense of powerlessness and tragedy for small people. The family elements of fireworks under the crisis situation and the life scenes in the city have achieved a breakthrough in type in one fell swoop.
The 2021 family story "Xiao min family" takes middle-aged people as the core perspective, connects the emotional relationship and social network of the reorganized family, and comprehensively observes the family content such as middle-aged emotions, intergenerational relations, youth growth, and old age. "Xiao Shede" continues the focus of the topic drama and the high degree of discussion, focusing on the social pain point of "education anxiety" in China's current family relationship, using three groups of families to experience the changes in the parent-child relationship between their children and different choices at the beginning of their children's "small ascension" to trigger social thinking, so that parents and children can usher in common growth. It is worth noting that salvaging the true meaning of life from a place of chicken feathers, gathering group emotions without selling anxiety, and the refinement of stripping away the cocoon and the continuation of daily meaning are the endless source of the gravitational pull of the so-called "national drama" of the current family ethics drama.
Looking back at the creation of TV dramas in 2021, the creation of major themes and realism can be called a harvest year in terms of scale and quality. Behind the prosperity of quality drama is the meteorological innovation of the main theme of the era in the field of literature and art. Entering 2022, the main creative line around the proposition of the times will also continue to have a strong trend. At the same time, the digital integration of the industry continues to deepen, emerging markets and application scenarios are giving birth to new audiovisual forms, how to continuously optimize the entire industry ecology with high-quality content is an urgent problem facing the drama industry. In order to rebuild the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese drama industry in the new era, the most important thing is still to step up the strengthening of content, go deep into life, and find a diversified expression that combines with the spirit of the times with sincere storytelling, innovative artistic practice and realistic aesthetic themes. Looking forward to the new year, Chinese TV dramas have deep roots and prosperity.
(The author is a professor at communication university of China)