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Wen | Wei Qiao
The following contains spoilers, please read with caution.
Are domestic comedies funny?
Douban opened with a score of 7.8 points, rising to 8.1 points at the end, "The Legend of Que Daomen" entered the hotly competitive summer file as a dark horse, Zhao Benshan took his own Zhao family class, walked out of Ivory Mountain, came up with a costume martial arts situation comedy that takes into account the Northeast comedy style and the aesthetics of contemporary youth, and received the evaluation of many netizens for "rectifying costume dramas".
Zhao Benshan, who has faded out of the audience's sight for many years, still has an irreplaceable position in the minds of young people today, and "The Legend of Que Daomen" once topped the Yunhe market share list during the broadcast. Among the many large-scale and large-scale realistic urban dramas and fairy-themed ancient puppet dramas, this sitcom that seems to have low production costs and lack of publicity is unique. The main creator in the play can be called a star is the well-known Zhao Benshan, and Song Xiaobao plays a supporting role with villain attributes, but is second only to the leading actor Zhao Benshan in the cast list.
Compared with Zhao Jiaban's previous works, this "Legend of Que Daomen" has a high "mountain content", and with Zhao Benshan's decades of acting experience and accurate grasp of comedy, it unsurprisingly received laughter from the audience. This comedy, which was updated at lunchtime, was jokingly called by the audience "not a dinner drama, but a rice spray drama." ”
Many viewers compared the show to "The Legend of Wulin", calling it a revival of costume sitcoms. But on the other hand, the Northeast comedy gene that Zhao Jiaban cannot erase is not only the source of their humor, but also forms an understanding gap that is difficult to cross, and the audience's evaluation of the series has become polarized. "The Legend of Que Daomen" has both skillful comedy expression and down-to-earth production, as well as a slightly old-fashioned plot and simple theme expression. On the whole, it is not hidden from the flaws, and it is already a good-looking work in the current drama market. As Douban netizens said, "Routine, but sincere." ”
Zhao Benshan's sincerity
Compared with the more and more refined martial arts dramas on the market, the impression of "The Legend of Que Daomen" is "rough".
The story takes place in a magpie knife gate where the master and apprentice add up to only six people, a small farm yard, and several simple and broken houses, which is the main scene in the play. The actor is far from "youthful and beautiful", and the service road is also full of the "rough" temperament of the children of the rivers and lakes.
It is this rough appearance that gives people a sense of realism that has been lost in martial arts dramas for a long time, which is a river and lake that needs to worry about rice, noodles, vegetables, oil, salt, sauce and vinegar. Before the sword and shadow, the first thing is life. The treacherous rivers and lakes are interspersed between peeling potatoes, making sauces, stir-frying and eating, and the distance between the audience and the "rivers and lakes" is dissolved by the details of life.
On the other hand, the play provides a fight scene that is obviously "not rough". Although there are not many scenes, the fist to flesh, neat and dashing martial arts complement the rough and real picture texture, showing full sincerity. Compared with the "new martial arts" who are keen on using exaggerated slow motion and complex camera shooting, this laughing and angry small-cost comedy seems to capture the soul of "martial arts" more accurately.
"The Legend of Que Daomen" is not the first time that "Zhao Jiaban" has devoted himself to the theme of ancient costume martial arts, but this time he can get rid of the previous suspension and exaggerated evaluation because Zhao Benshan chose the expression he is most familiar with and good at. The core of the story is still a Northeast rural sitcom, creating a low-level character full of shortcomings but full of flesh and blood, expressing spicy irony of society and life between the gags of daily life.
For sitcoms, the establishment of the image of the protagonist is crucial. Zhao Benshan plays two roles in the play, compared to the martial arts and calm Ximen Changhai, the timid and critical brother Ximen Changhai, who thinks about finding his wife all day, is much more vivid and vivid. The cowardly, urban, shrewd and kind rural old man is naturally integrated with Zhao Benshan's image, which not only stems from his superb acting skills, but also contains the intimacy that the audience has accumulated in classic sketches over the past decades.
