Text | Ling Hu Boguang
To say that the drama "Long Moon Ember Ming" has been broadcast until now, the content of the TV series, the starring role, and then the core expression have caused great controversy. This is not even CCTV 6 princesses have come out to criticize, 6 princesses criticize the focus of that paragraph: "There are immortals and no heroes, there is love and no righteousness, only to see the immortals in love"
The noisy comment area below the video once again staged the phenomenon of "passers-by, rice circles and so-called black fans tearing each other" common on the Chinese Internet. Many people say that the current fairy tale dramas are not like this is to fall in love, but whenever we talk about this issue. That is to say, when the fairy tale drama.
The vast majority of people will miss the fairy dramas during the "Immortal Sword" series, then the question is, since the "Immortal Sword Series" is so classic, that kind of fairy drama is so popular with the audience, why is it replaced by the current fairy drama that only falls in love?
How classic is Sword of Immortals? But they are really also "fairy dramas" for falling in love
This matter is not so complicated, different era environments, different cultural needs of the audience lead to changes in the work. In a word, the audience is different.
The mainland mythological dramas of the 80s and 90s had the same high artistic pursuit as the mainland TV dramas of that era. The pinnacle of mainland mythology, art, content and expression.
In 78 years of liberalization, the times were turbulent, cultural media were lacking, and at the same time, Hong Kong and Taiwan were the peak of the economy of the four Asian tigers and the peak of commercial film and television dramas in culture.
When the mainland first opened up, the cultural industry was still dominated by the "planned economy" state-run model, such as the most representative mythological drama "Journey to the West", which was led by the official CCTV and filmed by Yang Jie and other teams.
Like the other three famous TV series, most of the TV dramas produced in the mainland at that time had serious artistic pursuits. In addition to the special effects difference, art aesthetics, costume photography, actor performances, plot adaptation and core above. There are not only the changes in the ideological trend of the times, but also the pursuit of traditional Chinese cultural aesthetics and content core.
I don't need to talk about how high the artistic level of cultural works was at that time.
At the same time, in addition to the fairy-tale "Journey to the West", there were also "Jigong" by You Benchang in 85, "Liaozhai" in 86, and a less well-known early mythological drama. At this time, the question comes, are these mythological dramas mainly in love?
The cultural industries in Hong Kong and Taiwan were commercialized and matured early; I think the martial arts dramas of Hong Kong and Taiwan at the same time are also mythological dramas. Except for a few peaks, most of the works are in traditional Chinese cultural aesthetics, and Chinese culture and art are far inferior to mainland works.
At the same time, the Chinese mythological drama that is not inferior to the mainland is "The Legend of the New White Lady" in 92, after all, in addition to the pursuit of beautiful expression by Chinese audiences in the new era, Master Zuo Hongyuan's innovation of traditional opera's "New Huangmei Tuo" is still a model of Chinese musical TV dramas.
and Hong Kong mythological dramas such as Chen Haomin's "Journey to the West" and "List of Gods".
Although the direction of costume dramas in the two sides of the strait and the three places is somewhat different, they all have Chinese consciousness + traditional Chinese cultural stories in the new era at that time, and cultural aesthetic art pursuits exist.
At the end of the 90s, the integration of cross-strait and three places of TV dramas flooded, and began to fall in love with new school mythological dramas and martial arts dramas; The new school of mainland mythological dramas that learned from the experience of Hong Kong and Taiwan began to clearly replace the old-school mainland mythological dramas and Hong Kong and Taiwan mythological dramas.
The latter are works such as "Journey to the West", "Mythology", "Pauline Lantern", "The Legend of the New White Snake" and so on.
The former is like historical dramas such as "The Legend of the Heroes of the Sui and Tang Dynasties" and "New Three Kingdoms"; In 2006, "Fengming Qishan" of the Fengshen List, in 2009, "Wuwang Fa Lun of the Fengshen List", and "New Journey to the West" in 2011.
From 2000 to 2010, the mainland market was further marketized, and after learning from the mature production experience of Hong Kong and Taiwan, the mainland team wanted to make an epic drama of costume mythology combined with the new technology of the time.
The new costume dramas that Hong Kong and Taiwan creators have integrated into the mainland are Tang Ren, the "Immortal Sword" series and Zhou Yi.
18 years have passed, why is "Immortal Sword" still the peak of Xian Xia drama? Mythological dramas really have something to say
At the end of the century, Hong Kong and Taiwan cultural creators went north to the mainland, and now it seems that it is the pursuit of Hong Kong martial arts + Taiwanese romance + the great rivers and mountains in the mainland + the pursuit of traditional cultural stories that were common in the Chinese-speaking world at that time, and finally replaced the old school mythological dramas.
The originator is probably the Tang people, who first filmed "Baolian Lantern" and "Fish Beauty" of "The Legend of Heaven and Earth". Later, he filmed works such as "Immortal Sword" series, "Liaozhaiqi Woman" and "Flying Immortals Outside the Sky", and at the same time, Zhou Yi had works such as "Shuiyue Dongtian".
And this "Fengyun" series, and then to Zhang Weijian's martial arts drama, fantasy dramas were all new costume dramas at that time.
What are the advantages of this new school costume drama represented by the "Immortal Sword Series" compared to the previous one? Younger handsome guys and beauties are advantages visible to the naked eye, while the costume dramas created by Hong Kong and Taiwan love to add comedy elements, and the narrative, rhythm and plot are more relaxed, which is not at all as serious as the previous mythological dramas.
At the same time, at the level of core expression, after all, it is still inherited from the cultural trend in 2000, so it is not out of the way. It is probably that no matter how the character falls in love, in the end, he still has to take up that responsibility for the sky, for the world, and for justice.
