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Strictly speaking, "Unspeakable" is a suspense drama that tells the story of Gao Yang, an undercover police officer, who lurks in a criminal gang to find the truth many years ago. But at the same time, it is also a "suspenseful crime action drama", not only with many thrilling chase and arrest scenes, but also with a large number of fist-to-flesh fight scenes designed on the suspenseful background familiar to the audience. The male protagonist fights with criminals, the heroine fights with criminals, and criminals and criminals also fight, and it is the norm for actors to be disgraced. It is also this kind of real entanglement and fighting between the positive and negative camps, which constitutes a major feature of the series that is different from previous suspense dramas.
"Unspeakable" is the first work of iQIYI Mist Theater in 2024, and Jia Zhiqi, the producer and head of iQIYI Qixi Studio, told Gu Duo that it has a "sense of rivers and lakes". is like a line of Lei Naiwu in the play: "I don't run, because this is the rivers and lakes." "In this world, the maintenance of righteousness and the upholding of justice are justified.
In this way, "Unspeakable" is not curious. It has the indispensable simple justice in traditional police and bandit dramas, as well as the straightforward and simple emotional interaction between people. At the same time, as a member of the Misty Theater, its direction also shows the consistent creative idea of the Misty Theater: superimposing different genre elements on the basis of suspense, giving a solid story a new audition expression. Only in this way will the suspense drama not fall into a single trap.
The hardcore and delicate nature of "The Unspeakable".
In the process of watching "Unspeakable", "cool" is the most intuitive feeling.
Undercover Gao Yang has been dormant for six years, never giving up the pursuit of the truth, and right and wrong are clearly defined in his heart. Both good and evil are also desperate to play at the moment of life and death, and the adrenaline rush is soaring in single fights and large-scale group fights. Indeed, as Jia Zhiqi said, the core of this drama is "not pretentious", and it is "a direct contest between justice and evil".
At the same time, its coolness also comes from the many emotional portrayals in it.
In the older generation, the three brothers who were police officers and businessmen had a very close relationship, but in the end, they took different positions because of the choice of good and evil; In the younger generation, the relationship between Gao Yang and Zheng Dongyu (played by Li Yitong) was very firm from the beginning. There is also Chen Jingming (played by Wang Tonghui) who regrets and covers up the "bad seed" son Chen Jiadong (played by Yang Jue), and Zheng Ying (played by Chen Chuhan) loves Gao Yang out of responsibility and compensation. There is a clear love and hate between the characters.
Jia Zhiqi said that the reason why she likes this script is not only the suspense and the case, but also because of the emotions between the characters. "'Unspeakable' is a story and details that expand according to emotion."
At first, it was director Liu Xin who found her with this script, and everyone incubated it together for about two years. In addition to adjusting the relationship between the characters, some small side branches were also cut. For example, Chen Jiadong's sister Chen Xueying (played by Hu Lianxin) liked Gao Yang in the original setting, but later downplayed this.
"Because I think people nowadays always want to be as simple as possible when it comes to intimacy, friendship, and family relationships. Modern people are tired of dealing with many things, and may not want to have complex emotions in interpersonal relationships. So I deal with all the relationships between the characters very directly, without entanglement or reversal, love is together, and if you don't love, you are separated. This may be more comfortable for us to watch dramas. ”
Since you are in the Fog Theater, suspense must be the foundation of "Unspeakable". As an original script, "Unspeakable" is innovative enough. It is based on a counterfeit money case six years ago (2005), connecting a murder case twenty years ago (1990) and a kidnapping case now (2011). The brotherhood of Lee Teng-won (played by Zhao Yang), Chen Jingming, and Zheng Ying was revealed when Chen Jiadong's mother fell from the building, and Chen Jiadong's white-cut black image can also be traced.
For audiences who like case reasoning, "The Unspeakable" has a strong sense of puzzle-solving. Grasping the thread of truth in the timeline of thousands of miles is enough to make suspense drama fans eager to try.
Moreover, on the basis of hardcore suspense, "Unspeakable" also shows the audience a hearty aesthetics of violence. The real knife and gun fighting scenes are very visually impactful, and also reflect the unique style of the series itself.
