In 2019, the Taiwan drama "The Distance Between Us and Evil" was broadcast, creating a new peak of Taiwanese drama and ranking No. 1 in Google Search Taiwan.
Based on a number of social events in Taiwan in the 2010s, it is Taiwan's first TV series on the theme of random crimes, and also involves issues such as the dilemma of the news media and schizophrenia.
At the 54th Golden Bell Awards, she won 6 of 12 performances, and Jia Jingwen also won the "rear view".
Douban's 250,000 people scored a super high score of 9.5 points, which is the best Taiwan drama of the year.
In 2020, the production company Big Screen Film Arts shot again, and a more vigorous TV series was born, which is:
"The Man Who Works"
The series was also produced by "With Evil" production company Big Screen Film Arts, with Lin Yuling as a producer, and premiered on May 10, 2020 at HBO.
Before filming, the original script of the adaptation of this drama also had a lot of beginnings, which was a collection of essays written by Lin Liqing, a construction site engineer in Taiwan.
What kind of work is convincing?
Personal participants, of course!
In more than ten years of supervision career, Lin Liqing recorded what he saw and heard at the construction site while working, and was felt by his colleagues to be a waste of time.
Unexpectedly, however, the book attracted great attention as soon as it was released, published in 2017, reached 40 brushes in 2018, and sold more than 50,000 copies.
He was selected by Eslite Bookstore as "Taiwan's Most Anticipated Writer of the Year" and "Bookstore Professionals Most Want to Sell" two awards.
Lin Liqing, who is invited to lectures and discussions from time to time, joked in an interview that the royalties can be so high that he does not have to work for a whole year.
This book, a true record of the lives of workers, attracted the attention of the big screen film art, and the company began to adapt it into a TV series.
After two years of adaptation, preparation and filming, the show finally met with the audience on May 10.
As soon as "The Man Who Works" was broadcast, it was in the top three of Google's Taiwan hot search list, and it was liked by 180,000 people on the Taiwanese video website My Video.
Netizens who have watched the play have sighed:
"An unprecedented TV drama theme, a breakthrough is an affirmation."
"Although it's a comedy, I want to cry when I look at it."
So, what is the charm of this drama, and how can it be so good?
Let's look at the following three points.
First of all, it has a gold medal main creative team, starring in the full acting school.
The director and screenwriter of the play, Zheng Fenfen, as a new generation of female screenwriters and directors in Taiwan, her works have won many domestic and foreign film and television awards.
The TV series "Mobile Phone Has a Ghost" "Auction The Corner of the World" "Long Holiday" won many awards at the "TV Golden Bell Awards".
The movie "Sleeping Youth" was not only selected for the Taiwan Newcomer Director Award at the Golden Rooster and Hundred Flowers Film Festival, but also shortlisted for major film festivals in South Korea, Singapore, France and so on.
The most familiar to everyone is the 2009 film written and directed by herself, starring Peng Yuyan, Chen Yihan and Chen Yanxi, and the movie "Listen and Say".
Nearly 340,000 people scored 8.1 points on Douban, and was also shortlisted for the Golden Horse Award, winning the only grand prize at the 5th Osaka Asian Film Festival in Japan, the "Most Popular Film Popularity Award".
In recent years, she has also written and directed her own works, such as "Super Boy Code" starring TFBOYS, and "Take My Brother Away" starring Zhang Zifeng and Peng Yuchang.
It can be said that there is Zheng Fenfen in, which makes people look forward to it!
It is worth mentioning that another screenwriter, Hong Ziying, was also one of the screenwriters of the high-profile Taiwan drama "Your Child Is Not Your Child" in 2018.
The main creative team is strong, then the starring lineup is also a full strength faction.
"Emperor Of Sight" Li Mingshun, who was once Yang Guo of the Singapore version of "Divine Eagle Hero", he and the little dragon girl Fan Wenfang also married outside the play, becoming a good story.
