This is the third issue of Poison Eye's overseas entertainment program.
While the domestic film Spring Festival file is warming up, and the Chinese drama "Crazy" and "Three-Body Problem" both broke 8 points, there are also many interesting cultural and entertainment works overseas. Among them, the most vocal may be the American drama "The Last of the Survivors" produced by HBO, which set the highest increase record in HBO history after only two episodes, and directly renewed the second season.
"Network Mysteries 2" was released in the United States on January 20, and its reputation has not declined compared with its predecessor; Korean variety shows are also continuing to cultivate on the road of innovation, and "Top of Fitness: Challenge of 100 People" shows the new gameplay of "physical PK variety show" in a way that constantly breaks through the limits of the human body; In terms of games, although the gameplay of the comic book game "One Piece: Time Travel Poem" is conservative, "Pirate fans" can still get a good game experience.
Korean dramas are still a research sample that cannot be ignored, and the Korean drama "Dark Glory", starring Song Hye-kyo and which ended last month, set a record of 82.48 million viewers for two consecutive weeks after Netflix aired, and entered the TOP10 list in 62 countries. It seems that Korean dramas have found a new "explosive password".
The Last of Us: The best game adaptation of all time?
There are many live-action movies or series adapted from games, and not many can achieve quality praise, and "The Last of Us" seems to break the rules further.
Produced by HBO, the mixed creative director of Naughty Dog Neil Dracroman was deeply involved in script development, starring Pedro Pascal as "Red Viper" and Bella Ramsay as "Little Bear Girl" in the "Game of Thrones" series. Before the launch, the main creative lineup and actor's appearance caused some controversy, but the accurate restoration of characters and scenes after the launch, and the reasonable addition and deletion on the basis of respecting the plot of the original work, all made its ratings popular all the way.
According to public data, the show accumulated 18 million viewers in the first week of broadcasting, and the number of viewers of the second episode increased by 22%, setting a record for the highest increase in HBO's history, and it was renewed by HBO for a second season after only two episodes. At present, "The Last of Us" has an IMDB score of 9.3, a freshness rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, and a popcorn index of 94%. More than 20,000 people on Douban also scored a high score of 9.1.
On Metacritic, 9 media outlets such as The Guardian and Los Angeles Times gave the show a full score of 100, and media outlets such as Empire, IndieWire, and Radio Times all mentioned that it was "the best game adaptation ever".
The Last of the Survivors, released in 2013, has received hundreds of awards and nominations including GDC, DICE, Golden Stick and more. If 10 years ago it was largely due to showcasing the top industry in game development, having been remade twice in 10 years and always occupying a place in the minds of players, it was more due to the timeless story and delicate character relationships portrayed by the original game.
To some extent, "The Last of Us" has certain innate advantages in film and television, the game itself has carefully scheduled performances and skilled camera movements, and some shots have also been directly restored to the series. More importantly, although its background setting is the common "zombie crisis" and "doomsday survival", the combat and exploration parts closely related to the background are more like the shell borrowed by expression, and the story itself uses an approximate road movie-like form, describing Joel and Ellie's journey from a microscopic perspective and a strong sense of presence.
Compared with "Uncharted", which is also produced by Naughty Dog, even if the game plot is a bit tacky, the bonus of hands-on operation will immerse players in it, and if it is changed to a pure third-point view, the experience will be discounted accordingly. But the narrative-based "The Last of Us" is less affected by media changes, and even if the audience withdraws, the journey is just as moving, so the best form of adaptation is to restore it as much as possible.
Of course, during the game, the player will operate Joel and will constantly interact with Ellie, thus accumulating deep emotions bit by bit, which is still a unique advantage of the game medium. The performance and cooperation of the live actors determine whether the series can bring the same emotion, and so far "The Last of Us" has done just that.
Dark Glory: Class collision, tried and tested
Korean drama Old Sambo: amnesia, terminal illness, car accident; Korean drama New Sambo: Chaebol, class, revenge.
