The first in the ratings, Zhang Jiayi's drama was caught on Monday, and CCTV proved its vision again

In recent years, costume dramas have obviously fallen into decline.

It's been a long time since we've had such an interesting and unsimilar costume drama as "Young Bao Qingtian" and "Daming Palace Ci".

Fortunately, CCTV took action and launched a dazzling costume drama - "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty".

Looking at the title of the play, some people should have guessed that this is a story about Di Renjie's detective case.

Di Renjie's story, from Liang Guanhua's version of "Detective Di Renjie" to Tsui Hark's series of movies, the audience will always be attracted by ancient Chinese detective stories.

CCTV production + Di Renjie theme, how can "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty" be unstable?

In the past, after the end of the prime time, each David TV ushered in a wave of shutdowns, and the ratings of the sub-prime time dramas were all high and low, declining all the way. However, it is also a sub-prime time, but the ratings of "The Case of Tang Di Gong" soared, and finally won the first place in the same period, and the performance was quite eye-catching.

After watching it, Mr. Tomato has already deeply felt the charm of this drama, and found that this drama is getting more and more exciting, and I assert: It will definitely be popular all over the country.

1. Starting tone: Di Renjie made his debut and showed the potential of a detective

"The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty" does not refer to a single case, but consists of nine major cases, which are related to each other and eventually lead to a big conspiracy.

The pattern of the whole drama is very large, but the director has come up with a trick from shallow to deep.

In the first episode, a big case was not arranged immediately, but through a small case, the protagonist of the play - Di Renjie (played by Zhou Zhouwei) was introduced.

Di Renjie was not interested in joining the WTO as an official because his father died in the struggle, and after returning from his travels, he was not busy with scientific research, but lived in a mixed inn and asked for wine.

One day, a group of officers and soldiers suddenly broke into the inn, saying that a precious pearl had been stolen, and they caught the buyer who had agreed with the thief to make a deal, and learned that the thief was hiding in this inn, but they did not know who he was.

It was during the scientific expedition, and the guests in the inn came from all over the world, and it was easy to find an unknown thief from it, like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Seeing that the officers and soldiers were going to treat all innocent people indiscriminately with iron and blood, Di Renjie, who had been watching coldly, finally couldn't help but take action.

He asked the shopkeeper for a roster of residents, and sat down one by one according to the names on the booklet, and made clear the identities of each of the people on it, the purpose of coming to the capital, and the traces of the past few days, ruling out the possibility of them committing crimes.

In the end, Di Renjie found out a new face mixed in, and according to his recollections, he found that this person attached great importance to the abacus in his hand after entering the inn, and suspected that he hid the pearl in the abacus.

Unexpectedly, after checking the abacus one by one, there was no gain, but Di Renjie did not give up, he carefully recalled the person's every move after entering the inn, and then walked to the counter suddenly, picked up the shopkeeper's abacus and wiped it, and a painted pearl saw the light of day again.

It turned out that this person had already left a back hand, and in order to avoid the search of the officers and soldiers, he stole his abacus and the shopkeeper's abacus and replaced the pillars, but it was a pity that he was still planted in Di Renjie's hands.

Although the case is small, the rhythm is tight, and there is even a reversal such as dropping the bag after seeing through the thief's abacus, which not only makes people see Di Renjie's keen insight, but also releases a signal to the audience: This drama is by no means the kind of boring drama that can be known at the beginning and the end after watching it.

2. Climax: The praying mantis catches the cicada, and the phoenix is behind

After using one episode to foreshadow, the plot entered the main line non-stop. Di Renjie, who had just returned from his trip, immediately heard about the bizarre incident.

In the capital, a plane tree symbolizing the phoenix was burned, and the queen's phoenix seal was also missing. Two things happened at the same time, the goal was obvious, and the sword was pointed at the queen.

Unexpectedly, Di Renjie soon fell into it.

One day, he and his former classmates went out to drink and catch up, but they were lured by a burst of singing to a wine shop that was closed and did not accept customers.

The proprietress didn't want to entertain the two, so she talked to the two at the door, but when she saw the officers and soldiers patrolling the street approaching the liquor store, she changed her mind, hurriedly welcomed the two into the door, and then closed the door completely.

After three rounds of drinking, Di Renjie encountered strange things one after another.

