When it comes to Chinese historical dramas, there are two dramas that cannot be avoided, that is, "Yongzheng Dynasty" in 1999 and "Kangxi Dynasty" in 2001.
The two dramas are like twins with very different personalities, the appearance is very similar, but the core is very different.
Let's talk about the "Yongzheng Dynasty" broadcast in 1999, this drama is adapted from February River's novel "Yongzheng Emperor", which is February River's most satisfactory work.
After director Hu Mei finished filming this drama that year, because of the bold theme and borrowing ancient irony, many leaders of CCTV did not dare to launch this drama, and finally the director of the station made a decision, and the drama finally met with the audience.
As a result, as soon as it was launched in 1999, its ratings reached 16.7%, becoming the classic of the year.
Two years later, another work of February River, "Kangxi The Great", was also put on the TV screen, "Kangxi Dynasty" was more popular than "Yongzheng Dynasty", and when it was sent for trial, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television evaluated the film as "ideological, artistic and political" to a considerable height.
As soon as the drama was broadcast, the ratings surpassed that of "Yongzheng Dynasty" and became a peak of historical dramas.
Compared with the high and low of "Yongzheng Dynasty", this drama takes into account both history and entertainment, both the battlefield drama of the flames and the wolf smoke, and the unfathomable court drama, from the old man to the woman and child, all fascinated by it.
Even in Taiwan, where "the main drama is deserted", "Kangxi Dynasty" is also very popular, and another classic drama "Dazhaimen" set a rating record of 1.7 in Taiwan that year, but soon "Kangxi Dynasty" surpassed with a score of 2.8, and the theme song in the play, "Borrow five hundred years from heaven", also became Han Lei's famous song.
Over the years, everyone has been arguing about which of these two dramas is higher or lower, and Pi Ge has been paying attention to the Douban scores of the two dramas.
"Kangxi Dynasty" was previously rated 9.1 points, and this year it has risen to 9.2 points.
The more energetic "Yongzheng Dynasty" previously had a rating of 8.9 points, and this year it has also risen to 9.2 points.
It is most appropriate to describe these two dramas as "absolute double arrogance".
However, in the view of the original author February River, the two dramas are not of the same grade.
Someone asked February River to rate the two dramas.
February River participated in the script creation of "Yongzheng Dynasty", and he gave the play an 80 point.
But when it comes to the Kangxi Dynasty, he only gives a four-word evaluation: nothing to say.
In this drama, February River did not participate in the creation of the script, and his dissatisfaction with the script was also overflowing.
Both the Kangxi Dynasty and the Yongzheng Dynasty are adapted from February River's "Luoxia Trilogy", which are "Kangxi Emperor", "Yongzheng Emperor" and "Qianlong Emperor".
Many people do not understand why the well-known "Kangqian Shengshi" in China was described by February River as "Sunset", this is because at the end of the Qing Dynasty, Western countries have entered the industrial age by relying on the invention of the steam engine, and ancient China is still like Grandpa Belle in Beijing, living an idle life of walking birds in the sunset, and the Kangqian prosperous era has left posterity with the last sunset of the feudal empire, but it is unable to save the feudal system that has collapsed.
Therefore, the background of February River's creation is sad, he is bright praise and dark depreciation, using the decay under the prosperity to tear apart the vanity of the Qing Dynasty.
The ideological connotation of "Yongzheng Dynasty" is in line with The novel of February River, and director Hu Mei pointed out that this drama is about "being a difficult family" and reveals "the contradiction between the country and the family".
The Yongzheng Emperor reigned for 13 years, spent his life in thrift and thrift, and died at the age of 58, and it is most appropriate to use his life to interpret this profound theme.
Therefore, although "Yongzheng Dynasty" gathers tang guoqiang and Jiao Huang, two "imperial professional households", the aura of the protagonists of the two of them is not strong, because February River focuses on creating a sense of powerlessness as an emperor when writing the screenplay, their personal charm is infinitely weakened, and even like ordinary people, they are trapped in the quagmire and cannot get out, and it is difficult to distinguish whether the people around them are loyal or adulterous.
Let's take a look at what they encountered:
Local corruption has led to the hollowing out of the national treasury, the possession of a hundred officials to describe this big killing weapon but had to be burned, the heavy family affection and triggered the nine sons to seize the wife, as well as the examination fraud, the spread of the land into acres, the reorganization of military aircraft and other incidents, everywhere entangled, interlocked, and completely different from the brainless fight monster upgrade OF the TV series.
Let's look at the people around them:
Nian Tangyao flew high, Long Keduo temporarily reversed the water, as well as the cool official Tian Wenjing, the jianghu full of vigor Li Wei, and Mr. Wu, who let Yongzheng respect and stay away. These are people you have a hard time evaluating with good guys and bad guys.
