"What we want to express is that these young people who yearn for a new world, new knowledge, and new ideas are precisely in the most traditional antique industry in the chaotic era of the Republic of China, and their demands and the social environment in which they live have violent conflicts and collisions, which will produce very interesting stories."
——Han Qing, director of "The List of Looted Treasures of the Central Bureau of the Antiques Bureau"
Nothing new is too peaceful, and the chaotic world produces heroes.
Following the filming of the first and second parts of "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau", the "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau Treasure List" adapted from the third part of the series of IP has finally been released. This time, the Antiques Bureau returns to the Republic of China era a hundred years ago, focusing on the story of Xu Yicheng's generation, the grandfather of Wishing.
"Antiques Bureau Central Bureau's Treasure Raid list" is a legendary drama of the Republic of China Treasure Treasure produced by Huayi Brothers, Penguin Film and Television, and 7 Impressions, directed by Han Qing, starring Qu Chuxiao and Chen Yuqi, and starring Tian Yu and Li Chengru.
Based on Ma Boyong's novel of the same name, the drama tells the legendary story of Xu Yicheng, a descendant of the five lineages of the antique family, and Hai Lanzhu, a descendant of the clan who returned from the Yang Dynasty, together with all his friends, to carry out a thrilling treasure hunting, protecting the treasure, and preventing the flow of national treasures among several major forces such as Japanese invaders, warlords and old enemies.
The times are changing, Xu Yicheng and other young people with trendy ideas stand in the rolling torrent of history, conservative and innovative, selfish desires and great love, colliding with various wonderful plots. As soon as the "Treasure Raid list" was launched, it received warm praise from many audiences.
This time, Pengxx01 interviewed Han Qing, the chief screenwriter and director of "Loot list", who shared with us the behind-the-scenes production stories of more episodes.
"We have more than 40 episodes of such a long drama, it is certainly impossible to talk about antiques and not talk about emotions, after all, this is not a treasure show."
From receiving the project of "Looting List" to building an outline, episodes, and editing a little bit, it took Han Qing a year to complete the new full version of the story. However, as soon as the drama was broadcast, the main creative team was attacked by fans of the original "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau", believing that he did not shoot the book according to the original book, which was disappointing.
Compared with the original work, the drama version has indeed been greatly changed. The age of the male protagonist Xu Yicheng has been advanced, and the human setting has also changed from the original version of the cold connotation to a warm-blooded teenager with a hint of jianghu pride. The heroine Hai Lanzhu has changed her personality even more, from the original negative returned agent to a clan style influenced by new ideas and keen to explore aliens, and the sense of identity contrast is very storytelling.
Another major adaptation is to increase the protagonist's emotional drama. In the original work, Xu Yicheng's married wife Gu Zhiru was changed to his neighbor sister who was green and bamboo and had no male or female love, and Hai Lanzhu became a soul mate who was in line with his spirit, and the two joined forces to crack the various plots of ambitionists and invaders to steal treasures.
Many fans of the original cannot accept such subversive changes, believing that it has become "I want to fall in love with the antiques bureau", and do not respect the original author and the original fans.
For these doubts, director Han Qing can't help but smile bitterly, "This is a difficult problem to balance, the original novel is only more than 600 pages, if you shoot according to the book, it may not be 12 episodes, if you simply talk about antiques, you will be scolded by the audience as if you want to go to the treasure show." In the final analysis, film and television dramas still have to tell stories, characters, and emotions, and stories are the core creative standards. ”
How do you tell a 44-episode story? Enriching the character's personality background, emotional relationships, social positions and other clues has become an inevitable option. Standing up the characters is also the premise of standing a good story.
Han Qing, director of "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau Treasure Loot List"
To this end, the main creative team of "Loot list" has made many character rationalization changes.
Xu Yicheng, who was born in an antique family, is also an archaeologist who loves science, physics and new technology, injecting new genes into the family's traditional treasure hunting craft. Growing up in the Imperial Palace and returning from studying abroad, The Patriarch Gege Hailanzhu herself has stood at the crossroads of the changing times, and the contradiction between her pursuit of freedom and the decadent family has become irreconcilable.
When two people meet like this, they will inevitably collide with a different emotional spark, "In this dim Republic, they are like two luminous bodies that suddenly discover each other, what a precious soul mate, this attraction is like a positive pole and a negative pole, instantly bonded." ”
At the same time, the emotional setting of Xu Yicheng and Hai Lanzhu is not "in love for the sake of love", director Han Qing believes that they are more like a microcosm of many people with lofty ideals who have received the baptism of new ideas in that era, and their feelings are not just you and me, but in the process of attracting each other, they pay attention to the breath of the country and the fate of the nation. This character setting and character emotional line itself represent the "shabby old and new" that the whole play wants to express, break through the shackles, pursue freedom, and build a new world.
