The time-based feature film of the same name based on Baby Anne's "August Weiyang" was released today, exactly 20 years after the novel was published. As a writer of early online literature, Baby Anne has published works on the Internet under this pseudonym since 1998, becoming a representative of the first generation of Online writers in China.
After the 2000 novel "Farewell to Vianne", Baby Anne's works gradually faded out of the Internet and turned to the traditional form of paper publishing, but the popularity and popularity accumulated by the works in the Online Period have been influential to this day.
There are thousands of online novels, a generation of online texts, from the early "First Intimate Contact", "Wukong Biography", "Xue Xian" to the recent "Mountain and River Order", "Son-in-law", "Young You, So Beautiful", etc., domestic network literature with the development of the Internet has influenced generation after generation of Chinese netizens, and at the same time, it has also provided a wealth of text adaptation resources for the booming film and television industry. The online novels we chased together in those years have now slowly entered the screen and screen, becoming the film and television dramas we have watched together.
According to statistics, as of December 2020, the scale of online literature users in China has reached 460 million, and the cumulative scale of online literary works has exceeded 25.9 million.
Looking back at the past 30 years, from the first year of China's Internet in 1987 to unveil the prelude to the use of the Internet Chinese, to the establishment of the first BBS (electronic bulletin board) "Mizuki Tsinghua" in Chinese mainland in 1995, the creation of the personal homepage "Under the Banyan Tree" in 1997, to the establishment of the Red Sleeve Tianxiang in 1999, the Magic Sword Book Alliance in 2000, and the Chinese Network in 2002, the initial stage of the development of online literature or the "flood period", has experienced a gradual change from BBS, personal home page to professional literary website.
In the early stages of online literature before the beginning of Chinese.com in 2002 took the lead in developing the paid reading model, writers did not have a clear profit channel, but stemmed from a love of literature to publish freely. Before 2,000 years ago, "Under the Banyan Tree" gradually became a gathering place for online literature, and at the same time achieved a large number of writers.
Among the online content that blooms with a hundred flowers, those works that are sought after by netizens have gradually become literary IP with word-of-mouth effect, and some of these novels have been adapted into popular film and television dramas. However, in the early stages of the rise of online literature, this phenomenon did not prevail until the first decade of the new century, when the adaptation boom broke out on a large scale.
The reason is that after the complex integration of literary websites such as Under the Banyan Tree, Dragon Sky, Jinjiang Literature City, Xiaoxiang Academy, Palm Reading, 17K, Zongheng Chinese Network, etc., to the advent of Shanda Literature, Tencent Literature, and Reading Group around the 2010s, the development model and profit mode of online novels have been continuously upgraded in exploration. After the popularity of an online novel, it will continue to expand and develop to various fields such as games, animation, film and television, and the blessing of capital and the diversified layout of the industrial chain have made the market-oriented operation of online IP increasingly mature.
In addition, the popularity of the Internet after 2010 and the surge in the number of Chinese netizens have expanded the online text consumer market and made the internet text IP have a huge accumulation of fans. In addition, the rapid development of the film and television industry during this period, the geometric growth of the number of domestic screens, and the improvement of film and television production technology, the film and television dramas that urgently need text adaptation resources and the online text explosion with a huge fan base have been combined to create a film and television boom of online ip.
The pioneering work of the network article: "The First Intimate Contact"
Online literature was initiated by BBS, and almost all popular BBSs at that time were founded by universities, with universities providing funding and students being the main user group. In this way, BBS provides a good platform for college students to publish original literary works on the Internet.
In 1998, Tsai Chi Heng (then known as jht network name, later changed to "Pi Zi Cai") published the original novel "The First Intimate Contact" on the BBS of National Cheng Kung University in Taiwan, which then spread to major BBS in the mainland, became a hot topic on university campuses for a time, and caused a sensation about online literature for the first time in Chinese mainland.
The content of the novel first involved the Internet, and the heroine's name "Dancing Lightly" was also very fashionable at the time, and later became a very popular Internet nickname in the mainland. The online love of young boys and girls in the book has even triggered a wave of online love. Many college students imitate dialogue from novels, creating various versions of humorous dialogue. At that time, this novel, together with "Star Master's Journey to the West", became one of the keywords of Chinese campus culture.
While being sought after, this novel has also aroused heated discussion in the media, some people are optimistic about this emerging literary content, others are singing the decline of "network literary garbage", and "The First Intimate Contact" has entered the public eye in the debate.
