In recent years, domestic dramas have often been linked to two words: high open low go, rotten end.
Audiences are often amazed by the beginning of a work, and then wait until the end to feel the experience of being created by the script.
In this case, criminal investigation and suspense themes are especially serious.
Even phenomenal dramas have not escaped this curse, and the audience's desire to wait for a work that is amazing from beginning to end has become a luxury, and it seems that going high and low is the norm in the film and television industry.
However, this spell met the director of "Hidden Corner" Xin Shuang and disappeared without a trace.
In 2020, he became famous in a battle on the theme of suspense, and in 2023, he once again completed the promotion achievement of both himself and his work "Fengsheng", and the new work "Long Season", Douban started with 9.0 points and ended with 9.5 points.
The netizens who took the lead in chasing the work put "Feng Shen" on the hot search for the first time.
The audience influenced by the creativity of "Bingmen" also began to hold high the banner of "Shuangmen".
In 3 years, there have been two suspense dramas, one is a phenomenal word-of-mouth hit, and the other is a Douban 9.5 suspense masterpiece that books the annual TOP in advance. This achievement, it is not too much to open a "cool door" that makes the audience feel that it is not a loss to invest in shares, right?
After chasing this show, most of the audience are in two reactions.
One is that Yi Nengjing can't help but output a small essay Amway, every point wants to like, every detail loves non-stop; The other is "good to see and don't know how to describe it", untitled praise is better than five-star praise.
Audiences who have not seen it will also have questions, why can "The Long Season" receive such high praise?
Seven words feel that the most fundamental reason is that this work gives the audience a complete good story.
"Complete" and "good", seemingly the simplest appeals, are often the most difficult to achieve.
First of all, "complete", the beginning and end echo, the process is delicate and moving.
The common reason for the end of suspense dramas is often that the story becomes more and more fragmented, and many problems are not explained or rushed to "embarrass" an ending, but these problems do not exist at all in "The Long Season".
The show is divided into two core story lines.
One is suspense.
Shen Mo, Fu Weijun, and Wang Yang mainly contributed to the origin of the suspense of the play, and the young trio was tricked by fate, encountered cruel injuries at the best age, and wanted to take revenge to shock the wicked, but took advantage of their own lives.
Simply put, this is a story of the victim wanting to redeem himself, but becoming the perpetrator forever into darkness, and how fate and our resistance can achieve self-consistency towards the sunshine is sometimes difficult to answer.
The character's choice at the turning point of fate is a puzzle laid in the early stage of the suspense line of the story, and the director and screenwriter continue to attract the audience to follow the plot on a "roller coaster" called suspense through the narrative technique of the chaotic timeline.
The process has both brain-burning and reversal required by suspense dramas, and constantly makes the audience sigh at the changeable fate and life, and when the truth is revealed, there is both the heartiness of suspense and the mixed tastes brought by the law of fate.
The other is life.
Wang Xiang, Gong Biao, Ma Desheng, three "old men" dominate this story line, the era group portrait 15 years ago, and the old guys who drink and scare each other on the road to untying their hearts 15 years later.
In this story, the audience can see the daily life of Ma Dashuai in his later years, and can also see the helplessness and hope under the ever-changing life of life, everyone's story is not perfect, and everyone is trying to move forward while remembering.
Life is like a mountain with psychedelic functions, always overwhelming people, always inadvertently playing big jokes on us, but crying and laughing, and finally facing the road ahead.
Isn't it contradictory to hold back, or to be a scoundrel, or to walk forward in pain but with joy? Obviously, the three middle-aged and elderly people have so many uneasy feelings, but they are always frolicking and scolding when they get together.
Because, that's how life is.
Each character is so full and real, their life from "brilliant" to dull, even if it is impossible to experience the same era as young people, they can empathize fiercely and understand the laughter and tears of each character.
Personally, I like the cruel and happy ending of this play.
