Wen 丨 Lonely Island Lord
Very tacitly, in 2020, the Mai family's novel "The Sound of the Wind" was re-published, the film version of "The Sound of the Wind" directed by Chen Guofu and Gao Qunshu was re-screened, and the new TV series "The Sound of the Wind" directed by Li Yunliang was also broadcast at the end of the year, which was the darling of the pre-IP era that was popular in the late 2000s, and returned to the audience's vision through a long drama with sufficient space.
The existing advantages and challenges of the TV series "The Sound of the Wind" are clear at a glance: relying on the very mature character shaping and spy battle matrix established by novels and film works, the series can directly rely on the original book, presenting a story that cannot be unspeakable, but for the classic suspense narrative whose answers have been publicized in advance, the TV series needs to do more than solve the puzzle.
This question is like the situation faced by the repeated adaptation of the works of Agatha Christie, Sherlock Holmes and other hallowed writers in the history of literature and film and television, the ultimate test is not the ability of the creator to set up a situation, but in the layout process, through specific events and fait accomplis, how to delay the core emotional power of the story and further highlight the subtleties of human nature - these may be more important than suspense.
The story of "The Sound of the Wind" is set in the most difficult stage of China's War of Resistance, in the Five Main Characters in the Whirlpool of Dark War of Multiple Forces, such as the Japanese invaders, the Wang puppet regime, the puppet Manchu regime, the Chongqing National Government, and the Anti-Japanese Forces of the Communist Party of China, and they have to repeatedly fight and kill in the field of life and death to achieve their respective goals, which is very different from those single-line and intuitive binary duels. The way of the TV series "The Sound of the Wind" is to directly bring the narrative into another layer of expression dimension, breaking a new "revolutionary road".
The main plot of the original text is that the spies from different forces in the Wang puppet government were all sealed in Qiuzhuang, Hangzhou, and repeatedly tortured by the head of the Japanese secret service, Longchuan Hihara, to find out among these people the "old ghost" of the CCP spy personnel who passed on information.
It can be said that in Qiuzhuang, the interaction between the five people who are regarded as suspects and their response to the Japanese invaders step by step are the top priorities of "The Sound of the Wind" to create suspense, and the proximity of passing on intelligence in a desperate situation tests the humanity of each character.
On this basis, according to the characteristics of the characters, the series adds a large number of brain-burning reasoning scenes and plot settings, almost achieving the ups and downs of "no cold field", and each major play has an independent narrative personality and role, in which the actor's performance adds to the tone of the play's approximate "cologne evolution".
At the beginning of the series, Gu Xiaomeng (Xu Lu), who has newly entered the general headquarters of the puppet government, is examined to find out the spy who stole the intelligence among the two people to be selected, this scene is more typical to show the delicacy of the whole series in dealing with similar scenes, Gu Xiaomeng successfully measured the pull through a hair and a watch that smashed the surface, and determined the identity of the thief.
If this kind of rather intrinsic method of solving the case is still within the scope of imagination, then in this cracking process, jin Shenghuo (Zhang Zhijian), the military aircraft director who is watching behind the window, analyzes her identity through Gu Xiaomeng's smashed watch, and then has a little Sherlock Holmesian logic.
"The Sound of the Wind" uses multiple means in a short play, in addition to interpreting the case itself, it also quietly brings out multiple aspects of the character's personality, which is quite a brushstroke with the screenwriter's skill. In the opening scene, behind Jin Shenghuo's reasoning, in fact, lurking this character through the human nature of the cunning of the old spicy and ruthless, in the episode his performance is so hidden all the way, and often from the most subtle human sophistication to make their own choices, it can be said that the character logic is consistent.
In addition to organizing subtle reasoning scenes, in the first five episodes, the series arranges a confined space "password ship" similar to the main plot place "Qiu Zhuang", and the five protagonists Gu Xiaomeng, Li Ningyu (Wen Yongshan), Jin Shenghuo, Wu Zhiguo (Yang Youning), Bai Xiaonian (Niu Zifan), together with the key character Jin Shengxian (Gao Zifeng), are gathered in the ship, and the Japanese morita Daisaku in the name of a business seminar orders everyone present to decipher the Enigma II cipher machine to test each person's identity and motivation.
In this space, the cold and frosty Li Ningyu, the laughing Bai Xiaonian, the gloomy and calm Jin Shenghuo, etc., in the face of the common test of life and death, gradually developed from a conspiracy to a common enemy, and until Morita Daisa's sudden death, he formed an offensive and defensive alliance, tacitly weaved various confessions, and finally put the blame on Kim Shengxian.
