April 15, 2023 | Issue 3206
Sibling love should not be backward compatibility, backward compatibility can not obtain freedom and happiness. Sibling love is the mutual choice of sister-type women and younger brother-type men under the premise of double progress.
At that time, I wrote "Thirty Only", this one is called "Love Only", and I felt that the theme conveyed was a "only" attitude.
Whether it's age anxiety at 30 or anxiety about intimacy in love, we want everyone to arrive happily and without having to carry it. This is the attitude that our "Only" series has always insisted on.
Zhang Yingji is one of the most watched urban drama screenwriters at the moment. Since entering the industry, she has been writing urban emotional dramas, and has witnessed the flow of this theme for eleven years.
In 2020, her masterpiece "Thirty Only" was broadcast, making the most current footnote for urban women who are struggling to move forward "between social expectations and independent self". After the drama was written, she had the urge to write a love story.
Urban emotional dramas take the pursuit of resonance and landing on public topics as the highest aesthetic appeal. In recent years, all social topics related to women have been excavated by urban dramas. From housewives losing their middle-aged marriage to female group group survival, from women's native families to women's class breakthroughs, and then to how women drift in big cities... Every female subject topic has a strong sense of realism and destiny, which can be written vividly, but when it comes to love, the style of painting changes abruptly.
How does the soil of mourning blossom sweetly? This is a problem. Many creators do not know how to place love on awakened women, and female audiences are afraid that love will make people "return to pre-liberation". "Love Only", born in this context, can be seen as a stone throwing for urban emotional dramas to practice the modern love model.
In the end, about 66,000 people gave the drama a Douban score of 8.2.
At the beginning of the story, Liang Youan (played by Zhou Yutong), a 32-year-old who wants to change jobs, decides to adopt a dog, and she longs to go home every day as soon as she opens the door, and there is a sense of healing that the puppy pounces on her. Unfortunately, the owner of the dog thought she was too busy, and Liang Youan lost her qualification for adoption. Later, she met Song Sanchuan (played by Wu Lei), whose WeChat avatar is a Labrador dog, a 22-year-old athlete who is in age anxiety. Two "stuck" people, fates meet. It's very dramatic, and it also makes the audience feel very involved.
To some extent, "Love Only" wraps a love story of a "narrowing period of the rising channel", in which Liang Tao (played by Ma Fanding) said the classic line "the company's welfare does not really belong to you, but to make you belong to the company", in the end, they all escaped from this narrow system, and love happened when Liang Youan and Song Sanchuan broke through from the narrow track and walked towards the open wilderness.
Therefore, the love between these two people is not a symbol of the superiority class of people improving the survival resources of another person, not a vacuum refuge for the audience to escape reality, nor the downward compatibility of sisters, but more like a solid incentive for those who are trying to restart the game, which is also the source of the healing feeling of "Love Only".
At the end of this drama, we talked to screenwriter Zhang Yingji. Here's what she said.
Sibling love in the turn period
I just wanted to write a love story at first, not sibling love.
After conception, it was decided to write this story on the carrier of 30+ women and 20-year-old ordinary men. I wanted to write a new image of my younger brother, I felt that there should be a strong aggressiveness in the next year, and the burning of love and the burning of sports are connected, and finally decided to set my brother's career as an athlete, and finally locked in tennis after screening some big sports, and this character came alive first.
Specific to Liang Youan and Song Sanchuan, I want to show the situation of the two age groups of 30+ and 20+ groups, one of them is in the workplace life and death, the other is in the athlete's life and death, the dilemma of the two people at the beginning is in the same context, how to break through their own predicaments and rekindle hand in hand, is the path of this story.
Regarding Song Sanchuan's feather transfer net setting, it is because I hope that both of them can bravely really turn. If Song Sanchuan was playing tennis at the beginning, he just played badly, because of the arrival of his sister, he played well, and his strength in drama was not enough. In addition, there is an objective situation that China has a lot of badminton talent reserves, and there are many cases of badminton transfer, but they are relatively young.
So at the age of 22 to do this, we also emphasized its difficulty, looked up information, did interviews, hoping to rationalize it as much as possible, and Song Sanchuan did not go to Wimbledon, he just went to a small club, playing corporate games while doing miscellaneous.
After these were probably planned, I began to read books and materials, because I didn't know anything about sports, and in order to write tennis and club managers, I read books for about seven or eight months, and after I was well prepared, I began to study the outline.
