In recent years, "Northeast Renaissance" has been repeatedly mentioned by audiences and industry insiders as a hot word for film and television creation. From the 2014 movie "Daytime Fireworks" to a series of suspense web dramas "White Night Pursuit", "Undocumented Crime", "Double Detective"... Northeast China as a regional image repeatedly appears in the story of suspenseful criminal reasoning, and the "Northeast Suspense Universe" is also facing the problem of gradual stylization in the process of continuous enrichment.
On August 8, the suspenseful short drama "Cowardly Ghost", adapted from the original novel "Raw Swallow" by Zheng Zhi, a young writer of the "New Northeast Writers Group", written by Zheng Zhi and directed by Zhang Xiaobo, director of blockbuster dramas such as "Thirty Only" and "Little Shede", was launched on Youku. The story comes to the northeast in the 1990s, the vast snow scene, the corner under the railway bridge, four men in black silently dragged the driver off the car and died in the trunk, the train roared from above, and the murderer turned back indifferently... The style of the work is cold and dark, and the mirror editing is neat and artistic.
Also a crime suspense story rooted in the northeast, "Cowards" provides an incision for its breakthrough with the unique perspective of the "sub-generation" (the descendants of state-owned enterprise workers) in the northeast and the background derived from the real big case. The story starts from the youth of the four teenagers, with the murder scene spanning ten years and "exactly the same" as a clue, unveiling a past intertwined with friendship and betrayal, regret and sadness, Ou Hao, Wang Yuwen, Zhou Zheng, Hou Wenyuan, four young stars in the play to face the most real "cowardice and bravery" of human nature.
After the launch of "Cowardly Ghost", some people felt that the northeast suspense had played a king bomb, and some people felt that "it was difficult to understand and difficult to understand" and abandoned the drama, with mixed reputations and many controversies. Nandu Entertainment reporters talked with screenwriter Zheng Zhi and actor Ou Hao, listening to them talk about how to find their own audience for this innovative experiment of "suspense + youth" and start an adventurous journey.
The original author and screenwriter Zheng Zhi
Rewrite the script yourself and make up for your regrets in the episode
Part 1 Suspense Narrative
Multiple timelines intertwine narratives, "I want to show the audience innovation"
In recent years, suspense dramas have ushered in a climax of creation, and creators have continued to innovate and explore more diversified creative directions and theme expressions. "Coward" is another bold attempt by Lemon Pictures on the suspense track after "Crime Hunting Atlas". After youku was launched, many fans of the original also commented: "The script adapted by 'Daddy' has not disappointed." "From the novel "Raw Swallow" to the web drama, "Cowardly Ghost", adapted by the original author Zheng Zhi, has a subtle change in theme, in addition to the criminal investigation story of the play itself, there are sincere emotions and dilemmas in the youth years, revealing the analysis of complex human nature everywhere.
Zheng Zhi admitted in an interview: "I adapted my own original book because I had a knot in my heart that I couldn't put down on this story. Previously, in the novel, due to some objective limitations such as the volume of the series, the story was not really told according to the way it was in my heart. So when I made "Cowardly Ghost", I offered to write my own script, just to make up for this regret, and the effect of the final shooting was to make up for this regret for me. "If you compare the novel with the play, you can feel that this is not a repertoire, but a developmental story rewrite."
A good suspense rhythm will make people enter the drama for a second, but the timeline of "Coward" is complex, focusing on the three timelines of 1999, 2001 and 2011, and designing the AB side double-line narrative structure, on the one hand, the youth and friendship of four young boys and girls, on the other hand, the police handling cases represented by Feng Guojin (Wang Yanhui), the two lines are strongly cross-contrasted. Such a multi-timeline narrative is enough to make people burn their brains, and in order to make the audience more immersed, the creator has spent a lot of thought on the interweaving of the timeline, repeatedly using emotional flashbacks and flashbacks. The previous shot is still teenagers Qin Li (Ou Hao) and Wang Wei (Hou Wenyuan) riding bicycles on the school road listening to Liang Yongqi's "Cowards", and the next shot comes to 12 years later, when the car repair worker Qin Li is in a simple and dark workshop, stuffing a tape; The last scene was huang shu dancing Tibetan dance at the literary and art show, followed by the cross-editing of the crime scene two years later, and the dazzling girl turned into a cold corpse...