Jia Zhiqi revealed that there are two directions in the design of "Unspeakable": "One is to highlight the character of the character, such as Lei Naiwu's several fight scenes, which highlight his cowardice when he is hiding; The second is to highlight events, such as the fight between Gao Yang and Huang Bingde (played by Zheng Jiabin), which is very hard, and you can see the tension between you and me, and it is also through this fight to solve the life and death problem between the two. ”
Of course, hardcore and refreshing do not mean that the details are ignored, on the contrary, the analysis of human nature and emotions in "Unspeakable" is the foundation for its bold innovation.
chased down the whole drama, and the most embarrassing thing was the role of Chen Jingming. As a bad guy on the surface, he is a murderous demon on the one hand, but a loving father who loves his daughter in every way. The petition submitted as a last resort in order to survive became a sword of Damocles hanging over his head, which indirectly caused the death of his wife and the blackening of his son. He spent the rest of his life in fear of killing his brother and his son's bitter hatred for him.
Another outstanding character, Lei Naiwu, is shrewd and cautious, bold and careful, ruthless and cute at the same time. The bad ones are hateful, but the room to play is also huge. Zhang Guoqiang also hesitated for a long time before taking over the role.
Jia Zhiqi likes Lei Naiwu very much, when she first started the machine, she had a drink with Zhang Guoqiang and asked him what Lei Naiwu was like in his eyes. "Zhang Guoqiang asked me what I thought, and I said, 'Hades is good, the little ghost is difficult, I am the little ghost.'" He laughed maniacally, saying that he had thought so.
Zhang Guoqiang played Lei Naiwu's cuteness, cowardice, and hatred to the extreme, and most of the time it makes people itch, but when he pays tribute to the brother who blocked the knife for him, it is inevitable that people will feel a little sad.
The values in "The Unspeakable" do not need to be repeated, but the complex characters cannot be brushed aside by simple good and evil. Chen Jiadong is a pure demon, but does that video of his father's murder have nothing to do with his pathology? Lei Naiwu is undoubtedly a bad person, but who can say that he has not moved a little compassion in front of Chen Jingming's tomb? It is precisely because the gray scale of human nature cannot be summed up in a word that the correct choice made to overcome human nature is particularly precious.
Interestingly, the filming location of "Unspeakable" is not in Chongqing, Northeast China and other places that are familiar to suspense dramas, but in Taishan, next to Jiangmen, Guangdong, where the buildings are very special, basically formed in the 80s, a long time, and there are many overseas Chinese, which has a very Southeast Asian flavor. "When we were shooting, the weather in Taishan was very gloomy and the pressure was very heavy. It just so happens that there are not many emotional scenes in "Unspeakable", and the emotions are also depressing, so it is appropriate to choose here. Jia Zhiqi said.
Taishan is characterized by a lot of water, boats, and stilt buildings. Gao Yang's home is also on a boat, and if you listen carefully, you will hear the sound of the boat gently swaying. But it was never Gao Yang's home, just a wandering place, and the place where he was with Zheng Dongyu and had instant noodles soaked in cold water was his final destination.
The solidity and innovation of the Misty Theater
"Unspeakable" ended the day before yesterday, and as of now, the highest popularity on its iQiyi station has exceeded 8300; After 10 days of launch, it ranked in the top 1 of the popularity of Guduo online drama iQiyi, the top 2 of the popularity of Guduo online drama on all platforms, and the top 1 of the popularity of the whole platform on the second day of the finale.
The popularity of iQiyi station
The daily list of the Guduo heat index rankings
As we all know, the domestic suspense track has become more and more volatile in terms of text, character design, audition expression and other aspects since the beginning of dramas such as "Psychological Crime" and "Undocumented Crime". However, since its launch in 2020, Misty Theater has continued to have strong creative capabilities, not only this year with cool dramas like "Unspeakable", but also to bring the audience a hearty hardcore suspense drama experience. And in the long run, since the label was founded four years ago, a total of 15 dramas of different genres have been launched, involving family, science fiction, adventure, emotion and other fields, and the creative ideas have always been broadened.
