"Starfall into Sugar" broke 10,000 in 7 days: the victory of subversive characters and light comedy elements|Interview with director Zhu Ruibin

Author| forsythia

As the finale of the "Honey Trilogy", "Starfall into Sugar" ushered in the VIP finale today, with a score of 7.4 on Douban, and since its broadcast, it has covered the top 1 popularity of major data platforms, and the popularity of Youku has exceeded 10,000 for seven consecutive days, and has been translated into more than ten small language subtitles such as French, Polish, Italian, and Spanish, and has been launched simultaneously.

This also marks that domestic costume dramas have entered a new circle outside Southeast Asia.

The beautiful and dreamy mythological aesthetics, the classic drama bridge of the sisters' "wrong marriage", the multiple growth lines of the characters and the whimsical light joy opening method all make "Starfall into Sugar" firmly step on the aesthetic point of the current audience.

Director Zhu Ruibin, who has directed the "Honey Trilogy" in a row, said that the three dramas "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost", "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney" and "Starfall into Sugar" are not too unrelated in terms of story, and the common core is rich emotional expression. For the most comedy "Starfall into Sugar", the cheerful funny bridge even steals the limelight of some love elements, but if you can make everyone forget a lot of unhappy things, this "pressure reliever" will also play its due role.

In fact, under the paving of the return of the momentum of costume dramas and the blossoming of many places last year, such a bold attempt and genre integration came just right for fairy tale dramas that urgently need new breakthroughs and new situations.

The wonderful collision of the new fairy character and 95 raw flowers

In the "double heroine" world view of "Starfall Condensed into Sugar", Aoi Leaving Light and Night Away are a pair of twin sisters of the Terran race, and her sister Aoi is gentle and kind, and is registered as a heavenly concubine by the God Race; Her younger sister Ye Tan, who attracted criticism because she was called a "disaster star", was suppressed by her father, so she was determined to go to the Shen Abyss Realm to do the most fierce evil since she was a child. Under the mistake of yin and yang, the twin sisters were mistakenly changed, Ye Shu and the Celestial Realm Xuanshang Jun became a couple, and Qingkui entered the Abyss Realm and fell in love with the mocking wind, and the two pairs of CPs experienced twists and turns, and finally figured it out.

When Li Randi appeared in the first episode with purple eyeliner and evil speech, we realized that the heroine in "Starfall into Sugar" is not a conventional "little white rabbit" heroine, compared to the rebellious consciousness that Yozumi was forced out of after being treated unfairly, her sister Qingkui has some well-protected innocence and the light of universal beings, and when the plot brings the tense relationship between Yozumi and her father to the surface, it also clears the heroine's mental journey of being wronged.

In the view of Zhu Ruibin, the director of "Starfall into Sugar", if you do not consider that this is a costume drama, substituted into a modern big family, teenage girls who have not been treated by their father since childhood will have a somewhat rebellious personality, but that is not bad, just like the night in the play, the initial mentality of doing many outrageous things is just to attract the attention of the father.

"The kind of 'bad' on the surface of the night in the play is actually a kind of rebellious psychology, she is actually a cute little sister who is a little lively and romantic, and her heart hides a lot of feelings and longings in it, among which she wants to attract her father's attention and care. Like in the first episode, she let her slowly pretend to be her father and scold his father in bed, at first it was a joke, as if she was angry, and then the more she said it, the more she substituted her true feelings in it, which made people feel empathy. We want the audience to know that the heroine has feelings for her father. Zhu Ruibin said.

Although "Starfall Condensed into Sugar" abandons the fairy tale drama structure of "Three Lives and Three Lives", the space and plot richness of the actors' interpretation of roles have not weakened, and the starring actors of "Starfall Condensed into Sugar" Chen Xingxu and Li Randi are both post-95s and graduated from Chinese opera. In addition to Li Randi's subversive performance in the play, Chen Xingxu also has a difficult role of "one person playing the five corners" in the play.

Xuan Shangjun is also a young master with a piano who is desperate, and the three pieces of divine consciousness he conjures represent the different desires of Yetan, which are "spicy eyes" who are hot in appearance and pure in heart, "heartless" who regard money as life, and "smell people" who are prodigal scholars who are merciful everywhere. In the process of the confrontation between Ye Tan and the three pieces of divine consciousness, the common growth and emotional establishment of the two were formed. "When he returns to the Celestial Realm after the sacrifice of the three pieces of divine consciousness, Xuan Shang is also difficult to do, he enforces the law impartially when facing the Heavenly Emperor, and he is very affectionate when facing the Night Tan."

In Zhu Ruibin's view, the performances of the two leading actors have borne this test, and the delicate and accurate performances they dedicate in this drama have indeed won a lot of appreciation from the audience who are demanding of fairy tale dramas, "Xingxu and Randy are both child stars, I talked to them about the script and the role, and found that they are very professional, unlike very young actors, they are very experienced, and their understanding of the role is particularly clear, and Randy himself is very familiar with Xingxu, and the relationship is also very good, it is easier to communicate how to add small details to it, There is good interaction when shooting. ”

"Xuan Shang grew up alone in the Xuan Realm since he was a child, and he had to bear a lot of responsibility, so he didn't know how to communicate with others at first, and he had a feeling of autism. Xingxu himself did a lot of homework, joined the group very early, he has enough time to study the script and characters, he also put forward a lot of ideas, I also gave him some reference films, try to ask him to do each different role in addition to the model, just look at the rhythm of the performance and the way of speech can know who this person is, I think the effect is also obvious and very good now. Zhu Ruibin explained.