In the course of cracking the cipher machine by intelligence experts with Li Ningyu as the main body, the series certainly has a detailed explanation of the principle of the cipher machine, and there are also scheming dialogues and calculations around the killing disaster that may come at any time brought about by the cracking itself.
"The Sound of the Wind" creates a small climax of nearly 1/7 of the whole play, focusing on the skills of actors from different backgrounds to compete in the opposite scene.
Xu Lu, who became famous in the first battle of "Flash Girl", played Gu Xiaomeng, the daughter of the ship king who was twenty-four years old, in the face of specific opponents, she was not afraid of danger and could not help but show her heart, a little bit of color and inwardness, but she was able to quickly keep up with the rhythm and save herself, Xu Lu played a convincing Miss Qianjin who had just entered the spy war but actually had profound intelligence literacy in this film, and Zhang Zhijian, who also played the old fox Secretary Gao of "The Name of the People", had a large number of opponents who were also enemies and friends, and it was very enjoyable.
In their performances, in addition to the first assumption of "actors playing roles", there is also the second assumption of "role playing roles", that is, the characters in the play are also playing social roles similar to the meaning of "social acting" in minutes, and they deeply hidden their true hearts.
The above-mentioned grasp of the double assumption has become a highlight of the group performance of this play.
The film's five main casts also include two actors from Hong Kong and Taiwan, and Wen Yongshan, who has developed in the mainland for many years, plays Li Ningyu, the chief of the translation and telecommunications section, and to my surprise, her performance is vaguely a return to the aesthetic style of "traceless performance" of Hong Kong actresses in the 1990s. Li Ningyu's unsmiling external and great energy of her inner identity and personality are quietly conveyed through a specific smile.
And Wu Zhiguo, the pseudo-bandit captain played by Yang Youning, conceals the foreshadowing of the situation under the reckless appearance, and Yang Youning's almost accentless Mandarin dialogue and weightlifting performance tension make the thickness of this role often reveal in unexpected places, such as the opponent scene with Jin Shenghuo in the cabin, or the scene in which the beloved Li Ningyu is in danger and makes a decision.
After the end of the "Password Ship" stage, the series also timely introduced Wang Tianxiang (Yu Haolei), the head of the secret service who had a considerable position in the subsequent plot, and Gu Minzhang (Zhang Guozhu), the ship king who was a spy in Chongqing. Measured from the performance level, the degree of excitement does not make the five protagonists, especially Wang Tianxiang, played by Yu Haolei, have a world of difference in temperament from the same role played by Wang Zhiwen in the movie version, but through a deep look in his hidden edge, it can also make the audience shudder.
The dark battle of the "Code Ship" directly destroys almost all the protagonists, and at the end of this large paragraph of crossing the waves, the series takes a panoramic perspective, showing the fate of the people on the ship who are "out of the dragon pool and will enter the tiger's mouth", they stand in different positions, face the unknown tomorrow, and decide to fight without hesitation.
This also directly leads to the more severe direct tit-for-tat confrontation and intrigue that several people face in their respective positions after the series.
Who is the "old ghost" and who can laugh to the end, until the five people are once again invited by the ultimate boss Ryukawa Hihara to the core site, loaded with the complex relationship between the pseudo-government and the political, economic and military aspects of the "Qiu Zhuang", this battle against time for victory has just opened.
It can be said that the series inherits the main spirit of the original text, but also does a rich personality play, through the establishment of a small climax, fully shows the identity, relationship and personality of the characters present, so that the main plot is more convincing when unfolding. For example, Li Ningyu and Gu Xiaomeng, who supported each other on the "crypto boat", once clashed after returning to the intelligence agency, and most of the reasons for this period came from the testing of each other's true identity, and the specific actions completed by the two sides in this testing process were inseparable from the character shaping they established before.
The repeated mutual hatred and mutual construction between Jin Shenghuo and Gu Xiaomeng show the extreme complexity of the specific situation, which has reached a hair-trigger height in "Qiu Zhuang", and it is impossible to complete without the previous sufficient space and patient character construction.
This is also the biggest interest in watching this series at this time, in an existing narrative model, how can the creators maximize the tension of soul torture (not only our personnel, but all the flesh and blood characters in the matter)?
The almost "one-by-one" analysis of each person in the face of Long Chuan when they enter the "Qiu Zhuang" can be seen as an escalation of the sinister environment or as a re-summary of the previously established character matrix. The repeated confirmation of the motivation of the characters in different fields is actually to illustrate one thing - the difficulties faced in intelligence work in a chaotic world are much greater than those imagined or woven in peacetime.
These bloodless struggles, like the sacrifices on the battlefield, are the important price that our ancestors paid for our peaceful life today, and it is the duty of each of you and me to remember these unsung heroes.