X Theater X "Huan Yan": An extremely "idealized" creative adventure
"Journey to the West of the Republic of China" and "You Sing the Alternative Republic of China Road Films I Appeared", these are the descriptions of the romantic highway legend "Huan Yan" by netizens.
When road movies collide with period dramas and the road to learning from the scriptures becomes the road to protecting gold, the genres compatible with the drama are very personal, and the tight rhythm and high-frequency plot reversals also make the story full of dramatic tension, and the polyhedral character design and absurd behavior will also directly pull the sense of contrast.
In the summer of Ace Wars, "Huan Yan" won the love of a large number of audiences with its avant-garde expression, textured shots and good story background. At the same time, as the second work to appear on Tencent Video X Theater, it also means that the audience's trial standards for this work will be more stringent, and with the blessing of compact narrative rhythm and multi-faceted character shaping, "Huan Yan" proves with practical actions that "innovation can break the game".
Avant-garde personal expression, the era drama is new
As a romantic road legend drama, "Huan Yan" adopts the design of the road type, highlighting the growth of the protagonist during the journey of the route, and the two lines echo each other, integrating more content to fill in and "add color" to the story. Like previous period dramas that focus on expressing stories such as the struggle for hegemony in troubled times and the commercial war of the Republic of China, these contents limit the background of the story, resulting in certain limitations in the expression of the story, while the highway type can combine different regions, different cultures, different atmospheres and other factors to produce more sparks with the protagonist, and "freshen the content". "Huan Yan" tells the story of the protagonist Xu Tian returning to China to embark on the road north to protect gold, once experiencing accidents such as train distress, losing gold bars, finding gold bars, etc., and intersecting with marriage contracts, sacrifices of old grandchildren, etc., the story is full of tension, and Xu Tian's growth is also quietly happening in addition to contradictions and choices.
In addition, "Huan Yan" also focuses on starting from a new perspective, highlighting the expression of diversified group portraits, highlighting the "faces of all living beings in troubled times". From the content point of view, many era stories put the perspective on the latent work of information and intelligence, and few people put the camera on other characters, and "Huan Yan" puts the perspective on the small characters with morality and human touch, choosing a new perspective of an era story.
In order to protect Xu Tian, people like Lao Sun, Yu Yixiu and others collected intelligence, disguised themselves, fought psychological warfare with other forces, and dared to sacrifice, showing the patriotic feelings and righteousness of the little people. Of course, there are also negative characters such as Lao Qi, Pengju and other negative characters are also very full, such as Lao Qi, he is not only the person in charge of the life of Sanzhai Xanadu, but also a lackey who colludes with local warlords to seize the people, and the two-sided role reflects the complexity of the era background. These characters also more objectively express the various living conditions and values of different groups in the chaotic times, showing a multicultural and intersecting era background, which makes the audience more fresh.
Good dramas are not necessarily cool dramas, "Huan Yan" does not deliberately pursue coolness, but wants to present these characters with stories, ideals and enthusiasm to the audience more fully, so it breaks the conventional routine of the narrative of the same type of drama, and starts from the main story line to truly show the choices and experiences of small characters in the context of the times, without gold finger opening, with the story process and gradually complete the transformation and the formation of values, so the story of the drama is relatively strong, and the "base" is deeper. For Xu Tian, difficulties are present at any time, teammates may suddenly die, the scenery on the road and the people around him are changing all the time, and no matter what, he can only accept and continue to move towards the end.
On the whole, "Huan Yan" combines period dramas and road films to create a new narrative system, and subverts the suspenseful expression of traditional period dramas, making it a period drama that exceeds the audience's traditional expectations by cutting in from a new perspective and emphasizing the truth of details. It is true that sometimes innovation also means taking the risks it brings, and the conceptualized lens language, unconventional character style and multi-line crossover narrative in "Huan Yan" have also caused many audiences to shout that it is difficult to understand.
Absurd behavior + black humor, the ultimate pursuit highlights the "crazy" personalization
"Huan Yan" is not a period drama in the traditional sense, it not only breaks the audience's habitual expectations, but also has an ultimate pursuit of content creation.
There is no lack of extreme characters in "Huan Yan", but it also shows the background of idealism, showing that "crazy" people also have sincere hearts. In the context of troubled times, a road to escort gold bars also means the ideal road, some people are lustful, some people are wise to protect their lives, but there are more people willing to dedicate themselves to ideals. Yu Yixiu, played by Zhang Luyi, is a person with a noble status and no knowledge of the world, who has not been out of town for forty-one years and Tulou for five years, always quiet in the falsehood he maintains, but later gradually awakens because of his friend's sacrifice for faith, and finally commits suicide in the casino and delivers it to death. Some netizens commented: "Yu Yixiu is the ultimate madman, and the desire for tradition and new ideas is separated and unified in him!" "Not only Yu Yixiu, but also Zhang Jiayi, played by Zhang Yi, etc., they are all people who look indisputable on the surface and abide by the status quo, but after being poked by something, they show a very contrasting image and make incomprehensible behavior, which is why many people feel that the characters are a little "crazy", but this just proves the depth of these characters, they are not passively accepting all of the world, and their hearts are still full of idealism.
