"If there are ifs in this world, I mean ifs, I really want to go back to the fish stall on Old Factory Street and spend the Spring Festival with my younger brothers and sisters." In the next year, I will leave the color TV that I am going to give to Xiaolong, I will keep it at home, and I will watch the Spring Festival Gala with my younger siblings. ”
On the evening of February 1, actor Zhang Songwen posted a short article on social media, answering the question that many netizens asked him: which stage of Gao Qiqiang is his favorite. The TV series "Crazy" ushered in the finale on the iQiyi platform that night, and shortly before he released his short article, the audience had just witnessed Gao Qiqiang's endgame: eating dumplings sent by An Xin, the leader of the Jinghai City triad and evil group was executed. He never got back to that fish stall.
The continuous popularity of "Crazy" left two characters with classic potential on the screen in early 2023: Zhang Yi's policeman An Xin and Zhang Songwen's Gao Qiqiang. Two characters, one white and one black, were interpreted by them as flesh and blood, and the plot design of 20 years of sympathy and opposition between good and evil shows the artistic pursuit of this drama to learn classic dramas and movies.
There is no need to repeat the popularity of this phenomenal series. On the train of the Spring Festival and the subway commuting to work, people are all swiping this drama on their mobile phones. Judging from the data, "Crazy" surpassed "Son-in-law" and "The World" and became the most popular drama on iQiyi; CCTV-8 TV drama channel prime-time ratings hit a record high. On the night of the update finale, 12 of the top 20 Weibo hot searches came from "Crazy".
Director Xu Jizhou (left) at the filming site of "Crazy". Illustration of this article/provided by interviewee
The various activities and interviews attracted by the explosion of the work were airtight, which made "Crazy" director Xu Jizhou in a state of excitement. Two days before the finale, he was interviewed by China Newsweek at the production company, and it was not too hot in the room, but he was wearing only a black short-sleeved T-shirt with the title "Crazy" printed on his chest.
How exactly was this drama born? After he told the ins and outs of the production in detail, he remembered an audience's evaluation: the return of old-school domestic dramas. He felt that this assessment was accurate and a high praise, and all he did was recalling the traditional craftsmanship of the industry.
A sense of vicissitudes, a sense of embarrassment
About three years ago, when Dai Ying, senior vice president and senior producer of iQiyi, met Xu Jizhou for the first time, she was attracted by a burst of excitement. On that day, Xu Jizhou talked endlessly about the idea of a new project, and the structure of the 20-year, three-act play had begun to take shape. "I said you shouldn't be an old director? Why does it look so bloody, like a teenager? Dai Ying recalled to China Newsweek.
Xu Jizhou, born in 1976, is a middle-generation director in the TV drama circle, and began directing works in 2004, maintaining the rhythm of almost one drama a year. He covers a wide range of subjects, and the well-received "Indelible Fan" and "War Thunder" are his works, which he feels seems to be fate, and it is easy to succeed in shooting military and police themes.
That meeting was the first time he and Dai Ying discussed "Crazy". In 2019, Liubai Film and Television Company found Xu Jizhou, hoping that he would direct a drama with the theme of anti-gang crime and evil, which will be guided by the Central Political and Legal Commission and other relevant departments, and provide real cases as materials. In the same year, iQiyi, which has rich experience in such themes, also joined the production of this drama. They may not have expected that this drama will become a phenomenal drama three years later, and it is likely to occupy a place in the history of Chinese TV dramas. But Xu Jizhou knew very well at that time that this drama provided him with an opportunity to integrate his creative experience, life experience, cognition of real society and pursuit of art. What you have learned all your life, only for this moment.
When he received this project, the first image that came to Xu Jizhou's mind was that a small policeman who was transferred to a colleague in the Chinese New Year's Eve met a bullied vendor in the interrogation room, and the two ate dumplings together, and friendship was established. This image haunted his mind, and all the stories grew from here.
"Crazy" stills: An Xin (played by Zhang Yi) and Gao Qiqiang (played by Zhang Songwen).
This is the scene where An Xin and Gao Qiqiang meet in the first episode.
Gao Qiqiang, a diligent fishmonger, sent a color TV to the caretaker brother in order to keep the excellent stall in the vegetable market, but someone has already rushed to send the most fashionable plasma TV. On the day of Chinese New Year's Eve, Gao Qiqiang went to intercede, but he was humiliated and blasted out, and the TV was smashed. Gao Qiqiang was angry and broke into the door, but was beaten on the head by a room of people and bleed.