The two were not used to drinking wine, so the classmate took out his own wine jug and wanted to replace it with white wine, but accidentally found that the wine jug was leaking.

The classmate wanted to drink it all before the wine was all gone, so he took a sip and spit it out violently, because the wine tasted like a yellow lotus, and it was unspeakably bitter.

But the drunken classmates didn't take the matter seriously, and only thought that they had eaten Huanglian a few days ago and dipped the medicinal powder in the spout.

The two drank until they were drunk, and on the way to the toilet, Di Renjie vaguely saw the proprietress walking out of a dark room, and there was a mysterious woman behind her, but when Di Renjie stepped forward to ask, the proprietress prevaricated on the grounds that he was dazzled.

And when Di Renjie returned from the toilet, what was waiting for him was a fire, and he could only watch his classmates die in the fire.

In order to prevent his classmates from dying in vain, Di Renjie must find out about this fire.

As a result, he found that the fire was not simple, the gate was locked from the outside, preventing the people inside from escaping, and one of the dead was the palace maid in the queen's palace who escaped from the palace without permission, it was the one Di Renjie saw at the door of the secret room, and her duty was to guard the phoenix seal.

However, the fire has not yet been identified, and another fire broke out, and the deceased were several farmers who helped the queen guard the silkworms she raised herself.

From the loss of seals, to the sycamore tree, the palace maid, and the silkworm farmer were all fired, each of them was related to the people around the queen, and it was rumored in the capital that the queen interfered in politics, which angered the heavens.

But Di Renjie felt that this was not providential, but man-made. After listening to the struggle between the teacher Wei Wuji (played by Zhang Jiayi) against the two forces of Empress Wu and Changsun Qing in the capital, he was even more convinced that everything was done by Changsun Qing (played by Zhang Xilin) in order to frame the queen.

However, just when he thought he had come into contact with the truth, he unexpectedly discovered that Wei Wujian had hidden a stone that ignited when it met with air in the wine jar in his study.

In the flash of light, he thought of the bitter wine of his classmates and the half of the leather rope found in the fire, and after careful comparison, he found that it was exactly the same as the leather rope that Wei Wuji used to tie the book. Later, he looked through Wei Wuji's comments criticizing Empress Wu.

It turned out that the real driving force behind the scenes was not Changsun Qing, but his teacher, Wei Wuji, a hidden anti-martial artist.

Wei Wuji's original intention was to let his disciples take the broken wine jug containing the stone to participate in the scientific examination, so that in the middle of the exam, the wine just ran out, and the stone would spontaneously combust in the examination room, destroying the examination dominated by the queen.

As a result, the new policy of the examination room did not allow containers to be brought in, and the wine jug was temporarily confiscated and placed upside down in the basket, resulting in the wine in the jug not leaking on time, but waited until the two went to drink after the test before spontaneously combusting, which led to the fire in the wine shop.

Unexpectedly, it happened to burn to the hiding place of the queen's female official, so Wei Wujian planned to block the door of the wine shop.

The matter was revealed, and Wei Wujian did not hesitate to set fire to spontaneous combustion in order to further frame the queen, creating the illusion of the fourth heavenly fire. At this moment, a man in black appeared, leading Di Renjie to a mysterious place. Waiting for him here is actually the Empress Wu.

Di Renjie's investigation of the Tianhuo case had already attracted the attention of Empress Wu, and she decided to take him for her own use, so she confessed everything to Di Renjie, and it turned out that Di Renjie was wrong again.

The real driving force behind the scenes is not Wei Wuji, the fire in the wine shop was indeed set by him, but the first few fires were all the queen's own handiwork, and even the phoenix seal was hidden by herself.

The queen did this in order to make a move to the bottom of the pot.

Let Changsun Qing use the topic to play and trample himself under his feet, and then the Jedi counterattacked, when Changsun Qing was the most powerful, he hid the seal in the candlestick of the pagoda, and when the candle burned out, the phoenix seal appeared, showing his general trend, and completely suppressing the momentum of Changsun Qing's faction.

In only four episodes, the murderer changed from the eldest Sun Qing on the bright side to Wei Wujian who fished in troubled waters, and then became a strategizing martial queen, with ups and downs and constant reversals, which really made the audience spend a lot of brains.

