Author | Akagi Jarko
"Don't say pretty things in front of me. ”
"How do you know I'm saying pretty things? You are allowed to have a story, and no one else is allowed to have feelings. ”
Can Zhao Hui, vice president of the bank, who "often walks by the river and doesn't get his shoes wet at all," still sticks to the bottom line when he is caught in an entanglement of interests? How does Tao Wuji, a fledgling bank teller with thorns all over his body, re-establish his ideals in life in the unspoken rules of the workplace of fighting for connections? Standing at the fork of "one step at a time" and "taking shortcuts through speculation," how can Tian Xiaohui, a newcomer in finance, "just get to the end"?
broadcast ten episodes, and these quietly sprinkled "hooks" in "City in the City" not only made the migrant workers empathize with Tao Wuji's "class flavor" and the "unspoken rules" of the workplace, but also made the audience curious about Zhao Hui, a figure in the industry who wandered in the black and white area but did not get "dust" at all, what he thought and felt. The creation of many "white and black" characters in the play also greatly enriches the watchability and speculation of the plot.
The financial industry, which allows money to flow, is like a city-state built with gold, and the city within the city is the core of the financial city, which is as gorgeous as a dream and as fragile as a bubble. Different from previous dramas with financial elements, there is no luxurious background layout, and there is no drunken imagery, the lens language of "City in the City" uses a real and concrete look and feel, allowing the audience to quickly capture the empathy point in the series. There are no too many obscure financial jargon, but focus on the story line and the characters' mental journeys in simple terms, and slowly portray and lay out the characters under the industry narrative with realism.
"City in the City" is co-produced by China Central Radio and Television, China TV Drama Production Center Co., Ltd., iQiyi, and Shanghai Xingge Culture Media Co., Ltd., directed by Teng Huatao, and adapted from the novel of the same name by Teng Xiaolan, winner of the Lu Xun Literature Award. Since the broadcast, CVB has broken 3, the peak real-time ratings have reached 2.4690%, and the popularity of iQiyi station has exceeded 8500. The escort of the powerful team has made the series gain a lot of voice in the creation stage, and what also impresses the entertainment unicorn is its meticulous portrayal of each individual in the financial turmoil. Young people who are full of enthusiasm at the beginning of the workplace, and veterans who are comfortable and quiet, each has their own ambitions and plans, in the financial vanity fair, where will the fate of "Tao Wuji" and "Zhao Hui" go?
Xiaobai has just entered the financial field, how to achieve his ambitions and dreams?
In the past, the flashy conjectures and suspended structures of the financial industry in urban dramas did not appear in "City within a City", and the sharp deconstruction of reality came one after another. At the beginning of the series, many unspoken rules of the workplace were dissected, showing a multi-dimensional "game" in the financial field, and by the way, the audience also popularized the basic knowledge of finance.
The first game is the game of ability and relationship. In the assignment of fixed posts, Tao Wuji, the "king of stocks", was left at the counter, while Cheng Jiayuan, who was unfavorable in handling business, was assigned to the public sector, and the situation of the two was in stark contrast.
The unspoken rules of the workplace are intuitively presented in the play, which not only brings a sense of reality to the drama and triggers the audience's empathy, but also leaves a lot of room for thinking: what is the survival situation of a passionate migrant worker with no background in the financial industry in a big city? Is the value of working hard for an ideal really better than having a background and relying on relationships? And this focus also enriches Tao Wuji's calm personality.
The second is the game between idealism and realism. A few years after graduation, some people have smoothed their edges and corners in order to be more in line with the identity of the "tool man" in the workplace, so that the pain and sense of achievement are not so intense, and some people face their original intentions and strive to achieve themselves, Tao Wuji is obviously the latter, in the deep Mao Bank that relies on resources and connections, Tao Wuji chooses to fill the gap between ideals and reality with wisdom and courage.
