(Visual China / Photo)
After the recent remake of "New Young Bao Zheng" was broadcast, it received a lot of bad reviews.
"Bao Qingtian" is a classic IP, whether it is Jin Chaoqun's "Bao Qingtian" series, or the later mainland version of the "Young Bao Qingtian" series, it is extremely popular. And this time the remake, not only the case is not logical and full of loopholes, but the trio of Bao Zheng, Gongsun Ce and Zhan Zhao also appears to be "character collapse".
Looking back, domestic dramas have many classic costume detective suspense dramas, in addition to "Bao Qingtian", there are also "Da Song Ti Criminal Officer" and "Detective Di Renjie" series, TVB's "Washing Wrongs" is also impressive. What is the development context of domestic costume detective dramas? Can today's costume detective dramas regain their former glory?
Costume detective dramas have had brilliance
As early as the Republican period, foreign detective mystery novels have been introduced into China, such as "Sherlock Holmes" translated into "Sherlock Holmes" and serialized in newspapers.
The introduction of foreign detective novels has also set off a boom in the creation of domestic detective novels. After the founding of New China, detective novels evolved into "anti-special literature" for a while; After entering the 1990s, the variant of the public security criminal investigation novel appeared.
In the 1990s, with the rise of television media, "detective" also became the theme of TV dramas. The 1993 Taiwanese version of "Bao Qingtian" combined the detective with the ancient background, leading the wave of costume detective dramas. This wind also quickly blew to the mainland, pushing the mainland's costume detective drama to the peak in one fell swoop.
In 2000, the TV series "Young Bao Qingtian 1" was broadcast and won the ratings championship of that year. It sets the story in the Song Dynasty, telling the process of Bao Zheng, Gongsun Ce and Zhan Zhao solving various mysteries, which not only allows the audience to enjoy the pleasure of reasoning and detecting, but also attracts a group of audiences who love costume dramas.
In 2004, "Detective Di Renjie 1" was broadcast, which also set off a ratings boom, and the series moved the background of the story to the Tang Dynasty, mainly telling the detective stories of Di Renjie, Li Yuanfang and Zeng Tai. In 2006, "Detective Di Renjie 2" was broadcast, and won the 2006 CCTV-8 ratings crown.
At that time, another costume detective drama classic was "The Great Song Ti Criminal Officer" broadcast in 2005, with a double harvest of word-of-mouth ratings, and the highest viewership share reached 35.66% when it was broadcast. The story takes place in the Song Dynasty and tells the process of solving some unsolved cases by Song Ci, Yinggu and Li Chatou.
As early as 1999, TVB filmed "Washing the Wrongs" with Song Ci as the theme, which is also a classic of TVB's costume dramas, with the highest rating reaching 44 points and an average of 33 points when it was broadcast.
It can be said that domestic costume detective dramas have entered their peak together, "Young Bao Qingtian" (Douban 8.6 points), "Detective Di Renjie" (Douban 9.1 points), "Da Song Ti Criminal Officer" (Douban 9.3 points), are all classic dramas that were repeatedly watched by the audience.
Unfortunately, after this peak, for more than ten years, there has never been a classic costume detective series in domestic dramas, and even the sequels to the above three classics themselves are uneven.
For example, the Douban score of "Da Song Ti Criminal Officer 2" broadcast in 2006 was 6.7 points, the Douban score of "Young Bao Qingtian 3" in 2006 was 7.1 points, the first three series of "Detective Di Renjie" had a good reputation, and the fourth season of Douban launched in 2017 had only 6.1 points.
So far, there are still some costume detective dramas that continue to make articles about Bao Qingtian, Di Renjie, Song Ci and other IPs, and the reputation is miserable, and no one cares.
(Visual China / Photo)
Costume detective dramas once declined
This inevitably makes people confused: why did the costume detective drama suddenly not work? This is influenced by both policy factors -
The creation of costume detective dramas in the early 2000s was driven by the popular dramas involved in the case at that time. Dramas involving the case such as "Heroes Without Regrets", "The True Color of Criminal Police", "Never Blind", "Six Groups of Serious Cases" and "Jade Guanyin" are also classics of many audiences' childhood.