Layers of details are laid out, highlighting the absurd style to the extreme. When Liao Fan spoke with a serious face, doing things that were "unreasonable but very strong", the double prominence of the ruffian sense of the little person and the heroic psychology, the sense of contrast was full, and the tone and style of the image were steadily laid.
For example, Lao Sun said, "Think more about the consequences of everything", Xu Tian said, "It is useless to escape", Yu Yixiu said, "Everyone is born free, no one can do who is the master" and so on. "Huan Yan" seems absurd and has no lack of black humor, the non-linear narrative structure is very Quentin's style, and the line style has the charm of Jiang Wen, which makes the personality of the work very prominent.
"Huan Yan" also has an extreme pursuit in terms of vision, and the tone of the whole drama is very natural and comfortable. The creative team adopts the "real-life" image tone, in Xu Tian's journey through the four places, this "shaky, organic and natural picture presentation" will give the audience more immersive experience, as if following the protagonist Xu Tian all the way north, jumping trains, looking for gold bars, out of the three villages of western Fujian, seeing the chaos of the old era that is both powerful and powerful, and also allows the audience to understand the beliefs and ideals pursued by the people in the play.
The team's ultimate pursuit of drama creation has formed a very obvious pioneer from many angles to upgrade and innovate, and "dare to be the first" also needs to bear the risk of word of mouth. Xu Bing, screenwriter and chief director of "Huan Yan", also publicly said, "At the beginning of creation, we are not without concerns about the way several lines are unfolded in parallel, whether it is in terms of creative difficulty or broadcast risk, we are facing a test. "Therefore, after the launch of "Huan Yan", it provides more space for the audience to discuss, and a mature work should withstand the audience's various opinions, because art criticism is also an important part of content creation, and works that can withstand scrutiny are good content. "Huan Yan" takes content as the core to provide everyone with a variety of discussion angles, and the diversity of comments enhances the value of the content itself, and the feedback of the audience is also an important reference for the industry to explore content creation, so diversified reviews also have a positive effect on creative exploration.
Tencent Video X Theater escorts "Huan Yan", a pioneering work exploring new directions in the market
Since "The Long Season" won a high score in April, the audience's expectations for X Theater have become higher, when "Huan Yan" was launched, the audience felt the charm of X Theater more deeply, "X" not only represents the unknown, possibility, but also represents innovation, bravery, no limits, each pioneering work is a big adventure for the platform and creators, and will eventually be verified by the market.
"Long Season" and "Huan Yan" have completely different genre positioning and expression forms, which is in line with the positioning of X Theater "one drama and one frame", the label will continue to launch different styles of works, bringing the audience different content experience, and the commonality of these two dramas is that they are completely based on the era in which the drama is located, showing the characteristics of the times, human differences and ideal power in all aspects, which should be the value concept that all good works want to convey, but X Theater hopes to deliver more profound and diverse content here, emphasizing the coexistence of "sober and absurd" , the pursuit of extreme expression, perhaps this is the meaning of "diversified pioneers".
The current drama market needs innovation, and "risk-taking" is the only way for the industry to explore good content. The drama market has always faced the problem of homogenization of creation, and the risk of innovation based on evaluation and other links is difficult to quantify or avoid, and the audience's already commonplace types, plots, bridges, etc. can not help the platform to obtain new growth and it is difficult to retain the audience, the values of the times are also iteratively upgraded, so content innovation is what practitioners must pay attention to, pioneer creation is not engaged in author-style output of high and low, but from the type, character, lines, lenses and other aspects of upgrades, enhance the audience's sensory experience, This is the fundamental reason why pioneering works win in the future.
The innovative attempt made by "Huan Yan" itself coincides with the concept of X Theater - "one drama, one style, multiple pioneers". Behind such a seemingly bold attempt is a seemingly simple creative concept - respect for creation, innovative expression. Creation itself should not set limits, the expectation of infinite possibilities and the full exploration of the unknown are difficult and precious ideal persistence.
From the continuous blessing of "The Long Season" to "Huan Yan", X Theater has formed a set of label standards, laying the foundation and tone for its high quality, high reputation, stylization, innovation and type. From Tencent Video X Theater's creative concept and market practice of "One Drama, One Style, Explore Pioneers", we can see the value of content innovation, the common pursuit of good content by creators and audiences, and the platform's confidence and determination to explore high-quality projects with high-quality content teams to explore more possibilities for the drama market.