The elderly trio did not cross the cruel side of time, but they used their feelings after thousands of sails to cross the time fragments of their own shouts, shouting to the audience in front of the screen: Go forward, don't look back.
Let's talk about the understanding of "good stories", our domestic dramas often forget to say "good stories".
What are the criteria for a "good story"?
Strictly speaking, there are no specific criteria.
The demands of the audience of each theme are different, and the soul of each story is also different, if the creator does it according to the template, he can only pass forever and cannot give a real surprise.
A really good work should respect the audience, respect the story itself, tell the story with your heart, and sincerely make a drama.
If you respect the audience enough, there will be no perfunctory end that ordinary audiences can see at a glance, and if you respect the audience enough, there will be no tasteless water-filled bridge, and whether the audience is respected or not, you can feel it.
In this regard, "The Long Season" has so much to praise.
This work is not a typical suspense drama, suspense requires brain-burning, tense, high-energy It has, but it has not been running through the whole drama, the narrative method, nor has it adopted the current popular short video culture to quickly "set the game".
At the beginning of the first episode, the director spent nearly 6 minutes filming the parallel of the train and taxi across time and space, without a few lines throughout the process, if you only look at the time and content, it seems to be very "slow".
However, the two "speed-ups", "past" and "present" fateful transformations of middle-aged Wang Xiang and elderly Wang Xiang can quickly grab the audience, and they don't say much on the surface, but the audience can see the rich life in the intersection of time.
Interestingly, the "slow" narrative of the first four episodes was actually slightly dissented when the work was first launched, and many viewers couldn't stop it, but many viewers felt that the plot did not quickly enter the suspenseful topic, and the rhythm was not compact.
Is it slow to pass on brain-burning scenes without constantly passing them? Objectively speaking, "Long Season", whether it is slow in the early stage or "urgent" in the follow-up, no shot is wasted, and all the "calm" resonates.
The two propositions of suspense and life are presented delicately and refined, and its slowness is not really slow pace, more, it is to give up the "fast food culture" route, and want to tell a story with heart and delicateness.
Moreover, the life flow scenes with a weak sense of suspense are actually more surprising.
In fact, the life flow plot in suspense dramas is not unique to "The Long Season", and many suspense and criminal investigation dramas in the past two years like to integrate the protagonist's life, emotional experience and case solving puzzles.
But the life flow scenes in many works are often in the existence of diluting the sense of depression and filling time, and the characters come to a funny contrast to make the audience happy, and then there is no more.
Such a dramatic effect can be seasoned in small quantities, and the amount is too much, which not only affects the sense of suspense atmosphere, but also the smell of water injection, it is a pity that the food is tasteless, and if it is used more, the audience will be aesthetically fatigued, and it is difficult to give a good experience.
The life flow scenes of "The Long Season" seem to be going for "funny" at first glance, and the Northeast elderly trio together is like "whole life", with layer after layer of baggage, which can always contract the audience's laughter.
However, after the life flow scenes of this play make the audience laugh, they do not directly disappear, but show the audience a deeper life discussion through the switching of different lives of the characters, and dig out a more vivid and full life story.
Wang Xiang's life perception, Gong Biao's laughing life, and the level of Captain Ma's "blockage", each of which can trigger enthusiastic discussion among the audience, and the scenes in the play are infectious but rich in family affection, love, and friendship, all of which are wonderful.
After watching their story, I understood why the name of the play is called "Long Season", this "long" belongs to suspense, but also belongs to a section of their life that is constantly wrapped up, and after walking through this season, I found that life turned out to be very short.
But no matter whether it is short or long, no matter how intertwined time and fate are, we will eventually come out of the season of stagnation, life still has to move forward, the past will leave indelible traces on us, but it also pushes us forward.
Looking at the whole story, I believe that most audiences can feel the intentions of the work, it respects the audience with the work created with sincerity, and the audience will also respond to the sincerity of the story with sincerity, which is difficult but also very simple.