In fact, before this was called "the pioneering work of Chinese network literature", there were also articles saying that the mysterious novel "The Tale of the Wind Posture" created by Taiwanese writer Rosen was disseminated on the Internet on both sides of the strait in 1997, and around 1998, Taiwanese writer Huang Yi's "The Biography of Datang Shuanglong" and Mo Ren's "Star Wars Heroes" were all the rage on the Internet. Without careful examination here, it is certain that "The First Intimate Contact" had a greater influence on online literature, and stimulated the creative enthusiasm of more young people on the Internet, especially mainland writers, at that time.
In November 1999, not long after the mainland simplified chinese version of "The First Intimate Contact" came out, the two sides of the strait cooperated and made a film and television adaptation of the NOVEL IP. The film invited Zhang Zhen, Chen Xiaochun, Shu Qi and other luxury cards, the script tried to maintain the taste of the original novel, and the dialogue also used the popular Internet language at that time. It is reported that the investment in the whole film is as high as 30 million yuan, however, after the film was released in the mainland on February 9, 2001, it only received 5 million yuan at the box office, and at the same time suffered word of mouth.
Movie version
Compared with the best-selling success of the original novel, this "rubbing heat" film and television work, the market performance is not satisfactory. In the era when the Internet was not yet popular and netizens were scarce, perhaps this story rhythm and emotional expression with internet love as the theme and "network sense" were difficult to be obtained by more people for a while.
Later, in 2004, a TV series adapted from the novel was released, starring Tong Dawei, Sun Lihua, Xue Jianing and so on. In June last year, there was news that the novel would be made again, and it has been officially established, and the main creative lineup is still unclear. A series of film and television adaptations show the market influence of this novel.
TV drama version
23 years of "under the banyan tree" a generation of online literature youth
Stimulated by the novel "The First Intimate Contact", Chen Wanning, who was mixed in the Tianya community at the time, that is, the later Ning Caishen, imitated the style of The Leper Cai and wrote "Countless Intimate Encounters". Also stimulated by the leper Cai, Lu Jinbo, whose pen name was "Li Xunhuan", wrote "Lost in Love in the Internet" that swept the Internet. After that, they joined the then-fledged online literature website "Under the Banyan Tree". Around the same time, another baby Anne, whose name was Li Jie and later better known to the public, also joined this online literary platform.
Many post-95s and post-00s may be unfamiliar with the website "Under the Banyan Tree", which grew up with the Chinese Internet in the early days of domestic literature, as the gathering place of Online literature at that time, undertook the ideal of a generation of literary youth, and was regarded by netizens as "the originator of Chinese Internet literature websites" and "the living fossils of Chinese Internet literature".
In December 1997, the "Banyan Tree" created by William Zhu, a Chinese-American, from a personal homepage at the beginning, to the later upgrading to an online literature website, and then to the news of "shutting down the server under the banyan tree" in August last year.
As the longest surviving platform among the first batch of online literature websites in China, Banyan Tree provides a relatively pure literary environment, and has achieved a large number of today's "net red" writers, such as Annie Baby, Ning Caishen, Li Xunhuan, Xing Yusen, Han Han, Guo Jingming, Murong Xuecun, etc.
Among them, Li Xunhuan, Ning Caishen and Xing Yusen, who are known as China's first generation of online writers, are known as the "troika" under the banyan tree, and they and Baby Anne are jointly known as the four major writers under the banyan tree. Each of these authors has their own different styles of expression, at that time, their works have long dominated the world of online literature, which can be said to be a well-deserved Internet celebrity hit.
Troika under the banyan tree: Xing Yusen, Ning Caishen, Li Xunhuan
Li Xunhuan, who became famous with "Lost in the Internet", once said that "at that time, 20 million netizens, I believe 15 million have read my novels." After joining Banyan Tree, he served as the editor-in-chief of the website, and later, he announced his withdrawal from literary creation with his sealed work "Ink Xiechang", and then slowly left Under the Banyan Tree.
Another Ning Caishen, who was known as the "first humorous talent" on the Internet at that time, created works such as "The Sky of Fate" and "Pretend pure love" in the early days, with humorous, tricky, and poor language characteristics, with the style of Wang Shuo's novels. After leaving the banyan tree, he turned to screenwriting and created well-known works such as "The Legend of Wulin" and "Dragon Gate Dart Bureau".
Group photo of the early editorial department of "Under the Banyan Tree"
Somewhat similar to Ning Caishen, Xing Yusen, who later switched from online creation to screenwriter, wrote seriously in the early days, and his works include "Yan Ruyu on the Internet", "Live Like a Person", and "Sewers of Elysium". After switching to screenwriting, his works such as "Family with Children", "Northeast Family", and "Idle Centaur Sister" are more well known to the public.
