Unexpectedly, the most "circle-breaking" Chinese drama character in May turned out to be "Old Man".
First, a "Long Season", the "Northeast Old Three" was born.
Relying on the rare artistic taste of Chinese dramas, the gentle and heart-warming stories of the Northeast Renaissance and the acting skills of almost all the members of the gods, the Douban score once rushed to 9.5, and after encountering word-of-mouth controversies such as the questioning of daddy, it fell by 0.1, which is still the god score of 9.4 on Douban.
The story of the old brother has just come to an end, and another drama about the old sister has appeared-
Broadcast on May 7, "Grandma's New World".
It seems that overnight, the elderly who could only appear in the cast of the supporting roles of the national drama in the past suddenly appeared on the big stage of the national drama, and this group and corner that is usually ignored by the public began to attract the attention of the audience, and even triggered the word-of-mouth boom of the national drama.
And "Grandma's New World" challenges another high difficulty of Chinese dramas: women's dramas.
At the mention of her, the audience's emotions are flammable and explosive.
After all, the creation of domestic women's dramas in recent years is indeed a little difficult to say, do you remember the last time there was a female drama protagonist role with flesh and blood, normal brain circuits, ordinary background, not desperately demonized, and not flooded with the heart of the Virgin anytime and anywhere, when was it?
When the audience recalled: the heroines in domestic female dramas, it seems that few are normal. Domestic women's dramas have also entered a low tide of word of mouth.
At this time, not only dared to shoot women's dramas, but also gathered Yan Ni, Yao Chen, Liu Lin, Mei Ting, Huang Yao and other best actresses of all ages, and filmed the story of an elderly woman who was rarely involved in domestic dramas in the past. The volume is not large, just 16 episodes.
Is this OK?
Unexpectedly, the first three episodes were broadcast, and three hours rushed to the first place on the platform soaring list.
Many viewers who watched the series were all praised.
"The lens is beautiful, the characters are true, and the actors are good". "Yan Ni's acting skills exploded." "Who is that actor who plays a country girl? It's time to fire".
"The aesthetic and texture are great".
In a word, the hope of women's dramas is back.
In the end, what kind of magic does this story have, which actually makes the reputation of women's dramas popular with the audience?
With this question, I brushed 3 episodes in one breath, and finally found that the most unspeakable "taboos" of elderly women were almost thoroughly explained by this drama.
Perhaps, "Grandma's New World" really found a new way for domestic women's dramas.
01, into the play: the sense of suspense spreads layer by layer, and a grandmother's disappearance incident leads to a road movie adventure
Recently, most Chinese dramas have opened with strong suspense, using a full of dramatic conflicts to grab the audience's attention at once.
But that's not the case with Grandma's New World.
Its opening, there is no large-scale case, there is no treacherous atmosphere, but a piece of daily life.
The director used an unhurried opening to tell the story of a woman who has never lived for herself, who lost her husband when she was young,
He worked hard to pull his daughter to adulthood alone, and he has endured his daughter's brutal temper for many years.
As the story unfolds from the perspective of the granddaughter, the images of grandmother, aunt, mother, and grandfather's father stand up at once, and the plot of several pressure cooker fryers and grandmother being trained instantly brings the audience into their own family life.
It looks like another ordinary family life drama?
But here comes a twist in the story.
Grandmother's daughter Dou Xiaojing moved with her daughter, but her grandmother insisted on staying in the old house alone,
Then suddenly one day, when my granddaughter was ordered to go back to her grandmother's house, she found that her grandmother had fainted.
Although the doctor once said that the situation was extremely unoptimistic, my grandmother eventually got better.
Serious illness does not die, Dou Xiaojing's first reaction is to her mother who has just walked away in the ghost gate: Make a will.
It may be this sentence that prompted her grandmother, who had lived for decades for her daughter, to make the most important decision in her life: to swallow her voice for decades in exchange for swallowing mountains and rivers.
Grandma disappeared.
"Running away from home" aside, and also changed the phone, leaving nothing but a will and two keys.
Five years after my grandmother left, everyone in the family thought that my grandmother had died, and even the portrait was hanged, but at this time, my aunt received a call from a women's prison: she had received news of her grandmother from a female prisoner.
In this way, the aunt and the granddaughter of the grandmother who once again appeared in place of the old mother embarked on the road to find the grandmother.
Where has Grandma been these five years?
Why don't you keep in touch with your family?
And why was the first person to look for news of my grandmother a female prisoner?
The answers to these questions will be revealed step by step as the plot advances, and it will also lead the audience's attention to chase the drama.
Along with the suspense, there is also a strong sense of reality behind the bizarre story.
When it comes to the elderly, especially grandma and grandmother, our first reaction is to ignore.
