Q1 hit "Starfall into Sugar" and "Heavy Purple", both directed by Hong Kong directors, open the past costume explosive fairy and idol dramas, there are always Hong Kong directors in the director column. They not only kicked off the curtain of costume fairies for the mainland, but also presented a number of wonderful works to the audience.
In recent years, the ancient puppet market has faced a new reshuffle, and under the rapid iteration of the audience's aesthetics, all the main creators, including the director, are ushering in a positive market impact, and the career path of Hong Kong directors is also full of dangers.
Costume explosive manufacturers, facing the "word-of-mouth crisis"
After the millennium, costume dramas represented by costume fairy tales, fantasy and idol themes attracted the attention of the audience, and these works by Hong Kong directors opened the booming costume fantasy and martial arts market in the mainland with delicate and touching emotions, wild imagination and vivid and three-dimensional characters, shaping the aesthetic system familiar to the public.
In 2005, "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" directed by four directors, Li Guoli, Wu Jinyuan, Liang Shengquan and Mak Guanzhi, was released and triggered a ratings frenzy, carrying countless post-80/90s audiences' good memories of youth; In 2009, "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3", also directed by Hong Kong directors Leung Shengquan, Lin Yufen and Huang Junwen, was called a classic by the public, with a Douban score of 8.9 and nearly 410,000 ratings. The broadcast of the two "Immortal Swords" allowed the Hong Kong director to successfully fire the first shot to the north, and also opened a new era of mainland costume dramas.
In the following 20 years, Hong Kong directors and ancient puppets were directly "locked", and the two also achieved each other in market development. Lin Yufen has successively filmed 8 popular dramas such as "Flower Thousand Bones", "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" and "Drunken Linglong", which established her status as an "ace female director" in the costume market. Li Huizhu, who has created 16 works such as "Palace" series Wang and "Splendid Weiyang" and "The Legend of Lu Zhen", has made many mainland audiences familiar with her name.
Zhu Ruibin, the director of "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost", "Starfall into Sugar" and "Fragrant Honey Trilogy", has become the royal director of Xian Xia drama, and "Long Song Xing" and "Acquaintance with Jun Chu" are also favored by young people; Cheng Weiwen's "Chen Qingling", Cheng Zhichao and Ma Huagan's "Mountain and River Order" set off a viewing boom; Lai Shuiqing focuses on Jin Yong's works and has produced many popular works such as "Luding Ji 2014", "Dragon Babu 2013", "Xiaoao Jianghu 2000" and so on.
Being loved by both investors and audiences is inseparable from the Hong Kong director's "low price, fast and good texture", which has long been a well-known secret in the industry. Cai Jingsheng, the director of "Song in the Clouds of Han Love", said in an interview that shooting 40 episodes of TV series in two months is a common occurrence for Hong Kong directors.
At the same time, they are accustomed to multiple directors jointly directing and working together. "The Legend of Anle" has three directors: Cheng Ziyu, Ma Huagan and Su Fei; "Qingyunzhi" includes four directors: Zhu Ruibin, Liu Guohui, Zhou Yuanzhou and Zhu Shaojie; "Chen Xiyuan" has Lin Yufen, Liang Shengquan, Ren Haitao, Guo Hu. Each director is responsible for a part, and the A/B group shoots at the same time, which naturally greatly improves efficiency.
Focusing on timeliness and skilled work, these characteristics are the foundation of Hong Kong directors. In the process of filming for more than 20 years, they have provided valuable experience for the development of mainland TV dramas, standardized the film and television industry, and enhanced the aesthetic and entertainment of mainland TV dramas to a certain extent.
However, this traditional shooting mode also has limitations, insufficient time leads to poor special effects, and post-visual stretching is a cliché defect. Ju Jueliang's "Lonely Fang Don't Appreciate Himself", Liu Guohui's "Heavy Purple" have all fallen into the controversy of post-special effects, "My Name is Liu Jinfeng", "Galaxy Changming" and "The Legend of Heavy Ears" have all been hotly criticized by netizens because of the costume details, outrageous plots, and rough shooting.
At the same time, shooting habits such as "drum washing machine shooting method", "three-point fixed camera", large light bulb white light illumination, and Indian editing were also complained about by the audience. In the recent "Starfall into Sugar", director Zhu Ruibin was criticized by some netizens for the shooting of the drum washing machine, death shots, random cutting angles and other issues.
In the era of boutique dramas, everything is breaking through and innovating, and the audience has also put forward higher requirements for lens language and picture expression, perhaps targeted modification of the existing shortcomings to embrace the new generation of audiences, and Hong Kong directors can still maintain their brilliance.