On the night of Chinese New Year's Eve, Gao Qiqiang, who had a blue nose and a swollen face, was locked up in the interrogation room with a band-aid on the bridge of his nose, and the young policemen An Xin and Li Xiang, who had just entered the industry, were in charge of interrogation. An Xin was soft-hearted and sympathetic to Gao Qiqiang, wanting to loosen his handcuffs and drink saliva, while Li Xiang insisted on following the rules. Outside the house, Gao Qiqiang's younger brother and sister sent a box of dumplings to his brother, An Xin hesitated again and again, let them enter the living room next door to the interrogation room, accept the dumplings, and turn up the volume of the TV, so that Gao Qiqiang could also hear the sound of the Spring Festival Gala, which met the expectations of the younger siblings.
Within the scope of the rules, the little policeman who was still on duty Chinese New Year's Eve at night tried his best to give this fishmonger a complete Chinese New Year's Eve. Gao Qiqiang comprehended the meeting, full of gratitude, raised the empty paper cup, and wished Anxin "Happy New Year". An Xin ate the dumplings, looked up and bumped into Gao Qiqiang's smile, and was overwhelmed for a while, and smiled shyly.
This is also the first rivalry scene shot by Zhang Yi and Zhang Songwen after entering the group, and "Crazy" tries to shoot according to the timeline to let the actors grow with the characters. On the day of filming, both actors added a lot of details, and the scene began from the first scene.
"They are all very good actors, if you want to make a move, I have to think of a move, superimpose each other, play with each other." Xu Jizhou said, "The actors have added a lot of life details to the characters, and although the drama of the plot is very open, their performance makes the audience ignore the drama." ”
The filming site of "Crazy".
An Xin and Gao Qiqiang have many scenes of eating throughout the play, and each time there is an overtone. These eating scenes are also Xu Jizhou's own favorite plays, "Eating is the most ritualistic thing in China, but in fact, it is not for eating, it has other meanings." All the interactions between An Xin and Gao Qiqiang were in one meal after another. "The friendship between the two was built here, collapsed here, and eventually returned here.
Dai Ying was most shocked by a meal scene. An Xin had already caught Gao Qiqiang's handle, asked Gao to eat noodles, and persuaded him to turn himself in. An Xin kept talking to Gao, and Gao ate noodles while shrewdly and calmly defusing every confrontation and winning this psychological war. When watching the sample, Dai Ying was conquered by this scene, and Gao Qiqiang's horror was undoubtedly revealed under the calm appearance, "Not everyone can become Gao Qiqiang, he is not an ordinary person, so he will have such a direction in life." "These subtle and meaningful performances portray human nature convincingly.
The portrayal of human nature and the display of fate are one of the most important factors in the success of this show, thanks to the plot design and relying on superb performance. Almost every protagonist and supporting role has a distinct character, clear motives, reasonable changes, and a sense of fate in the ups and downs of the times.
Xu Jizhou chatted with Zhang Yi and Zhang Songwen for the first time, and told them that he hoped that this play could shoot a "sense of vicissitudes and embarrassment looking back on the years", and these two words eventually became the rich inner temperament of the entire drama.
A series of designs are reinforcing the sense of vicissitudes and embarrassment.
For example, the two dumplings that are compared from end to end symbolize friendship. Although the ending was An Xin personally collecting Gao Qiqiang into the French Open, the moment the dumplings were delivered, both of them remembered the big Chinese New Year's Eve twenty years ago, and it was this emotional unswerving that made the audience sigh with emotion and earn countless tears. For example, at the end of the first and second units, An Xin and Gao Qiqiang passed by twice, symbolizing that a pair of friends finally parted ways and turned against each other, and the highly symbolic form design reinforced the different choices and natures of the two.
The filming site of "Crazy".
"Crazy" screenwriter Zhu Junyi said that the script of this play has written three levels, the surface tells the story of the "counterattack" at the bottom, full of tense dramatic conflicts; The middle level talks about all kinds of life, each position restricts each other, and everyone in the bureau has no choice; Deep is a discussion of pursuit and destiny.
