When it comes to the hottest national film and television couples in recent years, Song Jia and Wang Yang are definitely the most representative group.
In the Chinese drama "The World", the two played Zhou Rong and Cai Xiaoguang, Cai Xiaoguang loved Zhou Rong bitterly for decades, and people only came together in middle age. The "Rong Guang" couple has also become a screen classic in the hearts of many people in one fell swoop.
And just two years after their last collaboration, the old pair's collaboration continues.
This time, the direction of their roles is just the opposite of the last time, the opening scene is a loving couple that everyone envies, and the finale ends in divorce.
During this period, he also experienced various cold wars, quarrels, cups, and dreams in the same bed, showing the exhaustion and secret war in marriage.
From falling in love to killing each other, the emotional changes of this group of CPs are interesting, and it seems like another ending of "The World".
This new drama is Feng Xiaogang's first entry into a suspense drama - "Echo".
Well, it's iQiyi's "Theater of the Mist" again.
Remember the shock that "Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" brought to us that year?
Directly pull the level of domestic suspense dramas to the ceiling, so that in the past three years, every new drama of the Misty Theater we have to pull it back and compare, and express disappointment for the latecomers.
But after two consecutive breaks in this year's Misty Theater - "Daughter Back" opened high and went low, and "Moses on the Plain" had a low reputation, this "Echo" made the audience rekindle hope.
Looking at the lineup, Feng Xiaogang really amplified his move this time. In addition to the male and female protagonists, there are Zhu Yuchen, Dong Jie, Liu Guanlin, Zhang Guoli, Xu Fan, Zhang Jiayi, and Huang Xuan.
Even if several are just cameos, this is still the top lineup of domestic suspense dramas.
Compared with the suspense drama "Who Is He" starring Zhang Yi and Ding Yongdai, it is not too much.
Sure enough, after four episodes of the premiere, the popularity soared, and it won the first place on the soaring list within an hour and a half of its launch.
Looking at the audience's comments, after the score of 4.9 in the previous "North and South", Feng Xiaogang, who urgently needs to prove himself again, finally bet on the right again.
After watching the first four episodes, one sentence evaluation: criminal investigation suspense is fascinating and intricate; Family and emotional scenes are effectively interspersed, with clear priorities; The structure is compact, the rhythm is relaxed, and the actors' acting skills are all excellent.
Especially, under the cloak of domestic suspense. What Feng Xiaogang really wanted to express was a siege of marriage.
From curiosity, to familiarity, to déjà vu to chills down the spine.
After a confrontation, Feng Xiaogang finally heard the echo this time.
01. The opening broke the scale, the story opened up a different way, and as soon as this drama was broadcast, I was immersed in the play
Different from traditional suspense dramas, "Echoes", adapted from the novel of the same name by the writer East, has novel ideas at the core of the plot.
This breakthrough is clearly reflected in the creation of the three words of suspense.
And this sense of suspense is still progressive layer by layer.
The first layer of suspense is reflected in the opening murder.
The narrative efficiency at the beginning of the series is very high. The opening goes straight to the point, without the slightest foreshadowing, less than 1 minute, the case comes.
The story unfolds from the perspective of female police officer Ran Dongdong.
The beginning is a hostage-taking case.
It was a little girl who was kidnapped. The knife wielding was vicious, refusing to communicate with the police, constantly asking the police to back down.
The heroine is ordered to rescue the girl and, if necessary, kill the criminal.
She calmly stepped forward, showed the gangsters that she had no weapons on her body, and expressed her willingness to exchange herself for hostages.
Just between the gangster and her confrontation, the colleague quickly adjusted the gangster's attention, staggered an angle by the way, and the heroine raised her hand to shoot two shots, right in the heart of the gangster.
"The hostages are safe, the gangsters are killed."
When she got home, her husband, who had just disposed of clothes, showed her a video of himself, and the whole Internet spread the scene just now. An opening, the heroine's identity, personality, and skills are all shown, and the foreshadowing of the heroine's husband's cheating is also buried.
But the real main story is just beginning -
Early morning, Xijiang, under the bridge.
A homicide scene investigation is ongoing.
The heroine played by Song Jia arrived at the scene, the police automatically pulled the guardrail, a subordinate greeted him, and the heroine quickly arrived at the scene where the body was found.
