Yang Zi's new drama "The Story of Chenghuan" broke through the circle and was praised! What did this drama do right?

On April 9, the new drama "Cheng Huan Ji" starring Yang Zi and Xu Kai was launched on CCTV-8 and Tencent Video, and landed on CCTV-1 in the morning file from April 18.

On the 8th day of the broadcast, "Cheng Huan Ji" set a new record of 30,000 popularity in the urban drama station in 2024 on Tencent Video, announcing that it had entered the "Explosive Club", and the number of interactions in the discussion area exceeded 10 million. According to Yunhe data, as of press time, "Chenghuan Ji" ranked first on the screen list with a market share of 20.6%, as well as the first place on the list of public opinion.

As an urban emotional drama, "Cheng Huan Ji" grasps social hot topics such as intergenerational contradictions, self-worth, and emotional concepts, jumps out of the route of sprinkling dog blood, and uses warm and inclusive innovative expressions to balance vividness and profundity, so that people can get the power of healing.

In fact, this is also the key to breaking the circle of "Cheng Huan Ji".

|The East Asian girls of "Chenghuan Knees".

A TV series that is out of the circle, the core, of course, is the content.

The story of "Cheng Huan Ji" is very interesting-

The protagonist Mai Chenghuan is an ordinary girl born in a small alley in Shanghai, with her mother urging her to marry and her brother employed. What she worries about every day is three meals a day, and how to rely on her own efforts to make her family live a good life.

When three extraordinary people appeared in her ordinary life, everything began to go off the rails. Ex-boyfriend Xin Jialiang is a rich second generation who hides his identity and falls in love with her; his step-grandmother is a founding generation who is worth a lot of money and hides his identity; professional hotel manager Yao Zhiming is the grandson of his step-grandmother, and he competes with Mai Chenghuan for the Xing'anli Hotel, and he also has a deeper understanding of her in the process of getting along and cooperating.

Although this drama has created a dramatic space for the heroine, it has set up some problems for her that you and I may face:

Does marriage really need to be a good match?

Do our parents, out of "your own good," take control of our lives?

When faced with great temptation, can you stick to your original intention?

On the one hand, "Cheng Huan Ji" affects the audience's emotions with its constantly reversing plot, and on the other hand, it constantly frequents hot topics such as marriage, love, work, and family of modern urbanites, which promotes the resonance of young people. It is not difficult to understand why "Cheng Huan Ji" has set a record of the fastest number of barrage interactions on Tencent Video in 2024 to break 100 million, and has become the first drama in 2024 to break 10 million barrage interactions for 3 consecutive days.

The fundamental reason why "Cheng Huan Ji" can resonate widely is that it successfully depicts a typical Chinese family map, especially the in-depth portrayal of intergenerational relationships, showing the common plight of girls in the context of East Asian culture.

The typical contradiction in the play comes from the mother-daughter relationship, the mother has a strong desire to control, and the daughter is docile and well-behaved. In the daily life of broken thoughts, although there is maternal love, it is also suffocating. Like many East Asian girls, Mak Chenghuan is careful to live in the expectations of her parents, but she is actually independent and rebellious at heart. Her mother married from a small county town to a big city, changing the trajectory of her life, but she still lives in the old empiricism, and the small alley and the three-foot space of the kitchen are all she has. Her life experience has created her simple wish: her daughter must marry well and live better than her.

Sometimes, that inch of vanity is even stronger than the joy of the daughter.

This story is very similar to many ordinary families, the contradiction between Mai Chenghuan and his mother is a common realistic dilemma for East Asian daughters - constantly struggling between obedience and self, and many viewers lamented that "Mai Chenghuan is very much like himself". The value of "Cheng Huan Ji" lies in the fact that she not only shows the dilemma itself, but also provides a new idea: girls insist on being themselves and being responsible for their own lives, which is the greatest filial piety.

Faced with the unequal marriage of the rich second-generation family, Mai Chenghuan dared to say no. Faced with unfair competition in the workplace, she dared to start over. Taking over the management of her step-grandmother's hotel, she dared to take on the burden and learn from scratch. Mai Chenghuan relied on practical actions to establish the boundary of family affection, so that each other can find the most comfortable mode of getting along.

In addition, the diverse group portraits of women created by "Cheng Huan Ji" are all using their own experiences to teach girls how to be themselves.

