"Under the Stranger" was the first in the ratings when it was broadcast, and it was removed from the shelves for 4 episodes, what is the reason?

In 2023, domestic dramas seem to have opened the second pulse of Ren Du, and there are many good dramas.

In just 7 months, there were 13 dramas with more than 8 points on Douban, with an average of 2 appearing a month.

Among them, there are 9 more, and the score directly soared to more than 8.5 points.

The most rare thing is that these popular dramas cover different themes and have achieved breakthroughs in almost all genres.

This year, the "first shot" was fired at the most difficult sci-fi drama.

At the beginning of the year, a "Three-Body Problem" completely established a new ceiling for domestic science fiction dramas.

It can be called the restoration of the original work of "picking words", Yu Hewei's performance of sealing the gods again, it is no wonder that CCTV pushes so hard.

At the same time, a "Crazy" ignited a strong fire on the crime theme.

Compared with the pure crime drama of "Conquest", the blackened story of a small fish seller and the decades-long confrontation between good and evil obviously resonate more strongly with the audience.

Under the epic heat, many actors in the play "became famous overnight", and this drama also set a new benchmark for crime dramas.

In the suspense drama, a "Long Season" made the audience marvel that "it turns out that our national drama is already so strong."

Typical Northeast humor, the ups and downs of the fate of the characters under the tide of the times, make this drama break away from the cliché of previous suspense stories, laughing and scolding, full of stamina.

And that's not the end of it.

In other themes, this kind of surprise is also staged one after another.

Period dramas include "Huan Yan", workplace dramas such as "Today Should Be Cheering", youth dramas such as "When I Was a Boy", romantic dramas such as "Love Only", and healing TV series "Go to a Place with Wind".

Even sitcoms have such a continuation of word-of-mouth as "Breaking Elite Season 2".

However, among these popular dramas, there is only one theme missing, that is, fantasy dramas.

Because of the popularity of "The First Part of Fengsheng", the "fantasy genre" is very popular in this summer film market.

But when it comes to the field of TV dramas, fantasy dramas have been depressed for many years.

Although various fantasy dramas appear every year, it seems that they are essentially ancient puppet fairy tales, and the stories are similar.

However, a recent new drama called "Under the Inhumans" has become a "fantasy drama hit" among many people.

The heat is fierce.

After a few days of launch, it still occupies the first place in the hot search list and the first place in the TV series hit list.

But the embarrassing thing is that in fact, this drama suffered a suspension after 4 episodes.

When it will resume broadcasting, for now, is still a mystery.

Looking at the evaluation again, it is again a familiar polarization.

People who like it rate it as very reductive, and several actors have acted very well.

People who don't like it, there are many reasons, a thousand words into one sentence, "thanks for the removal".

What kind of drama is this, which rarely starts and then stops broadcasting, and still causes such a big controversy?

After watching the four episodes allowed to be broadcast, Pico found that this drama is indeed different from all previous fantasy dramas.

01、

The comic book is the foundation, the sense of suspense and the sense of substitution go hand in hand, which is a new way to open fantasy

"Under the Stranger" is not a completely new story, it is based on a comic called "Under One".

This comic has long been famous in the anime circle, is one of the head IPs of national comics, because of its sand sculpture style, large-scale painting techniques and brain-opening plot, it is loved by countless comic fans.

It is difficult to adapt such a work, because it is basically impossible to restore 100%, and excessive secondary processing is easy to lose the soul of the original work.

But after releasing four episodes, many viewers have also let down their guard against this drama's comic book and fantasy drama, because it does have a unique temperament.

Compared with other fantasy dramas, this temperament comes from two aspects.

The first is the sense of suspense.

The sense of suspense is actually a very important thing, and at this point, most domestic fantasy dramas are missing.

Because fantasy generally has a grand story background, and above the background, there are various settings and structures, whether it is immortal cultivation or cultivation, the beginning of domestic fantasy is a PPT-style world view architecture introduction.

And in this introduction, the metropolis revolves around a few familiar words, such as how long ago the war, several continents, several countries, several sects, what are their characteristics, and where the protagonist was born...

To be honest, such an introduction is somewhat cookie-cutter, not only has no memory points, but also is fake and empty, giving the audience the feeling that it is like changing several nouns in the same mold, and there is nothing new.

But "Under the Stranger" is not.

It doesn't start with a clear and grand view of the world, but throws out an introduction: aliens.

The information that the audience learns is that these people are different from ordinary people, but they live in the world of ordinary people. There are also contradictions and disputes between different people.

After the core concept is thrown, the background stops abruptly, leaving an echo that is the imagination of the audience.

After that, the operation of this play is more exquisite, and the perspective of the opening game is not the protagonist of the reboot, nor the villain who cannot see the face, but a mountain village drunk.

He was drunk and staggered back along the way, when he suddenly saw a group of zombie-like puppets around the corner, doing something against ethics: digging graves.

The language of this shot has the feeling of a horror movie, the atmosphere is shaped just right, following the perspective of the drunk, I see the puppets lifting a dry ghoul and running away, and the sense of suspense arises:

What is this group of puppets? Why did they dig graves and steal corpses? Who is behind them? What does this have to do with Inhumans? ......

