Stay up late and show off eight episodes in one breath, this drama is worth it!
When I was a child, I recited Du Fu's "Thatched House Broken by the Autumn Breeze", and the phrase "Ande Guangsha Tens of Thousands, Shelter the World's Cold and Happy Faces" has been passed down through the ages. This is Du Fu's sustenance, and it is also the ideal of many unknown benevolent people at the beginning of the last century.
The story of "Huan Yan" begins here.
Xu Tian (played by Dong Zijian), a young man who is young and not deeply involved in the world, returned to China from Nanyang, took three gold bars from his family to support the revolutionary cause, and planned to leave Fujian, pass through Jiangxi, and go to Shanghai to establish a company and continue to support the ideals of his father's generation.
This way, it's not easy.
1 .
Xu Tian did not know much about the era of warlord chaos, local separatism, and banditry, and naively thought that he was prepared for the difficulties encountered on the road to revolution.
Although Lao Sun (played by Liao Fan), the escort of his companions, has long reminded him that Fan saved his life in advance.
Sure enough, as soon as they got on the train, they encountered skirmishers. Lao Sun is experienced and skillful, and takes money to ensure that he is safe and dangerous.
was convinced by Lao Sun's good means, but the next second the boat capsized in the gutter, and he was actually hit by the little liar, hit Meng Khan medicine and lost the gold bar.
Lao Sun chased all the way to the pawnshop to get back the gold bars, skirmishers, pawnshop bosses, and small crooks rushed to confront, negotiate, shoot, and after a series of tense shots, he confessed several times.
The next shot is the black shop, the blood stained on the floor, and Xu Tian shivering in a linen three-piece white suit.
Lao Sun didn't say much to the pawnshop manager for gold bars, thinking that he had calmed people, but the steward's backhand hung Lao Sun and Xu Tian on the street.
Okay, director, you know how to handle the audience.
Forcing Lao Sun to find a "past friend" Wang Pengju to rob the pawnshop, Wang Pengju brought two more reliable helpers. Five people sat in the shop, one bowl of wontons, and discussed plans while eating.
This set of "nothing happens" shots is extremely textured, the slight shaking of the lens, the close-up medium scene quickly switch, the characters appear in turn, the lines are short and powerful, the tone of the thing that says about the fried shop is like buying cabbage, and the quiet atmosphere before the storm before the big thing is laid out in place.
The changeable scenery and sports shots, and the constantly changing speed of the editing, are reminiscent of the rich visual presentation of "Let the Bullets Fly". This carefully arranged visual language shows the variety of living beings in the border town in a spectacular way, allowing the various people who appeared on the scene to quickly release the tension of reversal.
A moment of silence was followed by another crazy drama. The scene of robbing the pawnshop is extremely exciting and adrenaline-pumping, leaving it for everyone to see for themselves. As a result, the gold bar was not recovered, and Lao Sun was shot.
The seriously injured Lao Sun has only one way to go directly to the local head Yu Yixiu (played by Zhang Luyi). One person, one car, the weather is good, the trees are abundant, and hope is at hand. The atmosphere was set here, and the next second Lao Sun fell on all fours...
There's a taste of Guy Ritchie and Quentin.
This kind of black humor temperament that can be seen everywhere shows the huge gap between the irony, idealism and cruel reality of the complex intertwining of various forces along the way, the numb survival of the ordinary people, the poetic landscape and the chaotic situation, and takes us to intuitively feel the China of that era.
Some people say that "Huan Yan" is a black humor road drama, some say that it is the Republic of China's "Journey to the West", and some people think it is a legendary story of rivers and lakes. It doesn't matter what label you put on, anyway, he does bring a spicy and refreshing feeling of chasing dramas, how cool it is, it is the kind of cool that blows the air conditioner and eats hot pot in summer!
2.
The visual style and narrative rhythm are only skin and bone, and the character story is the flesh and blood of a drama. What is more shocking and evocative about "Huan Yan" is the fate and story of those who appear in turn.
Xu Tian's first escort, Lao Sun, is experienced and hidden, and has his own set of philosophies about faith, and behind the silence of words like gold, every sentence is a summary after experiencing bloody storms.
He always said "think about the consequences in everything", but when he was afraid of the bullies being hanged, Xu Tian asked him why he didn't think about the consequences, but he said, "Bad things think for good, good things think about the consequences at worst."
Teacher Liao Fan's performance, two words - into the heart. When he was determined to die, the time he looked back at Xu Tian, peaceful, indifferent, and firm, all completed in Liao Fan's eyes.
