"No one is always 17, but there are always people who are 17." In the early years, painful youth romance films such as "How Much Do You Know About Flowers in Dreams", "To Youth", "Hurry That Year" and so on were all the rage, and later, works such as "The Best of Us" and "To Our Simple Little Beauty" made youth dramas return to innocence. A generation has a generation of youth narrative, and now, the combination of youth theme film and television dramas and realistic themes, the success of "Young You" and "Sadness Against the River" also shows that youth literature IP is often filmed and renewed, and its vitality is enduring.
A few days ago, the movie "Crush • Orange Sheng Huainan" released the theme song MV, this movie will be released in May, which makes many people have a sense of time and space confusion: Hasn't it already been acted? The film is adapted from the novel of the same name published by Chang'an in August in 2014, and tells the story of a young and stubborn crush that has lasted for more than a decade. In the novel, the heroine Luo Yu is called "crush ceiling", and the delicate description of the throbbing of youth in it reminds many readers of the little secrets that they did not want to forget when they were young.
"Crush • Orange Sheng Huainan" has been filmed in two versions of the web drama in three years, namely the version starring Zhu Yanmanzi in 2019 and the version starring Hu Day in 2021, both of which were popular hits at that time. In the upcoming movie version in May, Zhang Xueying plays Luo Yu, who has excellent grades and is proud of her nature, and she has a crush on her classmate Sheng Huainan (Xin Yunlai), who has a one-sided relationship. Among the materials that have been released by the movie, the familiar plot is overwhelming, the eyes of chasing and dodging, the common topics on the roof, the quiet attention in the piano room, and the girl's heart secretly written on the graffiti wall are all romantic secrets. Of course, what excited the audience the most was that "Zhenhua Middle School" appeared again.
"Zhenhua Middle School" is the place where the stories in the novels "The Best of Us", "Hello, Old Time" and "Crush orange sheng Huainan" written by August Chang'an take place, and is a key high school with a good learning style in the author's fiction, so the three novels and later adapted film and television dramas are called the "Zhenhua Trilogy". In the story, the protagonist lives an ordinary high school life like most people in the real world when they were young.
"The Best of Us", which began broadcasting in 2016, is the first work of the drama version of the "Zhenhua Trilogy", starring Liu Haoran and Tan Songyun, telling the story of ordinary student Geng Geng accidentally entering Zhenhua High School, becoming the same table with "Xueba" Yu Huai, making a group of good friends, they grew up together in ordinary small things, said goodbye to youth with ignorant and youthful good feelings, and then separated for many years and reunited. April 8 this year coincides with the sixth anniversary of the launch of the show, and many netizens feel nostalgic on social platforms that "it has always been us who were originally worried about it", and through the youth of the protagonist in the play, they miss their own youthful and beautiful times.
In 2017, in the same "Zhenhua Middle School", "Hello, Old Time" was staged, starring Li Randi and Zhang Xincheng, and the story took place in the next class of Geng Geng and Yu Huai. Yu Zhouzhou and Lin Yang are experiencing the joys and sorrows of youth growth, compared to the previous youth dramas focused on the campus, "Hello, Old Time" also integrates elements such as family society, family and friendship; the third work of the Zhenhua series, "Crush , Orange Sheng Huainan" was put on the screen twice in 2019 and 2021, in the story, Luo Yu and Sheng Huainan are the elder sisters of the protagonists in the first two works, and have also appeared as supporting roles in "The Best of Us", but the story about the crush is no longer easy to publicize, The emotions conveyed are heavier.
In addition to the series, "The Best of Us" was also remade into a movie in 2019, starring Chen Feiyu and He Lanju, and the film version of "Crush Orange Sheng Huainan" is also about to be released. The "Zhenhua Trilogy" presents the memories and beauty from different time dimensions and different aspects of youth, and the youth elements in the play are full, with wide blue and white school uniforms, familiar high school life scenes such as entrance military training, thorough examinations, and flag-raising ceremonies, as well as fearful teaching directors. The plain plot and sophisticated production have left the innocence of youth, and also conquered the hearts of the audience, and this series of dramas is also the "ceiling" of domestic youth dramas in the minds of many people.
The "Zhenhua Trilogy" is a microcosm of the film and television drama adaptation of youth literature in recent years. Around 2016, this kind of warm and sweet style of domestic youth dramas had a brief outbreak period, more representative of which are the film and television dramas adapted from the novels written by Zhao Qianqian, "To Our Simple Little Beauty", "To Our Warm Little Time", "To Our Sweet Little Happiness", as well as Gu Man's adaptation of "A Slight Smile is Very Charming", "Why Sheng Zhenmo", "Ming Ruo Xiaoxi" and "Whirlwind Girl" adapted by Ming Xiaoxi's works, and "Meet Wang Lichuan" adapted by Shi Dingrou's works.
Prior to this, in the process of film and television adaptation of youth literature, there was another period that could not be ignored - "traumatic adolescence", of which the film and television drama works adapted by Guo Jingming's novels were particularly obvious. As early as 2007, Guo Jingming's "How Much Do You Know About Flowers in Your Dreams" was successfully filmed, and the TV series starred Zhang Junning and Zhang Li, telling the love-hate love and hatred of young people who walked out of school, which was mixed with elements such as polyamorous love, car accidents, betrayal and growth, although the TV series did not have a fire, these elements almost became a routine model for subsequent youth film and television works. Later, "Little Times" launched four films in succession, and works such as "Summer Solstice Has Not Arrived" and "Sorrow Against the River" also exerted "hurt youth" to the extreme.
