"My faith is the motherland."
In the theme of spy war dramas, countless benevolent people who grew up in battle, tempered in war, and experienced on the battlefield can always bring the audience a shocking drama chasing experience. The ups and downs, the dangerous film and television narrative style will always make the audience want to stop, which makes the theme of spy war dramas once become the most classic target theme of screen creation.
But it is also a large number of classic works pearl jade in front, the new spy war drama wants to subvert the previous work, the difficulty can not be described as great, so in recent years the popularity of spy war dramas once faded.
Recently, the youthful spy war drama "Thin Ice" is a hit. The play is created by gold medal spy war screenwriter Hai Fei, with the turbulent situation during the Liberation War as the background, portraying the intricate and arduous underground struggle between the CCP underground party, the Kuomintang military unification and the Japanese army in a panoramic manner, reproducing the thrilling game competition under the hidden front, which has aroused the strong attention of spy war fans. The new period spy war drama represented by "Thin Ice" has also undergone great changes from the previous spy war drama.
Old drama bone + brain-burning suspense + frequent golden sentences
Write the pinnacle of spy drama creation
After the founding of New China, a number of anti-special theme films emerged on the big screen, and veteran spy war fans cherished films such as "National Day Ten O'Clock", "Yangcheng Dark Whistle", "Heroic Tiger Guts", "Visitors on the Iceberg", "Wildfire Spring Wind Fighting Ancient City", "Secret Drawings" and other films. And these films also opened the early sound of the theme of spy warfare in film and television creation.
Time moves forward, and in 1981, New China's first TV series "Eighteen Years of the Enemy Camp" was a distinctive spy war theme. Zheng Fulin, the director of the play, once said that "it has created a new form of entertainment, and it is the first popular TV series produced in the melodrama mode to have a wide impact", which shows the early creation of spy war dramas and the depth of subsequent influence.
In the stage of rapid progress in the creation of TV dramas, spy war dramas have also ushered in the development of in full swing. From "Oath Silent" and "Dark Calculation" to the highlight moments of spy war dramas "Lurking" and "Before Dawn", spy war dramas have dominated the screen for ten years.
Looking back at the spy war dramas of this period, the pure acting skills of the "old drama bones", the plot with suspense and brain-burning as the main line, and the golden lines that deeply analyze human society have all become a distinct imprint of creation, laying the type, mode and routine of spy war drama creation.
To this day, the tragedy of Huang Yiyi being put on the heroic throne in "Dark Calculation" and being unable to break free due to fate, and Zheng Yaoxian's life of sacrificing for faith and ideals in "Kite" are all memorable.
The golden sentences in "Lurking" are still active in people's words from time to time, "the mouth is full of ideas, the heart is full of business", "there is a victory called retreat, there is a defeat called occupation", "serving the people is not written on paper, but written in the heart" and other words can be described as sharp and alert, profoundly affecting a generation, and also becoming an insurmountable peak in the creation of spy war dramas in the later period.
Youth power + growth narrative
New typological styles are taking shape
After the aftermath of "Lurking", there were also creative teams who tried to imitate and break through, but only a few succeeded.
It was not until the birth of "The Pretender" in 2015 that the popularity of spy war dramas was greatly revived again, and to this day the show is still regarded by many audiences as one of the pinnacle works of similar theme transformation.
From the perspective of creative thinking, the successful experience of "The Pretender" mainly has three points.
The first is to boldly use young actors, before which spy war dramas often tended to use "old drama bones" for interpretation, while "The Pretender" boldly used young actors such as Hu Ge and Wang Kai, bringing the audience a refreshing experience.
The second is to use a growth-oriented narrative to tell the protagonist's choice of faith. In the play, Ming Lou is not a staunch communist fighter at the beginning, but gradually awakens after experiencing struggle, and the growth story of youth and blood can resonate more with young audiences.
The third is to repeatedly reconcile between seriousness and entertainment, explore the rhetorical methods and narrative strategies of spy war light comedy, and the daily life between the "three brothers of the Ming family" and the eldest sister of the Ming family is particularly eye-catching to the story.
After that, the interpretation of spy war dramas by youth forces has become a new trend, "Decryption", "Sparrow", "Rouge", "Seamless" and so on have tried to open up new ideographic space by actively absorbing "small students" and "small flowers", so that spy war dramas can reach a wider audience circle, spontaneously understand and pay attention to the stormy era and the special historical period related to the fate of the family and country, and accumulate the vitality of the audience for a new round of growth of spy war dramas.
The successful experience of this batch of spy war themes was absorbed by "Rebel". During the broadcast period, the drama ranked first in the ratings of popular dramas in the same period in the country for many days, which also successfully promoted the screen transformation of Zhu Yilong, played by the actor Lin Nansheng.
Lin Nansheng's growth path is similar to Mingtai.
