In the last second, dark monsters were rampant, and the painting style was still like "Constantine";
In the next second, the male protagonist singled out the gangsters, and the painting style mutated into "Fast Pursuit".
Last second school violence;
The next second mutates the prison situation.
Extreme drag racing in the last second, live broadcast extreme skydiving in the next second.
The male protagonist also hung up in the live broadcast......
When these plots appear in the same drama, some watched it.
At the end of 2023, the blockbuster Korean drama "Death is Coming", adapted from the popular Korean comic "I'm Dead and Dead", is coming against the wind!
"I'm Dead and Dead" has been read more than 700,000 times on Naver Webtoon Manga, Korea's largest manga website.
Not only has it won high praise from readers, but the average rating is as high as 9 out of 10.
And "The Time of Death is Coming" on Douban opened with a score of 8.5 and soared all the way to 8.7, with a fantasy foundation and suspense blessings.
But this play.
It's definitely not just a "visual stimulus".
"I'm going to die soon."
Death's Game
2023.12.15
The game begins
The male protagonist Xiao Cui (played by Xu Renguo), a young man who has just broken free from the "book world".
The day before graduation.
Wearing his best suit, he went to the interview full of hope, but an accident arose.
"A car accident" is like a pebble thrown into a calm lake, causing ripples.
The passer-by who was knocked into the air happened to die in front of him, less than "50 centimeters away".
This sudden end of his life made him panic.
Subsequently, he was incoherent during the interview and was eventually eliminated by the harsh reality.
For the next seven years, Xiao Cui was like a bird trapped in a cage, constantly struggling but with nowhere to fly.
He works day and night, but he can't get rid of the pressure of life.
奈何「屋漏偏逢连夜雨，船迟又遇打头风」。
His friends cheated him out of his only money and his landlord ruthlessly evicted him......
And—
When he saw other men sending his girlfriend home, he mistakenly thought that his girlfriend was "in love with vanity and empathy", and resolutely broke up sadly.
These were like cold hands, pushing him into the abyss of despair.
So, one rainy night, he chose a dead end - suicide by jumping off a building.
He thought it would be an escape from this harsh reality.
But death is not liberation, but a deeper bondage.
When he opens his eyes again, the Grim Reaper in Hell (played by Park So-dan) is not a "redeemer", but another "cold judge".
Death told him that because he thought "death is low" and "life is cheap".
To punish him, make him experience death 12 times.
In short, if you want to be born again 12 times, you will have to die every time.
The "rules of the game" are simple:
The male protagonist will be reborn in different shells and experience different roles and lives.
He could be a big moneyman or a gangster.
As long as he can avoid death, the male protagonist can live under this body and role.
If the body is killed, the owner will also die, and the male protagonist will be reborn in a cycle.
12 opportunities are used up, and the male protagonist will never be able to live forever.
So, as soon as the guns rang out, the game began.
Annular structure
The plot setting of "Death is Coming" is compared with previous Korean dramas of the same genre.
In addition to the typical "Möbius Ring" (loop) concept, director Ha Byung-hoon also took clips from different film and television genres -
Such as the thrill of the fast chase.
A family infighting that is deceitful.
Warm and romantic wind and snow.
Mixed together.
Fortunately, these plots and video styles are not abrupt, but "enrich the overall story".
In terms of the structure of the play, director Ha Byung-hoon adopted the classic "circular structure" as a support.
Directed by Ha Byung-hoon
This ancient and modern narrative technique is like a "closed spiral", which is both fixed and dynamic.
Let the audience feel as if they are in a story space that is "both familiar and unfamiliar".
At the same time, following the male protagonist's line of sight, the cycle goes back and forth between the beginning and the end, but every time there is a "new discovery", thus creating a "narrative change".
In other words.
It is that each seemingly independent story, like a chapter of a multi-line narrative, is interrelated within the framework of the prologue and epilogue, and plays a "key" role in the narrative structure.
For example, the third rebirth of "middle school student school bullying tragic death" and the fifth rebirth of "young fighter killed by younger brother".
The middle school student and the young martial artist, while these two characters may seem independent on the surface, are in fact interconnected within a larger narrative framework.
Faced with his mother's financial hardship, the martial artist chose to take on the heavy responsibility and "go to jail" for others.
But in prison, he met an "acquaintance".
This person is the male protagonist's "sworn enemy" school bully in the third rebirth, and he is also the "initiator" who made the male protagonist reborn for the fourth time.
Because the male protagonist plotted against the school bully's horse boy, the school bully was annoyed and angry, and on the way home of the male protagonist, he took advantage of his unpreparedness and shot the male protagonist alive with a brick.
Interestingly, when he entered the prison, the school bully still couldn't hide the "majesty" he wanted in his bones, and lied that he was a "psychopathic murderer", which shocked the rest of the cell.