In 2013, the film adaptation of Xin Yiwu's novel of the same name, "To the Youth We Will Eventually Pass Away", was regarded as a successful model of commercial youth films, which caused similar youth-themed film and television dramas to follow suit. After that, works such as "The Year of Hurry", "You at the Same Table", "Left Ear", "Originally You Are Still Here", "Since Youth Can't Stay", "Summer Has Arbor Yawang Heaven", "August Weiyang" and other works came pouring in. Most of these film and television dramas have the same text, which tell the story of the protagonist's youth from the student age to enter the society, with the nostalgic scenes familiar to the audience, the confusion of love in youth, and the transformation and growth of young boys and girls after entering society.
However, in the same story, the protagonists always want to die for love, tearing each other, betrayal, self-harm, abortion and other elements are full of it, which is so cruel and painful. In fact, this painful style is popular with the "post-80s" star writers, expressed in their original works
Literary characteristics such as sensitivity, loneliness, and melancholy are easily distorted in film and television dramas. For example, in the movie "Left Ear" released in 20j15, the classic quote in the original book, "Sweet Words to the Left Ear", became a line from the mouth of the character, repeatedly encircling the same audience. However, in the same period, highly dramatic and routine works were staged too intensively, and such traumatic youth films were also criticized as "too dog blood".
Of course, "hurt adolescence" also has some successful works, "To Youth" is a wave of works, aside from some dog blood plot, the film with a regretful college love string together the whole story, the beauty of college life, the confusion of entering society and the love-hate entanglement between the protagonists, or can resonate with the audience, the presentation of nostalgia in the film is also very moving. In 2014, the TV drama version of "Hurry That Year" starring He Hongshan, Yang Jiu and Bai Jingting was one of the rare word-of-mouth dramas in the wave of "painful adolescence". The drama is adapted from the novel written by Nine Nights Anise, which describes the emotions and life course of the "post-80s" generation. The story is based on the love between Fang Fei and Chen Xun in middle school, the five protagonists met because of the farce, the innocent and ignorant feelings and friendships of adolescence unfolded, and the changes in growth washed away the raw love, and regret could not be avoided.
The 2016 film version of "July and Ansheng" is also one of the most successful IP adaptations of youth literature, which is based on the novel of the same name by writer Qingshan (Baby Annie), which tells the growth story of two girls, July and Ansheng, who have known each other since the age of 13. The film's script is solidly adapted, and the story is no longer narrowly centered on love and love, but also focuses on telling the fate of friendship and characters, and has achieved a good reputation.
The first generation of young literary writers represented by Han Han and Guo Jingming have now transformed into directors and are exploring and advancing on a new track, and Han Han has successively filmed film works such as "After Forever", "Riding the Wind and Waves", "Flying Life", "Four Seas" and so on. Guo Jingming filmed "Qingya Collection" after "hurting" his own works, and was active in directing variety shows for a while, and now the works of the two are no longer related to "youth". Other youth literature writers in the same period are still walking on the wave of IP film and television adaptation, and there are new changes in the youth literature that is often filmed and often new.
Take the more active decline in the past two years, she directed two youth movies in 2018 and 2020 respectively, "Sorrow Against the River" and "If the Voice Does Not Remember", a significant feature is that these two films are no longer a single youth. "If the Voice Doesn't Remember" is adapted from the novella of the same name, although the protagonist is a young man and woman on campus, but the story integrates fantasy elements and social topics, the film tells the love story of the smile depression girl Ji Xuan and the boy Xin Tang mutual healing and redemption; "Sorrow Against the River" is adapted from Guo Jingming's novel of the same name, telling the love entanglement of Qi Ming and Yi Yao, young people inside and outside the campus, and involved in campus bullying in and out of gossip. The two films are still inseparable from some dog-blood love bridges and "pain" in the story, but they have successfully paid attention to the two hot topics of depression and school bullying on the background of youth themes, which quickly aroused widespread concern and achieved good box office results.
"Youth +" was also a great success for the 2019 movie "Young You", which is based on Jiu Yuexi's novel, which tells the story of two teenagers who were changed by a campus accident on the eve of the college entrance examination, how to protect each other and become adults who want to become. From the perspective of genre, the film is a combination of youth films + realistic themes, and the film focuses on social topics such as campus bullying, college entrance examination, and family education, presenting the pain and helplessness of youth, and causing the audience to reflect and discuss.
In 2020, the "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney" based on the novel of the same name by Jiu Xiaoqi was double harvested, and the drama is a sports competition theme of youth love drama. In the same year, the web drama "The Sky of the Wind Dog Boy" adapted from Li Zelin's novel was popular, in the story, a group of "waste wood teenagers" experienced the youth of burning and secondary two, the drama hid the core of realism under the shell of nonsense, the innocent and ignorant campus love is no longer the focus, the protagonists are forced to grow up in the pull with social reality, and each character carries the imprint of family and society.