A good suspense drama, talking about the impermanence of fate, talking about the difficulties of the world, in the end still returns to people, to the relationship between people. The dark tide of real life is turbulent, and it has the power to hit people's hearts even more.
Author|Wei Qiao, Editor|Ding Yu
This year's suspense short drama finally opened "King Fried". "The Long Season" Douban scored 9.0 points, and as the plot deepened to 9.2 points, it ranked first in word of mouth in this year's dramas.
The play also changed the gray and gloomy style of suspense dramas, and used bright tones and gag comedy atmosphere to come to an anti-routine. The northeast in the lens is not slaughtering or cold, watching the drama no longer has to adjust the screen to the brightest, netizens protected their eyesight, and commented: "The domestic suspense drama has finally turned on the light." ”
Warm yellow sunlight, scattered leaves, and dripping rain have become the main visual elements in the play, and autumn in the northeast is this "long season". Director Xin Shuang said in the behind-the-scenes footage, "What I want to prove is that the northeast also has four seasons, where it can also be colorful, the sky can be very sunny, and everyone is actively living." ”
■ "The Long Season" Douban score
This is an atypical suspense drama, and life is the key word in it. From scene construction, costume makeup, to line accents, and actor performances, it is the most real state of life. The characters in the play are complex, but each character who appears is like a character everywhere around him.
The story begins with a group of funny and unyielding middle-aged and elderly men, with the white-haired Wang Xiang (played by Fan Wei) and the pot-bellied Gong Biao (played by Qin Hao) bickering, as if a Northeast sitcom. But the suspense has not been diluted by the strong atmosphere of life, and the slowly laid out details and accurate lens language allow the relationship between the characters and the case to gradually surface.
A good suspense drama, talking about the impermanence of fate, talking about the difficulties of the world, in the end still returns to people, to the relationship between people. The dark tide of real life is turbulent, and it has the power to hit people's hearts even more.
Life flow suspense, became
The bright warm colors and the details of life that flow slowly make "The Long Season" very untypical.
The story begins with a case of a deck car hitting a person in 2016, Gong Biao greedily used his wife's hard-saved 150,000 yuan to buy a taxi, but he didn't expect that not only the car itself had problems, but also was hit by the license plate fraudulently, and the car was detained by the police before he could earn money. Wang Xiang, as a brother-in-law, traced the deck car with him, but did not expect to involve a figure related to the death of Wang Xiang's son 18 years ago.
In this small northeastern city called Birch Forest, the past that spans 18 years slowly unfolds. In 1997, Wang Xiang's son Wang Yang (played by Liu Yitie) failed the college entrance examination, and met the mysterious girl Shen Mo (played by Li Gengxi) at the gate of his favorite school, and a silky transition of rapid emotional transformation silently reminded the audience that the two people were inextricably linked to the 1998 corpse crushing case.
Unsolved corpse cases, ill-fated maiden girls, steel mills in the river, remote towns in recession... At this point, this drama has finally opened a chapter of suspense.
After abandoning color filters and thriller music to create a suspenseful atmosphere, "The Long Season" is friendly to the audience's eyes and eardrums.
The scenes in the play are particularly realistic, from the tube building where pigeons are raised to the lottery stations and noodle stalls that can be seen everywhere, from the fast food restaurants on the roadside to the beauty salons opened at home, the places where the characters pass are full of details of life on the ground.
The soundtrack continues the refreshing and consistent musical taste, and appropriately appears at the key points of the plot, although most of the rhythm is soothing, but often gives the audience a fatal "yin" experience.
There are three points in time in the play: 1997, 1998 and 2016. The different eras are completely visualized by the state of the characters. When the audience saw the gray-haired, wrinkled Fan Wei and the pot-bellied Qin Hao appear, they immediately knew that this was the time and space of 2016.
Aged makeup making special
From the production of the special, it can be seen that this drama uses a lot of special effects makeup technology, and almost all the main characters in the play are wearing "old age makeup" to complete the performance of the plot in 2016. Real makeup and actors' interpretation, the passage of 18 years is truly and cruelly presented on the screen. If it weren't for the reminder of the barrage, many audiences would not even recognize these familiar actors, especially the changes in Qin Hao and Chen Minghao, which made people "dare not recognize".
Due to the relatively similar time points between 1997 and 1998 before and after the corpse crushing case, it is easy to misunderstand when switching time and space, which may be a trade-off made by the main creator in order to present the real state. However, Tencent Video predicted the audience's brain circuits and technically set up a "barrage backwards" to remind the timeline more intuitively.
