Source: Xinmin Evening News
◆ Du Zhumin
"I abandoned the play, I really can't watch it." When "Qing Ping Le" aired in episode 10, my mother said to me, "The emperor is really too embarrassed to do anything." I don't know how to explain it to her: even in a long feudal society, the emperor was not as casual as described in many dramas and TV dramas, and could casually "drag the ministers out and behead them." And the harem will not be like "The Biography of Zhen Huan" and "Yanxi Raiders", the queen concubines are tireless for drugging and abortion. Compared with those "heavy taste" palace fighting dramas, the peaceful "Qing Ping Le" of the former dynasty harem may be closer to the historical truth - at least the truth of the two Song Dynasties.
The 70-episode "Qingping Le" was broadcast, and Tencent scored 9.3, which is a rare high score in recent TV series. Douban 7.3, also OK. However, while some people have become loyal fans of "Qing Ping Le", the voices of "can't watch it" and "abandoned the drama" have always been heard. Perhaps, these two different sounds represent the two aspects of the current audience's requirements for TV dramas - static pictures and dynamic plots.
"Qing Ping Le" inherits the characteristics of the noonday sun's consistent "rigorous examination" and "exquisite details", and embodies the cultural and artistic achievements of "Feng ya Song" to the extreme: near-perfect composition, lighting, highly restored history but without losing beauty - such as Empress Cao's pearl makeup, quite ancient character dialogue and title - such as Hui Rou called her birth mother Miao Niangzi "sister" and so on. All of these meet the aesthetic needs of the audience and the pursuit of "historical control" and "detail control". Tencent's 9.3 rating also reflects the success of the work in this regard.
However, compared with the "Langya List" and "Pretender" produced by the same noonday sun, or even "Do You Know It or Not", the plot conflict of "Qing Ping Le" is indeed too light and trivial. His Majesty the Emperor, who was high above, could not help himself in everything; the courtiers' advice was not so detailed that even the emperor who was rewarded with a bath bun by his daughter had to cite the scriptures. Although "Qing Ping Le" is played as "showing the magnificent historical picture of the reign of Emperor Renzong of the Northern Song Dynasty, Song Renzong struggled between the state and emotions" But it is also an indisputable fact that the plot is lengthy, the main line is vague, and the pace is slow.
In contrast, the "Langya List" and "The Twelve Hours of Chang'an", which are also praised for their details, have a clear main line of character action, focusing on the occurrence and resolution of events. And "Qing Ping Le" lacks such a main line. The plot spans nearly 40 years of the entire Renzong dynasty, but there are few impressive plot conflicts. It is not a palace fight (such as "The Biography of Zhen Huan"), not a house fight (such as "Knowing or Not"), nor a revenge (such as "Langyabang"), and it is not even an inspirational growth story. If you use the metaphor of style, "Qing Ping Le" is more like an essay, or a prose poem. Writing articles and reading articles can be told and read slowly, and prose can also be "scattered". The same standard is used in TV dramas, but it is inevitable that the audience will "not get the point". Many viewers believe that the characters in the play are more or less flat - Zhao Zhen's renjun image, Cao Danshu's "self-denial and revenge", Zhang Yuhan's "arrogance" are all unconvincing, and this is largely due to the lack of necessary plot support.
With the improvement of the aesthetic needs of TV audiences, in recent years, domestic TV dramas (whether they are costume dramas or modern dramas) have become increasingly sophisticated, and it is difficult to attract the audience's lasting attention only by relying on details. This may also be the reason why the evaluation of "Qing Ping Le" has always been in the same way. After all, in addition to the visual intuitive enjoyment that an excellent drama brings to the audience, it should trigger deeper thinking through the ups and downs of the plot. Can "Qing Ping Le" do this? Throughout the whole play, she should have such qualities, or is working hard in this direction, trying to guide the audience to have some different thinking about history and culture in addition to "empress love" and "harem competition", which is valuable. However, from the perspective of communication reception, as far as the current increasingly "fragmented" viewing habits are concerned, this kind of expression that is too subtle will cause a lot of loss of information disseminated.