The burning of movement, connecting reality and romance
At that time, the theme of sibling love was not so hot when I wrote it, because I wrote slowly, and I wrote that I found that it had become a Red Sea theme.
For urban emotions, my own creative habit is to write a sense of reality, whether it is the real soil in the drama or the real feeling of the characters, both of which I am particularly concerned about. You asked me to ignore these and just write about the atmosphere, and indeed I can't write about it. From the beginning, I hoped to construct a love story in the dramatic environment of real soil, and then explore the topic of love.
The story of "Love Only", I hope it grows in real soil, and people must have romance.
At the beginning of the story, the two people were indeed in a difficult situation, and I think this can resonate more with the audience, and also let them feel the different temperament of this play - love with real texture.
The difference between Liang Youan and Song Sanchuan is 10 years, which is an age difference that is necessary to face up to the age problem, but can be accepted by the public. All good-looking love scenes can make the audience have traces, and can feel why he is moved and why she likes him at every moment, so that there is a deep sense of substitution. When writing about sibling love, I also follow this principle and write with a comfortable and real feeling.
The biggest difficulty in writing this drama is indeed the combination of reality and reality, which is why I have been writing for so long, I have to grind little by little, every line, every plot setting, is selecting and balancing the sense of reality and dreaminess.
The middle bridge between the integration of romance and reality may be related to the combustion of competitive sports, which has a sense of reality, a sense of blood, and a sense of romance, which I think is a very important integration.
The power of healing and liberation
The first scene that came to my mind for the whole story was actually a wig shop.
In addition to the love relationship between brothers and sisters, the second group of characters is fake father and son, which is a very hilarious creative point of my own, because when I wrote this play, I happened to see a push of a public account, writing about a small wig shop opposite Guangzhou Cancer Hospital, that article moved me very much, I think it is a small, particularly healing place in a big city. So this character line came to his mind, An Cong (Tu Songyan) must open a wig shop opposite the cancer hospital, which is a very healing symbol.
In recent years, we have discussed a lot about the original family, and I have thought about this play from the beginning: the male and female protagonists do not have a complete family, and there are also the pain of the original family, but what I want to express most is: the original family is only the past, not the crux that traps their present and future.
In the play, Liang Youan and Song Sanchuan grew up in a single-parent family, while Luo Nian and Chen Ke also chose to divorce, and they were not trapped by these things. The problem of the original family may be everyone, but don't be deceived, don't believe that thing can trap you, I think this has the power of liberation.
Writing about sibling love, in fact, it is especially impossible to avoid the issue of sex, our protagonist shows everyone a little on the natural basis of falling in love, which is very in line with the sibling relationship, at this point, I also hope to give the audience more liberation awareness.
The character of Knight and Song Sanchuan appeared as a control group, put in real life, he is the marriage partner that many people will choose, but in this play, when Liang Youan is on the verge of compromise at this age, a so-called high-quality marriageable man appears, he has some utilitarian and practical, can you compromise? I want to encourage women not to have to compromise at any time.
I want to convey a "just that" attitude
I think that sibling love, whether in real life or in the context of film and television, should not be backward compatibility, and backward compatibility cannot obtain freedom and happiness.
Sibling love is the mutual choice of sister-type women and younger brother-type men under the premise of double progress.
At that time, I wrote "Thirty Only", this drama is called "Love Only", I think the theme conveyed is a "only" attitude, whether it is the anxiety of the age of 30 years old, or the anxiety of intimacy in love, we hope that everyone can arrive happily and do not have to carry it. This is the attitude that our "Only" series has always insisted on.
I think the original story is actually like this, what you want to express most firmly in your heart at the moment, then give the story and characters to transform.
At that time, "Thirty Only" especially wanted to express women's desires, and then to "Love Only" I especially wanted to express the power of love, for ordinary people, good love is a miracle that we can encounter in life. Two ordinary people, because they met the right person, both became more dazzling.
As for the expression of the next drama, it will actually be created within the scope of urban emotions. Because I write by myself, the speed of output may be relatively slow, and I don't know if I can write faster in the future, so I especially want to write faster.
I think the environment is changing very fast now, and the production process of our TV series must at least have an advanced sensitivity, so that what is written now is still enough in two or three years. To go beyond homogenization, we need to be more aware of society and public emotions. As far as my own feelings, such as reconstruction, liberation and other keywords, are some of my current perceptions, which may be presented in the next works.
【Text/Flying Fish】