The multi-line interwoven narrative structure with distinct experimentation is very innovative and adds points to the suspense of the plot, but it is also easy to dissuade the audience, bringing viewing pressure to fans who have not seen the original work, and the bullet screens of the first few episodes are full of comments that are "not understood" and "difficult to understand". In this regard, Zheng Zhi admitted that he had watched the bullet screen, and the audience evaluation was expected by him, but he also had his persistence: "The first is to respect the original readers, and the second is for new audiences who have not seen the "Raw Swallow" novel, I also want to show them the innovation." I think the narrative rhythm of "Coward" is a relatively new attempt I have seen in domestic dramas. ”
"It's a drama you can't watch without concentrating, it's better to watch quietly at home, even if you go to the bathroom and drink water in the middle, it's best to press the pause button." I always think that the sense of memory, layering, contrast, and stacking given by the multi-timeline narrative is the temperament that "Raw Swallow" has always wanted to retain from the novel to the script of "Coward", and this temperament is rarely retained, relying on a little adventurous spirit and some skills. I believe that after a period of time, the drama "Coward" will find its own audience, and I think this drama is a drama that needs to find an audience. ”
Part 2 protagonist controversy
Ou Hao re-plays a high school student, "there is always a clean youthful spirit in his eyes"
In "Cowards", there is a delicate description of the campus life in the northeast in the 1980s, which is not much ink in the original novel, but it is the unforgettable youth memory of the "sub-generation" in the northeast. "Qin Li", played by Ou Hao, was originally a genius teenager, whose extraordinary intelligence and maturity made him incompatible with the real world, until his father was sentenced to death for murder and robbery, and his life was pushed into the abyss, and he was ridiculed and snubbed by his classmates. Talking about this role, Ou Hao said: "I think Qin Li is a very distressing person, very pitiful, the most tragic and heart-wrenching role I have ever played. "Compared with Zhang Yang, who is famous for his handsomeness in "Left Ear", the patriotic warrior Dragon Boat Festival, who is flesh and blood in "Eight Hundred", and Xu Ruichen, the aerospace hero in "Captain China"... Ou Hao is more introverted in the role handling this time, with the transformation of the early outer softness and inner rigidity, the later stage of the inside and outside rigidity, regardless of age or external image, is a subversion of his previous habitual masculine student.
Before the launch of "Coward", Weibo netizens juxtaposed "Left Ear" with ouhao's stills in "Coward", hotly discussing the topic of "Ouhao's comparison of 22-year-old and 30-year-old high school students", and some original party commented: "Ouhao looks like a sports student sitting in the last row of the classroom, where is the appearance of a thin, sick and delicate genius child?" In the face of netizens' questions, Ou Hao did not shy away from the question of age compatibility, and he gave a frank answer: "I think "Coward" is definitely a play worth remembering for me, and it must be the last youth drama I played, and I may not be confident in the future. When I got the role of Qin Li, I paid more attention to listening to the character's heart, as well as the changes from the ten-year span of the role, from some subtle details, such as the eyes, to seek to achieve the emotional state of the character. ”
Also in the face of the controversy over the difference between actors and character images, screenwriter Zheng Zhi believes that he is not looking for children who fit the original work, but that young actors have reshaped the four children in the script. "Before I revised the last draft, I already knew that these four actors were playing, so it was a wonderful feeling that I would write with the faces of these four young people. The original book is from their twelve or thirteen years old, pure adolescence, but our story has been changed to starting from the age of seventeen or eighteen, and the feeling of young boys and girls portrayed by these young actors is compared with their 30-year-old self when they look back, and I think their grasp and performance are very in place. Zheng Zhi also expressed his recognition of Ou Hao's acting skills, "There is always a very clean juvenile temperament in his eyes, his own temperament, especially the state he presented after he set the makeup, I think it is completely in line with Qin Li and gives this role a new image." ”
Judging from the early plot, Ou Hao designed the dodgy eyes for the characters, the unwillingness with tears in the eyes, and the deliberate dodging in front of the people, and a few details conveyed Qin Li's character delicately, several irrepressible resistances, and expressed the character's resolute and indomitable personality, paving the way for the later reversal.
Part 3 "Suspense +" Exploration
Suspense + youth, "telling a good story is the top priority of the series"
The play abandons the name of the original "Raw Swallow" and takes the name "Coward", Zheng Zhi talks about the difference between the film and television works for the public and the name of the novel: "Raw Swallow, of course, is also a good name, but it is only suitable as a novel with a layer of hazy, difficult to decipher, layer by layer peeling cocoon form; The adaptation of film and television works for the audience is to make the relationships, emotions, and stories of these characters clearer, clearer, and more direct. "Coward is a cute-sounding, youthful name that really tells a complex and sad story wrapped in suspense.
