◎ Han Siqi
As the beginning of domestic dramas in 2022, "Beginning" seems to really let us see the beginning of a new era of national drama.
This fifteen-episode short drama allows us to see another imaginary possibility of domestic dramas - after the global story library is depleted, it will go to the plural copy of the story, and at the same time give a Chinese answer in the same topic writing.
"Infinite stream", or a time loop?
"Beginning" is adapted from the novel of the same name by Jinjiang author Qi Qijun, which tells the story of game architect Xiao Heyun and college student Li Shiqing who "came back from the dead" after encountering a bus explosion, constantly experiencing the time cycle during the time period of the bus accident, from getting off the bus to saving themselves to breaking the barrier and fighting side by side, trying to prevent the explosion and find the truth. Rather than being an "infinite stream" story, The Beginning is a time loop.
What is "unlimited streaming"?
This is perhaps the first question that comes to mind when some viewers click on the video.
If the concept is derived from the Chinese "infinite stream" network text, this setting usually refers to the protagonist entering the mysterious "reincarnation space" and going to the dungeon world of movies, games, anime and novels to complete tasks and adventure in reincarnation. Later, several different development paths have been derived, either from copying ready-made works to original plots built with classic elements, or turning the goal to repair the regrets in the original copy world; or introducing "this world" and "reincarnation space" to think in a larger system and higher dimensional civilization composed of the real world and the copy world, thinking about meaning, value and existence.
If you look at the "infinite stream" vein opened by Infinite Horror, the two key elements of "infinite flow" are adventures with a certain degree of "playing" and game nature, and game/reincarnation space that coexist with real space. After incorporating the popular "battle royale" element, the "Infinite Stream" plot has formed an unwritten "tacit understanding" between the creators and the reader audience: take care of yourself, don't be a hero. The watchability of the "Infinite Stream" story is supported in part by sacrificing NPC players - vaguely faced supporting characters and dragon sets, or lack of strength or bad luck, with their layers of death to pile up the cruelty of the game. There is no way back, the competition between you and me, the harsh and violent means, the relationship of suspicion...
In this regard, the social constraints of order are invalid, the nature of animals is self-preservation, and altruistic sacrifice and dedication are usually lessons, not lessons. Therefore, the protagonist who enters the game often has this realization: to manage himself, if he is a hero to save the world, or to be a good person who "gives away a head", it is not a choice to maximize the benefits. In this sense, Japan's "Alice in the Land of the Dead", "Killing City", "Fraud Game", "Battle Royale", "Listen to the Words of the Gods", "Gambling Apocalypse" are all listed here.
Looking back at "The Beginning", the setting of the story is that as long as the male and female protagonists sleep together, they will enter the cycle. The male and female protagonists enter the loop together, working together to find the real culprit of the No. 45 bus explosion. Again and again, they try to prevent the explosion from happening, but then there are explosions after explosions, except for the male and female protagonists, no one survives... Such an effort is clearly in the storyline of the time loop: can the Möbius loop, the Sisyphus style of fate, play a happy ending in the reset again and again? For example, European and American works "Groundhog Day", "Happy Death Day", "Edge of Tomorrow", "Horror Cruise".
Of course, there are many works in Europe and the United States that use similar "death cycles" or "battle royale" settings, from the movie "The Running Man" to "Truman's World" to "The Hunger Games", the climax of the story often begins with the cruel truth of "deception" being exposed and people beginning to resist, but this "awakening" is completely externally driven, that is, it needs an "other" as the object of resistance - totalitarian rule and entertainment to death "left" and "right" wrists, satirizing totalitarian rule" The genre of "deception" is inherited from 1984, and the genre of "deception" of satirical entertainment to death is derived from Brave New World.
However, whether Orwellian or Huxley-style, it is not so much about the truth itself as the sword of criticism pointing to the power of interface—the power behind the "unclosed story" that determines what people can and cannot see. The difference is that the imagination represented by "The Beginning" has landed, and its imagination is the "core" of China's online content.