"Our play actually shows a three-dimensional profile of the Republic of China society, the government, warlords, five veins, gangs, bandits, tufuzi, and then to all aspects of ordinary people, each character in such a complex social form to explore up and down, we want to present a vivid group portrait play." To make a group portrait, people's emotions are indispensable. ”
The Loot List doesn't need a meaningless tool man who only serves the protagonist, and every character with a name has its own personality complexity.
Prince Long lives in the Republic of China, which has lost the real power of the clan, but his brain is still stuck in the Qing Dynasty, and the fragmented self-positioning increases the absurd joy of his characters. The killer Sun Yi did not blink when he was ordered to kill people for the old dynasty, and after finding out that he was being used, he could not help but take revenge. The blind man is slippery and old-fashioned to ask for money and not to die, but when Yujie leaves, he will quietly stuff the three silver dollars he secretly saved in her baggage, and even make the audience feel that "bumped"...
Such a vivid character setting naturally makes the audience feel a sense of substitution.
Director Han Qing also stressed that these adaptations of the drama version are not "magic reforms", and the main plot of the original work has actually been retained. Antique treasure is a skeleton of branches, and the emotions of the characters are rich in flesh and blood, and only when combined can we create a wonderful story suitable for all ages.
"IP adaptation is like this, because the audience has long had a preconceived concept, and there must be a cognitive bias between the creators, no matter whether it is changed or not, how to change, who to choose, there will be people who are not satisfied, this is IP."
In addition to the story itself, how to present an eclectic legend of the Republic of China Treasure at the production level such as audio-visual and special effects is also a major difficulty that director Han Qing and the main creative team must overcome.
In terms of the final presentation effect of the play, "Treasure Loot List" has many eye-catching elements.
This drama adopts stop-motion animation technology, breaks the dimensional restrictions, and links two-dimensional and three-dimensional each key plot, adding a special "hot-blooded comic temperament" to the legendary drama of the Republic of China.
In the key scene where Xu Yicheng and other five-vein antique craftsmen show the strength of treasure hunting, the "Treasure Raid list" uses a large number of CG special effects to form a strong visual impact, "The funds are burning." ”
Xu Yicheng dissected the gentleman's chess
In order to fully restore the storyline of the original antique treasure, director Han Qing and the main creative team made tens of thousands of attempts, "Many special props want to force the props division to die." ”
The filming locations alone have changed seven, and the Qing Dongling Tombs in Tangshan, Hebei, the Huayi Republic of China Film Town in Jinan, Shandong, and the Hengdian Film and Television City are all fixed scenes that cannot be replaced. The embassy street that wanted to restore the foreign atmosphere of the East Jiaomin Lane of the Republic of China ran to Changzhou again. The protagonist's educational background is set in Tsinghua University, how to restore tsinghua in the Republic of China era? I can only run to a school in Hangzhou to restore the set as much as possible.
The antique props involved are more professional, on the one hand, the protagonist's antique knowledge must be accurate, on the other hand, the texture of the props under the high-definition lens must be guaranteed.
Director Han Qing said that what impressed him the most was the "gentleman's chess" that Xu Yicheng broke the golden silk nanmu inlaid jade in the golden silk nanmu set up by King Wu Yan at the beginning. Golden silk nan wood has its special texture, the props group how to do it is particularly fake, and finally really found a pair of golden silk nan wood chess, and then dig a hole in the jade, all to ensure the quality of the shooting.
Ensuring the texture of the old objects exclusive to the Antiques Bureau is not the end point that director Han Qing wants to pursue, he wants to make a different Republic of China drama that belongs to young people on the basis of respecting tradition.
"Must the Republic of China drama be gray?" At the juncture of such a time when the winds and clouds are changing and the old are broken and new, the free and unrestrained vitality of young people can actually become the unique temperament of the Republic of China drama. ”
To this end, he added many unique young elements, CG special effects, stop-motion animation, and opening rap, all of which, together with the adapted text of the play, created a different world of Antiques Central Bureau.
"These innovations are really bold, and thanks to the support of Huayi and the Tencent team, we all made a fun adventure together, hoping to summon some free-spirited peers."
"Treasure hunting is easy, it is difficult to identify people's hearts", director Han Qing believes that the charm of treasure hunting and archaeology lies not only in the antique itself, but also in the people, stories, culture and society recorded behind each antique, "The life of every ordinary person is thrilling." ”
How to tell the "thrilling" of people behind this piece of antiques is also one of the themes that the creators of "Treasure Raid list" want to express.
From this point of view, the innovative attempt of "Looting List" for the legendary genre drama of the Republic of China can be regarded as an example for other latecomers to a certain extent. The direction of the IP adaptation market is mixed, and the creator and the original party may continue to love and kill each other, but in any case, telling a good story should be the original intention of the creator and the audience.