Lush greenery, clear blue skies, buses dangling on asphalt roads, look no different from any leisurely summer afternoon...
If no girl is anxiously calling the police.
"I'm going to call the police, there's a bomb on bus 45!"
As soon as the words fell, the bus collided with the tanker truck, and the smoke and dust were scattered, and no one on the car survived after the explosion.
But the next second, the girl who had just called the police was back in the minutes before the explosion...
Just 3 minutes into the opening, the girl has "died" twice.
I was also seen by my friend Amway, there are many people in the circle of friends chasing, every day can brush the relevant stems, the last time there was this kind of pomp or two years ago "Want to See You".
Is "The Beginning" really so good? Why does it stimulate the audience's desire to discuss so much? (This article contains minor spoilers, mind people who quickly dodge)
The basic setting of the show is the time loop.
The female protagonist Zhao Jinmai is a college student, and the male protagonist Bai Jingting is a game architect, and they accidentally take a bus that is about to explode.
The heroine returned again and again to the few minutes before the explosion, out of survival instinct, she constantly tried various ways to get out of the car, but all failed. Until the 5th time, she deliberately framed the male protagonist around her as a sex wolf, and finally pulled the male protagonist out of the car.
This time she did not die in the explosion, but instead of ending the nightmare of the cycle, she pulled the male protagonist into the time loop.
They are constantly experiencing the process of "explosion" - "rebirth" on this bus, and as long as the explosion occurs, even if they are not injured in the car, they will be pulled back into the loop.
Only by stopping the explosion and saving the whole car can they leave the cycle.
Although the setting of the time loop is not new, it is still very rare in domestic dramas, and this special theme has made many people into the pit of "The Beginning".
However, a few minutes of looping, stretched to the volume of 15 episodes of web dramas, will not be boring to repeat?
Not really!
It is precisely because of the setting of the time loop that the story direction of "The Beginning" shows a spiral type that is rare in domestic dramas. In the same story, you are constantly exposed to more details.
It feels more like playing with a puzzle than keeping going forward, restoring the full picture of a story little by little.
(This poster is very sticky!) ）
In each loop, there will be a different foreshadowing, so even if it is always the same group of people in the same scene, the audience still dare not take it lightly.
It's more like we follow the perspective of the male and female protagonists, exploring all the anomalies associated with this bus little by little. To stop the explosion, it was imperative to find out where the bomb was and who among the passengers were the prisoners.
The boy sitting in the last row, wearing a mask and holding a school bag, looks sneaky, will he be holding a bomb?
All the grass snake gray lines in this story are coiled in a mosquito coiled shape, complex but not chaotic.
Each episode may feel like it's locked in the real culprit, but the next episode is likely to subvert your guesses.
What is the most frightening thing about this setting of constantly circulating in the same group of people?
Afraid of the flat characters, so that the story has nothing to touch.
And this is exactly the core support behind the suspense of "The Beginning": every character is shaped very three-dimensional.
It can even be said that the audience can glimpse a rich picture of sentient beings from the small bus.
From the protagonist to the supporting role, everyone has a complete character arc, more subtle and complex human nature than absolute good and evil right and wrong.
Let's start with the protagonist. The male protagonist, as the person who is pulled into the cycle by the female protagonist, is very afraid at first. He is just an ordinary social animal, and although he has a sense of justice, this sense of justice is limited.
Let him call the police after escaping the bus, yes.
It is also possible to ask him to cooperate with the police questioning.
But after being repeatedly interrogated by the police in a small dark room, he would also back down after being treated as a criminal suspect.
The time loop is such a fantasy, how can the average police believe it?
Male protagonist: "I am very clear-headed now." ”
The male protagonist almost collapsed in the police station. After all, before the loop, he was just a bit of a socially intimidated architect who buried his head in the game.
So in the next cycle, when the heroine is ready to call the police, his first reaction is to pretend not to know. He didn't want to go into the little black room of interrogation anymore, he didn't want to be a suspect anymore.
In the face of the heroine who insisted on calling the police, he asked back: "Is it wrong to be afraid of death, and is it not human nature to seek advantage and avoid harm?" I can't be so kind as you, am I just bad? ”
Kind of selfish isn't it? But isn't this the most ordinary human nature?
