January 31, 2023 issue | Issue 3133
"Everything to Yang Rong's shot, this drama is not like a short drama."
"The texture is so good, it's like watching a TV series!"
There is no shortage of top audiences in the comment area of the Douyin short drama "Twenty-Nine". Most of them were attracted to the two leading actors, and then left by the climactic plot. This urban emotional drama tells the story of two women who get rid of scumbags together and redeem each other from love rivals to friends, and has been updated for four episodes in @Ta Chase Theater.
In the short video series full of sweet pets and sadomasochism, realistic mature topics such as "marriage crisis" seem too stable. Give up using gimmicks to attract attention, but still gain high attention vertical screen short dramas, there must be something outstanding in creation. After watching "Twenty-Nine", I found that the drama and character shaping of this short drama are indeed a clear stream.
Before female group dramas became popular, many viewers expected TV dramas to show more dimensions of female friendship. Unfortunately, the relationship between women in most episodes only stays in "girlfriends" or "love rivals".
In real life, due to structural pressures such as the differentiation of social value systems, female friendship is not as stable as male friendship, and is often in subtle and mutually exclusive dynamic changes.
The "TV series texture" praised by users is derived from this, and the two heroines in the play are not a black and white face setting.
According to the inherent routine of short video dramas, Yuan Pei, played by Yang Rong, should be Lin Pinru, who crushes the mistress, allowing users to experience the refreshing feeling of opening the golden finger. But the character of Yuan Fei is very realistic, whether it is the emotion of the marriage crisis or the calm evidence in the face of her husband's cheating, she can be regarded as "sober in the world" in the same kind of people.
The direction of another heroine, Lu Xiaoshan (played by Wang Yifei), is more worth playing. At the beginning, she was dubbed "Little Mistress". On the surface, Lu Xiaoshan is the destroyer of Yuan Pei's family, but whether it is Yuan Pei secretly helping when he joins the company, or reminding Yuan Pei from the side to confirm the cheating time of Zhuang Hao (played by Liu Shuo), it shows that Lu Xiaoshan's malice towards Yuan Pei is not as strong as we think.
Her estrangement from Zhuang Hao is more like a sudden awakening after being deceived by a scumbag. In the face of lies, the wife and the third party are victims. "Twenty-Nine" intends to break the stereotype of female opposition. After getting rid of the scumbag, how Lu Xiaoshan and Yuan Pei "turned enemies into friends" is the biggest suspense of the next series.
The cast of "Twenty-Nine" is quite eye-catching. Unlike ordinary short video dramas starring amateurs or Internet celebrities, Yang Rong and Wang Yifei are both experienced film and television actors.
Especially the "evil female professional" Yang Rong, since her debut, Yang Rong has interpreted a wealth of female character types, not only acting the evil and innocence of idol drama girls, but also restoring realistic heroic models in the main drama, and even in the cosplay variety show, Yang Rong also makes the role more lifelike with super empathy.
Wang Yifei has played the heroine's love rival in many hit dramas such as "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost" and "Three Lives and Three Lives on the Pillow", this time playing Lu Xiaoshan, who was ridiculed by the audience as "finally breaking the CP in the short drama".
Whether the role can produce a sense of substitution, often only needs a line and a look from the actor. It is no wonder that film and television actors starring in short dramas are considered by the audience to be "dimensionality reduction blows". Yang Rong and Wang Yifei's solid acting skills make the characters particularly authentic and credible. Just like the scene of Yuan Pei and Lu Xiaoshan's first meeting at the beginning, Yang Rong's pause and look at her eyes when she took off her sunglasses was meaningful, which instantly allowed the audience to get the contradiction and tension between the two.
For dramas, the popularity of the starring actors can also drive the overall popularity of short dramas. With good actors and a well-completed story, it is not surprising that the playback volume of "Twenty-Nine" can exceed 100 million in a short period of time.
"Twenty-Nine" is not the first short drama of Ningmeng Pictures with more than 100 million views. Last summer, the first Douyin drama "Since the Divorce" produced by Ningmeng achieved a total of 250 million+ views. At present, Ningmeng short drama account @TA Chase Theater There are three short drama works, "One Yuan Beauty Salon" and "Starting from Divorce" are unit stories connected by fixed protagonists, the former focusing on women's growth anxiety, the latter focusing on the physical and mental violence suffered by women after marriage.
Due to the limited space of the unit story, it is easy to appear that the topic is too strong and the story is insufficient. In order to pursue drama, @TA Chase Theater The first two dramas have the problem of partial life scene suspension and character distortion. "Twenty-Nine" breaks the unit narrative structure of the first two parts, abandons the "big and complete" narrative of women's topics, and turns to the focus of problems. Therefore, the story integrity of "Twenty-Nine" has improved significantly, each episode is more closely connected, the suspense is linked, and the user's desire to continue watching is getting stronger and stronger.
The wind of the vertical screen short drama blows into the long drama, and it can be seen from "Twenty-Nine" that Ning Meng has gradually explored the production ideas of the short drama that suits herself. The story of "Twenty-Nine" has not yet been told, and I can't help but go to the comment area to leave a message again to urge the change.
【Text/Kwai Chung】