Sohu Entertainment Special Article (A He/Wen Fat Department/Editor)
In 2022, the drama "Tales of the Tang Dynasty", which has no traffic stars, no vigorous publicity, and no big IP endorsement, will "open low and go high", becoming the dark horse of ancient costumes that year.
After two years, "Tang Dynasty Tricks: Westward Journey" (hereinafter referred to as "Tang Tricks 2") returns.
The popularity is not bad, the number of platform reservations before the broadcast exceeded 5.5 million, and the popularity rose relatively quickly after the broadcast, and the popularity on the station quickly exceeded 9500, entering the first camp of the drama on the air.
At present, "Tang Wei 2", as a sequel, is basically online. Its story, characters, and style are all inherited from the first part, and the background of the detective is still built within the framework of the struggle of the Tang Dynasty.
If you are a fan of costume suspense dramas, then you may find such a question: Tang Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, why is it still Tang Dynasty?
The Tang Dynasty suspense dramas represented by "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", "The Wind Rises in Luoyang", "The Royal Gift" and "Tang Wei" have continued to rise in popularity in recent years, which also brings out thought-provoking questions: As a branch of costume suspense detective dramas, why can Tang suspense take the lead and be favored by the industry?
The way the Don suspense opens
"Tang Dynasty Legends" is another Tang suspense that has been widely recognized by the audience after "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", and nearly 280,000 netizens on Douban gave it a high score of 7.9.
The story itself still continues the classic suspense detective setting, following the traditional detective drama character setting of "one article and one martial arts". The two protagonists, Su Wuming and Lu Lingfeng, one is thoughtful and the other is reckless and impulsive; One does not know martial arts, and the other is famous for martial arts, which is in the same vein as Bao Zheng + Zhanzhao, Di Renjie + Li Yuanfang, etc.
However, unlike traditional reasoning dramas such as "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" and "The Royal Gift", the titles of the "Tang Trick" series are all on the word "weird": both dramas are composed of eight unit cases, and each case has a strong color of ambiguity, with charms, illusions, exotic legends, and rare birds and beasts abound.
In terms of subject matter, the strange style that originated from "Youyang Miscellaneous" and Tang Legend, coupled with the distortion of human nature behind the excavation of "pretending to be a god and playing ghosts", has formed a difference from the previous Tang suspense.
Judging from the first two cases, the core of "Tang Wei 2" is still online.
The first case, "Demon Transformation", talks about the demon king in the murals of the Buddhist temple who is suspected of killing people off the wall; The second case, "The Death of the Father", tells the story of the bizarre and tragic death of the child, and is suspected to have been killed by the clay figurines in his Ming Ware Shop (burial clay puppet workshop).
It is worth affirming that the production budget of "Tang Wei 2" also seems to be significantly more abundant. The historical restoration of the style of the Tang Dynasty, as well as the special effects interpretation of folk imagination such as illusions and rare beasts, have been visibly improved. For example, the transformation of the "Three Witches" in "Demon Transformation", the surprise appearance of the alien beast and the wooden servant eating people, etc., the special effects are not timid.
This kind of treacherous rambling has become a weapon for the "Tang Wei" series to "get out of the circle". Behind it is the further diversification of Tang's suspense narrative.
If the Tang suspense in the early years was represented by the TV series "Detective Di Renjie" series and Tsui Hark's "Di Renjie" series of movies, then in recent years, it has been more large-scale and diverse.
There are "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an" with anti-terrorism elements, "Shaoqing Tour of Dali Temple" that integrates elements of manga, "The Royal Gift" that focuses on the work of "The Imperial Gift", and "The Wind Rises in Luoyang" and "The Case of Tang Di Gong" and other suspense + action traditional costume detective dramas. From this point of view, "Tales of the Tang Dynasty" actually incorporates highway elements (the protagonist is degraded).