Ask yourself, if I get stuck in a cycle, my reaction may be closer to that of the male protagonist than to obsessively saving the whole car. Of course, saving people is very important, but saving lives must be more important.
The heroine who is called "so kind" by the male protagonist is definitely not a "virgin". As a college student, she also retains a little fearless innocence and bravery, always hoping to save the whole car.
But the person who initially questioned the police and suggested that she did not want to confess to the police was actually her. I don't want to go into the mood of the little black room again, she and the male protagonist are the same.
The more critical turn is in the back, that is, the first time she decided to get out of the car with the male owner to avoid the explosion and not save the whole car.
Why? Because in the last cycle, she had just been killed by the murderer with a dagger and cut her throat. The death caused by the explosion is very fast, so the pain is weaker, but the process of being killed by a dagger is different.
When she returned to the loop, her face was full of fear. Who is really not afraid of death?
But even so, at the last minute they decided to try again.
Why? Because in the constant cycle, everyone in the car is no longer a stranger.
If the humanity of the male and female protagonists supports the skeleton of "The Beginning", then each three-dimensional supporting role constitutes the flesh and blood of the story.
My favorite supporting character is a secondary two teenager, and you can understand his full name:
Lou Cat's Apostle, Asthma Conqueror, Chosen Man of Light, Flute.
Just, well, yes... Probably the second grade of this degree.
As an old second dimension, his first reaction when he heard the "cycle" was: "Isn't it only May now?" Why did the cycle start in August? (Because many anime and manga that loop in time set the time for August)
He is the only outsider in the whole series who easily accepts the "loop" setting, willing to believe unconditionally and help the male and female protagonists. Hit the loop, he seemed a little more excited than afraid.
At that moment, he was no longer a passer-by who died in the explosion, but a shoveler who would worry about his own kitten in the face of life and death.
When the male and female protagonists check all the suspicious packages on the car, they must not alarm the hidden prisoners in the car, so the uncle's worn suitcase is the most difficult to check, because it is almost impossible to hide from others.
But this box eventually became the easiest package to exclude, because the uncle took the initiative to open it.
In order to inquire about other passengers, the heroine once lied that she needed sanitary napkins, and when the uncle heard it, she pulled out a pack of bulk sanitary napkins from her suitcase.
Why does an uncle carry sanitary napkins with him?
It turned out that the uncle was a migrant worker who came to work in the city, and the motivation for him to make money desperately was his daughter who was far away from home.
The family is poor, the daughter is reluctant to buy sanitary napkins, the uncle stressed on the phone: "What do you lack in the future, tell your father, what sanitary napkins, facial cleanser, we can afford to use!" ”
But in fact, the uncle's construction site has just had an accident, and the place he rented can no longer be inhabited.
The landlord knew his difficulties, sent the old suitcase to the uncle to move, the suitcase contained the old clothes and sanitary napkins left by the landlord's daughter-in-law, the landlord did not want it, the uncle thought that the daughter could use it, and left it.
It is a person who has had such a difficult life, when he hears that the heroine needs help, his first reaction is still to lend a helping hand.
This group of ordinary people with their own places did not know, just because they were on the same bus as the murderer, they could no longer meet with the people they cared about most.
We can understand and empathize with the passengers in the car, and naturally we are willing to follow the male and female protagonists into this cycle again and again: because the audience also wants to save the people in the car.
This sense of immersion is the most attractive thing about "The Beginning".
Have you noticed that in the discussion of this play, more people are concerned about the development of the story and the fate of the characters, rather than the stars who participate in the show.
Can let the audience devote themselves to the plot, this is not the standard of a good drama.
At the end of the day, outside of the setting of the time loop, this show is more like a "love letter" written to all ordinary people:
The male and female protagonists are ordinary people, but after falling into a cycle, after entanglement and hesitation, they insist on saving the people of this car;
Passengers are ordinary people, but in everyone's life, they have dreams that they want to fulfill, people they want to meet, and destinations they want to reach.
It turns out that ordinary people can also be heroes, and ordinary people deserve to be saved again and again.
Author: Seabed