You can do your best to guess the murderer, as long as you guess correctly, come to me to receive the prize!
Such a very confident sentence comes from Bai Shan, the director of the new drama "Tang Dynasty Legends: Westward Journey", which is currently on the air.
At the drama publicity meeting, Bai Shan expressed his confidence in the suspenseful texture of the play with a speech of "guess correctly and give the award".
Judging from the social media reaction, Baishan is really not bragging.
Although the vast number of online Sherlock Holmes were aroused to challenge and set off a wave of speculation on the whole network, as the plot progressed, social media was full of their frustrated speeches:
I guessed wrong again, I don't deserve to guess the murderer this season!
In the first two cases, I guessed all wrong.
Who could have guessed the murderer of the first case, and everyone guessed it all over again
The murderer is really hard to guess, am I too careless, or am I too stupid?
Under the sighs of netizens, the second part of the Tang Wei series, "Tang Wei: Westbound", has also become a recent Internet hit with a high degree of discussion.
As of now, the show has extremely outstanding broadcast data.
In just 4 days after it was launched, it won more than 100 million online broadcasts, and the performance of 89 hot searches in the same period also proves its popularity.
In the context of the word-of-mouth pull of many national drama sequels, "Tang Wei 2" has achieved today's results, which is quite surprising.
So, is the popularity of the show just because "the murderer is hard to guess"?
Compared with the first season with a high score of 7.9 points, what changes have been made to "Tang Wei 2", which was launched after 2 years?
To solve these problems, we might as well start with the first case of "Tang Wei 2" "Demon Transformation".
The story framework of the case is very clear.
It tells the story of a series of bloodbaths triggered by a mural.
The famous painter Qin Xiaobai (played by Yu Yi) was ordered by Princess Taiping to go to the local Chengfo Temple to paint a mural.
In the process of creating this mural with the theme of Buddhism and demon subjugation, a series of bloody cases also occurred, and it was related to the "demon king" in the mural.
This unit case was originally a case in the first season.
However, due to various reasons, this chapter called "Demon Transformation" was eventually moved to the current season.
But as the saying goes, a good meal is not afraid of being late, and this "long overdue" chapter is indeed very exciting.
Among them, there are also a lot of improvements in the second season compared to the first season...
01、
The treacherous flavor is upgraded, and the Chinese horror aesthetics are full
In domestic detective dramas, the Tang Wei series has always had a very distinctive highlight.
Just one word - trick.
Under the premise of detective dramas, screenwriters often wrap their works in a Chinese-style horror coat.
Although we, as the audience, firmly believe that detective dramas will eventually return to the basic point of man-made crimes,
But when strange images or settings emerge, we will inevitably be shocked at the moment of watching the drama.
And the opening of the second season of "Demon Transformation" brought the shock of Tang Wei's word "Trick" to the extreme.
In the portrayal of this unit, the screenwriter injected three distinctive flavors, allowing us to feel the atmosphere of oriental horror aesthetics.
The first trick - the trick of legends;
In the unit of "Demon Transformation", the screenwriter strengthened the weirdness of the plot through the characters' "passing" and "saying" around the murals.
There is a proverbial "say";
The painter Qin Xiaobai used his drunken anger to say the threatening words of "The demon king will kill people after his eyes, and it is Xielulang who kills".
The evil thing is that the next day, the named Xielulang was found dead on the street.
Immediately afterwards, there was a panicked "biography";
After the death of Xierorou, an old man claimed to have witnessed the murder and accused the murderer of the demon king who had not yet been eyed in the mural.
Judging by the tone of the old man's words, he must have seen something terrible that night.
In the ancient society where "rumors are also spread", the legend of such an evil ghost naturally intensifies, making the background of the story weird.
The second trick - the trick of the trick;
What makes people feel the evil atmosphere of the case is the murderer's modus operandi.
After killing Xielulang, the murderer also brutally dug out the other party's heart and liver.
And with the appearance of multiple corpses similar to deaths, the direction of the protagonist's detective is pointed to the mural again.
It turns out that the rumored top raw material "streamer" for the eye-catching mural is made with human liver.
And the murderer's practice of digging out people's hearts and livers once again provides a strange basis for the "mural murder theory".
The third trick is the trick of imagery;
The first two tricks are just to create a sense of atmosphere from the side, but the last one is different, it shocks the audience with a direct visual impact.
The demon king and the flying dancer on the mural are all realistically presented in the way of the original reproduction.
It is worth mentioning that the screenwriter used the plot of "the protagonist meets a ghost and doubts himself" to strengthen the weird flavor of the work.
In the plot, the male protagonist Lu Lingfeng went deep into the ghost market to investigate the case and met the demon king in the old man's mouth.
The demon king not only collided directly with the mural, but also rode the mythical beast Qiqi in the "Classic of Mountains and Seas".
At this time, the male protagonist's eyes were obviously a little confused.
And judging from the behavior of the male protagonist who insisted on eradicating the mural after returning from the ghost market, his subconscious was indeed shaken...
The screenwriter's setting is also similar to the plot of Lord Di and Yuan Fang witnessing the headless general in the classic drama "Detective Di Renjie".
Even the protagonist who is responsible for bringing the audience a sense of security is frightened, let's just say that this case is weird enough, is it scary enough?
02, the reversal is upgraded, and the murderer is definitely harder to guess than in the first season
Tang Wei 2's progress compared to the previous season also lies in the great upgrade of the suspense index and the multi-layered reversal of the murderer's candidates.