"Our theme is 'Don't be a coward', because first of all, people have to face their fears and cowardice to understand the true meaning of bravery. The sad part of this story is because we are not brave enough when we should be brave, choose to be cowardly, choose not to stand up, this is what we really deserve to reflect on when we become adults. ”
Known as "One Opening is Youth", Hong Kong singer Leung Wing-chi's representative song "Coward" also appeared in the headphones of Northeast Teenagers in the 1990s, and the gloomy and brain-burning suspense drama with the hazy and shy youth love song reflected the ingenuity of the screenwriter. "I like Liang Yongqi's song very much, from 1998 to 1999 was when Liang Yongqi was at her most popular, adding the song "Coward" to the play added a few strands of the sense of the times." The 1990s, mixed with the vigorous desires of the new era, are also a narrative line of "Coward", and the addition of the song "Coward" has played the same effect as "Little White Boat", which not only superimposes the suspense of the series, but also draws out the feelings of "Ye Qing Hui".
"Coward" is a narrative experiment and an innovation in the suspense drama genre. After the development of domestic suspense dramas in recent years, they have gone through many stages such as intrinsic reasoning, social reasoning, and family suspense. "Suspense +" has become the recognized development direction of the industry, but "how to add suspense" has no clear answer, at present, "Cowards" handed over the "suspense + youth" bright answer sheet. The condiments in the "youth" and "suspense" summer fever menus collide in "Cowards" to burst out a more sensual taste, and the play of the youth part of the play also makes up for the screenwriter's regret that he did not finish the narrative in the novel "Raw Swallow". Zheng Zhi sighed in the interview: "The story of the emotional flow between these four young boys and girls, the relationship between the characters, compared with the part of the story with the so-called suspense component, it sounds like a slower-paced, more delicate, more slow-flowing thing." I myself did not frame it in a suspense drama, or a youth drama, telling a good story, telling a good character, telling the feelings of good people, is the top priority of a drama. ”
Inventory of high-quality Northeast suspense dramas
In the field of suspense, the northeast seems to have a unique advantage, whether it is the border town of Yanbian, or the old industrial area of Harbin, or the simple night snow drifting, are filled with mysterious atmosphere. The factory and mine culture provides a humanistic background for the suspense in northeast China. Why is the ultimate sense of suspense and the sense of raw devouring in domestic suspense dramas so suitable for northeast China? Let's take stock one by one.
"Undocumented Crimes"
"Undocumented Crime" is adapted from the novel of Zijin Chen, known as the "Chinese version of Keigo Higashino", and the story begins with a bizarre "snowman murder" case, telling the chase and investigation between the moral policeman Yan Liang and a number of criminals in the dangerous "man-made" crime, and the suspense plot is interlocked.
The original setting of "Undocumented Crime" is actually in the south, but the producer Qi Kang deliberately moved the background to Harbin in the winter when filming - the snow and ice in the northeast and the Soviet-style architecture make the wilderness orderly, the state-owned enterprise factories and Baroque neighborhoods make the lonely rooms not lose their luxury, the old-fashioned towers and church temples make the secular worldly without losing the sense of religion, and the director himself said, "I need such a layered city that can provide a rich growth space for the story." ”
"Double Detective"
"Double Detective", which brings together northeast directors, northeast screenwriters and northeast actors, uses a two-line narrative to tell the story of criminal police officer Li Huiyan who came to a small border town in the northeast because of a kidnapping case, and by chance, he traveled around with the mortician who came to find the truth about his father's murder, and the story of the two accidentally involved in the intricate trilateral power relationship network was also ridiculed by netizens as "the revenge of the northeast with blood".
As soon as "Double Detective" opens, the white forest sea snow field, the black and gray building, the retro city fireworks, the story has not yet unfolded, and there is a sense of depression and slaughter. Behind the core suspense of "Double Detective" is also a "scar literature" about the turning point of the new and old era in the northeast, the closure of the forest farm in the border county, the great changes in people's hearts, and the search for the identity of the northeast people in the economic recession.
"White Night Pursuit"
"White Night Pursuit" is one of the few domestic suspense dramas that scored a high score of 9 points on Douban, the reputation exploded, the story tells a pair of twin brothers, brother Guan Hongfeng is the former captain of the police force, rich experience in handling cases, and the case solving rate is super high. His younger brother, Guan Hongyu, became a wanted man because of a case of extermination and hid in his brother's house. Because the older brother has a fear of darkness, the two use the method of replacing identities day and night, and use the opportunity of the brother's return to the police force as an adviser to find the truth about the brother's injustice. Under this main line, the TV series has a branch line of one case per episode on average, which is intertwined in parallel and attracts people to pursue.
Although "White Night Pursuit" was filmed in Beijing, Changchun and Dongguan, the cold and wild nature of the northeast added a lot to the drama that pursued the rough texture, and in the last few episodes, it told the faces of the sentient beings in the small city of the northeast, the atmosphere was cold and the tone was unique, which coincided with the suspense temperament of the northeast, perfectly interpreting its positioning of "the first tough guy suspense crime drama".