Hold the position of the ancient puppet and meet the challenge of the new forces
Judging from the Vlinkage webcast index in the past five years, the number of dramas filmed by Hong Kong directors in the annual webcast index TOP20 is gradually decreasing.
In 2018, there were 4 films, "Fragrant Honey Sinks Like Frost", "Fire Like Song", "Dugu World" and "Phoenix Prisoner" occupy the position of 4/10/15/20 respectively; In 2019, 3 films, "Chen Qingling", "The Legend of Relying on the Sky and Slaying the Dragon" and "Sword Dynasty" ranked 2/16/20.
In 2020, 3 films, "There is Jade", "Rock Sugar Stewed Sydney" and "Liuli" ranked 3/10/18, and "Liuli" was co-directed with mainland directors; In 2021, only one "Order of Mountains and Rivers" ranked 14th; In 2022, "Acquaintance with Jun" and "Please Jun" ranked 6/20 respectively. In five years, the total number of works shot by Hong Kong directors that entered the TOP10 was 5.
Over the past two decades, as a large number of Hong Kong directors have gone north and taken root, the gap and integration between them and mainland directors have become more and more distinct. Whether it is qualitative thinking or free choice in the market, the final works show that most Hong Kong directors are limited to ancient puppets and fairy tales, and the main theme, history, criminal investigation suspense and other works are still filmed by mainland directors.
When they first came to the mainland, Hong Kong directors won market attention with their best ancient puppets and fairy tales, and after years of development, this is still their traditional advantage, rich and systematic shooting experience, so that Hong Kong directors are familiar with the theme of costume. The main theme and suspense and other works are all themes that have risen in recent years, with strong attributes close to reality, and only when growing up in the mainland will they have a full understanding and grasp of the context of "pyrotechnics" and make textured works, and these are the shortcomings of Hong Kong directors.
In the past, Hong Kong directors were standard for costume projects with "big IPs + traffic stars", considering the cost and cycle control, Hong Kong directors with rich experience were the best choice. But now in the film and television market, Hong Kong directors are no longer the only choice for big IP costume dramas. In the summer of 2022, "Menghualu", "Agarwood is like crumbs", "Canglan Tips" and "Star Han Splendid" 4 popular dramas, none of them were written by Hong Kong directors.
In the past, big directors who were handy in shooting the main theme, workplace, family, and suspense, such as Yang Yang, once they entered the ranks of ancient puppets, they brought dimensionality reduction blows to Hong Kong directors, and their addition will divide the resources of Hong Kong directors to a certain extent. "Menghualu", as the annual drama king, has gained a faulty reputation and popularity.
In addition, the new generation of directors in the mainland is also rising rapidly, Yi Zheng, who has directed "Canglan Tips", is a popular candidate, Deng Ke and Zhao Qichen, the directors of "Son-in-law" and "Qing Qing's Daily", are also menacing, and Deng Ke also has a big IP "With Phoenix Xing" in the follow-up. Li Muge, who is famous for "East Palace" and "Si Ten", is also a shining star in the world of ancient puppet directors.
Wu Qiang of "The Favorite Concubine of Two Worlds" and "Futuyuan" is busy preparing for new dramas, and Yin Tao, who has filmed "Ancient Jue Dust", "And Try the World" and "Youth Song Xing", has "Changfeng Du" to be broadcast. Guo Hu's "Tiger Crane Demon Master" and "Lotus Tower" directed by Lin Yufen have been completed. The follow-up works of the emerging directors are very good.
Although the big IPs of the costume head, such as "The Fox Demon Little Red Lady Moon Red Chapter", "An Le Chuan", "Long Moon Ember Ming", "Leyou Yuan" and other works, are still filmed by experienced Hong Kong directors. However, since the release of the ancient order, the resource tilt of various platforms for ancient puppets has become less, coupled with the popularity of suspense, main themes and other themes, the track of ancient puppets has become narrower and narrower, and the sharp decrease in the number has led to a smaller room for Hong Kong directors closely related to ancient puppets to play.
In such a market environment, the current puppets with less subject matter restrictions may become a new direction for Hong Kong guides. After all, Hong Kong directors have achieved good results in the current dolls. Lin Yufen's "A Slight Smile is Very Alluring" is a well-deserved hit that year, "So You Are Still Here" Douban scored 7.8 and landed on satellite TV to broadcast on the star, "Rock Sugar Stew Sydney" broadened the new track of sports inscriptions. The director of the recent hit "Homecoming" is also the director Yu Cuihua, who has directed "Three Lives and Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms" and "Drunken Linglong".
With the accumulation of years of experience in ancient dolls, the Hong Kong directors' accurate grasp of delicate emotions may be able to inject fresh blood into the current puppet track.