In past Chinese dramas, these elderly women often appeared as evil mothers-in-law and evil mothers, oppressing the heroine and creating dramatic tension, as if as long as there were old women on the Chinese drama screen, it was not good to come.
But life tells us that our grandmothers, grandmothers, and mothers are not like this.
Two things, in life and on the screen, have become irreconcilable poles.
And this "Grandma's New World" can finally look at our mothers-in-law and mothers with a gentle perspective.
Through this story of grandmother's violent escape, the proposition of women's self and independence in this play has finally been slowly revealed.
The fate of the characters is the ultimate suspense. When I entered the play, I knew that my grandmother's story was worth watching.
02, the wanted country girl, the disabled woman who was tricked... Grandma's story tells through the "secrets" that women are difficult to talk about
The best thing about "Grandma's New World" is that the story is Grandma's story, but it's much more than Grandma's story.
The drama adopts the form of a road movie + unit drama that is extremely rare in Chinese dramas.
To put it simply, my grandmother has been away from home for five years and met different women along the way, and these female roles are played by the best actresses in China, such as Huang Yao and Yao Chen, who have already appeared, Liu Lin, who will appear tonight, Mei Ting, Wang Luodan and so on who will appear next.
Two episodes and one unit, each unit changes a main supporting role, and Yan Ni's grandmother is consistent, so the whole drama has actually become a ukiyo-e.
The story of my grandmother leads to the stories of many women. Among them, there are group portraits of women, social reality, life and people's hearts.
Grandma has a saying: The rest of the day, I want to walk around like this.
The rest of the days, that is, there are not many days to come, there are no old and young on the Huangquan Road, death is lonely, and my grandmother chose to use this time to go out and meet as many people as possible.
Also in this last stop of life, I saw all kinds of life joys and sorrows, and the world was varied.
This is Grandma's new world.
The first thing my grandmother met was the wanted country girl played by Huang Yao, Liao Xiangmei.
This was originally an innocent country girl who came to the metropolis with her friends to work, but because of a momentary greed, she stole the proposal jewelry left by the customer.
In the next robbery, in order to help her recapture the bag, a friend flew and dragged the motorcycle party, was dragged for more than ten meters and did not let go, and finally hit the steel pipe with his head, and died.
The gangsters were caught and sentenced to 5 years in prison. After the gangster was released from prison, Liao Xiangmei followed him all the way, and after a verbal altercation, he accidentally smashed the gangster to death with a fire extinguisher.
She immediately turned away and became a wanted criminal.
It happened that at this point in time, she became a fugitive and was hit by a motorcycle while crossing the road, and she met her grandmother.
Grandma gave Liao Xiangmei the greatest warmth and tolerance in her most difficult moment, she bought medicine for the girl, treated the girl's wounds, scared away the driver who plotted against the girl, and took the girl on the road to find her friend's "cornea".
Even after seeing the girl's wanted warrant, Grandma still chose to continue walking with her.
The girl escaped in order to find the cornea donor after her friend's death and look into her friend's eyes again.
The girl has no malice towards her grandmother and the world, but her grandmother still chose to call the police and end the girl's escape journey early.
When the girl was arrested, she desperately shouted that her grandmother was a liar, and her grandmother slapped herself several times, she obviously took care of the female fugitive as if she were her granddaughter, but she could not watch the girl make mistakes again and again.
The girl is caught, but the story does not end there, because Grandma then embarks on the road for her to find her friend's cornea, and finally, Grandma finds it.
It's hard to imagine that the first unit of the series, aimed at the bottom of society, tells the intersection of a grandmother and a country working girl on a fugitive, this story has the friendship of women and the helplessness of life.
The gangster killed the girl's friend, sentenced to five years, and after being released from prison, he did not change his death, punched and kicked the girl at will, and she avenged her friend, but it was far more than five years in prison.
But life is like this, fortunately, in the end, she met her grandmother, and finally pulled back from the cliff, and the story was sad and moving.
The second thing my grandmother met was the disabled coffee shop owner played by Yao Chen.
Yes, Tong Treasurer and Guo Furong met again.
This time, Yao Chen played a cynical woman who originally studied well, had a good family, and enviable love, but was seriously injured and paralyzed because of a righteous bravery.
At the moment when she gave up on herself, she opened her heart again because of the arrival of a kitten.
She opened a coffee shop, raised several cats, and because the cat and her grandmother bonded, her grandmother also became a clerk in her shop.
There is a regular customer in the women's store, who seems to be a cat lover,
Often bringing cat food to women also seems to mean romantic love.
Until my grandmother accidentally discovered that this so-called cat lover was actually a perverted man who abused cats, he not only abused cats, but even played with the feelings of the disabled woman played by Yao Chen.