Those who pursue old cases are no longer the old criminal police officers who bear the shadows and the bloody stunned youth, they no longer struggle for justice and power, justice and human favor, but have long become ordinary people in life. Every character involved in the play is also an ordinary person who is swept into the whirlpool.
From this point of view, "The Long Season" has indeed integrated the case into life and completed a "life flow suspense drama".
18 years ago, Wang Xiang actively pursued the shredded corpse case because he wanted to make meritorious contributions not to be laid off, and Gong Biao 18 years later had to look for the perpetrator because the new car was decked, these connections are explained through slow details, no detail is useless, a meal and a glass of wine can also become a clue to drive the story, an opening introduction shot, but also an important image carrying the fate and emotions of the characters.
The bright tones of the play
The characters in the story are no longer "tool people" for suspense and crime, but show a cruel reality under ordinary life. With the wind and frost of the years, they strive to live in concrete life, and when the truth is revealed step by step, the sad background of fateful impermanence is also revealed, and it is also given to the audience. It brings a strong psychological suspense effect and abundant emotional tension.
The fate of the little people is buoyant
"Do you believe in fate?" Wang Yang's interrogation of Shen Mo knocked every character in the play and the hearts of the audience.
After 18 years, the audience clearly sees the impermanent fate that individuals cannot resist. Whether it is Wang Xiang, a train driver who once responded to the call and has a high reputation, or Gong Biao, a high-spirited college graduate, they have to face those disappointments and then struggle for life.
Wang Xiang and Gong Biao in 2016
As time passed, the scenery of the two people in the birch steel mill was no longer beautiful. In 2016, they worked as taxi drivers to support their families and suffered from an occupational disease that they could not escape. Wang Xiang became a gray-haired old man, his wife and son were no longer there, and he depended on his adopted son. Gong Biao has become a greasy middle-aged man, his life is in a mess, his wife is going to divorce, and he still dreams of becoming rich overnight.
In order to investigate the case, they found Ma Desheng (played by Chen Minghao), a criminal police officer who was in charge of the shredding case in the past. Time is fair to everyone, and the ambitious criminal police captain of the past, after retirement, passed the time by dancing Latin dance, wearing a sequin lace dance suit, and worked hard to qualify for the municipal competition of the University of the Elderly.
Ma Desheng after retirement
Three elderly Northeast masters formed a temporary detective team, speaking authentic Northeast dialect gags and jokes, squatting against the deck dealer, running away, and making people laugh.
The person they squatted out was Xing Jianchun (Xing Saner, played by Yang Yiwei), the former high-spirited head of the security section, who has now been reduced to secretly selling decks to earn money to cure diseases. When he was pressed to the ground, revealing his urine bag, the pride and dignity of the past were gone, and only his howling cry remained.
■ Xing San'er who was pressed to the ground
In the interweaving of the past and the present, Xing San'er once threatened Wang Xiang to help him smuggle goods and designed to frame Wang Yang for stealing, but now he is standing downstairs in Wang Xiang's house chatting with him, and hearing Wang Xiang mention the name of "Yang'er" seems to have a trace of unconscious remorse.
Wang Xiang let go of his former enemy, is it his "Virgin's heart"? The former "wicked" have been tortured to death by the disease, and in the decades of time struggle, the grudge has turned empty, good people or bad people, and in the end, no one can beat the sickle of the passage of time and fate, and this so-called forgiveness is more complicated.
Director Xin Shuang once said in an interview that the essence of the story is to tell how people compete with their inner self, the outer other, or a more abstract destiny. "The Long Season" paints an all-encompassing portrait of the middle-aged and elderly people, detailing the real life conditions of those who are old and seem to have been eliminated by the times. Despite the ups and downs of life, they still have the courage to continue to fight against life, laughing and scolding in the face of misfortune and suffering.
As the story deepens, the truth of the shredded corpse case 18 years ago gradually emerges, and the three young people leave regretfully without even having the opportunity to fight with the years.
A still from "The Long Season"
The direct cause of Wang Yang's drowning is unknown, and it is inextricably related to Shen Mo's disappearance from the available clues; Shen Mo, who has lived in the shadow of his uncle since he was a child, worked hard to earn money and resisted, but was sent into the abyss by a friend who accidentally helped; Shen Mo's younger brother Fu Weijun (played by Jiang Qiming), as a deaf and mute man, relied on ruthlessness to stand on his feet, sat in prison for 18 years, and died in prison when he was about to complete his sentence.