Looking down with questions, the fantasy is given a special look, and the audience's eyes are also attracted.

The second is the sense of substitution.

Unlike other fantasy, which puts the background above and is set in ancient times or the Republic of China, the biggest source of substitution of "Under the Stranger" lies in the real world in which we live.

And the protagonist is an ordinary person like you and me.

He is even so ordinary that even the way he connects with the alien world is so dicky and wonderful.

This protagonist, named Zhang Chulan (played by Peng Yuchang), is a slightly lewd college student.

Zhang Chulan's grandfather was named Zhang Xilin, the one who was dug up.

In Zhang Chulan's world, grandpa is a strange person, he is very kind, but very mysterious.

Grandpa never mentioned his parents' affairs to Zhang Chulan, and his secretive attitude made Zhang Chulan very curious about his own life.

And Zhang Chulan was born with a strange fighting ability, he can always win every fight, and he can beat the other party to the point that he can't take care of himself. But every time he wins, Zhang Chulan has to be taught a lesson by his grandfather, and then move.

In this way, Zhang Chulan's short memory was either moving or on the way to move.

Grandpa told Zhang Chulan to endure in case of trouble. Afraid that he couldn't help it, grandpa specially made a black rubber band for him to wear on his wrist, and he couldn't help but play himself, and he endured it when it hurt more.

After growing up like this, the ordinary Zhang Chulan entered an ordinary university and became an ordinary college student.

One ordinary afternoon, he suddenly received a call: Grandpa's body was stolen!

When Zhang Chulan, who was in a storm, rushed back to the village on a bus, strange things happened one after another.

First, a girl driving an excavator appeared out of thin air, claiming to be Zhang Chulan's sister Zhang Baobao, and also took out a family photo as evidence.

After living for 19 years, there was an extra sister out of thin air, which made Zhang Chulan scratch her head.

That night, Zhang Chulan paid homage to his grandfather in front of the tombstone, and suddenly found that someone next to him was digging a grave with a shovel, and fixed his eyes on Zhang Baobao during the day.

Before he could react, Zhang Baobao buried him in the pit with a shovel that fell from the sky.

Whether Zhang Baobao is good or bad, what he wants, Zhang Chulan does not know.

He only saw that after he was buried, there were many more zombie puppets around, and Zhang Baobao, after putting down several zombies with a few shovels, fled, leaving him alone surrounded by zombies...

Under the background of modern cities, the aesthetic of "Under the Stranger" points to reality. Especially from the perspective of college student Zhang Chulan, looking at the entire alien world, for the audience, there is also the pleasure of revealing the secret, which is the source of its sense of substitution.

And this kind of source, put in the current overwhelming overhead fantasy drama, but it is very valuable and sincere.

02、

Multiple story lines go hand in hand, and the fight scenes are mixed without chaos

Although "Under the Stranger" has only released four episodes, in terms of interior and face, it has reached a height that most fantasy dramas are difficult to reach at present.

The so-called lizi is a story.

All good fantasy must be because there is a good story. When the fairy puppet fell into the trap of "love but can't", "Under the Inhumans" opened up a new path.

In the context of urban fantasy, the story of "Under the Stranger" unfolds in three main lines.

The first is Zhang Chulan's growth line.

He inadvertently learned that his grandfather's body was stolen, and then passively involved in the disputes of the Inhuman world, from meeting Feng Baobao to joining the management organization of the Inhuman World, from meeting the Taoist priest of Longhu Mountain by chance to being stimulated in the body, the audience is following Zhang Chulan's perspective and witnessing how he has become a fragrant food that everyone is vying for.

This story line is the basis of "Under the Inhumans" and the source of the fantasy charm of the entire story.

The second is the corpse stealing line.

Although Zhang Chulan has been tracking down the whereabouts of his grandfather's body, as the body was stolen, the grand structure of the Inhuman World was finally slowly unfolded because of this already cold corpse.

The first to appear is the villain, Lu Liang, who looks weak in appearance and polite, is actually a black-bellied person, and his purpose is to extract part of his memories from the remaining soul on Zhang Xilin's corpse.

Subsequently, Xiangxi drove the corpse family to strangers, and the puppeteer Liu Yanyan appeared, she inherited the family and had the ability to control the puppet, and the tool she used to control the puppet was a pink handle.

After that, the famous bone scraper Xia He appeared, her nickname comes from "color is bone scraping steel knife", and Xia He's superpower is to arouse people's lust, which even puppets are not exempt.

These villains belong to an organization called "Quansex", and the audience can understand them as villains among the aliens.

And decent characters also appear one by one with the search for corpses, such as Wudang Mountain disciples, super rich second generation, and Wang Ye, the heir of the Wind Queen Qi Gate, one of the magic skills.

There are also the two heavenly masters on Dragon Tiger Mountain, as well as the "Everywhere Pass" that manages aliens and disguises themselves as express delivery companies to the outside world, and gradually unfolds with the laying out of the plot.

