Author| fig
2022 is a mixed year for domestic dramas, the first half of the year fell into "difficulty in starting" due to the epidemic, and the number of dramas started was greatly reduced, which made many people feel worried. At the same time, the self-made dramas of iYoutengmang + B station began to cultivate and achieve initial results, in the era of short videos grabbing users' attention, various parent video platforms used ways to reduce costs and increase efficiency, shorten the number of episodes, high-quality production, develop core user rights, enable powerful actors, tap pendant IPs and other ways to supplement new energy and find new opportunities.
Xinli Media, Noon Sun, Ningmeng and other first-tier production companies have also experienced several different stages from TV stations to the era of netizens, with the renewal of audiences and audiovisual carriers, they have also to go through the independent period of groping, the establishment of style and the painful period of transformation, and finally the exploration and innovation of the diversification of dramas, and the strict control of the quality of major dramas have established their leading position in the industry. At this time, the rise of rookie companies such as White Space, Five Yuan, Pupil Alliance, and Stellar Gravity has also revitalized the market.
Compared with previous years, the realistic theme works in 2022 are not limited to the era and family, but are broadened to units, science fiction, public prosecution law, rural revitalization, sports themes, etc., which are not only closely linked to the elements of the times, but also closely related to people's desire for realistic themes in recent years. The number of high-scoring works in various theme dramas has increased, and ancient puppet dramas have also ushered in a new level, becoming "popular" players alongside suspense dramas. At the same time, companies are still actively laying out short dramas, and a younger context and entry point have become the magic key to unlock new users.
In this regard, entertainment unicorn has refined the 7 keywords of domestic dramas in 2022, and analyzed the significance and enlightenment of this year of crisis and opportunity for domestic dramas.
Keyword 1: realistic dramas
At the beginning of 2022, a "The World" unified the aesthetics of audiences of all ages, and received TOP1 results in Yunhe, Detaven and other lists, with 4.76 billion effective views of the feature film, and its influence, award content and long-tail effect can be called the most dramas in 2022. The solid and watchable script, delicate and realistic shooting style and performance have allowed "The World" to conquer audiences from the post-60s to the post-00s.
The reason why "The World" can achieve such a high degree of unified attention is that it is not a realistic theme in the traditional sense, but under the background of the development of the times, it incorporates a very universal emotional portrayal, bringing a strong sense of substitution and emotional resonance to the audience in front of the TV. From "The World", we can also see that the reality dramas in 2022 have richer, more diverse and more accurate pursuits in terms of theme and expression.
The four main theme dramas of "Our Decade", "County Party Committee Compound", "Big Exam" and "The Bottom Line" were broadcast in the second half of the year, and the stories of the people told in the big era, high-quality main theme dramas have become an inevitable trend; "Happiness to Ten Thousand Homes", "Daughter of the Mountain" and "Mountains and Rivers" and other "poverty alleviation" dramas have achieved phased success through the strong dissemination of CCTV; At the same time, "Dear Child", which focuses on broken families, and the entrepreneurial drama "Wind Blows Half Summer" from a new perspective also take into account the preferences of the audience on the Taiwan network.
Under the influence of "Qinglang Action", the traffic bubble gradually faded, the audience's appeal for realism and acting was unprecedentedly high, and serious dramas moved forward steadily; The careful adaptation of pure literary works and the discussion between powerful actors have become the "foundation" of new realist dramas. From "Parental Love", "White Deer Plain", "Ordinary World" to "Great Rivers", "Mountains and Seas", "The World", and then to a number of "explosive bookings" with heavy themes in 2023, "Dragon City", "Ordinary Road", "Life Luyao", "Protagonist" and other dramas have not been broadcast first, the head status of realistic dramas is self-evident.
Keyword 2: Drama company ups and downs
In 2022, there are new changes in domestic TV series production companies.
Among the established film and television companies, although most of them are trying to diversify with their past content accumulation and production capabilities, their performance is uneven. Judging from the achievements of the past year, Xinli Media and Ningmeng Film performed relatively prominently.