The sense of fate is deeply reflected in many supporting characters. Cao Chuang, the head of the bribed criminal investigation detachment, as the "old criminal investigator" with the deepest seniority and the longest service experience of the Public Security Bureau, could have been promoted to deputy director step by step, but the times suddenly changed, and the length of service was not as important as his education, and he lost his advantage. Zhao Lidong, the corrupt secretary of the political and legal committee, wooed him and promised to help him rise to deputy director, and he agreed because he was unwilling. Gao Qisheng embarked on the road of drug trafficking and eventually destroyed because he hoarded hundreds of thousands of PHS, who knew that overnight PHS would be swept into the garbage heap, and he turned to secretly selling drugs to fill the hole.
As Zhu Junyi said, many tragedies stem from the unpredictability of fate and are difficult to control. Behind many characters in "Crazy", there is a pair of hands that turn the clouds of fate.
Reality is the best screenwriter
The script for "Crazy" began to be created in 2020 and was written for more than a year. At that time, the special struggle against gang crime and evil was coming to an end, and some cases were revealed one after another, and the creator of "Crazy" was able to see many declassified files in a specific place, but he could not bring any information out, take pictures or make copies.
Those cases shocked Xu Jizhou, especially the hidden criminal methods, which were far from the simple and crude methods he saw 20 years ago, often breaking through his imagination. They integrate real cases into the plot, and most of the underworld forces and corruption cases in the play have a realistic basis.
The play presents a bridge that uses forced blood donation to collect debts. Instead of extreme violence when collecting debts, loan sharks pulled borrowers to donate blood, and donated three in a row, and the borrowers had turned black lips and called their father on the spot to sell the house to repay the loan. This is the true story that happened in Guangdong.
There are also loan sharks who opened a distillery, named "Drunken Moutai" and "Gai Moutai", the cost of wine is only a few yuan, hanging on the Internet to sell at the price of Moutai. Borrowing is openly at normal interest rates, but implicitly requires borrowers to buy alcohol in order to accumulate wealth in this paper-based legal way.
The filming site of "Crazy".
"We can't make up this kind of plot, we really have to go to the interview to find out." Xu Jizhou said that anti-gang dramas are different from ordinary police and bandit dramas that focus on suspense, and the plot must be grounded, because what happens in the case is closely related to the lives of ordinary people. "I have to make everyone believe that this is something that will happen around me, so that I can empathize." If people don't believe it and wander away, it's to come and have fun, and we've failed. ”
The background of the three-act drama of "Crazy" also has a deep meaning, closely following the changes in Chinese society in the past two decades. The whole drama is divided into three units, each with twelve or three episodes, corresponding to 2000, 2006 and 2021, respectively, around the three core events of Xu Lei's murder, Mangcun land engineering and investigation team handling.
In the millennium, the style of underworld and evil forces is mainly brave and ruthless, and Xu Jiang, played by Jia Bing, is a typical representative, gathering people to fight and commit murder in the city. But the "industry" has not done much, like the villain Liu Huaqiang in "Conquest", that is, he opened a shipping station. Xu Jizhou, who was studying in the directing department of the Central Academy of Drama at that time, followed director Gao Qunshu to do documentary public security dramas, went to the local public security bureau for interviews, and saw mostly bloody cases of extreme violence. The first unit of "Crazy" is full of plots such as weapon fights and buried alive, reflecting his memories of that era.
By 2006, with the implementation of the rural land transfer policy, some illegal projects that encroached on cultivated land and developed real estate appeared, and grassroots officials became umbrellas for personal gain by giving green lights to construction projects, and many criminal and evil forces took advantage of this to grow and grow. At this stage, Gao Qiqiang entered the political and business class as the general manager of Jinghai Construction Group, doing clean business on the surface, and using gangster means behind it. In 2021, the anti-gang crime eradication has entered the normalization stage, and the education and rectification of the national political and legal contingent has begun, with the blade inward and backward investigation for 20 years. It was at this stage that the Gao Qiqiang clique collapsed, and a series of political and legal cadres were imprisoned.
If you have an understanding of China's reality, you can appreciate the deeper realism of this drama. The breeding of criminal and evil forces has both human factors and social and institutional reasons. "Crazy" touches on the factors of the system in the way of peeping at the leopard. In the second unit, the dispute over the Mang Village Resort Project, the principals at the city and district levels secretly competed for the interests of the land, making it more difficult for the grassroots police to handle the case. The head of the village committee seized this loophole and tried to profit from the fishing profit, win the project, and enrich his own pockets. This incident shows the flaws in the operation of power at the grassroots level, and it is also a real thing.