Writing on the same topic and Chinese grammar:
Socialist group portrait science fiction
Coincidentally, the story of "Beginnings" is considered to be a shell of a movie released in 2011, "Source Code"—the beginning of the story collides with "Source Code", which is set in the male protagonist Cotter constantly waking up on a high-speed train, the train suddenly explodes, and his task is to investigate the Chicago train bombing to find terrorists and find his next target. He was sent to that high-speed train again and again, for only eight minutes each time... And the end point seems to be similar: criminals and bombs hidden in vehicles need to be found.
However, the author believes that instead of discussing whether "Beginning" "borrows" this setting, it is better to say that "Beginning" is like an essay on the same topic, but gives a different answer solution. If the japanese "battle royale" is the standard, the "volume" set by this story type has entered the brain-burning puzzle direction of the wisdom fight for the sake of wisdom fighting, and the rules of the game can all have the weight of a book. For the audience with a large number of films, the significance of "Beginning" is not in the exquisite mechanism of its setting, but in the portrayal of various characters in a large number of plots - the social group portrait science fiction, compared to "what", the story's pursuit of "how is" and "why", the excavation of human nature and motivation, is the highlight of "Beginning".
The heroine Li Shiqing is the "idealism" that drags the whole cycle, she steps on the No. 45 bus again and again, she chooses to rescue the innocent passengers on the bus, the landing point of the story is not in the bomb disposal crisis, after finding the bomb maker, it is even more necessary to prevent it from detonating.
There are sentient beings on the car. The male protagonist has briefly collapsed in countless cycles, and he tells the female protagonist that these people are "not worth it". These supporting characters who have not been given the opportunity to cycle time, they are the spectators who have chosen to "watch" in countless cycles, and they are also the objects of suspicion, but under prejudice they have their own stories: the story of Uncle Watermelon is "Watermelon is clean, people's hearts are clean"; the story of Uncle Luggage is "Inside the Suitcase is "Home"", "Hemp rope is specially picked and broken, bad luck is only looking for bitter people", and the reason why Uncle Luggage wants to see the righteous courage is because there are bonuses. And the bonus can be exchanged for a high-grade sanitary napkin and facial cleanser that her daughter has never seen before, but how much of his unhesitating help is utilitarian, and how much is the subconscious justice in the moment of crisis? The boy in black, who looks "dangerous", is actually a secondary two teenager who loves cats, and he is also the only two-dimensional person who chooses to believe in the story of the time loop.
The complexity, subtlety, sparkle, and interlacing of human nature. People sometimes do great good, sometimes they make small mistakes, in a life with their own constraints, how to face a chicken feather, how to pick up a shattered life from the ground, how not to retaliate to society without distinction between hatred and harm? Xiao Heyun's creed is, "Kindness is not cheap morality, it must match your ability, otherwise it is adding chaos." These are the stories that "Beginning" wants to really share with the audience in front of the screen through the time loop, hoping that the audience on the Internet will think independently, rather than becoming those who swing between trust and prejudice, and "will only judge others in their own cognitive scope and moral standards."
Therefore, "Beginning" is a different solution to the same topic as "Source Code". If "Source Code" explores free will: the male protagonist believes that "to serve the country, it is enough to die once", even if it is facing the interests of 100 million people, in the case of involuntary, even if it is involuntary, even if it is the freedom of even one person, "whether it is the freedom of life or the freedom of death". Although there are tens of millions of people, I don't want to, so the protagonist's choice is to rebel against the fate of using the brain as a crime-solving machine, for which he prefers to cut off his own "life" system. "The Beginning," then, is about taking responsibility, responsibility, and active choice—neither the Japanese construction of a new reality in a fictional world, nor the simply abandonment of this side of the false world transformed by memory as the European and American style.
We have and only have this one "reality," which is the Chinese answer given by the imagination of "Beginnings."