Ohau
Listen to the heart and give one
A performance that Ou Hao has not had on him
role
The most heart-wrenching character, but he never lost the pride in his heart
Nandu Entertainment: What kind of person do you think Qin Li is?
Ou Hao: I think Qin Li is a very distressing person, very pitiful, I feel that I have played the most tragic and heart-wrenching role, encountered so much injustice, encountered the betrayal of friends, and encountered the departure of loved ones. However, even though he suffered so much, he still retained the beauty in his heart and still did not lose the pride in his heart.
Nandu Entertainment: What is the deepest touch that Qin Li's role has brought to you?
Ou Hao: There are many places that touched me, and when I watched the play, I was also thinking about a problem: the impact of a native family on children, this impact may be a lifetime. If it were not for the problems brought about by the original family, I think Qin Li's personality would not be so lonely, if he could receive more parental love and family love from an early age, maybe his life would be different. Because of his family relationship, the relationship of his personality, many people around him will discriminate against him, have rejection, and have a lot of cold eyes on him, which is a vicious circle. But what is valuable is that he insisted on his original intention and never changed himself. As his line said: People can lose anything, that is, do not lose their pride. This is also where Qin Li is liked by everyone. I also want to express a little bit, I hope that the world can have more love and kindness, because our small action and a warm word may affect a person's life, especially for those who have suffered a lot, like Qin Li and Huang Shu.
Nandu Entertainment: How do you see the relationship between Qin Li and Huang Shu?
O'Hau: One of the sentences that struck me most when I read the novel ended: In order to illuminate her life, you burn yourself to the ground. I saw this sentence at that time, and I cried, and a sentence expressed Qin Li's life, his person, and his feelings for Huang Shu. Many people think that this is Qin Li's dedication to Huang Shu, in fact, the whole presentation in our play, I think it is a relationship of mutual redemption and mutual understanding.
Nandu Entertainment: Playing such a gloomy role, will it collapse? Do you encounter difficulties when playing?
Ou Hao: During the filming process, there were a few months to stay in that state for a long time, and I remember that we shot a scene dominated by Huang Shu, that is, she danced on the stage, and we watched it on the spot, thinking that she danced very well, and the whole scene was particularly beautiful. Suddenly, for a moment, my heart will be very lost, very painful, such a beautiful person, thinking of what happened to her, I unconsciously wet my eyes. I think this story, the fate of these characters will bring you a kind of inner touch, at the time it seems like nothing, but suddenly there is a moment of inner vulnerability, this is some of the sequelae brought about by my filming this play.
controversy
"Coward" is very memorable, and may be the last youth drama I played
Nandu Entertainment: There is a heated discussion on Weibo about the comparison between your 22-year-old and 30-year-old acting high school students, how do you evaluate the re-acting of high school students?
Ou Hao: For myself, "Coward" is definitely a very memorable play, and it is definitely the last youth play I played. Heck, it's true that in the future, you may not be confident yourself (acting in a youth play). When I was making "Coward", there was the same voice on the Internet, and my consideration at the time was that I paid more attention to listening to my own heart, and from the changes in the ten-year span of this character, as well as from some subtle details and eyes to seek to achieve the state of this character.
Nandu Entertainment: Screenwriter Zheng Zhi thinks that you are very much in line with Qin Li's image, have you had a deep conversation between you?
Ou Hao: It is very important for me to be recognized by my brother, I am relieved and very happy, and I will continue to work hard. In the early stage of shooting, in addition to communicating with the director, the most is to communicate with the brother, and when he catches the opportunity, he will often ask him: What is Qin Li's psychology? How to interpret this character? In fact, to reflect a vivid person, it is to rely on details, I hope that this interpretation of Qin Li can have a new and different state, which is a state that everyone has not seen in Ou Hao before, including in the eyes and the handling of emotions. Thanks to the help of the director and screenwriter, I can have the confidence to interpret the role of Qin Li more delicately.
Nandu Entertainment: The evaluation of "Coward" on the Internet is very rich, and your acting skills are also, some audiences feel that the performance is really good, the details are rich, and some audiences can't feel it. How would you respond to the latter?
O'Ho: Subjectively, I want people to see this play, but I think everyone has their own preferences or judgments about each type of play. Each play has its own unique charm, "Coward" also has its own uniqueness, its unique way of expression, it is not a work that makes people feel happy and sad all at once, it takes time, you need patience to enter the story, into the character.
Written by: Nandu reporter Cai Liyi intern Liu Huan