The Korean drama "The Little Son of a Chaebol Family", which was broadcast in November this year and tells about the revenge of his family after the young son of a poor family is reborn, has repeatedly appeared on Weibo hot searches after it was broadcast. While its popularity has not diminished, "Dark Glory" debuted on December 30. The heroine starring Song Hye Kyo plays the story of a girl who was bullied in high school and dropped out of school, and took revenge on the perpetrators and bystanders years later.
Kim Eun-suk, the screenwriter of "Dark Glory", has frequent hits. The Chinese fire's "Heirs", "Descendants of the Sun" and "Lonely and Brilliant God-Ghost" were all written by her. The inspiration for "Dark Glory" came from her once talking to her sophomore daughter about school violence, and her daughter asked her: "Mom, is it that I beat others to death to make your heart hurt more, or do I beat others to death make your heart hurt more?" ”
A simple question made Kim Eun-sook gush out many ideas. After reading a lot of information about victims of school bullying, she wrote Dark Glory. Kim Eun-sook also restored the scene of "beating others to death" in the play, which made the audience's heart ache: one of the ways in which the children of the chaebol family bullied the protagonist was to stick a hot hair straightener directly to her skin. In the cold winter, she was so painful that she needed to take off her clothes and lie in the snow to relieve the pain with the icy snow.
Similar to Korean dramas that have become popular in recent years, such as "Squid Game" and "The Little Son of the Chaebol Family", "Dark Glory" is indispensable for explicit depictions of Korean class differences, which is a tried-and-true "cool point" in Korean film and television works. According to the January 2023 OTT data released by South Korea, the weekly topical score recorded by "Dark Glory" even exceeded the highest record "Zombie Campus" in 2022, breaking through 73%, only losing to "Squid Game".
In today's global environment, the Korean drama "New Sambo" seems to be far more popular than "Old Sambo". After the launch of Netflix, "Dark Glory" set a record of 82.48 million viewers for two consecutive weeks, ranking first in Netflix's top ten global TV (non-English) fields, and entering the TOP10 list in 62 countries.
The collision of classes is an eternal motif in Korean film and television works, and now, it has not only resonated with East Asian audiences.
"Cyber Mysteries 2" is still that flavor
The new film "Network Lost 2" released in the United States on January 20 has received a box office of more than $17 million in North America, with a Rotten Tomatoes index of 82%, IMDB score of 7.4, and a Douban score of 8.5 - all dimensions and fan evaluations are extremely close to the first part, making fans of the series have a good time.
In 2018, "Unfriend 2: Dark Web" and "Network Mysteries" were born, making the form of "desktop movies" once become "Internet celebrities" in the circle. As the name implies, "desktop movie" uses the picture changes on the computer desktop as the presentation method of the entire film, and uses many application pop-up window switching including Facebook, FaceTime, etc. to support the advancement of plot clues. This is a form of film that belongs to the 21st century and belongs to the natives of the Internet.
Cyber Mysteries is not the pioneer of this format, but it is undoubtedly the masterpiece. The film tells the story of his 16-year-old daughter who disappears and the engineer's father uses his social software to find clues and rescue his daughter. It is not only a very rigorous Bengue reasoning story, but also attempts to explore the family relationship between father and daughter who care for each other but lacks communication, and has both the entertainment and social reflection of reasoning.
The story of "Cyber Mysteries 2" created by the original team has become a girl looking for her missing mother after traveling, and the presentation method is the same as the reasoning process and the first part, which allows the audience who enjoy it to get a smooth reasoning experience again, but at the same time, it also makes some viewers feel old and lack of change.
It is interesting to note that although the inheritance relationship of 1 and 2 is used in the domestic translation name, its original English names are "Searching" and "Missing", respectively, and no close sequel connection has been established. One emphasis on searching, one on losing, itself is a change in the theme of exploration: the powerful Internet is loaded with so much information that we can use it to find everything, but at the same time we always lose something.