But this naturally can't be hidden from the male protagonist, so he exposed the true face of this "murderer" in public.
And with the help of the memories of his past life, he pretended to talk to the "ghost of a dead middle school student", so that he was completely schizophrenic and lived in hell forever, day after day.
In addition, the spatial construction in the play is not "single static", but as the story progresses, new or extended spaces are constantly revealed, thus revealing new narrative dimensions.
For example, the "chaebol son" long-haired suit man placed in the male protagonist's past life and present life.
In the seventh life, we directly saw this big boss who drove and killed the male and female protagonists.
Why is he like this?
However, in the comics, the eldest son of the chaebol is the male and female protagonists who were killed by "unintentional drunk driving".
The male protagonist who was hit looked at the chaebol son, and then with the continuous flashback of the male protagonist's memory shots, the audience suddenly realized.
It turned out that the director and screenwriter had already arranged such an "obscure dark line story" in the first episode -
Before the male protagonist jumped off the building, he was the boss of the interview company.
Every time the male protagonist is reborn, the encounter of each character is also related to him.
It can be said that the "12 chances of rebirth" in the plot is not only the accumulation of the plot and the continuation and summary of the previous life, but also the multi-angle exploration of the narrative subject.
Of course, the circular narrative structure is not a simple trick to play, but through the interweaving and deepening of the story, it is constantly deepening the understanding of macro propositions such as "fate" and "human nature".
The sixth rebirth may be the most aggrieved of the male protagonist, because this time his body is a baby who can't even speak.
After only 10 minutes of appearance, he was tortured and killed by his inhumane parents with a pillow.
Back in hell, the male protagonist asks the god of death, "How can there be such parents......?
It's a pity that he was interrupted by death before he could finish speaking.
"Nothing should be done in this world, it's just that you've always taken it for granted. And life and death, which are not worth mentioning in your eyes, for that child, you don't even have the right to choose. “
The core of "Death is Coming" is highlighted:
It explores the "complexity of human nature" and "the reality of society" in a bold narrative, which is not only about daring to show the dark side of society, but also about trying to break the audience's psychological expectations.
It leads people to think about the "class problems" and "social ills" that have been despised and weakened, and tries to find a balance between entertainment and thinking.
IP & Adaptation
As we all know, in today's online pop culture and trends, this momentum of Korean culture is known as the "new trendy favorite", and its products are sought after by fans around the world to the point of "addiction".
From "Squid Game" to this year's hit "Dark Glory 2", South Korea has won the hearts of many fans on the international stage through its carefully crafted cultural IP.
If music, film and television have long been shining, then in the field of comics, South Korea has also made remarkable achievements.
Traditionally, in the animation industry, which has been dominated by Japan and the United States, South Korea has been praised for its "realistic and exaggerated" storytelling, which allows readers to create a confined space where they can fully immerse themselves.
And in just a few years, it has risen rapidly.
The Korean webtoon platform, exemplified by "Naver Webtoon", not only has a global user base of nearly 200 million, but also has created a total of more than 1 billion works.
Moreover, its cooperation with Disney marks another leap in the "IP" of the Korean animation industry.
Although "Death is Coming" is an adaptation of the popular Korean comic "I'm Dead and Dead" on the Naver Webtoon website, the director has other ideas.
If you bring it into the comic perspective, you may be disappointed.
Because the director deliberately deleted the "Second Brother Flower Arm was killed", "The Fourth Magician Magic Overturned and Died Accidentally", "The Fifth Rape Was Severely Punished", and "The Sixth Famous Anchor Died Suddenly by Selling Goods" in the comics.
These four separate paragraphs have a boring storyline.
"The second brother with a flower arm was killed", "The fourth magician died by a magic rollover", "The fifth rapist was punished viciously", "The sixth famous anchor died suddenly selling goods" (from top left to bottom right)
Instead, a non-linear cross-narrative between a speedy killer, a baby abused to death, an extreme athlete who loves sports, and a young fighter in debt, and whittles down the 13 rebirths in the original book to 12.
As for the rebirth of the fifth generation, how about the rebirth of the adaptation adding a new story line?
However, for the adaptation of the original work, the most controversial thing is why the heroine still misses the male protagonist after he jumps off the building?
In the original book, the male protagonist was kicked by the female protagonist before he died.
After the death of the male protagonist, the female protagonist married the rich second generation.
And this kind of plot setting has also been liked by readers.
Because compared with the play, the male protagonist in the original book is more useless, has been unemployed at home for five years, does not do a proper job, speculates in stocks all day long, and is cut leeks.
If the heroine still misses a waste of firewood, it is really a typical "broken jar and self-seeking dog food" - Korean-style love brain.
In this way, compared with the original work, although the male protagonist in the play is a waste of firewood, he still has the hard work to fight for life, but it is just bad luck.
The second half (the other 3 episodes) will be released on January 5, 2024, so let's look forward to it.