These are the impermanent side of fate.
In the long season, there is still the rest of life
A good suspense drama, talking about the impermanence of fate, talking about the difficulties of the world, in the end still returns to people, to the relationship between people.
What trapped Wang Xiang for 18 years in the play was the obsession and regret for his son's unexpected death. It was precisely because he believed that Wang Yang's "suicide" had hidden feelings, and when he saw a figure similar to the "murderer" in his mind, he persistently pursued the "truth" of the deck case.
A red sweater, Wang Xiang has always worn, and he is reluctant to replace it when it is old and broken, because it was bought for him by his son Wang Yang with the first salary he earned. When he first received it 18 years ago, Wang Yang raised his eyebrows and raised his eyes with disgust while carrying a smug joy. It is clear that he is reluctant to wear it, and when he takes it off, he has to say that it is because the sweater is "pierced".
Wang Yang's red sweater to his father
Lack of understanding how to express love and lack effective communication have formed a gap that is difficult to bridge in traditional family intergenerational relationships. At that time, Wang Xiang was still the patriarch of a traditional Chinese-style family, using strength to maintain his authority. When Wang Yang tried to read him the poem he had written, he changed the second half of the sentence after listening to one sentence, negating Wang Yang with what he thought was a conjunction rhyme.
Wang Xiang never really listened to his son's true thoughts, nor did he try to understand them. After countless failed attempts to communicate, Wang Yang, who was sensitive, also put away his thoughts and stopped trying to express them, so a bigger crisis was brewing.
When Xing San'er designed to frame Wang Yang into the financial room to steal, Wang Yang was bent on seeking justice, and Wang Xiang, who arrived in a hurry, gave up the principles and face that he valued the most on weekdays for the future of his son, like Xing San'er compromising and seeking peace, and even promised to steal for him.
Wang Xiang's love for his son is deep and heavy, but all this is humiliation and distrust in Wang Yang's eyes, and the gap between father and son is getting deeper and deeper.
The father-son relationship between Wang Xiang and Wang Yang is very realistic
Wang Xiang regarded the Birch Steel Mill as everything in his life, and rightfully believed that the child should also arrange his life like him, and even went to university just to enter the factory to work in the future. Therefore, he did not know that he was proud of his proud son of the birch steel mill, and the glory and status earned by decades of conscientious work as a model worker were not worth mentioning in the eyes of his son. Wang Yang just used his father, who could not leave the small city of Hualin all his life, as a negative teaching material, and he wanted to go out and see the wider world.
The gap in communication between Wang Xiang and Wang Yang stems from the huge difference in values, the collision and conflict between new concepts and old concepts between generations, and the problem faced by many fathers and sons in reality.
Wang Xiang, who entered old age 18 years later, finally learned communication and understanding in his relationship with his adopted son Wang Bei. He fully supported Wang Bei in going to the Beijing Academy of Fine Arts, encouraged him to see the bigger world, and no longer disliked the temporary job he found at the convenience store cashier.
But these understandings were misplaced and belated for Wang Yang. Only at home, immersed in fantasy and memories again and again, can Wang Xiang touch a trace of his son. So he grabbed a little clue, tracked it down, and tried to give his son an explanation.
In Wang Xiang's heart, Wang Yang seemed to have been there all along
Like every parent of a family without independence, he lives in memories that reappear repeatedly, his life is full of torment and cruelty, and he can no longer move forward. When Ma Desheng told Wang Xiang that his murderer had died in prison, he denied it and refused to believe it, because once he did, the faith that had supported him for eighteen years collapsed.
At this moment, I think back to Gong Biao's dream of becoming rich, and Ma Desheng's Latin dance can't help but make people sigh. When entering middle and old age, the physical state begins to decline, and life no longer has the possibility of climbing upward, and even has made a mess. But people have to find a desire to live after all, and those stubborn ideas, absurd beliefs, and funny hobbies are a manifestation of optimism and unyielding.
Under the shell of suspense stories, "The Long Season" keenly captures and reproduces people's life conditions and conflicts of ideas in a time span.
A fading industrial town, a few old people trapped in the past, from them can clearly see the subtle relationship between people, people and the world, people and destiny. Paying attention to them and writing a story of fighting against fate from their perspective also represents a humanistic view of the elderly.
After all, the protracted shredded corpse case has not yet been settled, and the outcome of the entanglement between this group of old people and fate is unknown.