The step-grandmother is the soul of "Cheng Huan Ji", and the core of her life wisdom is also to be herself. When he was young, he married the wrong person, decisively ended the wrong marriage, and did not give up looking for true love in his later years. Even if it is not favored, it has relied on its own efforts to build the Xing'anli Hotel into a unique landmark in Shanghai.

When her step-grandmother died, the identity of the wealthy man was exposed, and she left Mak Chenghuan a hotel worth hundreds of millions of dollars, as well as a lot of savings. Many people believe that the huge inheritance is the key to Mak Chenghuan's counterattack, which is undeniable. But the step-grandmother's greatest value to Mai Chenghuan is actually to help her establish a spiritual core of independence and no internal friction.

Mai Chenghuan's best friend Mao Mao entered marriage prematurely because of love. But after discovering that he had made a mistake in payment, he chose to divorce and start his own business. She went from being trapped by her family and being creatively copied by her husband to stop her losses in time and finally live out herself.

The image of an independent and sober woman reflects the rising "her power" in recent years. Only by the same frequency of content and reality can the user's emotional map be unlocked, so that they can breathe and share the same fate.

Re-solving the "Equation of Love"

"I used to be a daughter, but now I am a mother, and my mother's broken thoughts hide unspeakable love..."

"In Mai Chenghuan's eyes, parental love and sibling love are the most important, and love is only a side branch, she is a smart woman in the new era..."

"There is a sense of contrast between the alleys of Shanghai and the life of the metropolis, which is quite realistic and worth seeing..."

In addition to young people, "The Legend of Chenghuan" has also won a reputation in the pan-crowd circle, and everyone can always see their own shadow in different aspects. The pyrotechnics of "Chenghuan Ji" have found an outlet for everyone's emotions.

"Cheng Huan Ji" is a microcosm of thousands of families in China. Dad Mai is a "strict wife", but he is down-to-earth and warm, when his daughter and her in-laws meet, he was not good at words but mustered up the courage to say a lot of things, and even drank a few glasses of wine, this scene Mai Chenghuan was moved, and it also made you and me in front of the screen have a great sense of presence, because he is very much like you and my father, ordinary but still a mountain for children.

Chenghuan's mother, Liu Wanyu, is a typical devotional mother, who cuts down on food and clothing and makes careful calculations at home. In order to make up for her daughter's dowry, she will consider selling her house and jewelry, and she will also put down her face and ask her stepgrandmother for help. Her concern for her children is real and selfless, and Mai Chenghuan can feel her mother's love in the details of life. Therefore, she said to her boyfriend, "With my mother, I think as long as it is above the bottom line, it is not a conflict, and hard work can be balanced." ”

But this maternal love lacks a sense of boundary, and at the moment when she deceived Cheng Huan to the engagement scene, Cheng Huan's bottom line was completely broken. Perhaps from the moment the relationship broke up, Liu Wanyu realized for the first time that the docile and well-behaved daughter had already grown up.

"Learning to let go" is a compulsory course for parents.

"The Story of Cheng Huan" not only outlines the true feelings of ordinary people's families, but also allows us to take a step back and look at the positive value of family and love for personal growth.

The Mai family has no house to live in and lives in his stepgrandmother's house, and Yao Zhiming wants to use Xing'anli as a voter for a promotion and salary increase. It seems that the Mai family needs the bungalow more, and Yao Zhiming also needs the hotel more, but the step-grandmother's will was unexpected, leaving the hotel to Mak Chenghuan and the bungalow to Yao Zhiming. The step-grandmother skipped over the superficial need and saw the deepest longing in the souls of the two young people. Mak Chenghuan needs a chance to prove himself, while Yao Zhiming needs a home.

"The scenery should be long-sighted", grandma's wisdom in life is to make up for the lack of the younger generation's heart and slowly grow into a better self. She and Chenghuan's mother's love complement each other and are the most powerful spiritual strength.

Many viewers left messages in the comment area - I also want such a grandmother. What is reflected behind this is actually the most missing link in the traditional Chinese family: how to let the child have strong spiritual strength, and eventually grow into an adult with positive three views, a stable core, and sufficient stamina, which is the best annotation of family affection in "Cheng Huan Ji".

Mai Chenghuan's love is not all smooth sailing. From simply liking a person to facing the family behind him, it is a necessary course for many girls in life. The marriage proposal stage is full of twists and turns and tests, the intervention of elders, the mismatch of social status, and the involvement of interests... After experiencing this, she really saw the essence of her boyfriend - a "mother man" who is playful and has no responsibility, and finally understands her need for affection, which is mutual respect and common growth.