In contrast, the shaping of the three apprentices is thinner, including the honest master brother Hao Meng, the reckless and conceited second senior brother Zhao Dezhu, and the gentle and wise little junior brother Jiang Yulang. The main female characters also chose two classic images: the naïve and lively little junior sister and the hot and capable old sister-in-law. In general, the character image of the apprentices is simple and grounded enough, but it is a label first, lacking a more three-dimensional shaping.
For audiences familiar with "Zhao Family Class", the actors in the play are familiar faces, and the images in the play are more or less different from those in previous works. The audience's familiarity with the actor is a double-edged sword, on the one hand, the audience can more easily have a sense of familiarity and affection for the character, on the other hand, the actor's deeply rooted image in the past will also make the audience frequently play, and it is difficult to really enter the role. Also subverting the image, Yang Shulin, who played Cao Gonggong, had more space for performance, but left a deep impression on the audience.
This is also the reason why the audience cares about the "mountain content" in the play, similar to the situation of "Zhao Family Class", the performance of the apprentices is difficult to stand alone, and the real drama eye that "The Legend of the Magpie Daomen" can attract the audience is still on Zhao Benshan.
A funny "skit"
Ximen Changhai, his younger brother who is responsible for resisting the war, found his brother Ximen Changhai, who has no martial arts attainments, to sit in the gang, and the contrast brought about by the dislocation of the identity of "the head of the spoon to become the leader" is the laughing point throughout "The Legend of the Magpie Daomen". The heroes with superior strength in the play are actually low-level little characters full of shortcomings, who have passed through countless coincidences and misunderstandings, and constantly staged funny plots.
Identity reversal, expectation violation are the most common methods of comedy, Zhao Benshan's grasp of comedy skills is easy, Ximen Chang as soon as he speaks, the familiar northeastern accent and casual comedy baggage immediately make the audience laugh.
Looking at it carefully, there are many old terriers such as "a chopstick is easy to break, and a chopstick is also broken" in the comedy in the play, and the head of Ximen is saying to Zhao Dezhu, "Or you are still called Zhao Zhu!" Don't you know what you lack yourself? "Such a rotten terrier. But the same meme is protracted and boring, performed by Zhao Benshan is hilarious, the exquisite rhythm and three-point performance, coupled with excellent audience popularity, the blessing of the comedy effect far exceeds the text itself.
I don't know if it's for physical reasons, or I want to give the apprentice more opportunities to perform, in the play, Chief Ximen disappears on the grounds that he often hides from people in the mountains. Without Zhao Benshan's performance, the comedy effect and watchability of the series are often unsatisfactory. For example, in episode 25, Hao Meng went out to deliver Da Chan, and his wife Ye Siniang asked Jiang Yulang to help Hao Meng get a dragon slaying knife as a birthday gift, which was misunderstood by Zhao Dezhu and Ximen Rou that the two had an improper relationship. The plot still creates laughter through poor information and contrary expectations, but due to the loopholes in the logical details, the audience guesses the end of the story almost from the beginning, and speculates about sexual relationships as the core of the story, which also seems vulgar and boring.
There is also a meme in "The Legend of Que Daomen", which is a call back to Zhao Benshan's past works, and it is also a tacit understanding between Zhao Benshan and the general audience. Let me ask, when I see Mother-in-law Cauliflower describing Ximen Changhai as a "long face", who will not think of the "authentic pig's waist face"; When Gongsun Lirong sings "Oh ho
Sketch "Red Sorghum Model Team"
Even southern audiences who are not very interested in Northeastern comedy can smile in front of these sketch memes. When the "internal terrier" has a wide enough sphere of influence and is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, it will evolve into a public consensus, and at the moment when "palace jade liquor" has become an anti-spy code, Zhao Benshan's sketch has also become a symbol of the times. This has often been criticized in many works in the past as fried cold rice and selling feelings, but it still works on the "sketch king" that the audience has missed for ten years.