Lin Nansheng, a Kuomintang agent who cherished the ideal of serving the country, initially followed Chen Moqun, a ruthless Kuomintang military commander and a traitor who later defected to the Japanese. In the arduous tasks one after another, he experienced blood, impulsiveness, hesitation and rebellion, and finally "broke out of the cocoon" and grew step by step into a seasoned agent and a staunch Communist Party member, showing the faith pursuit and national integrity of aspiring young people at the time of the country's life and death.
Zhou You, the director of "Rebel", once said: "No one pushed Lin Nansheng to join the Communist Party. When the audience sees his experience and struggle in speculation, sees that he wants to pursue the road of serving the country but has repeatedly suffered the collapse of faith, and sees the people and things he has met along the way, they will truly believe in his loyalty after taking the oath. ”
Coincidentally, the protagonist Chen Shao in "Thin Ice" is also the same. Chen Shao, who was lurking in Shanghai and Chongqing, transformed from a military commander agent disguised as a Japanese envoy undercover Mei Organ and marched step by step in the dark, to a soldier of our party's secret front, and then returned to the military command as a secret member of the CCP, and experienced multiple changes in identity. Faced with the existential crisis brought about by the hidden struggle, Chen Shao turned the danger into a sharp knife into the heart of the enemy with his fearless spirit of bravely walking on thin ice several times.
The latent process of Chen Qian's "multi-faceted spy" and the growth process of walking towards the light are also the biggest highlights and highlights of "Thin Ice".
This style also inspired more post-00s emotional resonance, "Mingtai, Chen Shao, Lin Nansheng and others are not heroes who cross mountains and seas, they have flesh and blood, and they are peers who experience the same confusion and hesitation as us in another time and space." ”
Integrity + innovation
Human nature + suspense is the constant focus
It is not difficult to see that with the changes of the times, the style of a new round of spy war dramas is gradually moving towards typification and labeling: youth power interpretation + growth narrative path.
It is worth affirming that compared with the face-painted "steel" agent, the growing protagonist with flesh and blood, sorrow and joy, confusion and awakening is obviously more loved by young audiences, and the creative space dimension that can be carried is richer.
However, we cannot ignore the aesthetic fatigue that this type of creation may bring. If new innovation and breakthrough points are not explored in time, the dividends will fade rapidly, and the degree of discussion and word of mouth will be unsustainable.
Under this circumstance, some spy war dramas began to take compound creation as an innovative feature, and spy warfare laid the main line of telling the entire story, while mixing other film and television creation themes as the finishing touch of the story.
The most common is the formula of "spy + love". The recently concluded spy war drama "Infernal" starring Jin Dong and Wang Likun, and Wang Zhiwen starring in particular, is the case with the brain-burning and suspenseful spy war plot and the poignant and healing love story, unlocking the "composite theme" of the spy war drama.
For example, "Secret and Great" is "spy war + workplace + family", "Peace Hotel" is "spy war + secret room", "Get Out" focuses on "spy war + ethics" and so on, so as to glimpse the efforts of the creators.
Balancing content creation is a valuable capability. While overemphasizing composite labels, some spy war dramas weaken the emphasis on the core elements of spy war dramas "human nature and suspense". Similar to the creative technique of "Rebel", "Hengshan Hospital", which was broadcast close to the time, did not achieve the same results as "Rebel", the root cause is that the narrative logic cannot withstand the eyes of spy war fans like a microscope.
In the play, Ma Tianming, who was originally a city gangster, successfully impersonated a returnee medical doctor who could stand alone in the hospital just by reading and memorizing a doctor's diary and prescribing aspirin with a prescription, which obviously could not withstand scrutiny. This has also sounded the alarm for the creators of spy war dramas, and it is not easy to create a meticulous logic that can withstand scrutiny and a tug-of-war between people's hearts without traces.
There are also some screenwriters who cannot justify themselves when creating, so they try to make up for the shortcomings of the narrative through "technical flow mechanics". Su Wenqian of "Aiming" used the power of a small wooden fish to shoot bullets to make the audience shout bizarre, and even the classic spy war drama "The Pretender" was questioned because of Mingtai's dazzling anti-gravity behavior of "flying over the rooftop".
Under the composite trend, spy war dramas should pay attention to the use and return of "suspense" elements. Love, family, and growth are just mixed elements, and they cannot be overwhelmed. Under the main narrative of spy war dramas, the side narratives must ultimately serve the story creation itself, and the game of human nature and wisdom, and the vivid display of faith transmutation are the key to the charm of spy war dramas in silence.
"Your name is unknown, and your deeds live on forever." The heroic legend on the hidden front in the history of the Wave Party is a rich and colorful stroke in the century-old Party history. Countless thrills and legends, countless long-term plans and quick wisdom, countless forbearance and hardship, countless dedication and sacrifice in history are all rich mines for spy war drama creation, and I expect more creators to depict shocking moments in the hidden front with the greatest sincerity.