In the past, if a drama was searched too frequently, it would often attract the disgust of netizens, but this domestic drama, which was on more than 300 hot searches in only one week, not only did not cause the audience to resent, but was urged to be more numerous.
It is the number one blockbuster domestic drama "The Beginning" in 2022.
This web drama produced by noonday sunshine and starring Bai Jingting and Zhao Jinmai has exceeded 100 million in ratings in the 50 hours after its premiere, douban has a score of 8.2, and remains unchanged after 13 episodes.
Every time the episode is updated, it will trigger heated discussions among netizens, and the topic is riding the dust, and it is not too much to say that it is blossoming everywhere on the hot search topic.
"Watching ten episodes in one breath, who else can compare to me?"
"'The Beginning' is the best start to 2022."
"I've never missed advance voicing so much."
It is estimated that even the platform and the audience themselves did not expect that the advanced on-demand function that was announced in october last year, which was cancelled in a clamor, would be so much hoped that it would exist three months later.
So why is the beginning so charming?
First of all, it has a luxurious performance lineup and passed its acting skills.
The success of the casting in terms of starring is on the one hand, The popularity, super terrier of the little student Bai Jingting, playing the game architect Xiao Heyun; Zhao Jinmai, who has a very high national degree and has wonderful performances in "Little Parting" and "The Wandering Earth", plays the female college student Li Shiqing.
The two contributed a good performance in the play, which was very suitable for the role. In the repeated plots and scenes, the actors' super high sense of faith is shown. The chemistry generated by the characters from acquaintance to love is not good, and the anti-bombing group is already the first pair of screen CP out of the circle this year.
It is worth mentioning that part of the reason for Bai Jingting's participation in "The Beginning" is actually generous self-recommendation, as early as an award ceremony in March 2021, he generously said that he was unemployed, hoping that a director and producer would come to him to shoot a scene.
This frankness and love of acting undoubtedly touched many people in the audience, and Noon producer Hou Hongliang was one of them. So there was a story of Bai Jingting entering the group "Beginning" in June and successfully "re-employment".
At the beginning of the casting, some people were worried about whether Zhao Jinmai could be independent as a post-00s. In particular, the emotional drama in which the male and female protagonists will trust each other as the plot unfolds, and whether they can have a sense of CP with Bai Jingting is also extremely important.
Fortunately, although Zhao Jinmai is young, he has rich acting experience and has carried the polishing of the Noonday Sunshine team in terms of acting skills and comprehension ability.
It is the intentions of the two people that have made us stumble today's "anti-bombING CP".
On the other hand, there are also people like Liu Yijun, Liu Tao, Huang Jue, Liu Dan, and a number of "noontime familiar faces" escorting them, so that the supporting roles of this drama are also surprised and wonderful.
In particular, Tao Yinghong, played by Teacher Liu Dan, is jokingly called "Aunt Pot" by netizens, and friends who see the latest episode should all know how chilling this role is.
"The last song that was so scary was "Little White Boat", and the last time I was so scared was Zhang Dongsheng."
Netizens have even begun to benchmark the divine work "The Hidden Corner" of the previous two years, which shows the fine point of "Beginning" on the character portrayal and details in the play.
Secondly, it has a novel subject matter, small and exquisite structure.
As the first popular drama at the beginning of 2022, in addition to the hot results and popularity, from the plot point of view, it is indeed a "hit".
Adapted from the novel of the same name by Qi Qijun, "Beginning" tells the story of game architect Xiao Heyun and college student Li Shiqing who are caught in an infinite time loop in a bus bombing case, and they need to find the truth in a repetitive time period.
In just two episodes, the bus can be "exploded" more than ten times, and according to official statistics, before the final two episodes were broadcast, the protagonist had already carried out twenty-four cycles, creating a precedent for the mainland unlimited flow theme drama.
The theme of infinite streams determines that the structure of this drama is compact and exquisite. The time loop limits the space for activity, and the scenes of the first eight episodes are basically buses, hospitals and police stations that constantly switch, from point to surface, and the interlocking plot unfolds in the jump of the scene.
At the same time, the core of infinite flow is that the protagonist obtains more information in each cycle, realizes the game, and achieves personal growth and progress in the restoration and modification of the plot.
It seems that only by preventing the explosion from happening and reducing casualties to 0 can the cycle end. The audience follows the protagonist in one attempt after another, obtaining clues, seeking a turnaround, and experiencing life and death moments again if they are not careful, and the sense of urgency and uncertainty of the results brought about by each change and attempt always touch people's hearts.
Although this theme is not new to the audience, foreign works such as "Groundhog Day", "Horror Cruise", "Source Code", "Happy Death Day" and other works with unlimited circulation are not uncommon, but the first localization of the creation still makes people feel curious and full of expectations.
Third, it presents the glow of real humanity with small characters.
It has to be said that the localization of "Beginning" is successful, and the richness of the character level in the play makes the series more realistic, rather than making the infinite flow a high concept that is not satisfied.
Remember that there was a hot search that said that the name "Beginning" had already spoiled the real murderer. This is a kind of ridicule, but also a kind of controversy faced during the broadcast of the series, and some viewers think that its suspense is not heavy.