It will be the grandmother who will save the woman from the perverted man.
Due to long-term psychological depression, the woman is not good to her grandmother, but her grandmother chooses to complain with virtue, which makes this story with a strong sense of suspense and reveals the warmth of human nature.
Along the way, Grandma meets a gang, who seems to be the old, weak and sick, but in fact becomes a superhero who saves female characters.
Those stories that are calm, funny, suspenseful, or moving women help each other finally condense into cognition about women, life, and unforgettable memories.
At the end of all the stories, it returns to humanity.
The story is wonderful, but what makes the story the finishing touch is the excellent acting skills of the actresses.
03, Yao Chen is steady, Yan Ni breaks through, Huang Yao is surprised, and the actresses join forces to contribute to the acting feast
From the very beginning of this drama, it is destined to be difficult not to become an acting feast.
Starring is Yan Ni, the main supporting roles are Huang Yao, Yao Chen, Mei Ting, Liu Lin, Zhang Yao, as well as Zhang Zixian, Geng Le, Hou Yansong, Li Naiwen, Jiao Gang and so on.
After watching the first three episodes, the director did not waste the good cards in his hand, and at least 4 actresses have already shown superb acting skills.
The first one is Huang Yao.
It's not that Yan Ni doesn't play well, Yan Ni plays very well. But Huang Yao's performance is too prominent.
This actress, especially young actresses, plays roles such as low-level working girls, it is almost difficult to play well, in fact, many female top performers are not rare at all, because the shape cannot be beautiful.
But Huang Yao played a young and sincere small-town girl after the classic role of "Mountain and Sea Love".
The girl she plays has already won when she appears, with a rosacea nose, freckles on her face, and eyes with the curiosity and desire for the big city characteristic of a small-town girl.
I took on the role almost immediately at first glance, which is a character-building ability that actresses of my generation cannot match.
Next, she did not stage the role tall, but the poor person who tried to shape the character must have something to hate, the girl is not perfect, but with many shortcomings, will be vain, will lie, after her friend gave her life, her whole person fell into a state of paranoia.
The anger and mania that anger and mania that smash the enemy are all out of play.
The mental journey with Yan Ni, from guardedness, to emotion, and even dependence, to the anger of betrayal, and the understanding after calming down, was played by Huang Yao.
The director really dares to shoot, and Huang Yao really dares to act, and this is what an excellent actor should look like.
This role proves that Huang Yao's acting skills and dedication have been unparalleled among actresses of the same generation, and she is the one with the best acting skills among the new actresses.
There is no one.
Let's talk about Yan Ni.
This is also Yan Ni's best acting performance in recent years, and the difficulty and complexity of the role surpass her "Youth Pi" and "Stage Decoration" with Zhang Jiayi.
The biggest difficulty in her performance this time is to play 2 roles by one person. Play twin sisters Sun Yuping and Sun Yulan, two characters with diametrically opposed personalities.
Through the details of Yan Ni's performance, such as movements, body and eyes, the audience may have little effort to separate the two characters.
The most exciting thing is Yan Ni's portrayal of her grandmother.
Yan Ni's performance accurately presents a woman who has only promised all her life, and with a natural humor, watching her grandmother often do bad things with good intentions and being reprimanded by her daughter, the audience is funny and angry: Is this how a daughter treats her mother? That heartbreaking feeling makes people extremely sympathetic and sad to cry.
A good performance is empathetic, and Yan Ni has performed many women who have paid silently for their families all their lives, which makes people feel empathy. also performed a little rebellion in my grandmother's heart, and played the process of my grandmother's departure comfortably and refreshingly.
I think the best scene is only half a second.
It was when the grandmother heard her daughter make a will, the eyes that were still smiling just now suddenly lost their light, their eyes darkened, it seemed that tears were about to gush out in the next second, but they were forcibly held back by her, within half a second, sadness, disappointment, helplessness, tolerance, all performed, accurate to the point that they could not be more accurate!
When Jiang Wenli was still acting in love scenes, Yan Ni was willing to play an old man with sallow skin and wrinkles, which was a breakthrough, but being able to complete the role so well was proof of her acting skills.
The third place is Zhang Yao.
Zhang Yao is not famous at the public level, but she is a powerful actress whose acting skills are underestimated.
In this show, she plays the role of the most unflattering grandmother's daughter in the previous episodes.
Few middle-aged actresses dress up so naturally as she is, and her eyes are not a little tired when she is young.
But in the later stage, she changed her body and became a middle-aged woman full of vicissitudes, and her mother escaped death, and she was the first to remember to make a will.
The character's behavior is chilling, but Zhang Yao's performance is convincing, and the fact is that in most cases, we will be the daughters of the play.