In the process of reading a large number of cases, Xu Jizhou's understanding of underworld forces and anti-gang crime and evil forces gradually deepened. Why must anti-gang crime and evil be normalized, and why should we "fight early and fight small"? Because the underworld and evil forces always exploit the gaps in the system to grow, after fighting wave after wave, wildfires are inexhaustible, as long as time is given, it will inevitably become bigger and stronger, this is a law. "So we have to keep eliminating the soil they have made bigger, and we want to make this as clear as possible." With a time span of 20 years, we will talk about the process of a person from entering the gang to slowly becoming bigger, and through this process, let everyone see some loopholes and defects in the process of economic development, and see how the underworld forces breed. Xu Jizhou said.
The leader of the guidance group played by Wu Gang has an incisive summary: In our society, there are indeed some unfair distributions, which cause the grassroots people to feel that they cannot get rich without relying on illegal means, so some people who have taken risks have appeared and chosen another direction. This passage resonated and was frequently quoted, but the series did not continue to go deeper here, preventing the show from being more deeply revealed and discussed on the social level, so that the questions and answers ultimately hovered mainly at the level of human nature.
"Crazy" poster.
Recreate pyrotechnics
In "Crazy", people see the breath of life that is not common in domestic dramas today, and the steaming pyrotechnics, which was once an evocative taste in domestic dramas, is now difficult to see. In particular, the year 2000 of the first unit seems to have been filmed in real life scenes, but in fact, the important scenes of the whole drama are built. The ever-lively Old Factory Street and vegetable market, as well as the Jinghai Municipal Public Security Bureau and the old houses of the Gaojia family, are all scenes built in an abandoned old bus factory in Jiangmen, Guangdong.
Xu Jizhou told China Newsweek that in order to restore these seemingly ordinary life scenes, the setting and props are expensive, and the requirement of realism is to "hide it back" and "let the audience not see it, but feel it." ”
In order to play the fishmonger, Zhang Songwen spent a few days before filming, experienced life with the fishmonger, and got up early in the morning to buy goods. Those close-up movements of killing fish are stand-ins made by real fishmongers, because it is difficult to practice them in a short time, but he casually stuffs a handful of green onions for regular customers, and quickly dips his hands in the pool before shaking hands, these details are practiced properly and naturally. Zhang Songwen also reminded Xu Jizhou that the dishes in the market are always fresh, so the fish in the pool must be changed frequently to maintain vitality. They placed meat stalls with a short shelf life at the distance of the camera so that the audience would not pay too much attention, and non-perishable vegetables were placed nearby.
Many of the old objects in the play evoke a wave of millennial nostalgia. For example, mobile phones, from PHS in 2000 to Nokia and Motorola in 2006, were the most fashionable brands at that time. Audiences in different regions posted photos to prove that they all owned Huang Yao's pink pullover coat when they were children, which was popular throughout the country. An Xin's document paper for writing and checking turned upside down, this brittle thin document paper is also a memory of the times.
These subtleties are all to achieve the realistic texture of this show.
What caused heated discussions among the audience was the change of Gao Qiqiang's clothes. From 2000 to 2006, Gao Qiqiang's identity made his first leap, from the simple dress of the low-level vendor to a customized suit suit, which was out of place with the surrounding environment, and the gold chain loomed under the shirt collar, showing the flamboyant mentality of the nouveau riche. But each of Gao Qiqiang's outfits is extremely well matched, Zhang Songwen explained that all of Gao Qiqiang's clothes were arranged by his wife Chen Shuting.
In 2021, Gao Qiqiang changed the flamboyance of nouveau riche and became low-key, but it showed a comprehensive upgrade of the rank. Now, he is always wearing a dark V-neck sweater over his shirt, a jacket and trench coat are as smooth as new, and when he was young, he was not short-sighted, he also put on a pair of Sven's metal-framed glasses, plus a bulging belly, and a degraded hairline and hairline, which blended in with the leading cadres he was trying to get close to, marking that he had entered the circle of political and business circles in Jinghai. At this time, he was already a member of the Jinghai CPPCC, and at the meeting of the venue for the first time, the gold chain on his right wrist was revealed when clapping, and he subconsciously covered up, realizing that these things were no longer out of place. This outfit made him blur the boundary between public officials and underworld forces in appearance. Compared with Uncle Tai's deliberate cloth shoes, Gao Qiqiang in 2021 shows the terrible evolution of the underworld forces.