For example, the first of the two "Immortal Swords" is still the most classic, and it was indeed scolded not lightly, most of them were game parties. But I think that after the TV series adaptation game, at least the expression of ideas is still passable. Games are a kind of fatalism, and TV shows add responsibility to this fatalism.
Because the descendants of Nuwa need to bear the responsibility of the earth, so that the descendants of Nuwa have this almost cursed fate, and then continue to give an explanation, that is, love, fate is mysterious, responsibility can also be avoided, but there must be a motive, a reason for the protagonists to face fate and take the initiative to take responsibility, the answer is love.
Shangshan is like water close to the Tao, and connects the Tao with love, is this expression quite deep.
Baiyue is a thought leader but is doomed to fail because it is too extreme, Qing'er and Jianshen's debate about the way of love; Qing'er, Ling'er's dedication to the people is really great love and responsibility; Li Xiaoyao thought that he would go back and change his fate against the sky to make the opposite choice, but he did not expect that it was a link that fate had already written, and also demonstrated the theoretical idea of moon worship.
The protagonist's personal love is relatively the least worth mentioning, and it is also the most controversial, but it is also very exciting: Xiaoyao chooses responsibility between desire and responsibility, Yueru chooses dedication between dedication and selfishness, and the TV series clearly expresses his attitude, which not only arouses the audience's discussion but also guides the audience to choose a choice that conforms to public order and good customs and social morality.
To say that the core expression above is obviously "Immortal Sword 3", which is obviously more romantically in love. But the last Zixuan and Changqing, for the sake of Maomao of friendship, and the separation of canopy and Yukimi, at least in terms of expression, there is still no deviation, and the same is true of the martial arts dramas, fairy dramas and fantasy dramas of the same era.
In addition to falling in love, there are also serious "three views are not correct"? What is the problem with the fairy tale drama
In 2014, "Ancient Sword and Qitan" was still a legacy of the old school fairy drama, and after "Flower Thousand Bones" in 2015, the fairy drama only fell in love, if it was just a relationship, it was nothing, mainly because the responsibility of the protagonist began to disappear.
There are too many points for all kinds of complaining, and I will not complain here, because thousands of words cannot be complained about.
This matter is not so complicated at all, the answer is that the audience is different at all, the early fairy tale dramas are oriented to the public, which discusses human nature, society, family, friendship, love, these are not dominated by anyone, the public can find their own resonance points in this drama.
Now Xian Xia, the main traffic + love, and then a little set of insignificant background shell can be, everything else exists to achieve love, because this part of the audience will always be fans and young female audiences, as long as these audiences are there, this kind of "fairy drama" will not fail.
And fans and young female audiences have more or less sexual fantasies about idols, and they are more likely to bring in the male and female protagonists in romantic dramas, so this is enough for them, but for other audiences who are not fans, they can't tolerate it, why do I spend money just to watch you fall in love?
The current fairy tale drama, of course, is an idol drama that regards love as an end and a means, and through love, it is necessary to achieve a big goal and complete all the narrative and expression.
At the same time, after the success of the "traffic economy", it can also be seen that film and television capital has been cultivating audiences and testing the bottom line of audiences, and most of the people who can chase stars fearlessly have not yet entered the job, or have not worked for a long time.
First, they are young, and secondly, they have more energy and time to chase stars and consume these entertainment products, they are the main force of the fan economy, and their idols will pay for it even if they shoot something. For rational people, they may also chase stars and consume.
But they will not blindly consume because of idols, let alone have the energy to engage in the rice circle. For capital, this part of the audience can be abandoned, obviously you can not spend effort to go to the whole bad script and then invite traffic, quickly make money, but spend so much time and energy to polish a good story, risk a good reputation and low traffic?
Such success can be easily replicated, and a work can make a lot of money, so why think about quality and art?
The same is true for current stars, who easily earn 2.08 million a day, who will take the time to talk to you about the script? Some times he can take another drama, earn another money, work well, maybe he really didn't dress up well, marketing well, earning traffic and making a lot of money, and his original intention is gone.
From fairy tale dramas to ancient dolls, from saving the life to falling in love? It's just "Long Moon Ember Ming" that is wrong
During this time, the various controversies of "Long Moon Ember Ming" are very telling, and the screenwriters of those TV series 20 years ago may not all be inexplicably mutated. What is wrong is not the script, not the actors, not the director, but the capital structure and the cultural industry model.
Film and television dramas in the early years of this century were not a money-making business (relatively speaking, at least not as profiteering as they are now). One of the phenomenal events that happened during that period was the success of the Korean entertainment industry, which led to the discovery of a new continent by a group of speculators.
Since this period, music and film and television have become copies of domestic IDOL brush traffic, and the gold owner behind the IDOL has ended, doubling the salary standards of the film and television industry. Whether it's a director or a screenwriter, they took N times their previous salary, and then they became what they are now.
Completely change Unless force majeure factors completely intervene in the "capital game" and bust the myth of "traffic", film and television works will still be like this in the future. Xian Xia drama is also a truth, in fact, it is not only the so-called Xian Xia drama. Now as long as the more young stars, the more well-known the IP, the more traffic economy the work, the more like this.
Finally, the fairy tale drama is just an "ancient puppet" wearing a skin, and more than 90% of commercial entertainment products are assembly line bad films, not to mention works bound to the traffic economy. But as far as "ancient dolls" are concerned, this year there are good works such as "Starfall Condensed into Sugar" and "Heart Protection" that can meet the audience.
If it is not premised on changing the general environment, the fault is that "Long Moon Ember Ming" is too bad, not the so-called "ancient dolls".