Tao Wuji, who is bold and careful, has the righteousness of "young heroes in the rivers and lakes". When a colleague did not perform well in the face of the "mysterious man" unannounced visit, he would solve the siege for him in a clever way, so that the unannounced visit evaluation would be invalidated; when the master, who suffered from postpartum depression, impulsively jumped off the building due to a misunderstanding in the industry, he chose to stabilize the other party's emotions first and confessed to the "inner ghost" in a clever form; after agreeing to President Zhao Hui's secret investigation to obtain information, he would complete the task even if he was in danger.
The third is the game of sticking to the bottom line and rushing for quick success. In the financial arena built by money, exploitation and exploitation are staged every day. When Tao Wuji completed the "investigation" task with all his might, and accidentally discovered the leader's trickiness, he was told by Zhao Hui that the report was meaningless, and when the task was only "used" by his newcomer identity, he just accepted it calmly......
On the other hand, Tao Wuji and his girlfriend Tian Xiaohui's career route is gradually deviating from it. Tian Xiaohui, played by Xia Meng, is also smart, resolute and bold, compared with Tao Wuji, who stayed at the bank counter with his strength, although he "hit a wall everywhere" on the road to finding a job, he cherishes every interview opportunity. After meeting her cousin Shen Jing played by Yang Zishan, she lowered her bottom line step by step, and finally tasted the taste of "victory", but this victory, is it a career victory, or an undercurrent? At present, it is still left for the audience to reverie.
In the many games that seem to be "one step at a time", the idealistic spirit is also "tempered" to the extreme. Judging from the content that has been broadcast so far, the idealistic Tao Wuji and the realist Tian Xiaohui have different starting points and different ways to achieve their ambitions and dreams. One of the two adheres to the principle that "brave people enjoy overtime first", and the other is complacent because he gets inside information and is regarded as a "life-saving hero" by the leader.
The idealist's adherence to the bottom line and the realist's pursuit of the current material slowly unfolded in Tao Wuji and Tian Xiaohui. These are two kinds of life pursuits that are dialectically related to each other, and when the giant wheel of the times rolls forward, their destinies are bound to be different.
叔圈“斗法”，秉公or徇私？
The background of the era of financial reform in the play is equally reflected on the workplace whites and industry bigwigs. The crisis-ridden situation of financial novices is presented in another form in the big coffee who is comfortable in the industry.
In addition to the workplace novices in the financial field, one of the highlights of the play is the "Uncle Circle Fighting Method". In the play, four college classmates who know their roots well, graduated for more than 20 years, and have flourished in different positions in the financial industry, with distinct personalities and thoughts. Zhao Hui (played by Yu Hewei) is most like the deceased Dai Xing, with potential and clean sleeves; Miao Che (played by Wang Xiao), who has done two years of discipline inspection and ten years of auditing, and knows everything in the industry, is the most patterned; Su Jianren (played by Feng Jiayi) looks out of tune, but has a true temperament; Xie Zhiyuan (played by Tu Songyan) is the most profitable, but too smart. The four of them take on a quadrilateral shape that competes in secret and maintains balance.
Compared with Tao Wuji's workplace "primary game" that arouses the empathy of most migrant workers, Zhao Hui's game has become a trade-off between "impartiality" and "favoritism". The dilemma of "my daughter is sick and needs huge medical expenses" and "trying to sell the house I shared with my deceased wife" also made the audience jokingly call him "the broken baby of his deceased wife's sick baby".
At this stage, Zhao Hui is obviously an idealist like Tao Wuji. "From the moment I stepped into this industry, I have always taken the golden mean, because I can balance all kinds of relationships. But only the matter of collecting money, I dare not go beyond half a step. Not in the past, and not in the future. "How long can Zhao Hui hold on to the standards and bottom line he has set for himself in the dye-like financial field?
Zhao Hui, who was called by Su Jianren to "engage in feelings" with a shelf, is obviously a typical example of idealism. Even the eldest brother Wu Xianlong (played by Wang Jinsong), who saved his life, did not give the green light, and firmly rejected the other party's suggestion to fund the treatment of his daughter, "If Rui Rui really can't be cured because she has no money, it is because she was born in my family, and she didn't have this life" This is an extremely "broken" reason.