Therefore, the follow-up relationship between Mai Chenghuan and Yao Zhiming is more rational and mature. Only when two mature individuals are attracted by each other's most authentic qualities will both parties open themselves up and regain the ability to love and be loved.

A new expression of urban drama

In recent years, Tencent Video has launched many urban-themed dramas, focusing on the lives of ordinary families. "Good Things Come in Pairs", which will explode in 2023, and "Fireworks Family", which will be launched in 2024, are all based on family and discuss individual growth. From these stories, it is not difficult to see that Tencent Video is exploring new expressions of returning to the basics.

From the perspective of the concept of the story, being close to life and putting details first is the core of the detonation circle.

Only 40 minutes, how to get from Pudong to Puxi during the rush hour? Mai Chenghuan chose to take Yao Zhiming to take the subway + ride a shared bicycle, a mobile phone swept a small yellow car, a small blue car, and intimately helped him raise the seat of the bicycle.

Xin Jialiang is taken care of by Mai Chenghuan every day, so even if he holds a sun umbrella for her, the umbrella only covers himself; a girl born in a Shanghai alley, Mai Chenghuan speaks in a very low tone, which is in line with Wu Nong's soft tone......

"Cheng Huan Ji" constructs solid details of life to establish the characters' sense of belief and the rationality of the story. Although the intergenerational conflict between mother and daughter in the early stage is extremely conflicting, after the death of grandma, the mother's active care, and Cheng Huan's band-aids on his mother's feet, all indicate that the relationship between the two has broken the ice, and both are looking for a more comfortable mode of getting along, which is undoubtedly a growth for both mother and daughter.

Although there will be conflicts between family members, there is more warmth, which is the true way of life.

In terms of character creation, real and three-dimensional character design is becoming the mainstream.

The male and female protagonists of "Cheng Huan Ji" do not have a routine of love at first sight, nor do they deliberately create the characters of the boss and Cinderella, their feelings germinate in the chaos of reality and grow up in their own transformation.

Mai Chenghuan attaches great importance to love and righteousness, and Yao Zhiming is decisive in the early stage. The intersection of the two also began with Yao Zhiming's calculations, and the two began to understand each other after experiencing various stumbles in the workplace and life together. The time spent with grandma accelerated the emotional warming of the two. But an inheritance distribution also put the contradiction of interests between the two, and it also became a test of the relationship between the two.

In terms of the narrative mode of the TV series, the emotional direction of the two belongs to a state of "natural flow" - this is a more advanced expression. For the two people in a half-cooked state, the feelings of mutual healing and complementarity are more real and moving.

From a narrative point of view, topicality + light comedy elements make chasing dramas a healing journey.

Although the topicality of intergenerational contradictions supported the first half, "Chenghuan Ji" did not choose to use a tense rhythm to promote the development of the plot, but found a balance between contradictions and joy, and also made the characters multifaceted.

Although her mother Liu Wanyu is nervous, everyone can always be amused by the embarrassing scenes she has repeatedly created, which makes people laugh. Mai Chenghuan is a good girl on weekdays, and after falling out of love, she will get drunk and talk about self-deprecating drinks, which makes people see the sadness behind the obedience. "The Legend of Cheng Huan" tries to construct a three-dimensional character level in a more relaxed way. So that the audience's emotions don't have to be tense all the time. The way of light comedy also determines that the background color of the series is warm and healing.

In the process of linking the audience's emotional map, Tencent Video has explored a new way of expression of urban dramas. It not only achieves the same frequency with reality, but also conducts positive discussions on social issues, so that the audience can gain the power to move forward positively. This not only enhances the value core of urban dramas, but also explains the direction for the high-quality creation of long video platforms.

From "Ask Heart", "Hometown, Don't Come to Harm" to "Good Things Come in Pairs", "Fireworks People" and "Chenghuan Ji", Tencent Video has been deeply cultivating the urban emotional track, focusing on the growth of individuals in the family context, and continuing to provide high-quality, high-reputation, and high-value positive energy content.

Let the audience have a sense of gain in the story of fireworks, which is the value of urban dramas.

Liang Xiaosheng wrote in "The World": "If a child is an ordinary person, then he will be happy, and if he is outstanding, then let him spread his wings and fly high." ”

"Cheng Huan Ji" allows us to see that whether Cheng Huan is on his knees or spreading his wings, every choice deserves to be respected.