February 10, 2023 | Total Issue 3143
Directed by Niu Boyou and Lin Hongguang, Yin Tao, Liu Yihao, Ren Chong, Wang Yuanke, Shi Shi and other starring women's life drama "Dazzling You" has recently been broadcast. With its vivid and interesting painting style and realistic perspective, this drama quickly exceeded 7,000 in popularity after iQiyi was launched, capturing the "hearts" of many audiences.
The story revolves around three urban women with different occupations and different personalities. At the beginning, Kang Ziyu, played by Yin Tao, and his best friend Lin Qianyu (played by Shi Shi) made a mess of her ex-husband's wedding, and Kang Ziyu broke the dress of his bride Meng Yushan (played by Wang Yuanke), and was proposed in public...
With the humorous scene of grabbing a horse and dying, the lives of the three women are also intertwined.
Group portraits of women have long become the theme of the red sea, and the audience's shaping of women's independence and middle-aged plight has gradually fallen into aesthetic fatigue. "Dazzling You" puts aside age anxiety, cuts from emotional relationships, and explores women's self-awareness and cognition, which is a novel attempt and a new solution to women's issues.
In this regard, the film and television monologue exclusively talked to Tan Junping, the chief producer of "Dazzling You", and listened to her tell her many experiences in the production of female group portrait dramas.
Multiple manifestations of the female self
In recent years, most middle-aged women in domestic dramas have been wrapped in marriage anxiety and career crises, and under the homogeneous narrative, middle-aged women's personalities are difficult to find. "Dazzling You" opens up a different way, refocusing on the relaxed and light life aspects of middle-aged women, so that more audiences can gain insight into the different moods of middle-aged women from their personalities.
"A thousand people and thousands of faces" is the meaning of women's narrative. Tan Junping said frankly that even under the same age group, different growth circumstances and values, everyone's self-pursuit and life resistance to overcome are different. In "Dazzling You", the growth arc of the three heroines symbolizes three paths of female awakening seeking self-identity.
Yasuko is a single mother, but insists on herself, does not easily compromise with marriage, and eventually meets her spiritual partner; Lin Qianyu broke the family cage and gradually realized the value of independence; Meng Yushan, who suffered deeply from her native family, learned to let go of her defenses and reconcile with herself under the guidance of her relatives and friends...
This drama tries to break through conventional thinking and care for more diverse women's situations. Women in similar situations can also gain substitution and inspiration when they see the swaying and firmness of the people in the play in front of the waves.
"Dazzling You" presents women's issues not only as a simple listing, but also with serious issues into the daily life of the characters, and portrays the emotional reactions and psychological states of middle-aged women in common dilemmas. Xia Ling (played by Zhang Shu) was panicked and cramped in public after giving birth, and Lin Qianyu was beaten by her husband but did not dare to do injury identification because of fear, all of which shocked the audience and sighed a lot.
Tan Junping said that postpartum repair and domestic violence are the most common post-marital worries that middle-aged women encounter and are most difficult to talk to outsiders, but the public opinion environment is always harsher on women.
"We hope that through the resolution of the plight of the characters in the play, we will give more women the awareness of self-protection and the courage to speak out."
Just as Yasuko justified postpartum physiotherapy in her live broadcast, trauma healing begins with facing trauma. Whether it is physical distress or the death of the original family, "Dazzling You" turns hidden topics into creative themes, broadening the expression space of women's dramas.
Although the plot has no lack of realistic pain points, the style tone of "Dazzling You" is not heavy.
"Rabbits don't eat nest grass!" "There is grass on the edge of the nest, why run around?" Similar witty lines are all over the play, and humorous and interesting interpersonal exchanges activate the relaxation and pyrotechnics of life, and relax the tense nerves of urban audiences.
Tan Junping bluntly said that this drama set the tone of light comedy when it was prepared, and tried to restore the original appearance of life with a feminine painting style when filming and production. "The actors will also adapt to the script for secondary creation on the spot, making the dialogue more natural and more raw-edged."
The sincere undertone of women's relationships
The relationship between women in film and television works is often male-centric, and female friendship is easily dissolved by sudden men. But women tend to have more diverse ways of connecting in reality.
"Dazzling You" allows the audience to see more possibilities for women's relationships. In the play, Meng Yushan is the current wife of Kang Ziyu's ex-husband, and the two have always got along calmly, without saber rattling and mutual suspicion, and even gradually got closer because of Connie's existence.
Tan Junping bluntly said that the inspiration for the project of "Dazzling You" came from his imagination of women's mutual aid.
"Who says women can't help women? The relationship between the former and the current is not necessarily full of swords. Women have stronger susceptibility and empathy, Kang Ziyou and Meng Yushan are willing to think about each other's situation and take the initiative to solve each other's problems, "Sincerity and kindness are the keys to opening the door to emotions, and they can also make seemingly impossible relationships bloom with infinite possibilities." ”
Not only is the same-sex friendship background warm, but the unusual love line of "Dazzling You" also makes many audiences feel healed.
Love is a scarcity for middle-aged women, and the fast pace of life makes people pay more attention to the emotional value and spiritual companionship of their partners, so the "sister dog CP" that puts aside secular prejudices in film and television dramas is becoming more and more popular. "Dazzling You" also has a boyfriend in the year.
Nie Yunze (played by Liu Yihao), who has an outstanding career, uses the delicacy and respect of daily life to smooth out the loneliness in Kang Ziyu's heart; Yu Ao (played by Duan Xingxing) creates romance in the art museum and heals Lin Qianyu's bitterness of being mistreated by her husband. Their heart-warming waiting evoked the girlish hearts of many female audiences.
When it comes to the love model of middle-aged women, Tan Junping bluntly said that everyone loves to watch the "sister dog" CP, not just curious about the intergenerational collision caused by the age gap, but also likes the spiritual insight and care of women by their boyfriends.
"Yasukoyu, who married and divorced when she was young, is very representative, and many women pursue the realization of self-worth and neglect the study of intimate relationships, so it is difficult for her to spark with men who are as addicted to career as she is." Nie Yunze's meticulousness can complement Yasu Ziyu's "external strength and middle dry", and love can take root and germinate in the run-in day after day.
Whether it's same-sex mutual aid or opposite-sex attraction, the innovation of emotional relationships in "Dazzling You" shows the production team's keen insight into social psychology.
Tan Junping said that from project proposition, script control, shooting to post-production, each link must cross different difficulties. Realistic texture cannot be deliberately created. When the script's depiction of women's sufferings and pleasures is full enough, and the actors' substitution into life is flexible enough, the vivid group portraits and stories in the lens can naturally take shape.
Women's group dramas endure because we always need works from a female perspective that pay attention to the gender dilemma that is easily overlooked in reality. "Dazzling You"'s exploration of women's self and heart is a small step in the intention of breaking through, and it is also a big step in the innovation of genre dramas.
【Text/Kwai Chung】