Text | Paddington
The relationship between "Shangyang Fu" and Zhang Ziyi is not just a simple heroine.
Since the launch of the costume drama "Shangyang Fu" adapted from the novel "Imperial Industry", the popularity and slot point have flown together: three years, several name changes, the failure of the star, the debut of the international film queen "Xia Fan" has become a network drama, and the Douban score has failed. Zhang Ziyi tore the film fang, but the first producer of the play, Kashgar Feibao Media, one of the shareholders behind the scenes turned out to be her own figure.
It can be seen from the credits of the play that the team is established with Zhang Ziyi as the core, and the general director Hou Yong is the cinematographer of the movie "My Father and Mother" starring Zhang Ziyi and the director of "Jasmine Blossom"; the male protagonist Monday Wei is personally selected from the variety show "The Birth of an Actor" with Zhang Ziyi as the mentor; even the musical composition of the play is Zhang Ziyi's long-time friend Mo Yanlin.
This is a big drama of her career in the drama circle.
Only from the production point of view, "Shangyang Fu" has a strong team and excellent audio-visual, but it is a pity that Zhang Ziyi missed the best time to switch to the big screen and missed the dividend period of the ancient puppet drama market.
In the story of "Shangyang Fu", the heroine Wang Yan played by Zhang Ziyi and her husband Xiao Qi joined forces to fight Jiangshan, but outside the play, as a saver of a film and television project, how many chances does Zhang Ziyi have?
Those years missed opportunities
Zhang Ziyi's starting point is the end point that too many people can't reach in their lifetime.
At the age of 18, he starred in Zhang Yimou's film "My Father and Mother" on the stage of the Berlin International Film Festival and became famous all over the world. She not only won the Three Golden Films, but also won the Chinese Film Grand Slam. In terms of achievements, she is the first of the four dan double ice, on the international popularity, the mainland actress in addition to Gong Li is unparalleled, 26 years old became the Oscar lifetime judge, the famous film producer Mark Muller also fell under her pomegranate skirt.
In the 20 years since her debut, Zhang Ziyi has always followed the advice of her mentor Zhang Yimou: don't make TV dramas. Why did she change after 20 years?
Obviously, Zhang Ziyi's ambition is not only to be an excellent actor, she tested the waters as a producer very early, but also an investor, once after the failure of the international blockbuster plan with Deng Wendi, she turned to the domestic production of "Very Perfect", "Very Lucky", "From Heaven" three movies, but unfortunately one is worse than the other, and the box office is not satisfactory.
In recent years, the overall environment of the film market has changed greatly, many "movie coffee" have thrown themselves into the small screen, Zhou Xun filmed "Ruyi Chuan", Tang Wei filmed "Daming Fenghua", Ni Ni starred in "Tiansheng Long Song", "Flowing Golden Years", etc. The wind direction is so, under the impetus of multiple identities, Zhang Ziyi also began to change.
But by the time she finally made up her mind to "want to soar a little longer in a character's world," the position had long been taken over by others.
Filmmaking people who look down on making TV dramas seems to be a tacit law, which can be seen from the fact that Zhang Ziyi made TV dramas this time, and the word used in the anecdotes is "walking off the altar". However, in recent years, Sun Li, Ma Yili and others have firmly stood on the tip of the pyramid of the drama circle with superb acting skills and years of hard work, Zhao Wei and Zhou Xun have made achievements on both sides of the film and TV series very early, the mass base is quite strong, and new people in the industry are emerging in an endless stream, how easy is it to talk about it?
On the other hand, when "Shangyang Fu" was filmed just in time for the mainland to limit the ancient order, many costume dramas could not be broadcast for various reasons, and this drama was also changed from name to content, and it was difficult to become popular when it was not time.
Fortunately, although "Shangyang Fu" did not get on the star in the end, fortunately, one of the investors behind the scenes is Ali, and this drama can not only be broadcast on Ali's video platform Youku, but also get the help of many parties on the platform, occupying the position of no.1 in the popularity list of dramas on the platform, NO.1 in the hot list of costume dramas, and no.1 in the hot list of novel adaptations.
The shift from movies to TV series is not a dimensionality reduction strike
In the eyes of ordinary audiences, there is no difference between movies and TV series, all directors, screenwriters, and actors shoot a story for everyone to see, but in the industry, these are actually two circles, not only different connections, but also different shooting methods, performance methods, and storytelling rhythms.
Obviously, this transformation Zhang Ziyi failed to adapt to the rhythm of the TV series at once.
In terms of performance, aside from the "sense of age" that is hotly discussed by the audience, in fact, Zhang Ziyi's acting skills can stand the test, and he is praised by zhang Yimou, Ang Lee and other big directors for having no dead angles and how to shoot a good-looking face, and in "Shangyang Fu", it is also a light makeup and face shooting.
Her performance is still delicate, introverted, and rich in layers, which is the advantage of the big screen, and on the small screen, especially many viewers of online dramas are watched on mobile phones, at this time, the delicate performance is not easy to be captured by the audience, which is wooden.
From the perspective of plot rhythm, TV series often require that the audience be firmly grasped in the first few episodes, only in this way can people chase down one episode at a time, many dramas even collapse in the middle and late stages, because the audience has already brought into the plot at this time, want to know the final fate of the characters, even if they spit mostly will chase the ending.