At the same time, he is also the Huang Lao Evil in Chen Yanxi's 2014 version of "Divine Eagle Hero", and the Ximen Chuixue he portrayed in "Lu Xiaofeng's Phoenix Dance for Nine Days" is also a classic.
For many young audiences, more familiar are Naoki's father in the 2019 mainland version of "A Kiss and a Promise", and Ah Ling's husband in the movie "Tropical Rain".
This time, in order to play the role of iron worker Ah Qi in "The Worker", he deliberately ate 10 kilograms of fat, raised a big belly, and painstakingly learned Taiwanese, which was more grounded in image.
The younger brother who plays Li Mingshun in the play is Ke Shuyuan, a small student of minshi, who starred in the "Father and Son" of minshi eight o'clock file, and was praised by netizens as "Li Daren of the eight o'clock file".
There is also four-time golden bell award-winning You Anshun as Chang Ge, "After the Eye" Miao Keli as Chang Sister-in-law, and Xue Shiling, one of the members of the hip-hop group Big Mouth, as Ah Quan.
It is worth mentioning that Lin Weijun, the "childhood goddess" who has starred in "A Thousand Gold Hundred Percent", "Pawnshop No. 8", and "Dolphin Bay Lovers", also has a cameo in the play.
Secondly, its plot directly hits the pain points of the underlying characters, which is real and terrible.
As Taiwan's first worker-themed TV series, it truly shows the real life of the low-level small people.
The protagonist revolves around the ironworker brothers Ah Qi and Ah Qin, the plate mold package merchants Chang Ge and Chang Sister-in-law, and the excavator driver Ah Quan.
First, let's talk about the "construction site three humble" Ah Qi, Chang Ge, ah Quan.
This brother thinks about one thing every day -
How do you get rich?
Ah Qi was busy on the construction site every day, and even his arms were exposed in black and white, watching the old father lying sick in bed, the wife working hard to run the family, and the son still in school.
Engaged in the traditional Chinese medicine pill business, losses, there are still a bunch of drugs at home can not be sold.
Joining the doll machine business, it does not work, it becomes a thought.
I even thought about raising pigeons and selling screen protectors to make money.
This time, he asked his son to borrow pocket money, and he tried to continue to toss and make a lot of money.
Chang Ge, a small contract foreman, will worry about when the developer's arrears will arrive when the final payment will arrive every month, and the family's money is controlled by his wife.
The youngest Ah Quan has no home, can only rely on a truck for his life, driving skills are too bad, and a little salary is all ticketed.
His goddess is "Betel Nut Xishi", thinking that when she has money, she will buy her 50,000 yuan (all TW Dollars) dream bag for the goddess.
The three of them got together, and this time came up with the idea of making money—
Buy a four-faced Buddha, open a temple, and earn incense money!
Doesn't that sound unreliable?
That's right, the brothers were deceived by an Indonesian who claimed to be Thai.
Buying a Buddha statue and giving it 150,000 yuan, the other party said that the Buddha statue was detained by the customs and wanted 200,000 to be guaranteed.
Ah Qi secretly took the land title again, and fortunately was found by the police when he was sending money, otherwise even the house would be cheated out of his money.
A picture of a Buddha statue found by the scammer from the Internet deceived the brothers and wanted to make money?
The reality is that workers who have no culture, do not go online, do business without planning, do not say that they are at a loss, and do not be deceived are not bad!
Looking at various successful people, they have failed again and again, and they still feel that it is:
Didn't catch up with good times.
After Ah Qi's wife learned that the money had been cheated, she wanted to beat people up, and her mouth was always nagging about divorce:
I was blind before I married you!
And after being scolded by his wife to the point of bloodshed, Chang Ge will wear a T-shirt that "the wife is always right" and admit his mistake.
Ah Quan has no home, but is worried about the next meal, and may not be able to eat meat.
If the story of the three brothers makes people laugh and have sadness, then the younger brother Achin's is even more bitter.
Looking at the pimp who could not have children, he said that he wanted to worship Guanyin to wash his sins, and gave her a small homemade toy.