Let's go back to the topic at the beginning of the article:
Why is the murderer of this show so difficult to guess?
It's not hard to unravel this either.
The reason is that the crew avoided several murderous ways that were easy to guess.
In the plot of the first season, off-the-field factors such as the fame of the actors and the ranking of the cast list were all cracked by netizens as a routine to guess the murderer.
The most typical is undoubtedly the "Stone Bridge Map" unit.
When the veteran actor Wang Jinsong appeared, due to the large gap between his popularity and that of other actors, barrage netizens had basically locked his role as a murderer in advance.
And this time, director Bai Shan made it clear that the screenwriter has learned the lessons of the previous season and avoided many routines.
For this reason, even Yang Zhigang, who is the leading actor, said that he had to see the last page of the script to know who the murderer was.
And from the perspective of the second season, the screenwriter did put many layers of effort into the "murderer setting".
The first layer of kung fu is to set up a wide range of suspects;
Taking the "Demon Transformation" unit as an example, there are many candidates for the murderer, and the screenwriter is not in a hurry to "clear" the suspicion of the candidate.
Behind the mural murder case, the painter who is crazy about painting is naturally regarded as a suspect.
In addition to him, the old man of Shuge with a gloomy temperament, the official Zhang Qian with cunning eyes, and the bookseller with strange whereabouts are all suspicious.
As many as 20 supporting characters in the unit, until the finale, there are at least 5 suspect characters, which also greatly deepens the difficulty for the audience to guess the murderer.
the second layer of kung fu, jumping away from the routine of the first season;
In response to the audience's inertia of "guessing the murderer's glove road", the screenwriter also cleverly responded to it illogically.
For example, directly let the well-known acting school "clear the suspicion early".
In the second case "The Death of the Father", the mother of the old drama Bone Shi Ke shows the sadness and tenacity of being a mother at the beginning, and basically will not be regarded as a candidate for murderer.
In other unit cases, the screenwriter also has a potential setting.
The third layer of kung fu is to reverse and reverse;
As the plot progresses, the screenwriter continues to insert various virtual and real details to add reversal points to the plot.
In the unit of "Demon Transformation", a deceased person left a last sentence of "monks are not monks, and walls are not walls", which pushed the originally unsuspecting host as a candidate.
A large amount of information flow hits, making the audience's thinking constantly in the process of guessing and reversing, which also makes the suspense of the whole process of "guessing the murderer" gradually strengthened.
There is no doubt that this season's Tang Wei is definitely more anti-routine than the previous season.
03, the temple line is upgraded, and the Tang Wei universe is further extended
What surprised Qingshi even more was Tang Wei's idea of upgrading the plot pattern in the new season.
While the detective line is advancing, the screenwriter also joins a large proportion of the temple battle line.
Behind the seemingly independent murder case, there is actually a wrestling between the three forces of Emperor Li Dan, Princess Taiping, and Prince Li Longji.
If the first season was just a secret battle of wit, then this season, the tension between the three forces is basically "turning the table".
In the first unit, "Demon Transformation", around the murder mural, the three parties who are constrained by each other have their own potential layouts.
This view is supported by hints given by the second season timeline.
The second season is set in the year 712 of the Tang Dynasty, and combined with historical analysis, this year is not only the first year of Tang Xuanzong Li Longji's accession to the throne, but also the year when the conflict between him and his aunt Princess Taiping reached the climax.
Coupled with the "army battle" plot that appears many times in the trailer, it can basically be judged that the proportion of court dramas this season will not be low, and the scale of the conflict will escalate.
And with the preparation of the third season on the agenda, the title of the next season also gives more hints of the court line.
While the detective line of the protagonist group is advancing, the proportion of the court line will only gradually increase.
On this basis, the entire series will also lay out the plot universe in a double-line parallel way.
And this will also make the show more and more highlights.
The continuous progress of the above three basic items has guaranteed the quality of the play.
What makes Qingshi happy is the attempt made by the crew of "Tang Wei" not to stick to routines.
In addition to the aforementioned anti-logical setting murderer, each unit also has its own surprises.
For example, in the second case "The Death of a False Worker", on the premise that the reversal setting is still brilliant, the unit is very ingenious in the conceptual layout.
And this also allows the play to add more human thinking in addition to suspenseful reasoning.
In the comments of netizens, there are positive comments of "the second unit is a god" and "I will give 5 stars directly after reading the second unit".
The third case, "Fengxue Mojia Shop", is a fixed-point satisfaction for lovers of ontological reasoning.
The story focuses on the Blizzard Hill mode of traditional mystery novels, setting the murder in a confined space where multiple characters coexist.
Such a story setting allows the plot rhythm to enter a simpler and crude mode of guessing the murderer.
As an audience, we also need to grasp the flaws in the characters' lines.
Under the wrapping of weird clothes, the screenwriter added different reasoning gameplay in different cases, which also made the work always full of novelty.
While most domestic drama sequels are in the predicament of "running out of inspiration", we are also very pleased to see that the "Tang Wei" series has not gone down the same path.
The crew of "Tang Wei", which took the initiative to innovate and change, successfully got rid of the "sequel dilemma" and broke a new path for themselves.
And with the word-of-mouth fermentation of "Tang Wei 2" with 40 episodes and 9 cases, and with the start of filming of the third season, Qingshi has to admit one thing:
Yang Zhigang, this time he caught a hand of Wang Bang again!
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