Well? Have domestic dramas evolved to this stage?
Recently brushed a peculiar drama.
Liao Fan, an actor who often plays a "ruthless role", half-discussed and half-threatened a gang leader in the play, asking to meet the other party's "master". His confident posture and determined eyes all hinted at the matter.
From the audience's point of view, everyone seems to have long been accustomed to Liao Fan's interpretation of such a character.
But I never expected that the situation would turn around in the next second, and Liao Fan, together with the people around him, was hung on a wooden frame, shaking under his feet, and if he was a little careless, he would drive Hexi ...
The plot of this anti-routine is unexpected, and I continued to chase it to find that this was actually a period drama with a different way - "Huan Yan".
The drama was written and directed by screenwriter Xu Bing, whose highest-rated work was the 2014 domestic drama "Red", which tells the story of Xu Tian, a small character played by Zhang Luyi, who endured hardships during the war of aggression against China and eventually grew up to become a member of the Chinese Communist Party.
And this time in "Huan Yan", the protagonist is also a young man named Xu Tian.
He moved with his father to Nanyang as a child, where the family started a business and factory, and the money he earned was used to support the revolution.
In 1930, Xu Tian, who was 21 years old, returned to his hometown in China with the task given by his father -
The first is to find his fiancée, who is married at his fingertips, and the two are officially married; The second is to set up a company in the destination Shanghai to do business with Nanyang; The third is the most important thing, handing over the three gold bars that he carries with him to the contacts in Shanghai as funds for the revolution.
To this end, the Su District sent someone to escort Xu Tian, and the one who took him from Guangdong was Lao Sun, played by Liao Fan.
The reason why an escort is needed is because Xu Tian, who is careless, simply cannot cope with the current environment of starvation and banditry.
Facing Xu Tian, who was the same age as his son, Lao Sun straightforwardly agreed with Xu Tian for three chapters:
Xu Tian was half-convinced when he agreed, and as a result, he saw the "sinister of society" in a blink of an eye——
On the train, they encountered a group of robbery soldiers, and Xu Tian, who was robbed, insisted on returning the wallet containing his fiancée's photo, but clashed with the other party, and Lao Sun was forced to shoot them.
The stray bullet hit the gold bar that Lao Sun hid at his waist, and the gang died and fled.
However, when Lao Sun examined the wound, the gold bar was glimpsed by the people in the car, and one of them deliberately approached them, drugged Lao Sun, stole the gold bar, turned around and took it to the pawnshop.
Although Lao Sun caught up with the man and grabbed the ticket, the gold bar entered the pawnshop, and it was difficult to get it back.
Because this pawnshop is controlled by the Yu family, the largest family force in the local area, according to the black rules of the pawnshop, fifty percent of the things that fall out of the closet will be deducted.
But Lao Sun insisted that none of the three gold bars could be less, so he went to the bar with the pawnshop, thus offending the Yu family, the force behind the pawnshop, and Lao Sun negotiated with Wu Da, the "seventh master" who worked for the Yu family, so there was the reversal mentioned at the beginning.
Seeing that the communication was fruitless, Lao Sun Xian grabbed three helpers and broke into the pawnshop at night to grab gold bars.
At first, it went quite smoothly, but I didn't expect that one of the helpers named Hu Man, temporarily saw that the wealth deliberately intercepted the gold bar and put Lao Sun together.
Soon, Wu Da, who learned that the pawnshop had been robbed, sent people to chase him, injured Lao Sun, and kidnapped Xu Tian.
Lao Sun Qiang supported the pain and ran to the western Fujian walled city overnight, and he knew that the only one who could save Xu Tian was Wu Da's "master", Yu Yixiu, the head of the western Fujian walled city.
At the same time, Lao Sun did not know that one of the helpers he temporarily found, Ma Tianfang, was actually a Kuomintang agent, and he knew Xu Tian's mission and route from the beginning, and planned to put a long line to catch big fish and catch the communists who connected with him ...
From the plot point of view, "Huan Yan" is a standard road adventure story.
The protagonist Xu Tian and the supporting character Lao Sun who first appeared have sharp contrasts.
One of them was naïve enough to be stupid, they had to reason with the bandits, and one shaft was difficult to get back the three gold bars with bullet scratches.
Although he didn't get along with Lao Sun for a long time, Xu Tian quickly developed a sense of trust in Lao Sun in the process of dealing with the crisis, and even saw from Lao Sun the care and communication that he couldn't get from his father.