By chance, lin Weijun, who should be his ex-girlfriend, looked at her from a distance and watched her get into the luxury car, and Achin rode a motorcycle behind her car, just watching silently.
Faced with the daydreams of the three brothers one after another, knowing that they were just blind tossing and turning, Achin was sober and pessimistic, and some things did not dare to think about, nor could he think.
Just as the four protagonists are eating supper and drinking at a roadside stall, thinking about what to do after they have money, Ah Qi says that he wants to buy a plane to take his wife to play, and Chang Ge says that he wants to send his daughter abroad to study.
Ah Quan concluded:
That is, do not let them be workers, dignity is given to those who receive a fixed salary, like us who rely on the sky to eat, it is God who decides whether we want dignity or not.
In a word, it deeply stung the audience's heart.
Accidents at the construction site are frequent, doctors who go to the hospital have to charge fees before saving people, and the director shirks his responsibility, and the damned are still working workers.
Looks particularly miserable?
But there is still a little sweetness in this brother's poor days.
Ah Qi's son secretly worked to earn money to subsidize the family, and his wife carefully massaged his bedridden old father.
Chang Ge's wife, knife mouth tofu heart, will pay for the key moment to save people.
In the second episode, the site dug up a small crocodile, and the three of them bought it together, raised it, and went to sell crocodile bags.
This crocodile is very similar to us, whether it is trapped in a pool or a bucket, it has been trying very hard to get out of this environment, no matter how people bully, how to force, it is going to come out of the sky!
Raising feelings, at the end of the crocodile sneaked out again, presumably will cause a "bloody storm".
Finally, it maintains the original taste of Taiwan, and the shooting picture has a texture.
85% of the whole drama of "The Man Who Works" is pronounced in Hokkien, occasionally a few mandarins, and the lines are also very Taiwanese.
And it not only pioneered a worker-based TV series in Taiwan, but also the first large-scale construction site live-action drama.
Although there are only 6 episodes, the cost is higher than the 10-episode "And Evil", and 80% of them are filmed on location.
The director insisted on shooting at the large construction site of the SRC steel structure, which was filmed for a full 20 days.
Because the construction site could not be stopped, the real workers over there were working when the crew was shooting, and the actors were acting, from morning to night.
Xue Shiling plays Ah Quan, the excavator driver, who is handy in controlling the crane and excavator in the play, and he is actually scared and frightened when he has no experience outside the play.
In order to fit the character image of the betel nut in the play, he often chews the betel nut until the oral mucosa is dried.
Especially when filming the small crocodile scene, not only did the real crocodile appear, but also smashed 220,000 Taiwan dollars to make a crocodile stand-in 1:1.
There is an impressive scene where Achin finishes a day's work and returns to the shared cabin, smokes a cigarette, and looks out the window.
Accompanied by lazy music, the shimmer shimmers and has a different texture.
Although life is miserable, the four brothers still choose Lotte to fight hard, as director Zheng Fenfen said:
The so-called dream of getting rich is just a symbol of these little people trying very hard to live.
The whole play's observation of the workers' lives is direct and considerate, and many crew members who watched the play ran over to the director and said-
This is the real life of the workers.
Why do they know so well?
It turned out that their fathers, uncles, uncles... Many people are workers, but everyone deliberately ignores this group of people around them.
There was a scene where I felt the corners of my eyes wet, and I had a feeling of sadness with a smile, probably because I also had people working in my family.
And this is also the meaning of "The Man Who Works", there is not so much cynicism, irony and criticism, but it makes you laugh with tears and leave an aftertaste.
If the previous one is "Our Distance from Evil," then this one can be said to be "Our Distance from Good."
I hope that first let everyone care about this group of people and care about this group of ordinary little people in Taiwan.
In fact, the people who work are not only workers, but also each and every one of us.
In total, the show currently airs two episodes, each of which revolves around a story, with a bright pace and no cold scenes for 2 hours.
Full screen domineering president drama, high-level ancient style drama?
"The Man Who Works", it's time to have a name!
Bluestone Film Editorial Office | Morning
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