Instead of always wanting to "reach the sky in one step", Misty Theater hopes to continue to bring good works of different types and perspectives to the audience and the market, telling the audience that there is more than one kind of suspense. Since "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" launched its signboard, it has not been obsessed with batch copying, but has carried out bold expansion, constantly bringing new attempts in "suspense +", and trying to expand the expression boundaries of domestic suspense dramas.
For example, "The Mystery of the Octagonal Pavilion" and "The Daughter Who Came Back" tell about the disaster of the family, and the concealment and suspicion between relatives add a touch of confusion and weirdness to the unsolved case; "Who is the Murderer" and "Thirteen Years in the Dust" focus on dusty old cases, the secrets and human nature behind the serial murders are intriguing, and they have both curiosity and a sense of story; "Echo" focuses on the psychological game between the characters, not only revealing the truth of the case, but also depicting the dilemmas and commonalities in contemporary emotional relationships through Ran Dongdong's marital problems; "The Three Teams" is based on real events, with a strong sense of reality, and the portrayal of "people" can be seen in the subtleties......
The many works of the Misty Theater together constitute the spiritual food for lovers of domestic suspense dramas for a long time. To use Jia Zhiqi's analogy, the Misty Theater "is actually like a supermarket, with all kinds of things in it." It does not limit suspense to its own definition, but constantly explores the feasibility of genre integration, and continues to make breakthroughs in horizontal social topics and vertical narrative perspectives, which is irreplaceable in the suspense track.
At the same time, the innovation and possibilities represented by the Misty Theater also prompt creators to maximize their potential. The script of "The Unspeakable" has been revised as many as nine drafts. At the scene of the advance drama viewing event, he kept confirming the feelings of the audience. In the face of the Misty Theater and the people who trust it, the main creator is also apprehensive.
After "Unspeakable", there are still many works in the Misty Theater ready to go. "The Boy Who Can't See the Shadow" starring old partners Zhang Songwen and Rong Zishan, tells the story of an old policeman who investigates the truth of a series of cases in order to protect a missing teenager; "Dislocation" starring Ma Yili and Tong Dawei, the story revolves around the investigation of a case by two criminal policemen, with fiction and reality intertwined; "Above the Clouds" is a duo of Sun Li and Luo Jin, telling the story of the female criminal policeman Han Qing who penetrates the fog and directly hits the crime; "Twenty-one Days" is a disaster drama starring Ou Hao and Zhang Xueying, in which more than a dozen people trapped under the ruins compete for limited survival resources in a limited time, which seems to be another challenge to human nature. Several works have different temperaments, highlighting the bold practice of the Misty Theater on the suspense drama track.
Among them, "Dislocation" is also Jia Zhiqi's next work. She revealed to Gu Duo that this is a purely female-oriented work, which is also relatively rare in domestic suspense dramas. "It will make you think about what kind of way women should steer their own boat in the torrent of fate. I think this drama will be more embarrassing for women, and it can make them think about themselves more clearly. I wanted to do some female voices. ”
As a producer, Jia Zhiqi has a young mentality, and her work environment and even her travel companions are young people. She eats with her young friends every week to listen to their understanding and discussion of new things. "Sometimes people who are fixed at a certain age may not be able to feel the right way."
This kind of young and positive mentality, to a certain extent, is also a reflection of a good creative environment on the creator. As an audience, the reason why we always have expectations for the Misty Theater is not because of its ability to create explosive models, but because we can always get the joy of solving puzzles in suspenseful stories, or feel the pure shock from people's hearts and emotions.
Just like in the last episode of "Unspeakable", in the 46 minutes when Gao Yang and Zheng Ying disappeared, it turned out that they were not doing a great cause that was enough to turn the situation around, but just a "son" who took the risk of carrying his "father" and secretly went to see the critically ill "mother" for the last time. For a suspense drama, it's not an exciting plot, but at that moment, nothing touches the heart more than the tears that come down from looking at each other.
"Unspeakable" provides a new solution to the Fog Theater and suspense creation in 2024, and looks forward to the Fog Theater continuing to explore and make breakthroughs in genre themes and story content, and also looking forward to the domestic suspense dramas to continue to express themselves bravely and flourish.