In addition to the main CP of the male and female protagonists, the deputy CP line in this play is also particularly popular, once in order to compete for the mockery of the storage organ and Qingkui's "big bad wolf and little white rabbit" combination is also a classic match, the two have experienced the process of love, lies, betrayal and ice breaking, the emotional concentration is not lost to the main CP, newcomers Chen Muchi and He Xuanlin have also received widespread attention, and many netizens have begun to actively formulate the next role for them. Zhu Ruibin frankly said that he did not expect that this pair of CPs would be hot, but the "sense of contrast" between the appearance and the inner world and the feeling of mutual understanding are what he wants to put into these pairs of CPs.

Nonsensical comedy elements in the "god and demon opposition" pattern

In terms of shaping the worldview, "Starfall into Sugar" adheres to the common pattern of fairy tale dramas, divided into four worlds of heaven, man, beast, and abyss, and the opposition between gods and demons and the repulsion of beliefs will eventually lead to extremely destructive disputes, and the "twin flowers" sisterhood and physical interconnection between the two heroines make everything more connected. It is not uncommon to write in a relatively serious and hierarchical four-boundary box, and "Starfall into Sugar" is sometimes exaggerated and sometimes improvised with a comedy that is more special.

Whether it is the male protagonist Xuan Shangjun's naïve and cute character that breaks the convention, the spicy red-haired appearance or the strange behavior of picking up money and coins in the dung pit without money, or the funny guard Gu Haichao around the mocking wind, the jumping bird clan around Yedu is slow, and they all exude nonsensical "laughter" fruits at any time, adding a touch of joy to the tense or romantic atmosphere of the plot.

Zhu Ruibin said that capturing the actors' natural and comfortable performances and creating a cheerful atmosphere is the key to this type of scene, "Like the scene where the sisters carved the call, they accidentally really engraved, it was a painful feeling, I put all the shots that were originally NG into it, I said there was no need to act, it was really natural, and the performance was not so good." ”

In order to integrate the comedy elements of modern characteristics such as crosstalk into the romantic fairy tale drama, the director and the actors have conducted trial and error and rehearsal in many scenes in order to capture the unique rhythm of comedy, "I have always wanted to do comedy, but comedy is difficult to do, first of all, in the script to do enough, the second is that the actor's performance is very natural, in the natural state people already feel funny after watching it, rather than deliberately making people laugh." So there are many scenes that we have rehearsed no less than six or seven times, and we have been discussing what is funny and how to add it to the script, because the rhythm of comedy is very important. ”

In the field of fairy tales, the packaging maturity of the perspective effect is particularly important, and the shape collapse and five-haired special effects are the "thunder points" of fairy dramas, and the "beauty degree" is related to whether the mythological aesthetics and the fairy system are established, and whether the audience can smoothly substitute. "Starfall into Sugar" continues the aesthetics of the fairy drama of "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost", using different scenes and service Dao to distinguish the four worlds, the heavenly realm is mainly pure and light colors of pink and white, powder blue, purple-black and corset combat clothing of the abyss world is mainly dark and cool, and the people of the beast world are stretching wantonly, and the color matching of clothing is more lively and fancy, such as Dilanjue's red-white, red-black is quite exotic.

The combination of fighting, spells and special effects is also a way to achieve a strong visual scene, "This drama is a little different from the fighting of previous fairy dramas, how our fairy dramas came in the past, but in this, we will pay more attention to special weapons and actions." For example, Di Lanjue's original attribute is a wolf, he usually seems to be a cute puppy, his personality is docile and joyful, and his movements are also joyful, such as two hands on his chest, but once he fights, he is a very fierce wolf, and we will use the elements of animal archetypes in it. Zhu Ruibin said.

Zhu Ruibin has frequently produced masterpieces in the field of domestic costumes and fairy tales in recent years, he believes that innovative vision is crucial for emerging themes, "This time "Starfall into Sugar" and Youku cooperation is very pleasant, first of all, Youku gives us a very large creative space, as long as you have the courage to think, you can try to shoot. Secondly, I think Youku is ahead in the direction of creation, they provide us with a lot of new directions for creation, and at the same time let us give full play. ”

As a popular genre in the market, when it comes to the future development and advancement of fairy dramas, Zhu Ruibin believes that fairy dramas have walked on the road of beauty, refinement and gorgeousness for many years, and then they can do the opposite, try to return to the basics, and may have unexpected effects.

"In fact, I think the direction of fairy tale dramas in the future is the more simple and simple the better. I have always told the screenwriter that the audience has seen too many disputes in the four worlds, gods and demons fighting ah, and they will also feel tired, we have to go back to basics, such as when we must need stunts and spells to use, instead of relying on these a lot, the general direction is to be closer to life, a little simpler, don't emphasize too much gorgeous things. ”

And trying to shoot comedy is also Zhu Ruibin's idea since before "Starfall into Sugar", and the chemical reaction caused by the collision with different themes makes him excited, "Comedy stuff I think I will continue to try, but to find the right book, because just star sugar is very suitable, you can add these elements, you have achieved the current effect, and if you want to find the right drama and characters later, you can continue to explore this type of style." ”