Just like those sketches that are still fresh in the public's memory, the comedy texture presented by "The Legend of Magpie Daomen" is also sketch-like. Clearly labeled characters, simple storylines, creating laughs through behavioral conflicts, and "shaking baggage" with language and performance. There is always one of the densely laid laughs that hits you in time, and the audience does not have time to think deeply, and laughter often precedes thinking. After all, for today's comedy, being able to "make the audience laugh" has accomplished most of its mission, outperforming the vast majority of peers.
Deconstruction, and then what?
"The Legend of Que Daomen" is written in a small sect, which is easily reminiscent of the classic sitcom "The Legend of Wulin". The similarity between the two dramas is that they both use playful plots to disassemble and disenchant the swords and shadows depicted in martial arts novels, and the rivers and lakes of the stormy meeting, and reconstruct a real, secular world of rivers and lakes.
At the beginning of the episode, Ximen Changhai lit an oil lamp deeply, "If a room is filled with darkness, a flame is needed to illuminate it." The next second, Chief Ximen blew out the oil lamp and said, "No, what are you ordering it for?" "When vulgarity meets righteousness, the simple and comical Northeast comedy and the happy and vengeful martial arts stories collide, creating a strong sense of contrast.
In the play, the Five Poisons Sect leader who was terrified by the people of the rivers and lakes was hyped up, and the Changbai Mountain sword competition reached the final, and the two gang leaders of the Tianchi Gang and the Que Daomen did not understand martial arts. There is also a peerless son who wears women's clothing and pretends to practice the Sunflower Treasure Book, and Cauliflower's mother-in-law and Gongsun Lirong are both descendants of the Ancient Tomb Sect, and they suddenly recognize each other halfway.
Deconstructing authority and satirizing reality are important thresholds for comedy from "funny" to "classic" in the past. At this point, "The Legend of Magpie Daomen" shows a side that keeps pace with the times. From the main line of "anti-waking" of stepping on the emotions of the times, to the parody of contemporary hot spots such as "opening blind boxes" and "eating kickbacks", the irony of social phenomena runs throughout.
From "media hype" to "showing off wealth pit daddy", from "draft shady" to "rice circle chaos", and "northern Myanmar fraud" that attracted national attention, "The Legend of Que Daomen" unsurprisingly received the audience's "dare to shoot" evaluation. These plots can catch people's attention, because of the absurd effect of using the ancient costume martial arts background to fully display the current hot topics, and a large number of dense emotional evokes bring a hearty viewing experience, which is very rare in today's film and television dramas.
However, limited by space or other reasons, the satire in the play is only a superficial reproduction of social phenomena, and there is no more space to explore the social roots and deep motives behind them. The final problem with "opening the blind box" is buying a fake; The problem of "chaos in the rice circle" stops at the protagonist's suspended animation and everything returns to the past; The end of "private salt mining" is that Gao Da Mao loses all his private salt and starts from scratch. For the problem is flashing, shallow taste, lack of strength to reveal reality, more serve the funny comedy effect.
This is enough for a dinner comedy, but for Zhao Benshan, who has created classic satirical sketches such as "Uncle Niu Tigan", "Three Whips" and "New Year Greeting", the audience always has more expectations.
Sketch "New Year Greeting"
No matter how much dissection and banter the "martial arts spirit" has been made in the play, when the plot returns to the main line of "anti-wa" that connects the whole play, it is doomed that "The Legend of Que Daomen" will eventually return to the theme of "the great hero, for the country and the people". The "oil lamp" at the beginning of the episode was also re-lit. The audience faced Zhao Benshan's sincere eyes, and it may be easy to accept the change of Ximen Changzai. Who would have thought that at the end of the entire show, the only character with a growth arc was the old man with gray hair and a face full of wind and frost?
At the end of the story, a complaint of "Shangda Tianlisten" decided the defeat of the villain Cao Gonggong, and the new villain Wei Gonggong who appeared with it brought suspense to the new story. The audience enthusiastically called for the arrival of the second part, perhaps for the audience, it does not matter whether the villain of the sitcom exists or is repeated, the important thing is that they have received real laughter during the time they watch the show, which may be the best gift that the former "sketch king" can bring to the audience today.
(Excerpted from WeChat public account Sanlian Life Weekly)