Miserable? No, the first thing that appears visually is cold.
The camera quietly stared at the salvaged female corpse, and the forensic doctor quietly pulled away the hair of the female deceased who was covered by the dirt in the river, even if she experienced the immersion of the river, she could still see that the girl must have been a beauty before her death.
This opening is abrupt and cruel. The female deceased was thrown on the river, her right palm was cut off, tyrannical and cruel, and she also had a beautiful name: Xia Bingqing.
The heroine quietly stared at the face of the female deceased, the river was flat, the morning was quiet, and without this sudden death, everything would be beautiful.
Song Jia said the first line: Who did the sin.
She immediately began to ask the angler who first found the deceased, when did he start fishing here? He said it had been almost two years since he retired.
She said I was asking today. He said two points.
"Did you see suspicious people wandering around this area?" "The person hanging out in this area, that's me."
If put in other dramas, this dialogue full of Feng Xiaogang's style bull's head not to the horse's mouth will make the audience feel funny, but at this time there is only sadness.
What is even sadder is that after a forensic autopsy, it was found that the murdered Xia Bingqing, 28 years old, had no fixed occupation. The corpse had marks of a blunt object blow on the back of the head, and his right hand was cut off, but the brain was not fatally damaged, but the lungs were flooded, and the real cause of death should be drowning.
The heroine deduced from this that this beautiful girl was smashed into the river and woken up by blisters, but she did not have the strength to get up from the water and choked to death by the water one by one in a conscious state.
Cruel to the extreme.
The heroine listened without a single line during the whole process, looking straight ahead like an eagle dog. Staring at you and me off-screen.
For her, it was the first step in a lengthy investigation.
For the audience.
This is just the first act of entering the puzzle -
The question is, why did the murderer cut off his right hand? Why did the murderer commit the murder?
And this is only the first suspense point set by the series.
The second layer of suspense is reflected through the investigation process of Xia Bingqing's death.
According to Xia Bingqing's last short message record before his death, the police quickly locked up the first number one suspect, Xu Shanchuan (played by Zhu Yuchen).
In order to pay back the family, the relationship between the female deceased and this Xu Shanchuan is not only a lover, but also a lover with a contractual relationship.
However, during the interrogation, the middle-aged man who looked experienced refused to admit that he had anything to do with the female deceased at first, until the heroine coldly threw out a short message.
He quickly admitted that the girl took the initiative to pester, and said that the girl had committed suicide before she died, in short, her death had nothing to do with herself.
When the words cover the words and the story overturns the other version of the story, you find that the characters' words have deadly mysteries.
The murder case about how Xia Bingqing died and why he died began to become a complex and enhanced version of "Rashomon".
From here, Xia Bingqing's lover Xu Shanchuan, Xu Shanchuan's wife Shen Xiaoying, who was threatened by Xia Bingqing, Xia Bingqing's friend Wu Wenchao, Xu Shanchuan's nephew Xu Haitao, Wu Wenchao's classmate Liu Qing, Liu Qing's low-level poet Yi Chunyang, multiple criminal suspects will surface one after another.
In the face of interrogation, no one admitted that they killed Xia Bingqing, but the murderer was among them, who exactly killed Xia Bingqing?
This is the second most suspenseful point of the main creative design.
The third layer of suspense lies in how the heroine sees through the Rashomon of Xia Bingqing's death.
The true murderer of the murder by the waterside is the "big plot" that runs through the entire drama, and it is the key to the story laying out and structural tension.
The problem is that the river has drowned out all the evidence, and to find out the truth, you can only find a breakthrough in people.
In simple terms, the heroine must find out: who is lying?
The deadlock for the interrogation was Xia Bingqing's trusted friend Wu Wenchao, and between Bao Bell's desire to play this role, the heroine gradually learned the story of this corpse, a living Xia Bingqing.
She was violated by Xu Shanchuan, but chose not to call the police, but to accept the man's support, and she even asked Wu Wenchao to help her ascend to the top.
Xu Shanchuan asked his nephew Xu Haitao to make a plan, wanting Xia Bingqing to disappear by his side. But just hope she disappears, not kills.
So the question arises: who killed the beauty?