Looking at the direction of the plot, in fact, the sense of suspense is just a blind freshener for "The Beginning", and the core it really says is human nature.
In the first four episodes, as the protagonist explores, the audience naturally understands the rules of the cycle, as well as the causes and consequences of the event. Whether it is to save yourself, or even if you are considered a suspect, you must try to save everyone. The male and female protagonists, who are inclined to emotion and reason, respectively, reflect each other's human nature in the choice.
With each cycle, the audience will follow the protagonist's perspective to find the truth of the explosion, and gradually understand everything around them in the cocoon.
Each episode unhurriedly throws out new clues, foreshadowing the story behind every passenger on the bus.
Lu di, a little brother who got on the bus halfway and dressed up mysteriously and looked suspicious, was actually a two-dimensional teenager full of love and a sense of justice. Behind his unconditional belief in the protagonist's "outrageous" story is an overprotective, suffocating family of origin.
Ma Guoqiang, who does not look like a good person, is a murderer who has recently been released from prison, but he is also a father who loves his son very much. The snakeskin bag he was tightly guarding was full of watermelons he had grown himself, and the long journey was only because his son had revealed in the circle of friends that he wanted to eat the watermelons he had grown by himself.
The only person who lends a helping hand is Jiao Xiangrong, a migrant worker who earns tuition for his daughter. Just been persuaded by the landlord to move out of the garage, no job and no shelter, regardless of the danger to life to help the protagonist, a large reason is because he wants to get a bonus to see the righteous, so that he has money to pay his daughter's tuition.
The "first brother" who was broadcast live on the car was broken and unpleasant, but in fact, he was very righteous. Whenever something unfair happened on the bus, he was always the first to stand up.
Even the murderers who surfaced early, the driver and the pot aunt, also had a glittering side of human nature.
The appearance of sentient beings in the small environment allows people to see the different encounters of people at the bottom or on the margins. Feel the warmth and coldness of their lives, but not to whitewash or sensationalize.
The different choices of the characters in each cycle in the play reflect the swaying and fickleness of human nature in the face of moral dilemmas, which also makes the characters more three-dimensional, from a flat supporting role to a more flesh and blood person.
After watching the plot related to the characters in the first few episodes, the audience tacitly agreed with the protagonist: these people in the car are no longer strange passengers who meet in Pingshui, but living people who deserve to be saved and worth living.
"Beginning" not only has a semi-illusory suspense setting in the infinite stream, but also a humanistic care full of realism behind it.
Finally, also because it comes from good drama guarantees, the noonday sun.
Yes, at the beginning, I really did not expect that the producer of this web series was actually the noonday sun. It should be known that the production before the noonday sun is more realistic, and this time the cross-border infinite flow and the test of the new concept theme are surprising.
The noonday sun is called the light of the national drama by the audience, and many phenomenal high-scoring masterpieces such as "Langya List", "Great Rivers and Rivers", "Mountains and Seas" and so on are written by Noon.
They have their own persistence in script content, sophisticated production and insight into the market, making the quality of their output episodes relatively stable, which can be described as a clear stream in today's impetuous film and television industry.
IP adaptation of film and television dramas is already a major trend now, and there are not many that can be changed successfully. From the noonday sun's attitude towards IP film and television creation, it can be seen that "Beginning" can be popular is not an accident.
First, the noonday sun is extremely willing to work the script.
Compared with the magic reform of some IP dramas, "The Beginning" invited the original author To pray jun to join the screenwriting team, patiently teaching her how to screenwriting, while also providing a good creative environment and high-quality treatment and remuneration. To know that to be able to do this is extremely rare in the current screenwriting industry.
Although "Beginning" is a web series with only fifteen episodes, the production team and Prayer Jun of Noonday Sun also spent more than a year polishing the script.
Second, the portrayal of details makes the series more real and unique.
"Beginning" as an infinite flow work, everyone should be able to find a lot of small details about the cycle when watching the play, such as bus spray painting and the logo on the character hat, circling or rotating architecture.
When the audience can't see the whole picture, in each cycle, all the characters are doing things that match their own settings, or indifferent, or enthusiastic, or sensitive, and the changes before and after the characters are more reasonable because of these details.
In addition, reasonable and distinct costumes also allow each character to have good memory points and characteristics, which become more and more vivid as the plot unfolds.
It is the presentation of these details that gives the noon series a unique atmosphere, that is, it is usually said that there is no drama. Whether it is the overhead era of "Langya List", or the era memory of "Great Rivers" and "Mountains and Seas", these sophisticated productions are all piled up with a large number of details to create a layer of realism.
Not fooling the audience and trusting the audience is the basic attitude of the noonday sun drama production, and it is also the reason why the audience has trusted this golden sign for so many years.
With a high-quality and in-depth script, accompanied by sophisticated details, coupled with the professional cooperation between the actors and the team, this is a respect for creation, but also a respect for the industry market.
With these indispensable conditions, the success and explosion of "The Beginning" are actually no surprises.
Although the ending has not yet been broadcast, we have not yet known where Xiao Heyun and Li Shiqing should go, and whether Officer Zhang can be resurrected, but it is certain that -
"The Beginning" is indeed a good start for the film and television industry in 2022.
Edit: Sibe
Fine Arts: Roland