Xinli completes various types of KPIs with quality and quantity, and still takes the public route, with the period drama "The World", the costume drama "Qingqing Daily", and the urban drama "War of the Roses" each have fans, with fewer vertical small circles, and Douban 8-point dramas account for two. Among them, the costume suspense drama "Fengqi Longxi" is a new attempt by Xinli. After the listing of Ningmeng Pictures, it continued to make efforts in the field of modern dramas, suspense and urbanism, "Crime Hunting Guide" and the ice and snow sports theme "Beyond" played a similar theme of differentiation, 12 episodes of the short drama "Coward" after the launch of the whole drama exceeded 7 points, currently Ningmeng only costume dramas are temporarily vacant.
In the past, the noon sun, known as the "face of the national drama", performed poorly in 2022, the three dramas "Meet the Season", "Ode to Joy 3" and "Welcome" were not as expected, relying on the "Beginning" and "County Party Committee Compound" at the beginning and end of the year to win back the reputation, the increase in the number of episodes seems to have pulled down the score for the noon sun as a whole, but the 12-episode short drama "The Beginning" has become the biggest highlight.
The "first strand of TV series" Huace Film and Television will launch the most dramas in 2022, but in addition to "Our Decade", most of them are mainly light idol dramas, focusing on the young market, among which "Acquaintance with Jun Chu, Just Like the Return of the Dead" has more outstanding results. The long-established production company Ciwen has shown signs of falling behind this year, with a small number of episodes and a lack of works that can be played. The former "big six" first-line production company pattern will be transformed into the "new three" in 2022, and Xinli, Ningmeng and Noon Sunshine will become the leaders among the established companies.
Among other large companies, Perfect World's "Rock Crazy Flower" has found a new way to cut in; Yaoke Media's "Special Combat Glory" "Are You Safe? The performance is remarkable, and the strength of the circle still needs to be improved; In the past, Huanyu film and television, which was easy to conquer young audiences, will not see a hit in 2022, and the two food-themed dramas "Shang Food" and "Treasure Food" are both small and medium-sized volumes. On the contrary, Changxin Media's entry into the field of online dramas "Tang Dynasty Tricks" has become a dark horse in costume dramas, and the wonderful visual effects and fight scenes have added a lot of points to it.
And the competition of several rookie companies in 2022 is also continuing, and the stellar gravity that has produced the high-reputation workplace drama "Strange You Are Too Beautiful" has an ancient puppet masterpiece "Canglan Recipe", Pupil Alliance's "Big Exam" and "Basic Law of Genius", Xinguang's "Star Han Splendid", Wuyuan's "Fangxin Ripple", Xixi's "And Try the World" are all emerging in the market. Among them, "Canglan Tips" and "Star Han Splendid" also occupy the top ten of the annual major lists.
Compared with the established production companies, these rookie companies have a short establishment time, currently have limited production capacity, and although individual projects have outstanding performance, they are more concentrated on the pendant track that they are good at. Whether these emerging film and television companies can try more diversified themes as they cross the "comfort zone" is also the focus of attention in the future.
Keyword three: Douban high-scoring drama
According to statistics, the increase in Douban high-scoring dramas in 2022 reflects the improvement of the self-control ability of major production companies and iYouteng, according to the Douban announced by the Top10 highest-rated Chinese dramas in 2022, we see three trends:
First of all, the reality theme is more diverse. In addition to "The World" to ensure the level of realistic dramas, suspense dramas and criminal investigation dramas, "Police Honor" and "Opponent" have done a good job in terms of breakthroughs at the script level, the shaping of typical characters and the extreme of genre. With the rise of the main theme drama, the theme of rural revitalization and entrepreneurship has also broken through, "Happiness to Ten Thousand Homes" and "Wind Blowing Half Summer" take women's struggle as the theme, reaping the double harvest of popularity and word of mouth.
Second, the theme of ancient puppets is upgrading. Judging from the three ancient puppet dramas "Menghualu", "Canglan Tips" and "Qingqing's Daily" that take into account data, word of mouth and star pushing power, compared with the past, this year's such themes bid farewell to the creative formula of sugar-sprinkling routines, and opened up a new way to ink from women's topics, visual effects, female group portraits, etc., becoming a sharp tool for fans.