In this way, the grand background of "Under the Inhumans" and the story line began to unfold slowly, and the audience also experienced the wonder of gradually entering the play.

The third is the past line.

There is a very important concept in the plot, called "Kashin Rebellion", which is the source of strife in the Inhuman World.

And the so-called "Jiashen Rebellion" has a lot to do with Zhang Chulan's grandfather. Following Zhang Chulan's memories of his grandfather, a story line belonging to the past began to be laid out in the plot that was also interspersed.

The great war about family affection and justice, the circulation of strange skills on the alien rivers and lakes, the yearning for power of the positive and negative parties, and the grudges and grudges about grandfather Zhang Xilin in the past are all presented one by one in the past line.

The three story lines go hand in hand, combed by the director in an orderly manner, and it doesn't look chaotic at all, but the doubts are solved one by one, adding a sense of decryption like peeling an onion.

With a good lizi, the face naturally cannot be bad.

What we call face is actually the scene, and specific to the play, it is camera movement, scheduling and shooting.

For example, there is a seemingly chaotic, but actually interesting melee that impresses Pico.

Feng Baobao's party, who protected Zhang Chulan, and the Quan Zhi party led by Lu Liang, had a big battle to fight for Zhang Chulan.

This big war seems to be "chaotic", but it is actually orderly.

With Zhang Chulan's state as the core, the fight sets up a lot of strange and dense laughs, such as Zhang Chulan reaching out and playing a clapping game with the puppet with a confused look,

Another example is that he should have fallen into the arms of the decent Xu San, but he didn't expect to be "cut off" by the puppet and taken away by the princess...

In addition to laughter, there are also fierce, such as Feng Baobao, who split the car in half with a knife, and then the other party's tough gopher, which was played between her palms in her hands, and finally directly put it in the express box and took it away.

The switching and scheduling of different roles has changed the flat movement mirror of the usual fighting, so that each character has sufficient space to show, and those strange fighting methods also make everyone smile and enhance the experience of watching the drama.

You see, "Under the Inhumans" combines good lizi and face, which is where it really breaks through as a fantasy genre.

03、

Just the right restoration and adaptation, both attracting old fans and new fans

As a comic book work, "Under the Stranger" has difficulty in shooting.

If the adaptation is excessive, old fans will inevitably be dissatisfied, and if the original comic is copied, new audiences may not be able to understand.

This places higher demands on screenwriters.

However, reflected in the series, in the scale control of restoration and adaptation, the degree of "Under the Inhumans" is just right.

On the one hand, it did not abandon the high-energy famous scenes of the original.

Audiences who have seen the original work "Under One" should remember the plot of Feng Baobao taking nude photos and threatening Zhang Chulan to become his "slave".

This classic bridge, the drama version of "Under the Inhumans" has almost done a storyboard restoration.

In terms of casting, it is obvious that the main creator has also done his homework, such as Wang Ye's casting Hou Minghao, which is very in line with the audience's expectations, and he has also become one of the most popular characters in the play with a natural comic face.

On the other hand, it has made film and television changes to some plots.

For example, Liao Zhong's early appearance surprised many audiences.

Under the screenwriter's changes, whether it is the puppeteer, Long Hushan or Zhang Chulan's Xinpukai University, the overall tonality is much more relaxed.

Audiences who have read manga know that there are many scenes in manga that cannot be presented, even in anime, it is a high-energy existence to be scolded.

And this part of the content, the screenwriter and director also made a certain compromise, such an adaptation is not only convenient to attract more audiences, but also opens up a new path for the subsequent domestic fantasy dramas.

Of course, "Under the Inhumans" is not perfect, and it also leaves an endless regret.

As an online drama, "Under the Inhumans" is somewhat lacking in the production level, and some special effects scenes seem very fake, like a web game, and are frequently complained about by the audience.

In addition, Feng Baobao's actor Wang Yinglu performed slightly dull, Lu Liang's actor had a little less black belly, and Xia He should have been a royal sister, and actor Jiang Peiyao had a bit of a loli feeling, which was slightly inconsistent with the original.

Even so, the flaws are not hidden, and these shortcomings are tolerable for audiences looking forward to domestic fantasy breakthroughs.

But I don't know what the reason is, "Under the Inhumans" officially announced that due to media reasons, the show was postponed.

As for when the extension will be, it is not said, and we do not know.

It is difficult to appear such a fantasy drama, but after four episodes were released, there was no follow-up, which is inevitably regrettable.

The development of domestic dramas has a long way to go, breakthrough attempts are the cornerstone of innovation, and at this point, "Under the Stranger" still has a lot to offer.

As an audience, Pico only hopes that "Under the Stranger" can return early and give us the opportunity to enjoy the entire 27 episodes.

As a practitioner, Pico also called for more space to try genre dramas, after all, the high level of film and television dramas requires quantitative change to accumulate qualitative changes, needs to broaden boundaries with innovation, and needs to use a hundred flowers to capture the audience's attention.

I believe that this day will not be too far away.

Text/Pipi Film Editorial Department: Ephemera

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