Annie Baby in the "Four Great Writers" under the Banyan Tree was initially just an editor, and later William Zhu assigned Baby Anne to set up a studio to produce a paid electronic magazine. Later, because she was good at describing the psychological state of urban people and the delicate style of writing, Baby Anne became famous with works such as "Farewell to Vian", "August Weiyang", and "Flowers on the Other Side". At that time, "Little Fourth" Guo Jingming came from Sichuan to Shanghai under the banyan tree in order to see his idol Annie Baby, and he began to publish novels under the banyan tree under the pen name of "Fourth Dimension".
Baby Anne
The works of writers bred under the banyan tree are more than that. He Zai's "The Legend of Wukong" won the "Best Popular Novel Award" in the online literature contest held under the banyan tree; the suspense writer Cai Jun's first novel, "The Fall of Tianbao Stadium", was also published under the banyan tree. Coupled with Murong Xuecun and others, it can be said that around 2000, under the banyan tree, it can be called a gathering of heroes. And the online articles created by these big V writers have also been adapted into popular film and television dramas in the future.
Cai Jun, "The Fall of Tianbao Stadium"
From online novel IP to film and television blockbusters
"Lan Yu" ("Beijing Story")
Movie poster for "Blue Universe"
From August to October 1998, the author of the pen name "Beijing Comrade" (later changed to "Xiaohe")," anonymously published the novel "Beijing Story" (formerly known as "Beijing Autumn") on the online gay forum "Boy boy paradise" (BOY2MAN), which caused many controversies after its launch on the Internet due to gay themes, and was also widely reprinted and circulated by some online magazines.
Set in the mainland in the 1980s and 1990s, the novel revolves around the emotional entanglement between chen Handong, the brother of the game's love scene, and Lan Yu, a down-and-out student. In 2001, Hong Kong director Kwan Kam Peng adapted it into the film "Blue Yu", which won five Golden Horse Awards in one fell swoop, and the 23-year-old Liu Ye was crowned emperor. The film also became the first film to adapt a Chinese-language web novel with a certain artistic standard.
The success of this film opened up a new direction for the film and television adaptation of online novels, but it was not until the first decade of the new century that the novels that once swept the Internet entered the screen and screen on a large scale.
"July and Ansheng"
Baby Anne " Farewell to Vivian "
"July and Ansheng" was originally a short story in Anne Baby's 2000 novel collection "Farewell to Vivian", with a full text of more than 17,000 words.
On September 14, 2016, the film of the same name based on the novel was released. Before its release, the film had released a creative poster of "My 1997", which showed Chen Kexin, 35, Zeng Guoxiang, 17, Zhou Dongyu and Ma Sichun, 13 and 4, and Baby Anne in 1997. This year, Baby Anne began to publish content on the Internet, and the following year, she wrote "July and Ansheng", which was not long but quickly exploded on the Internet, thus opening the magnificent life of "the best-selling queen of literary and art books".
"My 1997" Poster: Baby Anne
The novel portrays July and Ansheng, two female figures with very different personalities and fates, and depicts the complex friendship of two girls who know each other and love and kill each other. The film of the same name adapted, under the delicate interpretation of Zhou Dongyu and Ma Sichun, finally won the affirmation of good word of mouth and golden horse awards, and the mainland box office was 166 million, which can be regarded as another successful representative of the film and television adaptation of online novels.
Stills from "July and Ansheng"
Later, in 2019, the TV series adapted from the novel was broadcast, starring Shen Yue, Chen Turing, and Xiong Ziqi, but this time the adaptation did not bring surprises to the audience, and even received a lot of bad reviews, far less than the quality of the movie version.
The Legend of Wukong
Now ho in "The Legend of Wukong"
On February 18, 2000, The Biography of Wukong by Jin He Zai (formerly known as Zeng Yu) was first published on the Sina network "Jin Yong Inn", and the serial ended on April 5. The novel came out of nowhere and attracted a large number of fans. On December 24 of this year, the "Second Online Original Literary Works Competition under the Banyan Tree" was held, and "The Legend of Wukong" won the Best Popular Novel Award.
"I want this day, I can't cover my eyes anymore, I want this land, I can't bury my heart anymore..." This bloody classic line in the novel has become the youth memory of a generation.
This novel, which was regarded as the "first book on the Internet" by netizens at the time, was adapted into a movie in 2017 and appeared on the screen, but it was praised as a bad film. The bloody lines in the film are also considered to be winning feelings. Although Jin He angrily posted a long article at that time, stood for the film, and even expressed "disobedience to the war", it still could not change the one-sided disappointment evaluation of the film.
Goku movie poster
The film has a poor reputation, but with special effects, art, etc., the box office performance is good, and finally earned 694 million yuan, and the sequel to this film has been set up early. As a popular IP chased by the market, the novel "The Legend of Wukong" may continue to be developed into a series of film and television versions.