Third, innovative themes are beginning to be recognized. Whether it is the rise of high-concept short dramas such as "Time Loop" and "Infinite Flow" represented by "The Beginning", or the theme innovation that integrates history into suspense and spy warfare like "Fengqi Longxi", or "Sanyue Has a New Job" plays new tricks in workplace dramas, many genre dramas have presented a more boutique, covering a richer and layered state, while contributing to the user of video websites.
Keyword 4: Web novel IP adaptation
Once upon a time, there was a decoupling between "web novel IP adaptation" and audience recognition, but with the increase of high-reputation online literary IP adaptations in recent years, related genres are ushering in a new level.
Among female IP IP, the performance of dramas such as "Canglan Tips", "Qing Qing's Daily" and "Star Han Splendid" in the past year exceeded expectations, which boosted female IP dramas a lot. Although male IP is subject to the difficulty of adaptation, the overall number needs to be improved compared with female frequency, but its acceptance and recognition in the downstream market audience is constantly improving. "Sword in the Snow" has revitalized martial arts dramas that have not been new for a long time, and its views on Tencent Video exceeded 7 billion in the middle of last year; Youku's "My Name is Zhao Jiadi" also once did not rely on the star lineup to achieve a rise in popularity, and its legendary attributes and inspirational colors are particularly attractive to sinking users.
It is worth noting that compared with the phenomenon of excessive superstitious IP and magic IP reform in the industry and platforms in previous years, it has improved in the past two years. Under the premise of high-quality creation in the industry, the number and quality of online literary IP adapted dramas will gradually increase in the future. Judging from the current film list released by various families, IP adaptations such as "Qing Yu Nian 2", "Da Fengda Ren", "With Fengxing" and "Sauvignon Blanc" in the coming year are also worth looking forward to.
Keyword 5: urban beauty
As a "Changsheng General" of satellite TV ratings, it is also a big theme, high-quality urban dramas are definitely one of the "killers" of TV drama production companies, the urban emotional theme in 2022 is very lively, "War of the Roses" and "Welcome" tell about the career and love of 30+ sisters, "Please Call Me Director" and "Twenty Not Confused 2" focus on the breakthrough battle of potential newcomers in the workplace. Being able to do a good job and make a solid audience can reach the characters and stories, which further tests the comprehensive strength of the production company, and the annual upgrading of scripts, characters, performances, and scenes is essential.
The innovation of today's urban emotional dramas lies in the "anti-routine" and grounding, workplace scenes combined with current events, the high-resonance of the "middle-female war", and the male and female protagonists supporting each other and making common progress instead of the "hegemonic male protagonist".
Xinli and Ningmeng are the leaders in the industry's leading industry, "Twenty Not Confused 2" and "Please Call Me Director" are outstanding, and "Twenty Not Confused 2" is a rare case of surpassing the previous work in the N generation of the drama. "Please Call Me Director" connects elements such as workplace, entrepreneurship, and growth with emotions, and has also been recognized by the audience at both ends of the network.
"Brother and brother love" is still a common element in urban dramas, and there are sibling loves in 2022's "We Who Will Not Fall in Love", "Blazing Road", "Heart Ripple", "Rock Crazy Flower" and "The Twenty-Eight Laws of Love", but there are not many works that can break the conventional mode of "overbearing sister and milk dog" and make new ideas; Dramas involving "marriage" are not as sought-after in 2022 as in previous years, whether it is marriage, marriage urging, marriage change or second marriage, it seems that they cannot arouse much interest from the audience, and dramas such as "Our Marriage", "Two Conjectures of Marriage" and "Wife's Choice" have not performed as expected. And workplace dramas such as Wuyuan Culture's "Dress", due to the strong lag of the plot relative to the times, did not achieve the desired effect.
But in any case, the story of urban beauty continues, and modern dramas still need to explore a variety of angles and solutions on the basis of emotions, workplaces, and women's independence.