Because the scale of some dramas involved in the case is too large, the color of curiosity is too heavy, such as the dramas involved in the case directly shoot with real corpses as props, creating many pictures that can be called "childhood shadows", which naturally arouses the vigilance of relevant regulatory authorities.
In 2004, the relevant departments issued the Notice on Strengthening the Examination and Broadcast Management of Dramas Involved in Cases, requiring that all television stations broadcast or prepare to broadcast TV dramas, film films, TV movies, and documentary TV special programs that express the case in a realistic way to be broadcast after 23:00 every night.
At the same time, all provincial-level television drama review bodies should strengthen the review and control of TV dramas, films, and TV movies involving the subject matter of the case, especially the scenes and pictures showing blood, violence, murder, and horror in TV dramas, movies, TV movies, and TV special programs that show major and important cases or criminal cases, and should be deleted, weakened, or adjusted.
Under the guidance of the policy, the dramas involved in the case have entered a period of silence of more than ten years, and costume detective dramas are inevitably affected and affected. "Detective Di Renjie" and "The Great Song Ti Criminal Officer" could also be broadcast on the grounds of ancient backgrounds at first, but then the policy was further tightened, and it was difficult for costume detective dramas to appear on prime time, and the popularity of creation also declined.
In addition to "external causes", the silence of costume detective dramas is closely related to "internal causes". In the final analysis, the core of costume detective dramas is suspense reasoning, especially Benge reasoning, which has particularly high requirements for the construction of suspense, the rigor of logic, and the attractiveness of reasoning, and the screenwriter has to spend a lot of thought on "puzzle setting - puzzle solving".
Costume detective dramas are also a very "scrapped screenwriter" type. It is generally a unit drama, a drama consists of several units, which means that the screenwriter has to write several suspense stories well in a drama, the difficulty factor is very high, the screenwriter can write the first part, to write several sequels stably The challenge is greater, and the probability of success is not high.
On the one hand, the policy is limited and difficult to create, on the other hand, other types of costume dramas have begun to rise, such as historical dramas, imperial legends, costume idols, travel dramas, etc., and costume detective dramas are increasingly snubbed.
（IC photo / 图）
The reboot of the costume detective drama
However, the costume detective drama did not collapse from this.
After entering the era of online dramas, video websites have allowed detective dramas to find a new living space. From "White Night Chase" and "Undocumented Crime" to the "Mist Theater" that later became a brand, the suspense dramas involved in the contemporary background are returning to their former glory.
Detective dramas with ancient backgrounds have not yet created classic IPs that can compete with Bao Qingtian, Di Renjie, Song Ci, etc., and many remakes of these classic IPs are purely popular, and the quality of remakes is difficult to say.
It is worth noting that some good quality costume detective dramas have also emerged over the years, all of which are original IP, allowing the costume detective theme to be restarted and allowing the audience to see the hope of recovery.
There are three main paths for costume detective dramas today. One is "The Great Song Youth History", which combines costume detective with the growth of enthusiastic teenagers, and is loved by many young audiences. "Da Song Youth" is from the hands of the well-known screenwriter Wang Wei, this IP has been filmed for the second season and has the potential to become a series.
The second path is "Imperial Gift", which is a female-oriented costume detective style.
Whether it is the character of the male protagonist, or the character of the female protagonist and the female second, it can be seen that "Imperial Gift" has a very distinct "female orientation" color, its female consciousness is enlightened and "advanced", and it is very friendly to female audiences - this is the creator's "flattering", which is obviously catering to the current female audience, but it is not discordant.
The third path is "Tang Dynasty Mystery", which is more inclined to traditional costume detective dramas, and there are slight differences. Compared with the logic of solving the case, it has put a lot of effort into the creation of the atmosphere, and the "Mystery Record" is worthy of its name, which brings out a lot of Tang Dynasty style science popularization, and the current national tide fever forms an echo.
No matter what the path, what they have in common is to film the detective story well, make the suspense fascinating, and make the reasoning logic online. On the basis of doing a good job in detective cases, constantly explore the possibility of multiple styles of detective themes, and less fried cold rice works similar to "New Youth Bao Zheng", costume detective dramas may usher in new brilliance.
Drama people