But it is also necessary to see that the diversification of the "Tang Wei" series actually has the problem of being greedy and chewing too much, the perspective is too large, and the suspense, highway, culture, court and other content are slightly redundant.
Similar to "Tang Wei 1", "Tang Wei 2" also uses the first case to spread out the big context, and then several small and refined cases unfold. But when the case is big, it is easy to be big and inappropriate, because the villain behind "Demon Transformation" is not one person, but a group of people, which leads to the need to pick up multiple pieces of the puzzle in the process of advancing the case in order to put together the whole picture.
Because of this, the first case of "Tang Wei 1", "Chang'an Black Tea" and "Tang Wei 2", are slightly worse in terms of visibility, although the middle connection is not hard, but the rhythm is worrying, and the lengthy detective case of a hammer in the east and a mallet in the west is really tiring.
Including the court drama in the play, it also seems to be a little intellectual. For example, the princess intended to kill the prince when the mural was unveiled, and sent her subordinates to recruit troops and buy horses, but her subordinates ruined the big thing for the small profit, and the people and horses she found were "cut off" by the evil organization, and the plot was even slightly absurd.
But on the other hand, this also proves that the container of Tang suspense can hold a lot of content.
Under the heyday
Interestingly, among the dramas that started on the same day as "Tang Wei 2", there is also a Tang suspense that collides with it and collides with the theme - "Persona of the Tang Dynasty".
The latter is just a short drama, smaller in size, and more in pursuit of short and fast excitement. Because of this, whether it is the story, texture or performance, it is far inferior to the "Tang Wei" series, as netizens said, "the whole is not on the same level".
But this is enough to prove the heat of Tang's suspense. In fact, in the field of online movies and short dramas, Tang suspense such as "Di Renjie" IP content is blooming everywhere, and there are a lot of Zhiwei content.
All kinds of "Di Renjie" IP online movies
This is first of all due to the fact that the Tang Dynasty provided a rich enough soil for suspense creators.
For example, the Tang Dynasty, as the high point and representative of multicultural integration in Chinese history, has room for extension in aesthetics; At the same time, Tang Legend and Tang Dynasty Zhiwei also provide rich derivative elements for detective works.
In addition, the court stories of the Tang Dynasty also add a lot of color to the detectives, and the protagonists are no strangers to the audience.
After all, detective dramas are not only about cases, but also about invisible "human hearts".
Of course, similar content requirements are actually a great test of the creator's creative ability. It is often difficult for creators to balance court dramas and detective dramas well. In fact, most of the time, creators can stand out as long as they put their heart into writing a good detective story.
From the perspective of the industry, the value of placing the suspense background in the Tang Dynasty is also self-evident.
First, placing the suspenseful background in ancient times can let go of the narrative. For example, the display of Zhiwei content can also zoom in on the background of the case to the court pattern, providing a more exciting viewing experience.
Second, Tang Suspense has formed a certain brand effect, such as the "Di Renjie" IP.
The deeper cultural factor is that the public has the highest level of awareness of the Tang Dynasty, and they will be more interested in related events and characters, which will make the audience have a sense of surprise of "I will do this question" and "it turned out to be Ta". In recent years, the performance of content such as "Thirty Thousand Miles of Chang'an" has also proved this.
Third, from the level of cultural aesthetics, filming Tang suspense alludes to the current revival of traditional culture.
Nowadays, the makeup, costumes, and etiquette of the Tang Dynasty are also quite topical, and they are also very fine, which is easy to reflect the financial resources and ingenuity of the crew on the props.
But the difficulties are self-evident.
It is precisely because the audience is familiar with and interested in the culture of the Tang Dynasty, and the requirements for production quality will be higher.
Although there are a lot of Tang suspense emerging in the market at present, costume suspense dramas, as a relatively unpopular creative category in costume dramas, are still relatively easy to play the "difference card".
For viewers who are tired of watching ancient puppets, it is not a high-quality meal replacement.