Keyword 6: suspense picks up
In 2020, the Mist Theater opened by iQiyi set off the first round of suspense dramas, and several high-reputation suspense dramas such as "Hidden Corner", "Silent Truth" and "Skyscraper" were popular all over the Internet, quickly erecting suspense labels on various platforms. The suspense drama in 2021 encountered a trough, and the highly anticipated "Octagonal Pavilion Fog", "Who is the Murderer" and "Gold Rush" did not receive due feedback. Just when people began to question that the spring of suspense dramas was too short, in 2022, the thriving suspense dramas have shown signs of warming up.
Overall, suspense dramas have come to 2022, which is not just a competition between special characters and brain-burning cases, but inseparable from "visual impact". "The Beginning" is a suspense + time loop + road film, "Coward" is a double time and space line + painful youth, and "Daughter Back" mixes family elements with a thriller atmosphere. The three dramas have still gained high popularity on the site or on the whole platform when they are all exclusive to members of the video platform.
Adapted from Ma Boyong's work, "Fengqi Longxi" filmed a new feeling of costume spy warfare, and the Douban score reached 8.1. The addition of film director Lu Yang has brought innovation in narrative logic and lens logic, making the overall texture of the series to a higher level, and the attention to lens, the extension of characters in historical gaps and the atmosphere of suspense all the time affect the audience's heart eager to solve puzzles. "Tang Dynasty Mystery Record" quickly came out of the circle after it was broadcast, the series used Di Renjie IP, fantasy, and Chi Wei to arouse the audience's interest, and then used thrilling bizarre cases and realistic monsters to bring surprises, before such works appeared in online movies, for online drama audiences are still quite fresh.
Suspense dramas of various types have unknowingly broadened the boundaries of dramas, allowing the audience to watch "cool", and being able to "worth the ticket price" is a new path for genre warming up and upgrading.
Keyword 7: short drama out of the circle
Today, "episodic dehydration" is being practiced. After nearly three years of testing the water of video websites, short dramas have been shortened from 20-16 episodes to 12-15 episodes, forming a new episode stall. In 2022, a number of short dramas have attracted attention, such as "The Beginning", which opened a high-concept "time loop" at the beginning of the year, suspense dramas "Coward" and "Daughter Back", as well as short dramas such as "Fangxin" and "Sanyue Has a New Job" with urban themes have all made new breakthroughs in popularity, word of mouth or genre.
Among them, Station B's "Sanyue Has a New Job" also reached 8.4 points on Douban, and the post-90s context has become a modern drama opening method that netizens are keen on. Compared with long dramas that require a large block of time to digest, the characteristics of short dramas such as rapid start and turn, easy-to-spread golden sentences and famous scenes strengthen interactivity, and the "cinematic sense" of human nature in a short period of time can arouse adrenaline, all of which enhance the appeal to young users.
In the drama in 2023, "Apocalypse in Dressing" directed by Li Mo, director of "I'm Very Good in Another Country", "Da Song Youth Zhi 2" written by Wang Wei and "Daming under the Microscope" produced by iQiyi and written by Ma Boyong are all 12-14 episodes. At present, the production of short dramas is still in the beginning, and excellent works are still scarce, but from the existing cases, a blockbuster short drama is very profitable for video websites, and it is also conducive to unlocking multiple models of membership rights, which is also a great opportunity for production companies to show their talents.
In the past few years, the film and television industry has experienced a cold winter period of not a short time, from upstream film and television bases, video platforms, production companies to downstream drama publicity, marketing companies are affected to varying degrees, but the once shrinking market has not allowed users to relax their requirements for dramas, and long-term home life has made everyone's demand for boutique dramas higher.
In the case of "short and fast" vertical screen short dramas produced by Douyin and Kuaishou mushrooming and low-cost sweet pet dramas everywhere, it is also very valuable for first-tier drama production companies such as Xinli, Lemon Meng, and Noon Sunshine to lock the audience in front of the TV with more textured content. In 2023, the inventory of major first- and second-tier drama companies will still be rich, and the coming year will still be a confrontation between traditional and new themes, and who can go to the next city will definitely be a major event that attracts the attention of the whole industry.