Watching this drama is like reading a difficult and obscure workplace thick black science, no matter which role you substitute, you will have a sense of powerlessness that "people in the imperial court, involuntarily".
In history, the Yongzheng Emperor did not have so many affairs, and the emotional drama in this play was also lackluster, which made its audience relatively narrow, mostly concentrated in middle-aged people with certain social experience.
"Yongzheng Dynasty" is a serious historical drama, and "Daming Dynasty 1566" and "Towards the Republic" belong to the same value sequence, such a drama is essentially a group of sympathetic and responsible literati through the shell of the TV series to the public crushing output of historical views and values, ideological and insufficient.
And "Kangxi Dynasty" goes to the other extreme, mentioning this drama, most people first think of the Kangxi Emperor played by Chen Daoming, and this drama is completely his personal show.
In addition to Chen Daoming's own outstanding acting skills, the characteristics of this drama are to infinitely elevate the role of the emperor, break up and reorganize history, and present the audience with a "Dragon Proud Heaven" version of the Kangxi Emperor, all the characters in the whole play are for Kangxi alone, and the value behind it is simply "saving heaven and destroying human desires".
From the line point of view, many lines are quite bold, such as "Yuan's heart will be broken", such as "You raped Yuan", such as "In the next life, you will be an enemy of Yuan", such as "Yuan's heart will be broken".
Everywhere it reveals a temperament that is beyond the era of the time.
Judging from the historical facts, there are also many historical errors, such as Kangxi did not marry his daughter to Mongolia, and there was no Empress Cixiaoren in history, which were all fabricated in the play, and even low-level mistakes such as self-proclaimed titles.
From the perspective of character shaping, Kangxi is a typical Shuangwen protagonist, who always opens the perspective of God.
Su Ma Lagu, Empress, Concubine Rong, Concubine Hui, Baori Dongmei and other women were all mistaken at first sight of Kangxi for life.
Such a huge greed as Suo Ertu and Mingzhu was recognized by Kangxi at a glance, and Kangxi gave him a look, and they wept bitterly and poured out their hearts and lungs to their masters.
From the storyline point of view, although this drama also intercepts a number of wonderful passages in the 61 years of Kangxi's reign, these contents are simplified into the routine of fighting monsters and upgrading, Aobai, Zhu Sanzi, Wu Sangui, Gardan and other people are a small BOSS, watching this drama is like watching a game that passes the level, accompanying the protagonist to pass the level from the novice village.
As long as Kangxi encountered a difficult problem, there would immediately be a strange soldier descending from heaven and then turn the danger into a disaster, such as getting sick and encountering Su Ma Lagu who sent herbs, Qiu Aobai met Sonny, Zhi Bambul met Wu Liuyi, who was straight against Suo Ertu, and Zhu Guozhi who was pacifying Wu Sangui...
From a serious historical point of view, "Kangxi Dynasty" has some children's plays, but don't forget, TV drama itself is a popular art, it is aimed at the audience is the general public, more people are tv dramas as a pastime, very few people will learn history by watching TV dramas, 20 years ago, this simplification was to some extent a kind of just need.
To take a similar example, "Journey to the West", one of the four masterpieces, is a highly literary and ideological mythological novel, which has many plots full of political metaphors, implying the dispute between Buddhism and Taoism, and was once listed as a banned book.
However, the 86th edition of "Journey to the West" simplified this huge work and made it into a cool text for fighting monsters and upgrading, although the ideological connotation was greatly weakened, it became a classic memory of a generation.
Just imagine, if the TV series "Journey to the West" is filmed according to the original book, and Sun Wukong is filmed as a hairy face and thunder mouth, the eight precepts of the pig, the sand monk eats people, and these things are truly restored, its influence will definitely be far less than it is now.
"Kangxi Dynasty" is a similar truth, it simplified the processing and sacrificed profundity, but won the breadth of the audience, I think many people remember the grand situation when the drama was broadcast.
"Kangxi Dynasty" is essentially a big male protagonist idol drama cloaked in the cloak of historical drama, and the later "Biography of Zhen Huan", "Ruyi Zhuan", and "Yanxi Raiders" are a sequence.
Therefore, "Kangxi Dynasty" and "Yongzheng Dynasty" are two different styles of TV series, they have the same roots, but the focus is different, the audience is different, the way of telling history is different, and the feeling is different.
The two dramas are put together, the gap is obvious, but it is two styles, two wonderful, and the audiences who like it are naturally different, and we do not need to compete with each other.
Text/Pippi Film Editorial Department: A Chicken
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