Xu Jizhou said that Gao Qiqiang's dressing style in the three stages can be summed up in the three keywords of "grass and recklessness", "rivers and lakes" and "temples". The dress of each stage is not only in line with the fashion of the times, but also in line with the identity and mentality of the characters.
Dai Ying feels that dramas such as "Crazy" and last year's popular "The World" and "The Wind Blows Half Summer" reflect an aesthetic return. It seems that it is no longer a hot period drama in the market, but it has suddenly gained popularity. "There is a stage where we see a lot of life in first-tier cities in TV dramas, such as the life of high-end white-collar workers, some of which are more suspended," she said, "but most of the Chinese live very ordinary lives." In recent years, when we have made a series of realistic works, we hope to consciously show such a social cross-section, and the adjustment of this strategy should be said to be very effective. ”
Return to traditional craftsmanship
A good work will always remind people of more similar works. After the explosion of "Crazy", people reminisced with relish about those classic police and bandit dramas, and once again mentioned "Black Hole", "Black Ice", "Conquest" and the classic villains created by Chen Daoming, Wang Zhiwen and Sun Honglei, and couldn't wait to include Gao Qiqiang in this classic sequence. Due to the similar theme, the anti-corruption drama "In the Name of the People" returned to the Douban popular film and television list after five years.
More than 20 years ago, when Xu Jizhou was in college, he wrote several movie scripts and submitted them to some film and television companies, and Gao Qunshu came to him after seeing them, saying that these scripts could not be made now. Then took him to the public security bureau for an interview and told him, if you can write a script, let you shoot it. Xu Jizhou entered the industry from this, and it was his favorite police and bandit film theme from the beginning. He was in his junior year that year.
At that time, only TV stations could make TV dramas, and they went to the Public Security Bureau to interview, and the Public Security Bureau treated them as TV station people, actively cooperated, and told a lot of stories. The first case Xu Jizhou interviewed was a couple who had an awkward fight, and the man killed the woman and built it into the wall. At that time, the procedures for meeting a death row prisoner were much simpler than now, and he had seen a death row prisoner, who had eaten well in prison, and had an attitude of indifference, which made him deeply feel the difference in human nature.
Police drama is Xu Jizhou's complex, and the skills he learned when he entered the industry came from this field. Gao Qunshu, who studied journalism, influenced Xu Jizhou's perspective on society, allowing him to view all living beings from a more objective and macroscopic perspective. Now filming "Crazy", Xu Jizhou is most pleased that he can finally use the skills he has learned, and the success of this drama is essentially just "everything returns to the original tradition." ”
Of course, 20 years later, some more modern techniques have also appeared in domestic dramas. For example, the structure of the three units of "Crazy" is like the three-season continuous broadcast of American dramas. Each unit revolves around a core event, resulting in a clear structure and a tight plot. As a veteran TV series creator, Xu Jizhou has always felt that twelve or three episodes is a reasonable length of a story, and once it reaches thirty or forty episodes, it is easy to get tired in the middle because the relationship between all the characters is exhausted. This time, his solution was to open the time dimension, make the drama concentration particularly high within each unit, overcome the weakness of the plot, and the convincing performance of the actors successfully weakened the sense of illusion that strong drama could cause.
In previous years, a large amount of capital began to enter the film and television industry, bringing resources while accelerating the pace of production of cultural products, such an environment once made Xu Jizhou feel depressed. From buying the copyright to filming it, and then modifying it to passing, the whole process made him exhausted, unable to express himself, and after the broadcast, he was scolded again, and his heart was depressed. "This time we have such an opportunity to take out the original craftsmanship, vividly show it to everyone, and make a full table again, without having to make fast food, we are also very happy." He told China Newsweek.
For Xu Jizhou and all the main creators, the emergence of "Crazy" is the result of the needs of the times to eliminate gangsters and evil, the market demands of police and bandit films and their life experience, which can be described as the right time and place. Xu Jizhou feels that such dramas may not necessarily achieve large-scale and mass production. However, the birth of "Crazy" in this Spring Festival has rekindled people's confidence in domestic dramas. The moving performances are still there, the traditional craftsmanship is still there, the serious authors and the discerning audience are still there, as long as the space is large enough, you can go crazy.
Published in the 1079th issue of China Newsweek magazine on February 13, 2023
Magazine title: The birth of "Crazy": a return to traditional craftsmanship
Reporter: Ni Wei, Tong Xizhong
!["Come on! Programmer" premiered, the characters are interesting, the story is dense, and it is a high-quality drama[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)