In this domino-like story, Xia Bingqing's lover Xu Shanchuan, Xu Shanchuan's wife Shen Xiaoying, Liu Qing, Shao Tianwei, etc., who were implicated in the incident, each has their own narrative, but what is said is a modified memory.
If you want to make a garment, it is to sew the cut fabric tightly and seamlessly.
Then the narrative of each suspect in the play is part of the material.
Only through the continuous investigation of the female policeman Ran Dongdong can the full picture of the story be constructed.
This suspenseful plot line has also attracted countless audiences to look down.
What kind of secret will lead to Xia Bingqing's death tragedy?
From Xu Shanchuan to Xu Haitao, to Wu Wenchao, to Liu Qing, to Yi Chunyang, if they killed Xia Bingqing like a drumming flower, then who completed the final blow?
A suspense game of "finding people" is fully opened.
The heroine chased and beat fiercely, but the suspect went step by step; The dead knot is constantly untied and tightened, and in the continuous unbuttoning, logical reasoning and in-depth psychological exploration unfold simultaneously, reasoning, detection, suspense, light and shadow intertwined, confusing, the story is entangled, like a hairball faintly exposed at the end of the thread, making people hate to open the fog to find out.
In just 4 episodes, not only did he throw out several suspense points in a row, but also filmed a female death Rashomon shockingly, and finally left a sharp excavation of the complexity of human nature.
The calm and unhurried plot rhythm will leave you too late to get distracted.
Cinematic camera movements and editing keep your eyes peeled.
Feng Xiaogang finally told a good story.
02, there is a sense of suspense and depth, and the family suspense line of the "Rong Guang" couple is also outstanding
However, compared with the excitement of the serial murder detection of "Who Is He" next door, if you only watch this drama with suspense, the probability will be a little unsatisfied.
At least from the 4 episodes that have come out so far, it is not like a criminal investigation drama.
Instead, under the cloak of suspense, a lot of energy was put on "people".
In addition to the main line of "Xia Bingqing's Death" full of suspense, the screenwriter also added a more daily family suspense drama line.
The focus of the series is on a middle-aged couple, Ran Dongdong and Mu Dafu played by Song Jia and Wang Yang.
If the murder case is according to the picture and the vine touches the melon, the plot pays attention to the ups and downs, and the marriage suspense line is the wind and grass, the grass snake gray line.
This part is not in a hurry to attract you with the plot.
It pursues a more immersive tingling, and the story is somatose.
In the investigation, the heroine was surprised to find that her husband was also involved.
At this time, Feng Xiaogang filmed the most powerful scene in the first four episodes: an inquiry on a couple's double bed.
The heroine asked Mudaf why he opened his room twice in the hotel under investigation, or on the same day for two months?
Wang Yang: "Opening a house is playing cards with friends."
The heroine asked him to think again.
Wang Yang: It's just playing cards, and whatever.
The heroine showed her hole card: The Xiao Hu you said was not local at all that day.
Wang Yang: That's what I remember, it's another person.
At this time, a tear quickly slipped from Song Jia's face, and she told her husband that the person he was talking about had a whole day meeting that day.
Finally, she gave her husband another chance: to turn himself in.
But Wang Yang replied angrily: I am your husband, not a suspect.
Is it really such a clear conscience?
But his dodging demeanor and reaction to persecution reveal his true psychology: restlessness, anxiety, and weakness.
And what next?
The heroine soon locked up the female writer Peizhen, whose husband was suspected of cheating, and a deep marriage crisis began.
An unexpected discovery brushed away the smooth and harmonious foam on the surface of the family.
The truth behind the marriage of the perfect couple in middle age is slowly revealing the true background.
When the heroine constantly questioned and interrogated her husband about the incident, she had already chosen not to believe it in advance. What she really wanted was nothing more than confirmation.
The husband played by Wang Yang was humiliated by being interrogated by his wife's suspect and angrily denied it.
Like any entangled "community of destiny", their bodies are actually full of suspicion.
Derailment is suspicious, like a burden that cannot be untied and lost.
At this point, the case line and the emotional line go hand in hand, and the progress of the case line continues to affect the progress of the suspense of Ran Dongdong's marriage line.
The characters on the two lines tumble inside, and the suspense is intertwined with each other, which finally constitutes an "echo".
