Text/Schrödinger's Monkey
A few days ago, TVB announced the new drama list for 2022, in addition to the longevity situation drama "Happy Express of Love Home", the sequels to the once acclaimed "White Strongman" and "The Ultimate Confession after Eighteen Years" are also about to meet with the audience.
Compared with the modern dramas with diverse themes, next year TVB will only have one self-made costume drama "His Highness the Leper" will be broadcast.
From the perspective of the cast, Zhou Jialuo, Chen Ying, Zhu Minhan, jw Wang Hao'er and other leading actors have limited popularity in the mainland and lack market appeal. Although there are also several old drama bones such as Wu Dairong, after all, they have been angry and there are not many scenes, so it is difficult to have too much help for the series. Just from the cast, it can be seen that this tvb's only self-made costume drama next year will inevitably become the fate of "cannon fodder".
In addition to the cast, the drama's costume has also been complained about by many viewers: just from the stills, it can be seen that it is another TVB assembly line-style small-cost costume drama.
And tvb's production level of costume dramas can be said to be influx or regressive compared to 20 or 30 years ago, especially for those mainland audiences who are not familiar with these young generation actors, just looking at this still, you have to say that they will believe in the costume dramas of 92 years and 02 years.
Compared with today's dismal situation, TVB's costume dramas were once brilliant: from the martial arts dramas of Jin Yong and Gu Long, to the mythological dramas represented by "Journey to the West" and "Fengshen List", and then to the dramas based on historical figures such as "Four Talents in Golden Costumes", "Washed Injustice", "Luoshen", etc., they once swept the entire Chinese world, and even created a new model of costume sitcoms such as "Everyone Is Happy".
Although Hong Kong, which lacks historical background, cannot make historical dramas such as "Yongzheng Dynasty" and "Han Wu Emperor", TVB costume dramas are rich in themes, entertainment and differentiation, so they can occupy a place in the mainland market for a long time, and also cause many mainland costume dramas to follow suit.
Especially after 2000, some of TVB's large-scale costume dramas also began to go to the mainland to shoot co-productions, which once had a huge impact on the fledgling mainland TV drama industry and the aesthetics of mainland audiences, whether it was "In Search of Qin", which pioneered the cross-cutting drama, or "The Desire of the Golden Branches", which set off a boom in palace fighting dramas, and other popular dramas, all of which have spawned a bunch of mainland dramas of the same type that follow the trend.
However, in the past decade or so, with the growth of the film and television entertainment industry in Hong Kong and the mainland, TVB's influence in the mainland has plummeted, and the cast and crew in front of and behind the stage have also left the nest and gone north.
In the environment of lack of funds and lack of talents, TVB can only barely maintain the shooting of modern dramas, at most republics and other period dramas every year, and costume dramas have rapidly reduced production. Since 2010, TVB has made two or three self-made costume dramas every year, and only one, and costume dramas have basically become a pity for today's TVB.
Although in recent years, TVB has also begun to seek cooperation with mainland video platforms such as Tencent, but it has obviously focused on the cooperation of modern dramas. A small number of costume dramas such as "Gong Xin Ji 2 Deep Palace Plan" and "Mandate of Heaven" that came to the mainland to shoot and co-shoot have received mediocre responses.
Obviously, whether it is capital technology or talent, today's TVB costume dramas have no advantages over the mainland, and it is better to directly purchase mainland costume dramas to play more realistically. And the mainland costume drama has also begun to occupy tvb's prime time, and even began to challenge and threaten TVB's self-made dramas.
In 2017, the new version of "The Legend of the Archery Hero" entered the top three of the year in tvb ratings, from the 83tvb version of "Shooting Eagle" swept the mainland, to the 17th mainland version of "Shooting Eagle" counterattacked the Hong Kong market, which truly confirmed what is the turn of feng shui.
In 2018, Yu Zheng, who once studied under TVB's north director Li Guoguo, became the first mainland drama to win the ratings championship in Hong Kong with a typical TVB style of "Yanxi Raiders". To some extent, it also represents the handover of an era.
In the past, TVB's blockbuster theater system inherited from Shaw's, self-produced and sold, and precise cost control has become a magic weapon for its costume drama to win surprisingly. However, with the improvement of the production standard of mainland costume dramas, tvb costume dramas have not changed for decades, and the costume props that have been used back and forth repeatedly and cannot distinguish the era have long caused aesthetic fatigue to mainland audiences, and even become synonymous with shoddy fabrication.
In terms of plot, with the development of mainland network literature, TVB costume dramas are far behind in terms of theme and innovation. Not to mention compared with those big-budget costume dramas in the mainland, even second- and third-rate online dramas are also incomparable to TVB costume dramas.
After 2010, compared with the Hong Kong-style costume dramas that have become chicken ribs and have not been represented in the mainland for many years, at present, TVB may still have an advantage in mainland dramas, leaving professional dramas such as police, medical treatment, and legal affairs, and in recent years, there have also been dramas such as "Apostle Walker" and "White Strongman" in the mainland.
However, it is said that the economic level determines the cultural influence, and many netizens also believe that considering the slow economic growth rate of Hong Kong, when the level of urban economic development and modernization is completely caught up by mainland cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, TVB's fashion drama advantage may also be lost, and the once brilliant Hong Kong drama may eventually become a historical term.
What are your thoughts on this?