Author: Gu Han
Editor|Li Chunhui
The relatively dull drama market in 2024 finally has the work worth talking about "The Wind Chaser".
"The Wind Chaser" is a financial spy war drama of the Republic of China produced by CCTV and iQiyi, and jointly produced by Confucian Pictures, Enlightenment Pictures, Oriental Panorama, and Wanda Pictures. As of the end, the peak popularity of "Wind Chaser" on iQiyi reached 10017, which is the first drama series of iQiyi to exceed 10,000 this year, with the peak real-time ratings of CCTV exceeding 2.66%, and the market share of feature film broadcasting on the whole network exceeding 21.6%. In terms of topic dissemination, it has triggered a circle-breaking phenomenon in many fields such as the financial circle, the historical circle, and the cultural and tourism circle.
The spy war of the Republic of China is a classic category of national dramas, after the round of explosion from "Latent" to "Before Dawn", in recent years, there have been platforms, capital, directors, and stars invested in it, and there are quite a few projects that sell well. However, until last year, the dilemma of spy war dramas was still quite obvious: the TV ratings were stable or even excellent, but the new media side was mediocre, there was little discussion, and it was even more difficult to talk about word of mouth.
In Hard Candy Jun's view, big category labels such as the Republic of China and spy war can easily hide that "The Wind Chaser" is essentially a financial drama. In fact, it is the rare perspective of "Republic of China + Finance" that makes it stand out, brings a different look and inspiration, and also reflects the unique ingenuity of Confucian Films.
Why is "The Wind Chaser" so "out of the circle"
First of all, we need to answer: why is it difficult for a large number of spy war dramas and Republic of China dramas to reproduce the past prosperity?
First, the type once dominated the screen, which often means that the output is high and the quality is uneven. On the one hand, there are too many excellent works that are difficult to surpass, and on the other hand, there are also many inferior works that follow the trend and affect the criticism of the entire category, resulting in a lack of interest in the audience's new works in the future. Second, the current audience either needs the ultimate fantasy or real empathy. Mediocre Republic of China dramas are easy to not stick to both sides, so that they lack competitiveness.
And "The Wind Chaser" is the one that is not mediocre and not "silent" for a long time. In addition to the dazzling broadcast data, the online and offline physical sensations can also make people feel that this drama is really popular.
As a new drama, it has achieved "pan out of the circle" on mainstream social entertainment platforms such as Douyin, Douban, and Xiaohongshu. There are not only female portrayal and workplace details that arouse young people's empathy and discussion, but also vivid historical pictures, strong feelings of family and country poured over primary and secondary school students, and there are more lines and golden sentences to stimulate the enthusiasm of short video second creation, and even been quoted by cultural tourism propaganda around the world.
What's even more rare is that its radiation scope has gone beyond the drama users and entertainment fields. A large number of financial elements have made the play pay attention to the financial majors of colleges and universities, and it has a full sense of existence in the financial media and investment community, and has even been posted by cultural celebrity Fan Deng and economist Ren Zeping.
The playback data can also support this kind of "pulling new" out of the circle. According to Detaven's observation, the play has attracted many mature and lightly mature audiences, and has received extremely high attention in developed cities.
Once it looks good, it will be liked from all directions. Why can "The Wind Chaser" break the long-term "silence" of spy war dramas? In Hard Candy Jun's view, its "Republic of China + Finance" genre innovation is the key.
First of all, for the drama market, "Republic of China + Finance" is a very effective new selling point. In recent years, some financial dramas have emerged in the market, and the public's interest in finance has also increased day by day. But at the same time, few people do financial dramas with the background of the Republic of China, and "The Wind Chaser" not only adapts to the needs, but also is novel enough.
Secondly, "+ Finance" has absorbed the industry drama and workplace drama models to a certain extent, so that "The Wind Chaser" can "drag" the Republic of China drama from the empty imagination of the warlord's wife to the ground, to construct and portray the living beings and social conditions at that time, so as to attract young people and ferment some low-threshold and high-resonance topics.
Finally, "+ Finance" also portrays the positioning of the show more clearly, showing the creator's ambition for professionalism and word-of-mouth, and respect for the audience's IQ, which distinguishes the show from the Anti-Japanese War dramas and anti-Japanese war idol dramas, and makes it easier to attract users of atypical dramas.
Use the Republic of China to open up the three "realms" of finance
It is not easy to win users of atypical dramas, but their recognition is often the key to the drama being out of the circle and becoming a national hit. Generally speaking, professionals can't watch related professional dramas, but "The Wind Chaser" has been praised by a large number of financial students and financial practitioners. Therefore, compared with spy warfare, Hard Candy Jun wants to explore how "Wind Chaser" filmed finance.
First of all, of course, it is the choice of the theme of "Republic of China + Finance", which opens up the depth of the history of finance, which can be said to tell the past to know the future.
There are very few financial period dramas on the market, and those P2P stocks always happen at the moment. However, when "The Wind Chaser" presents the famous financial events of the Republic of China, such as the central bank's fight against private banks and the resumption of tariff custody, we really understand what it means to "fight a war, fight for the economy", and rethink what the solution to today's various financial status quo used to be.
Even people who are well versed in the operation of today's financial markets may not understand how modern finance started to develop in the Republic of China. Such a "Wind Chaser" is very reminiscent of another financial spy war drama of the Republic of China in the early years of Confucian Pictures - "No War in Beiping". The play tells the story of the last moments of the struggle between the Kuomintang and the Communist Party in 1948, and a series of open and secret battles around the Beiping Branch of the Central Bank.