03, all the acting skills are eye-catching, Song Jia Wang Yang performed the family drama spy war taste, Zhang Jiayi's role shocked me
After chasing four episodes, if you ask me what the direct perception is, I will say texture.
In the first 4 episodes of the series, whether it is the director's narrative, the lens editing, and the details of the service, they all exude a cinematic texture.
Another source of the texture of the series is that from the protagonist to the supporting role, all the acting skills are online.
Feng Xiaogang found a gorgeous acting lineup composed of Song Jia, Wang Yang, Zhang Jiayi, Zhang Guoli, Xu Fan, Wang Yang, Bao Bell, Huang Xuan, Zhu Yuchen, Wei Ni, etc. for the series, and played their strength.
After 4 episodes, 4 actors have performed extremely well.
The first one, the core heroine, Song Jia.
Over the years, from the spy war drama "Cliff", "Xiaoshede" to "The World", Song Jia, who has become a first-line acting actress step by step, this drama is definitely a hard bone.
The role of Ran Dongdong has both a firm professionalism and a woman's obsession with emotional life, on the one hand, the truth of the case, on the other hand, the pressure of life, Song Jia plays the multifaceted nature of the role.
In the crime investigation, she has a keen intuition, her eyes are like a torch, and the interrogation scenes are particularly exciting, and the police speak softly, but she seems to be able to see people's hearts, and a word can easily penetrate the psychological defense of the other party.
In life, a bedside inquiry scene was actually performed by two actors with the taste of a spy war drama, as if Gu Qiuyan in "Cliff" faced Chen Moqun in "Rebel".
Intelligence is comparable, chess meets opponents, Song Jia completes the emotional transformation in a few seconds, both the sharpness of an interrogator and the entanglement of his wife.
In recent years, every role played by Song Jia has not been flattering, but he can play the unflattering role every time, and this time the role is stable again.
The second place, Wang Yang.
From Teng Zijing in "Qing Yu Nian" to the drag king in "Rebel", to the white moonlight of "The World", Cheng Renqing in "Daming under the Microscope", from obscurity to the hottest gold medal supporting role, Wang Yang only took three years.
His acting skills do not move much on the surface, and the explosive acting output is not much, but each character is shaped with great precision, and every performance detail is not in vain.
This time he cooperated with Song Jia, not as a negative man, but as a white moonlight who deserted in marriage.
Mu Dafu is a well-known literary critic, but for more than ten years, he has been willing to be a garbage can for his wife's negative emotions, cooking and bringing children, without complaint or regret, as if another Cai Xiaoguang, but facing his wife's preconceived preconception of guilt.
When Wang Yang created this role, he not only played the guilt and hesitation of the character, but also showed the anger and self-esteem when facing his wife's persecution.
In particular, the bedside interrogation scene, which seems to fall behind, actually reflects strong acting skills.
The two of you enter and I retreat, and the words are swords and shadows.
A powerful person is a powerful person, and people are not convinced.
The third place, Zhu Yuchen.
This Huazi, who used to rely on "Struggle", Fang Yu of "My Youth Who Rules" jumped rapidly, and with the silence of Beijing-style urban dramas, his acting skills in recent years have really gradually improved.
The scumbag Xu Shanchuan he played in this drama is easy-going on the surface, but in fact he is ruthless.
Zhu Yuchen's performance gave the role a strong confusion, especially a scene that introduced Xia Bingqing to housing, Feng Xiaogang gave Zhu Yuchen a 2-minute long shot, he completed the whole scene non-stop, and then calmly asked Xia Bing to invite him to sign a work contract, which is actually a maintenance agreement.
Zhu Yuchen's performance is so fluid, as if everything is natural, not to mention Xia Bingqing, even the audience is confused by his performance, as if there is really nothing wrong with all this.
Acting the most despicable behavior so normal reflects the complexity of the character.
Fourth, if you are not happy, I will also tell the truth, Baobel.
Unexpectedly, Bao Bell's performance this time was very in place.
Wu Wenchao, played by him, is the person who loves Xia Bingqing the most in the whole drama, and there is no one.
Outwardly, he is always a good old man.
In the face of the goddess, he has always been a humble and adoring posture.
In the face of the police, he was always trembling.