He has calmly accepted the end of death, but as long as this moment does not come, he will do what needs to be done and go the way he should go. said to Xu Tian, "I must save my life first", saying that my son is also 20 years old; But when Xu Tian gave up the gold bar, he was anxious and ruthless, "Can something be moved casually?" Moving three gold bars is moving the prestige of the Su District, and moving you is the same. ”
Therefore, the shrewdness and sophistication in weekdays, and the firmness and heroism at critical moments, dialectically and uniformly exist in Lao Sun's body. Because of this, Xu Tian became more and more convinced of him, and even after he left, he deeply rooted those words in his heart.
On the way to Shanghai, Lao Sun was a sober doer. He is practiced in the world, has firm faith, and knows that there are tigers in the mountains who are biased towards Tiger Mountain. He is a classical tragic figure, like a fire thief, step by step towards the fateful sacrifice.
Unlike Lao Sun, Yu Yixiu, played by Zhang Luyi, is naggy and naïve and cute. Dramatic lines portray a slightly insane, pure idealist. He was not an escort in Xu Tian, but a fellow traveler. He went from the village to Shanghai, which was the way for many intellectuals in that era to move from the book fast to the real society.
Yu Yixiu's first appearance has a sense of mystery, we don't know his depth, or even his position.
He spent the first half of his life in a book fast, knowing the world's affairs without going out, and knowing everything about astronomy and geography, but he knew nothing about the treacherous clouds that were changing the door in the village just a stone's throw away, thinking that he could make the people in the village live and work in peace, but he had already become a puppet with a bad name.
When Lao Sun's life was already in danger, he was still seriously greeting Xu Tian with the obviously outdated and embarrassing Nanyang greeting method read in the book, and asked about Nanyang very curiously.
In order to leave the village and go to a distant place, he calmly accepted the "crotch humiliation" of the provocation of the new head man, saying, "Thousands of miles, karma begins like this", and then crawled over without hesitation, dashingly jumped up, said "far away" loudly, and walked out of the "cage" behind him with his head held high.
In order to redeem his car and gold bars, he did not hesitate to fight for his life in the casino, "the two most difficult things in life to let go, dignity and life." If dignity can be dispensed with, then life can also be afforded. It's okay to steal your life, and it doesn't hurt to turn around and die. ”
When Xu Tian asked, "What is that promise?" ”
He was silent, and then said -
Neither dignity nor life mattered to him anymore. Because, he promised Lao Sun and Xu Tian, and the gentleman made a promise, his promise will be kept, in order to promise, he can put down his dignity, or he can turn around and die, this is Yu Yixiu's belief.
At this point, we understand that he has also become a fellow traveler.
Zhang Luyi also plays very well, bold and unrestrained, and I can fully experience the romance of an idealist in him. Rubbing his hands in anticipation of Zhang Yi's appearance, what kind of story will he tell?
3.
As the second short drama of Tencent Video X Theater this year, "Huan Yan" steadily captures the theatrical texture brought out by "The Long Season". Both are masters of storytelling, and they not only stop at the level of creating a wonderful story consumer goods, but also use extremely distinct stories to give the audience an incision to retrace the trend changes of the times and the ideological process of individuals. In fact, we and the characters in the play are standing on different historical processes, but across time and space, at a certain moment, the four eyes meet.
"Huan Yan" tells the story around three gold bars as important funds, and the overall tone is humorous, but this humor is also snarky, dissolving the heavy and cruel social reality. The seriousness of the theme and the depth of the expression will not affect the refreshing feeling of watching the drama, and one after another strong plot stories come to the face, which is addictive -
The gold bars were stolen by charlatans, and the pawnshop was eaten black by skirmishers; Find a helper to rob the gold, and the helper sees that the profit is intended to smuggle and escape; Back to the water to find the local headman, the head man was actually engaged in infighting; Not to mention taking back the gold bars, in order to save the head man Yu Yixiu, Xu Tian even chopped off one of his fingers...
A group of such and such troubled little people came to Shanghai on the road to Shanghai according to the fetters of fate. Xu Tian is also part of this, he has witnessed those "ordinary people" who have never known each other, desperate to protect their own safety, even at the cost of their lives, to better understand the power of faith. It was precisely after seeing this chaotic era with my own eyes that he firmed up his path.
The life and death of a small person does not seem to affect the direction of the historical torrent, but the choice of one small person after another eventually becomes history. Behind the "Ande Guangsha Tens of Thousands, Sheltering the World's Cold and Happy Faces" are a lot of insignificant "I am enough to freeze to death alone".
Xu Tian said at the beginning that blood and sacrifice are inevitable on this road.
Lao Sun replied: If you succeed or not, you are not lucky to see, the road is taken step by step, and it is right to be on this road when you die.