And Lao Sun is also in a life-and-death struggle, subtly treating the stupid Xu Tian as a son, making up for the lack of losing his young son back then.
It is worth noting that "Huan Yan" is not about ordinary road adventures.
In 1930, the whole country was in a state of turmoil, warlords were divided, the people were living in poverty, old habits were still rampant, and new ideas had taken root.
Xu Tian, the "Nanyang cub", returned to China with gold bars to support the revolution, representing the fresh blood that is about to bring about change.
When he first arrived in China, Xu Tian said that he was "ready", but in the face of the gold bar being robbed and all kinds of people chasing and blocking, he immediately had a negative retreat - money is not important, I can ask my family to send three more.
Lao Sun solemnly said that gold bars are not gold bars, but the prestige of the Soviet region.
Only then did I discover that what Lao Sun had in him was not the "axis", but the firmness of the revolution.
When many netizens brushed this drama, they thought that there was more or less the shadow of Jiang Wen's "Republic of China Trilogy" in the play, after all, the background of the story has a certain overlap, and the service road has a sense of déjà vu.
But in my opinion, I am more inclined to compare "Huan Yan" with "Age of Awakening", which was popular a few years ago.
Although the era told by the two dramas is a bit far away, the core is about Chinese group portraits in the changing times.
To some extent, "Huan Yan" is more moving than "Age of Awakening", because all the people in the play are "little people" with flesh and blood.
For example, Wang Pengju, who helped Lao Sun steal, was addicted to alcohol on weekdays and made his family disciples, but he agreed to Lao Sun's help in one mouth, and even solemnly entrusted Lao Sun to deliver the reward to his wife.
Another example is the barbarism of recognizing money and not recognizing people, which is the "source of all evil" in the opening part, an incurable gambler, but his cunning and ferocity inevitably come from the current world.
There is also the arrogant and domineering Wu Da, who does things for the Yu family not out of loyalty, but is addicted to the feudal power behind the Yu family, and even wants to seize the position of the head man, occupying the mountain as the king himself, and is completely unaware of the changes taking place in the outside world.
And the most memorable supporting role in the first half of the story is Yu Yixiu, the head of the western Fujian walled city.
He inherited the ancestral family inheritance and was the backbone of all the clansmen in the walled city, and the entire walled city was like a paradise, isolating the conquests and crusades.
Although Yu Yixiu has read poetry books and has a strong desire for knowledge, he has not stepped out of the walled city for many years and is seriously out of touch with the outside world.
He did not know that the most powerful subordinate "Lao Qi" Wu Da had long colluded with the army under the banner of the Yu family, searching for the people's fat and people's ointment, and the so-called squires had become bullies.
It was not until he looked at the account books of his pawnshop and the land deeds that were redeemed to the Yu family that he found that the reputation of the Yu family had long been bound to "clever robbery".
In the face of such an impact, Yu Yixiu realized that the set of survival rules handed down by his ancestors no longer used the current environment, and if he wanted to abandon the old bad habits, he must change.
He decided to give up being the head man, preferring to accept Wu Da's provocative crotch humiliation and go out of the walled city to see the outside world with his own eyes.
In order to let Xu Tian leave the walled city smoothly, Lao Sun accepted the rules of the Yu family, ended this entanglement with his own life, and entrusted Xu Tianhe's lost gold bars to Yu Yixiu.
The plot after that also follows this routine, and Xu Tian will get help from a new friend every time he passes a stop.
Although this journey is short, for Xu Tian, it will definitely transform him from a "Nanyang cub" who jumps his feet in a hurry to a transmitter of revolutionary faith.
In addition to the acting school Liao Fan and Zhang Luyi who have already appeared in the play, there is also Zhang Yi, who is skilled in acting, playing Zhang Jiayi, the "little doctor" who rescued Xu Tian, and the little friends who like good actors must not miss it.
In terms of plot, "Huan Yan" is a different main theme drama, there are not too many recognizable historical events in the play, but through dramatic contradictions and dialogues to create the atmosphere of the times and character settings.
Xu Tian's protagonist aura is more like a window deliberately left for the audience, through what he sees and hears, showing the life of that era, and using the hurried passers-by around him to interpret what it means to "put faith into practice".
The main theme "evolves" to this extent, it is enjoyable to watch!