"Shangyang Fu" is a gradually better type, the first few episodes are slow in pace, the amount of information is small, most of the actors are strong but not close enough, so that some viewers can not watch two or three episodes and then abandon.
In the movie, "Gong Er" can be hidden to the extreme, never mentioning love to the people he loves deeply, but in the TV series, the male and female protagonists cannot be 10 episodes without sugar.
Long dramas are more to pay attention to the rhythm of the tension, a twist and turn, just like the recent popularIty of the Korean TV series "The Penthouse", telling the story of several families to cultivate their children into celebrities by any means, although the plot is very bloody, but the suspense and reversal of the constant setting, the script kills the same design episodes are attracted and stimulated, so that the audience can follow the characters to pass the level, and they can't stop.
If the characters in "Penthouse" are trying their best for small goals and are high-energy in minutes, "Shangyang Fu" is under the grand goal setting, and there is a sense of powerlessness everywhere.
The old-fashioned script is also the reason for the poor reputation of "Shangyang Fu", the first episode of the setting that the daughter of the Wang clan must be the empress is a "Ruyi Zhuan"; the drama of Wang Yan and the three princes wearing masks to go out of the palace to play and meet the true destiny of the heavenly son is the same as the bridge section of "Daming Palace Words" that Zhou Xun once starred in; the wang room fight, deliberately designing Wang Yan's loss of body, etc. is very similar to "Langya List".
Causing such a situation, I don't know if the team from the movie usually watches too few dramas. From the perspective of the audience, there is no distinction between movies and TV scripts, only whether it is good or not, whether it can impress the audience and resonate.
It is worth affirming that the costume of the play is excellent, even on the small screen can see the film texture of the picture, there is no rough cutout, false special effects, from the scene setting to the picture composition are delicate and exquisite, in this regard, the visual presentation is very comfortable for the audience to enjoy.
Where is the future of the big heroine
On the one hand, actresses have called for no drama to shoot, on the other hand, the big female lead makes the audience unable to bear the pain of "YatouJiao" and "Mary Sue".
The Mary Sue setting of "Everyone Loves Me" is one of the factors widely criticized by the big female protagonist, and the tv drama works of the two girls have recently been broadcast, Zhang Ziyi's "Shangyang Fu" and Ni Ni's "Flowing Golden Years", and both have encountered the same problem: all men love me.
68 episodes of "Shangyang Fu" in less than 10 episodes, there are already 5 men like the heroine, men conquer women by conquering the world, women conquer the world by conquering men, and the women in the big heroine drama do not need to "sign", men and the world will "serve".
This kind of plot is planned by the audience because it is too detached from reality, and the audience wants to see not only the result of "serving", but also the wonderful process of "sign".
"Yatou teaching" is the collective name of the elderly actress to challenge the young girls, Liu Xiaoqing, Lin Xinru, Zhou Xun were once in this religion, is it true that Zhang Ziyi, an international film queen, does not know the harm of this religion, and the 38-year-old age of playing a 15-year-old girl is just for the sake of young addiction?
This time "Shangyang Fu" really did not give the little flowers a chance, the actress in the play Yi Shui'er's sense of age, Zhang Ziyi, Zuo Xiaoqing, Liu Yun are currently 40 or so, Zhao Yazhi, who plays Wang Yan's mother, is 17 years older than Yu Hewei, who plays his father, standing in a piece that does not look like a husband and wife, but like two generations, and then look at the harem of the emperor's uncle, it is not very happy.
Can't the Queen Ofe choose a young girl to star? Just like the Taiping Princesses in different periods in "Daming Palace Words" were played by Zhou Xun and Chen Hong respectively, the shaping of both people is very wonderful and has become an eternal screen classic.
"Shangyang Fu", presumably Zhang Ziyi is also entangled, if played by two people, he at least have to wait until the time of the big wedding, and this is already the 8th episode, the biggest gimmick before the start of the show is Zhang Ziyi's first TV series, waiting for the main protagonist to appear, will the audience give up watching?
As such a rich acting experience, of course, she knows that age is not something that can be compensated for by superb acting skills, but for the sake of the overall situation, I am afraid that she can only be forced on the scalp.
In fact, if you must cross-age performances, the audience is not absolutely unacceptable, but this requires the script to be wonderful enough, such as Liu Xiaoqing's "Wu Zetian" and the tranquil "Secret History of Xiaozhuang", they not only have makeup in place, the performance is vivid, but more importantly, the characters are plump and the plot is solid.
More representative is the "Big Mansion Gate" starring Sichen Gaowa, Chen Baoguo, He Saifei and others, the sense of age is simply stronger than "Shangyang Fu", only from the makeup point of view, almost no starring in line with the age, but the personality of each character in the story is extremely distinct and vivid, a group of people put the love and hate in the historical change of the big house door, the vicissitudes of grievances and wonderful performances. Only this kind of performance and plot with nearly full scores can dilute the audience's requirements for the actor's sense of age.
When female actors, producers and even investors represented by Zhang Ziyi begin to grasp more right to speak, perhaps in the future, they can get rid of the shackles of 30+ sisters' strong concave young girls' styles, and produce female protagonists like "The First Half of My Life" and "Thirty Only".
Zhang Ziyi, who appeared in the TV drama market in multiple identities this time, although he did not become as popular as the movie, but as the plot of "Shangyang Fu" gradually entered a better state, there may be more room for expectations.