Beijing Daily Client | Reporter Li Xiazhi
Spy war dramas have always been a relatively special genre in domestic dramas, recently, "Infernal" and "Thin Ice" two spy war dramas were updated online at the same time, both are a watery acting lineup, at first glance should have been a masterpiece that hit the ratings reputation, but unfortunately since the two dramas were broadcast, the same male protagonist character setting, deliberately reversed and reversed routine plot, so that the two works have some word-of-mouth failure.
The aura of the big male protagonist deviates from the real logic
"Infernal" tells the story of Lu Feng, a special agent of the military command, who accepted the task of breaking into the Japanese intelligence agency No. 76, in addition to completing the many tasks of the military unification to resist Japan, after experiencing the betrayal of his mentor and the killing of his relatives, he abandoned the secret and joined the Communist Party of China, becoming an undercover agent of the underground party within the military system. The story logic of "Thin Ice" is also similar, the ace agent Chen Asa disguised as the Japanese secret envoy "Asai Mitsuo" to lurk in the Japanese No. 76 Mei organ, successfully thwarting the Japanese plot to seize uranium ore resources. In the course of carrying out his mission, Chen Xiao witnessed the cruelty of the military commander's methods, gradually found his true faith, joined the Communist Party of China, and used his special status in the subsequent liberation of Chongqing to devote himself to underground intelligence work.
Whether it is Lu Feng, a highly talented student of the Japanese Army Academy played by Jin Dong, or Chen Shao, a top agent of the military system played by Peng Guanying, as an undercover agent of the military commander, the two almost have to infiltrate Japan's No. 76 intelligence agency and work as double-agent agents. At the side of the two male protagonists, there are also many forces such as the military unification, the underground party, and Japanese agents, and Lu Feng and Chen Shao have to mediate and choose among all forces. In order to bring out the protagonist's halo, the series gives these two characters outstanding personal abilities, and even somewhat deified. Lu Feng can often appear in public with swagger under the premise that the whole city is wanted, and Chen Shao can also die many times, dragging almost half-crippled comrades all the way through the customs to achieve escape.
This kind of writing that exaggerates the protagonist's halo can easily go astray, and the setting that deviates from the logic of reality cannot really shape the characters, but distorts the plot, resulting in the tendency of spy war dramas to become "divine dramas".
Create plot conflicts and blindly reverse
Spy war dramas have been popular for a period of time, and while the anti-Japanese war "divine dramas" are overwhelming, various ground satellite TV have also broadcast a large number of spy war "divine dramas". Most of the stories revolve around the intelligence struggle between the enemy and us, with one or two specific events as the trigger mechanism, after the plot repetition and high homogenization, it is impossible to produce works that surpass "Lurking" and "Kite", and because of the intelligence reduction of spy war dramas, the genre gradually goes silent. "Infernal" and "Thin Ice" both adopt an all-star cast, and from the perspective of narrative structure alone, it is actually innovative to the past spy war drama genre, but the male protagonist setting used generally has a tendency to deify the protagonist, and has created too many reversals for the sake of plot conflicts.
Like the identity of Hua Xiangyu in "Infernal", Hua Xiangyu, as the heroine, appears as a military commander agent, and in the relationship with Lu Feng's unclear characters, the identity of the Qing Dynasty Gege appears, and he also has to work for the Japanese. Lan Bing, who was originally a Japanese intelligence officer, had to arrange an emotional line with Lu Feng, and Shen Xiao, who had always been a Japanese villain, finally revealed the identity of his military agent. Almost everyone in the play has more than two agent identities, and the double-sided spy or even the three-sided spy is really a bit excessive. The reversal can indeed surprise the audience, but the character setting that is too winding around is somewhat deliberate.
The protagonist's complex emotional drama is full of snakes
In order to increase humanistic care, spy war dramas have especially liked to arrange complex emotional scenes for characters in the past two years, so as to emphasize the difficult situation of intelligence workers through emotional entanglements. But how to grasp the concentration and scale of this kind of scene may also require the creator to clarify the priority.
In "Infernal" and "Thin Ice", the emotional lines arranged for the protagonist are redundant, and in the intense intelligence work, Lu Feng can also have a date with Hua Xiangyu you non me nong, and the dialogue is somewhat greasy. Chen Shao and the newly promoted intelligence officer Yu Chunyang have cooperated with each other in many intelligence work, and also staged the extreme pull of small love and small love. Many viewers complained in the comments that spy war scenes do not seriously engage in intelligence, and spend a lot of time acting in love scenes, which is somewhat off-track.
Spy war dramas are not without emotional lines, but the setting of emotional dramas must have the opportunity to promote the transformation of plots and characters, so that they have the value of ink. The emotional line between Zhou Zuo and Gu Manli set in "Thin Ice" serves the main plot and can promote the transformation of characters as a key event. Zhou Zuo's unrequited love for Gu Manli reflects the beautiful yearning of people in the cruel era, and Gu Manli's self-sacrifice not only awakens Zhou Zuo, but also inspires Yu Chunyang's transformation, and also allows the protagonist Chen Shao to also see the corruption within the military system. Such an emotional line setting has the function of serving the plot, and also adds points to increase the humanistic care of the plot, rather than blindly increasing the unnecessary emotional drama of the protagonist and affecting the promotion of the core plot.