The film will be launched on the North American streaming platform on February 10, and friends who love Benge's reasoning may be able to give it a try.
"Top of Fitness: 100 Challenge": The Real Version of the "Squid Game"
Netflix's South Korean reality show "Top of Fitness: The 100-Man Challenge" aired in January, a sports competition show in which fitness determines victory or defeat. The show recruited 100 contestants from all walks of life to compete, and the ultimate goal was to find the person with the "perfect physique", and the winner could take away the 300 million won cash jackpot.
Among the players, there are many national bodybuilding champions, special combat team members, Olympic champions, fitness Internet celebrities and many other physical strengths. For example, Che Hyuncheng, a guest who has just appeared on the Korean version of "Single is Hell", it is worth mentioning that he is also a Xuanmei royal dancer. There are also the 2012 London Olympics men's vault gold medal Liang Heshan, the naval special combat team AGENT H, sports blogger Shen Yindeng, Lotte Giant cheerleader Zhao Yanzhou and so on. These people have to go through 5 stages of physical testing, and if they fail, they will be eliminated.
As can be seen from the current broadcast, the first challenge faced by the contestants is to hang their bodies on the horizontal bar and hang in the air until they are exhausted. Under the unique stage design, the contestants showed the power and beauty, which brought a strong visual impact to many audiences. Because the program setting and style are similar to the drama version of "Squid Game", it has just started broadcasting and has reached the top ten of Netflix's broadcast list. "Burning", "hot-blooded" and "good-looking" are high-frequency words discussed by the audience on social platforms, and the show has received 8.9 points on Douban so far.
During this period of time with Netflix, it can be seen with the naked eye that South Korea has made many innovative attempts in the field of variety shows and film and television. The genres are more diverse, the program settings are richer, and the audience is brought a lot of fresh sensory stimulation. Bold attempts are probably the most important thing to break the content ceiling.
One Piece: Time Travel Poem: All for the fans
As part of the commemoration of the 25th anniversary of the manga series, "One Piece: Time Travel Poem" has whetted the appetite of fans since its announcement, and the Japanese game will be released on January 12 as scheduled. This game does not jump out of the box of comic books, and it can be seen from the modest ratings of some mainstream game media (such as IGN's 7 points) that it just applies the template of mature gameplay and does not have its own characteristics, but for fans of "One Piece", this work is still quite sincere, and even some "shortcomings" can be regarded as "advantages".
In terms of gameplay, the "One Piece" game is probably best known for the Matchless series, and this time "Time Travel Poems" uses a relatively rare turn-based JRPG, which is a boon for audiences who don't like action games. It may also be for audience considerations that most of the game's battles are not difficult and lack freedom in character building, which is usually seen as a design drawback, but due to the particularity of IP adaptations, they will also make this game easy for light players to clear and restore comic characters.
At the story level, as the title of the game reveals, "Time Travel Poem" tells the story of the Straw Hat Pirates entering the "world of memories", re-experiencing Alabastan, the Water Capital, the Top War, the adventures of Dressrosa in a "present" state, and trying to correct the regrets of the past. Although time travel will not change the history that has happened, bridges such as saving Ace and re-boarding the Merlie are believed to be enough to touch fans.
Objectively speaking, the design of "stringing together classic stories with original time travel" is not new, and there are also "Dragon Ball: Ultra Universe" series pearls in front of the subdivision of manga games. But different works have different plots after all, and it doesn't hurt to use the same routine. And this setting is actually limited to the audience: the prerequisite for the best game experience is to know enough about the story of "One Piece".
Compared with the conservative gameplay, the picture details and performance quality of "Time Travel Poem" are very sophisticated, and just watching the 3D version of "One Piece Animation" may make iron fans feel that it is worth the ticket price. No matter what level, this is a "A honey, B arsenic" style work, passers-by players can ignore, love "One Piece" missed a pity.