The cruelty of reality often wears off the veil of family affection. It is not difficult to play likable characters well, and it is difficult to play annoying roles so that the audience understands. Zhang Yao did it.
The fourth place, Yao Chen.
In recent years, Yao Chen has not eaten the old book, but is constantly challenging new roles.
Her role is also not easy to play this time. Yao Chen played a female character who is physically disabled, strong on the surface, and full of holes in the heart in a limited scene.
In particular, the scene where the grandmother angrily berates the bookstore staff, she is treated as disabled, and later becomes angry and angry at her grandmother, who is the first to come out, "I hired a clerk, not a mother." "The last word, every word is full of power.
The acting skills of each of them are good, and actors such as Liu Lin, who is forced to take the Internet celebrity live broadcast road, Zhang Zixian, Mei Ting, Hou Yansong, Geng Le and other actors who force Liu Lin to become an Internet celebrity, are ready to go.
When the acting team contributed a wonderful performance, how could this drama be ugly.
04, on the surface, it is filming "Road Adventure", but in fact it is filming "Women's Life", this female drama should be popular
If you want to use one word to describe the domestic women's dramas in recent years, I think it is high and low.
An "Ode to Joy" made the women's drama popular on the screen.
The audience's expectations for women's dramas are also infinitely high.
For a time, the theme of female group portraits on the market became fragrant, and a large number of women-themed film and television works were broadcast one after another.
Unfortunately, most of them are not satisfactory in terms of plot and performance.
The biggest problem is that when all female dramas are copying the routine of "Ode to Joy", the protagonist speaks domineering lines similar to Qu Xiaoxiao and walks Andy's similar female bully steps, the audience can't stand it.
And the biggest surprise of "Grandma's New World" is that it has found a new world for women's dramas, an advanced creative mode.
First, the narrative is advanced.
Traditional female dramas tend to have multiple female protagonists, and multiple narrative lines advance simultaneously, that is, the classic Ode to Joy mode.
"Grandma's New World" is the grandmother as the protagonist who completes her self-growth in one story after another, but everything is not shown from her own perspective, but through the memories of others.
And grandma's story brings out many women's stories, and the shackles caused by the times and family on women are untied one by one. Even if there are flaws with too much narration, the main creator dares to do this and stands out.
Second, the technique is advanced.
Elderly women's themes, not easy to shoot.
Too deep, easy to suppress, and too emotional, and easy to fall into sensationalism.
And the director has created a drama with a bright painting style and humorous plot, an incredible trip, using movie-level tones, a suitable soundtrack, and comfortable lens language, bringing out the absurdity and black humor of a road movie.
The sense of suspense and tension in the play makes the story very refreshing and good-looking.
Finally, and most powerfully, the character creation is advanced.
The female character shaping of this play, I think can make a sample for the national drama.
The story is not about a grandmother, but a group of people, a generation, how years and life pass by them, and how they leave a faltering figure.
Two episodes of a short story, a female character, pulls out a social proposition, don't look at it about grandma, its themes are all-encompassing.
The pain of the original family, the life of the migrant population, the harassment of women, the loss of dreams to reality... This is a story that comes from life, like what happens around us, like what happens in our family. And grandmother, also reminds people of their own grandmother.
There is a "romantic" episode in the play, which I love.
It was my grandmother who went to the sand and gravel field to meet the cornea transplanted worker after the migrant sister was arrested, and at that moment, it seemed that everyone was warmed and redeemed.
At this moment, the theme of the play sublimated again.
Life needs to be "figured out" moments. And this is that miracle moment.
When it comes to the elderly, everyone will have a mindset that they should entertain their grandchildren and support their elderly. But no one asked the elderly what they wanted to live in.
The grandmother in the play has actually achieved things that cannot be achieved in reality for many grandmothers, and after working hard for the family all her life, she still has a heart to live for herself.
Grandma said it well: "Life is a stage everywhere. ”
Dare to step out of reality and live your own life is the core issue that "Grandma's New World" wants to convey to everyone.
There is no traffic star, the actors who show their faces are all powerful, and their popularity is not outstanding, but this drama makes up for a major deficiency in the theme of domestic dramas.
Especially Yan Ni, Liu Lin, Yao Chen, Mei Ting, these powerful performances and the group portraits of middle-aged and elderly women who will be performed, all of them are moving.
Their performances can also tell you when life is difficult, in the midst of difficulties, under pressure, and in the trivial quagmire: as long as she is willing, every grandmother has the possibility to transcend life and find her own new world.
Chinese dramas really need more different kinds of female characters that don't use as a background board. It is also necessary to pay more attention to the script and acting skills than to the traffic of good dramas.
"Grandma's New World" has a good start, and I hope "she" will stick to the end.