In fact, it was precisely in "The Wind Chaser" that the central bank of the Nationalist Government annexed a number of private banks step by step and completed the "financial rule"; in 1935, it was able to smoothly implement the reform of legal tender and abolish the "silver standard"; and in 1948, in "No War in Peking", the economy of the nationalist region collapsed and lost the support of the people due to the indiscriminate issuance of fiat currency by the Nationalist Government.
Banking and finance are not only a business model, but also a set of social organizational structures that integrate politics and economy. It can be said that through a series of thrilling plots such as the holding of Commerce Bank, the acquisition of Xingxia Bank, and the Shanghai counterfeit money case, "The Wind Chaser" clarifies the essence of modern finance in a localized way - without the participation of the state, there will be no modern finance. Without modern finance, there would be no modern nation-state. Finance has given the Republic of China, spy warfare and patriotic beliefs a new aesthetic angle full of strangeness.
It is precisely because of the observation of finance in a past, long historical period that "The Wind Chaser" allows the audience to see the breadth of finance and explain how the financial "system" works.
Usually, financial dramas present us with a cross-section of the market, but "The Wind Chaser" is based on the central bank of the national government and the financial practice of the Soviet region, trying to tell us how the entire financial system, and even the financial-government system, works. How the laws of the economy, the will of individuals, and the tide of the times affect the financial system and the livelihood of society through it.
This not only satisfies people's pursuit of strong drama, but also allows people to better examine the current financial phenomenon from a macro perspective. Although modern finance is the hub of a market economy, it is not itself a product of a free market economy. When more contemporary financial dramas are showing the vertical and horizontal of the stock gods and the rebuke of investors, "The Wind Chaser" allows people to see how the "invisible hand" works.
Under the rare grand financial narrative, "The Wind Chaser" chooses the rise and awakening of a grassroots accountant as the "following perspective", which makes people full of a sense of substitution.
The protagonist Wei Ruolai played by Wang Yibo is a "Shanghai drifter" young man from Jiangxi, in the process of job hunting, hard work, promotion, and resignation, the characters he comes into contact with range from bankrupt shareholders to high-level executives who stir up the storm, leading the audience to see the cruel pyramid of the Republic of China system.
Regardless of the particularity of the era and the salvation of the country, his story also allows thousands of finance students or practitioners to see themselves: the fierce competition in the interview session, the frightening workplace relationship, the low fault tolerance rate, the slightest carelessness will implicate a wide range of work content, the high-pressure work environment, how to stick to the black and white when facing more temptations than other industries, how to be clear-minded, and how to digest disillusionment and confusion after witnessing too many cruel rules behind the financial appearance...... History doesn't repeat itself, but it always rhymes.
Confucian long-termism
Genre innovation helps to make the project eye-catching, but "The Wind Chaser" is a stable hit from beginning to end, the audience is extremely sticky, and the long-tail effect is obvious, so excellent creativity, solid plot and excellent quality are indispensable. Behind this is the exclusive content methodology and resource competitiveness of Ruyi Films.
It is reported that the script of "Wind Chaser" arrived in the hands of director Yao Xiaofeng as early as 2018, and it was not until Ruyi Pictures entered the game that filming could be started.
On the one hand, gold medal producer Chen Zhixi has always been based on the principle of "achieving breakthroughs in the original genre", and her affirmation has provided a strong endorsement for this innovative drama. More importantly, Ruyi Pictures has opened up the high-quality resources on both sides of the film and TV series, and has provided a lot of assistance to the project team, which is an important reason why the show has been valued by the platform and met the audience less than a year after its completion.
According to the data, the content of filmmakers in the main creative team of the play is quite high: director Yao Xiaofeng graduated from Nortel Photography Department, and was previously a photographer of famous directors such as Huang Jianxin and Li Shaohong. Editing director Cao Weijie has cooperated with Jiang Wen many times, and was nominated for Best Editing at the Academy Awards for "Let the Bullets Fly". Art director Wu Jiakui and styling director Ma Defan have also participated in many well-known period blockbusters.
Such a team has created the picture texture and artistic level of "The Wind Chaser" beyond the traditional TV series, and has played a big role in getting out of the circle in the early stage.
Skillfully doing genre innovation, unwilling to follow the trend and repeating, opening up high-quality resources, and achieving quality breakthroughs are the long-term ways of Confucian Films' frequent masterpieces and stable reputation. Obviously, a series of follow-up new dramas by Ruyi are still practicing these two points - "The Prosecutor and the Juvenile" focusing on juvenile crime, the boutique miniseries "My Altay", the criminal investigation theme "Confession in the Night", and the greasy IP "The Road to the Sky".
After the destruction of hot money and the reduction of costs and efficiency increase, Chinese dramas are currently in a new stage of competition, and it is necessary to expand the width of the subject matter, tap the depth of content, enhance the artistic height, and strive for the breadth of communication. So the long video platform is concentrating on cultivating young people on the one hand, and actively embracing film companies and filmmakers on the other. Ruyi Pictures is currently gaining momentum in the film industry, and it is also quite qualified in dramas, which can be said to be the right medicine.
A typical case is "My Altay", which was unveiled in Cannes a few days ago. It is adapted from a collection of essays of the same name, with Chen Zhixi as the director and Dapeng as the producer, which combines a sense of sophistication, experimentation and locality, and thus successfully integrates with international standards, which is really helpful to raise the ceiling of Chinese dramas.
All in all, with the way of long-termism, do honest and innovative works. The Confucianism of filming "The Wind Chaser" is the "wind maker".