3. Aftertaste: The powerful costume has a texture

I don't know when many people feel that acting skills are not needed to act in costume dramas, as long as they can fool the audience by relying on the character's character design and gorgeous costumes, Liu Yuning said something similar in his live broadcast.

It is precisely because of this lazy psychology that today's costume dramas are full of a group of actors who are squeezing their eyebrows and making eyes, and their acting skills are real and they can't watch it.

But the powerful factions in "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty" have set things right for the costume drama.

Everyone's impression of Di Renjie is more of the version of Liang Guanhua, the middle-aged Di Renjie is there, with a big belly and a righteous face, which is very in line with everyone's imagination of decent people.

Because Liang Guanhua's version is too deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, Mr. Tomato couldn't help but sweat for Zhou Zhou at first, but it turned out to be completely blind. Zhou Yiwei found a different way and played an alternative young man Di Renjie.

The Zhou Wei version of Di Renjie is not as old and spicy as Liang Guanhua's version, and he has a feeling of being a fledgling, which will make people feel that he is confused in the case, so he will be led by the nose by all parties in the sealing case.

It is not easy to perform both the acumen of a detective and the youthfulness of a young man, but Zhou Yiwei did it.

In the first episode, the pearl case of the inn made people see Di Renjie's cleverness, and he had the pride and frivolity of young people when he eliminated suspicion to everyone.

But when he found out that the real culprit of the arson case in the wine shop was Wei Wuji, Zhou Yiwei did not speak, but used a look to express his sudden realization and disbelief.

Zhou Zhouwei's smart acting skills made the character of Di Renjie very full.

From "self-righteousness" to "lack of self-awareness", people can see the growth of the characters, and he took over the play of Zhang Jiayi, who is old and spicy in acting.

In the play, until the truth was revealed, Mr. Tomato never doubted Zhang Jiayi, because he really behaved uprightly and awe-inspiring, and no matter how he looked at it, he was a mentor and a helpful friend.

But when the matter was revealed, looking at his angry and crazy appearance, I suddenly realized that Zhang Jiayi had actually shown his feet to the audience in his previous performances.

For example, every time he talked about the martial arts, he would frown, showing a slight impatience, which already hinted at his attitude towards the martial arts.

And after he learned that his closest student had died in the fire, although his words were all about mourning for the student, his expression was not too sad, because the student was just a pawn of him.

There is also the scene of spontaneous combustion at the end, the madness on Zhang Jiayi's face, at first glance, he has lost his mind, so it is not surprising that he can make spontaneous combustion.

I have to say that Zhang Jiayi's acting skills are really good, and he deceived the audience with both good and evil.

There is also an unexpected actor in the play, which is Zhong Chuxi.

Zhong Chuxi rarely plays ancient costumes, and her temperament is outgoing, she has always played a big role, is it really feasible to let her play the scheming martial queen?

But after watching the play, Mr. Tomato felt that her performance was on the passing line.

When she sat in the back seat, she did have the momentum to look down on the world in a gorgeous palace dress.

And when she met Di Renjie privately in men's clothes, although she was petite, she did not lose at all in momentum, and her every move carried the fierce momentum of the superior, and talking to Di Renjie was like mentioning juniors.

In the end, the head-to-head confrontation with Changsun Qing played the scheming and stability of the martial arts queen very well, as if the winner of this game was destined to be her.

The performances of several powerful actors have greatly improved the texture of the whole drama, and it will not make people feel that costume dramas are children's plays, but have thickness, intriguing and aftertaste.

Fourth, winding the beam: The spring of costume dramas is coming

It should be said that the broadcast of "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty" has made people see that there is a better way to open costume dramas.

It is gratifying that "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty" will not become a standout, because more and more serious costumes are being filmed.

Zhang Songwen and Bai Baihe are working together to shoot "The Code of the Riverside Picture at Qingming Festival".

After "The Legend of Zhen Huan" and "The Legend of Miyue", Zheng Xiaolong came into contact with the theme of ancient costumes again after many years, and found Xiao Zhan to star in "The Legend of the Tibetan Sea", and said that he would carry out realism to the end.

These costume dramas are different from the ancient puppets of Xianxia on the bad street, and they will definitely set off a major change, let's wait and see.

(Movie Rotten Tomatoes Editorial Department: Yang Jing)