Mr. Ouyang's words of admonishing the "Uncle Circle" foursome also laid the background color of "City in the City": "You all wear clean white shirts to your posts, no matter how much you cherish them, the shirts will always turn yellow and black, this is a natural law." But you can't just mess around with it from the beginning, and it will turn into a black shirt in three days, so you still have to take care of it. ”
The four "clean white shirts" have also been dyed in different colors in their 20 years of training. Audit Miao Che's shirt can be said to have been "bleached", the only person who drinks tea at the dinner party is good at "cunning" to blend in and see each other clearly; Su Jianren, who seems to be hedonistic, has no great ambitions for the workplace in the gray area, and concentrates on middle-aged love after falling in love with Zhou Lin at first sight; Xie Zhiyuan, whose shirt has long been blackened, has forgotten his love and righteousness, and has not stopped his self-interested teacher who indirectly killed him.
Zhao Hui, as the main character clue, is also the only one who tries to find a balance between black and white. On the one hand, Xie Zhiyuan, who used the "beauty plan" to calculate Zhao Hui for personal gain. On the other hand, he faced his daughter's huge medical expenses. When many entanglements of interests and practical predicaments come at once, can the "hunted" white shirt still be as white as ever? Zhao Hui's character arc is also the space left for the audience to reverie in "City within a City" at this stage.
The financial city in the city, the elite group portrait under realism
Truth is always the "nirvana" of realistic themes. In "A City within a City", there are not only many realistic parts that reflect the dilemma of the real workplace, which arouse the audience's emotional resonance, but also a group portrait of vivid characters that are not black and white.
What's even more exciting is that when such group portraits are "thrown" into an extreme environment, the character traits are stimulated, and the values are also imperceptibly reshaped and unpredictable. The core of the financial city and the center of Vanity Fair, desire and perseverance are equally magnified, which also leaves the audience to look at the environment more dialectically, and the space for each "little person" in the financial turmoil to make choices and human choices is also one of the reasons why many audiences are happy to follow the drama.
On the one hand, for "City in the City", through the true portrayal of the career choices and ups and downs of the fate of financial practitioners, it allows contemporary audiences to deeply understand the transformation of the financial system and the ups and downs of the elites of the times. In addition, with the financial theme as an incision, it really depicts the dilemma of human nature in the face of choices, with a sharp and sharp perspective, and it is not dull and boring. Whether it is the portrayal of the family line and love line of the comic character Su Jianren, or the exchange of words after the two meet in the "Uncle Circle". The play not only presents the middle-aged man's own "pure love", but also presents thoughts such as "in the face of interests, love is really thin".
Another meaning of a city within a city is more like portraying the unfathomable human heart. The elite group portraits in the financial city not only include the idealist Tao Wuji and the comic Su Jianren, but also the inscrutable characters like Zhao Hui, some of them are down-to-earth and hardworking, some are ill-intentioned and speculative, some are willing to sit on the mountain and watch the tiger fight, and some are drunk and do not want to drink. Every storm in the financial city is a peek at the changes in human nature, exploring two sides and even many sides of the matter.
The audience can not only substitute the perspective of Tao Wuji's grassroots workers, but also feel their own loneliness and bravery, and what form they will land in the workplace that is not absolutely fair. You can also substitute the perspective of Zhao Hui, a "big man" who is well versed in the rules of the workplace and understands the world, and feels the "manipulation of people" of the leader, and uses a series of operations to recruit thorny newcomers who are brave and strategic, enthusiastic and dare to tell the truth for their own use.
On the other hand, the rich group portraits of the characters provide the audience with more space to think. Through the presentation of rich character traits and the stimulation of events, the drama not only presents the audience with the true appearance and root of things, but also tries to explore the interaction between human desire and the general environment, the difficult choice of a "white shirt" like Zhao Hui when he is hunted, but the audience's thinking is a thousand faces.
The choice of human nature under the entanglement of interests is thought-provoking, and "City within a City" explores the different choices of two generations of "mirror images" of financiers in simple terms. The times and people's hearts interact with each other, influence each other, and at the same time are interdependent, and each audience has a ruler in their hearts, measuring and savoring their unique thinking.