But in a play that reveals his heart, Baubert plays the character's crime and punishment, guilt and love.
But such a seemingly harmless character also has the potential to be blackened.
It can even be said that he also "killed" a member of Xia Bingqing in this drumming flower.
Perhaps relatively pompous and funny characters, this kind of role is what Baober is really good at.
The other actors are also very good, Wu You plays Xia Bingqing, who is struggling between family difficulties and money transactions, that kind of soft beauty.
The female writer played by Dong Jie who is suspected of cheating on the male protagonist also shows the exquisite elegance of the character. Regardless of appearance or temperament, it makes the male protagonist's cheating become reasonable.
What I am most looking forward to now is the performance of Zhang Jiayi in the fifth episode, who plays the husband of a female writer who is suspected of cheating with the male protagonist.
In order to take revenge on his wife, he impulsively wanted to unbutton the heroine, but calmed down at the last moment.
Although there are few scenes, they are full of tension. Probably only Feng Xiaogang can convince this acting god to make a cameo appearance in such a role.
There is also Huang Xuan, who guest starred as an ex-boyfriend of Xia Bingqing.
I have to say that it is the brilliant performance of these good actors that makes every role in this "Echo" more vivid,
The heart-to-heart characters combined with the relaxed plot, the drama conflict is full throughout the process, and I feel that watching 4 episodes is not enjoyable.
04, the popularity of the premiere is good, the echo of the Misty Theater, Feng Xiaogang's return gun
Without the pre-emptive "Who Is He", I dare to assert that with its advanced suspense texture, "Echo" may have turned the Misty Theater around.
And now the worst case scenario for "Echo" is that it may become another "Three-Body Problem" with a good reputation, but the popularity is overshadowed by strong dramas in the same schedule.
But what Feng Xiaogang needs now is not only a word-of-mouth hit.
The era of invincibility in the film market with "Rally" and "Tangshan Earthquake" has passed, and Feng Xiaogang urgently needs a work to prove himself to the market again.
Judging from "Echo", Feng Xiaogang is still a storyteller, and the texture of the work is full of Feng Xiaogang, once he returns to familiar territory, Feng Xiaogang will not make a second "North and South".
And from this Feng Xiaogang's new drama, I also saw 2 breakthroughs in domestic suspense dramas.
First, break through the framework limitations of domestic suspense dramas.
Although the genre of suspense dramas is retained, this time "Echo" plays a new role in the plot.
In addition to a very suspenseful criminal investigation suspense line, a marriage line full of suspense is also laid.
The secret battle between the two high-ranking players in the marriage makes the full of suspense come to the face, and even makes people vaguely have the visual sense of the marriage spy war drama.
The second is an attempt at the cinematic sense of suspense dramas.
The lens of "Echo" is full of cinematic sense, such as the lens, in addition to the long shot, is to break the camera movement of most TV series, under such a sense of lens, the most direct impression of the series is tension.
The first 4 episodes, from beginning to end, not a second was wasted. The characters follow the case, and at the same time the clues tick off the characters' memories, and the two main lines are interspersed with each other, giving people a sense of high-quality suspense.
And that's exactly the antidote that the Theater of the Mist needs.
In addition to two blockbusters in recent years,
Almost all other "foggy" dramas are considered to be successful, especially "Octagonal Pavilion Fog" produced by Wang Xiaoshuai and "Moses on the Plain" starring Haiqing in the last film.
The pursuit of complexity, the pursuit of photography, the pursuit of refinement and restoration of sets, before the broadcast, was originally considered the most cinematic potential stock, but in the end played two squibs.
And Feng Xiaogang seems to be slow and reasonable, telling the background and scenes of the two unsolved cases one by one, taking us to the deeper part of human nature.
This suspense drama adds a rare cruel background to similar domestic themes.
In the end, no matter how wonderful the movie language is, whether it is "Hidden Corner" or "The Silent Truth", the first thing given to us is a wonderful story.
Therefore, the antidote to the Misty Theater is: tell a suspenseful and criminal investigation story with your heart, instead of hanging a sheep's head and selling dog meat, so it is mysterious and illogical.
The opening of "Echo" is good, but if you really want to leave an echo for the Misty Theater and become Feng Xiaogang's return gun, you have to see the next story and how to tell it.