Text | A little drama reading, the author | Ho West Window
At the end of August this year, "Yunnan Bug Valley" starring Pan Yueming was officially launched, which is a return worth looking forward to for fans of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series. In April last year, Pan Yueming starred in the same series of adapted web drama "Longling Labyrinth" online, douban score reached 8.2 points, becoming a rare word-of-mouth adaptation of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series, "the special effects are realistic, the picture tone also has a strong sense of age, the texture of the web drama film is also rare, the plot is also loyal to the original, this part of the ghost blowing lamp series did not disappoint me", Pan Yueming was called "the most face-catching Hu Bayi" by fans.
With Zhu Yu in front, fans' expectations for "Yunnan Bug Valley" will naturally not be low. So far, "Yunnan Bug Valley" has been updated to the seventh episode, and the work Douban has a score of 7.9 (it has now slipped to 7.1 points). Compared with similar adaptations, this reputation is already good, but compared to "Longling Labyrinth", "Yunnan Bug Valley" is obviously less than expected.
The reason for the decline in word-of-mouth can be regarded as the fans' "deep love and responsibility". In "Yunnan Bug Valley", Pan Yueming, Jiang Chao and Zhang Yuqi still maintain the quality of the "Iron Triangle", "I am very good at casting".
The problem lies in the rhythm of the plot, "Yunnan Bug Valley" is the largest volume of horror plot and horror atmosphere in the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series of novels, which led to the network drama having to make some adjustments and deletions when adapting, and the crew added the original plot on the basis of the original work, which made the main line of the series very delayed.
However, observing the overall trend of "Yunnan Bug Valley", praise is still the mainstream of public opinion, which divides the market into expectations, and among the many adaptations of "Ghost Blowing Lights", perhaps a group of "hammer and tone" word-of-mouth works may finally appear.
Even if the fan market continues to ridicule Pan Yueming's version of Hu Bayi's increasingly solid body and belly that is no inferior to Wang Fatzi, it cannot be denied that Pan Yueming is currently the most in line with the original image of Hu Bayi in the current adaptation market. And his appearance has guaranteed the content reputation of "Longling Labyrinth" and "Yunnan Bug Valley" to a certain extent.
When "Dragon Ridge Labyrinth" was broadcast in 2020, fans quickly discovered the quality of this web series compared to other adaptations. On the one hand, this work has a production team with relatively stable business capabilities. The director of the drama, Fei Zhenxiang, has previously directed "Antiques Bureau Central Bureau II.: Searching for Porcelain with Ink", "Nuqing Xiangxi", "Old Cannon (Network Drama)", etc., and the Douban score has exceeded 7.0 points. Yang Zhe, one of the screenwriters, was previously the screenwriter of "Forensic Qin Ming".
In terms of episode content, "Dragon Ridge Labyrinth" has a certain guarantee. In fact, it is also true, after the online drama was launched, fans found that this web drama lens has a considerable sense of cinema, from water monsters, piranhas to large spiders, mercury fountains, hanging ladders, etc., the original content is presented one by one, the special effects are remarkable, it is rare that the adaptation retains the wonderful plot of the original work, and the original content of the crew integrated into the film and television adaptation does not damage the excitement of the original main line.
On the other hand, the starring performance of "Dragon Ridge Labyrinth" is surprising. Pan Yueming's Hu Bayi, without Chen Kun, Zhao Youting and other versions of handsome, nor like Jin Dong's version always has a sense of dignity of old cadres, he has the sense of iron blood and correction of veterans, but at the same time there is a sense of fatigue of ordinary people, and Pan Yueming's acting skills also give him a little more gentle sense of compassion, "Pan Yueming will hu Bayi's bravery, intelligence, cleverness, and smoothness to the fullest."
And the surprise is that not only Pan Yueming's interpretation is stable, Jiang Chao's "Wang FatZi" Wang Kaixuan is also highly in line with the original work, chicken thief, oil slippery at the same time strong, brave, "the casting is very fitting, Wang Fat Zi is finally the Wang Fat Man I made up for in my brain." Although Shirley Yang, played by Zhang Yuqi, is not very brilliant compared to the first two, he successfully passed the passing line.
In this case, "Dragon Ridge Labyrinth" quickly stood out from the adaptations of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series. And this advantage, in the "Yunnan Worm Valley" smoothly inherited, the series still maintains a sense of cinematic shots and excellent special effects scenes, whether it is the occurrence of horrible creatures such as water bees and piranhas in the series, or the appearance of living figurines, red blood coffins and other plots, all of which meet the imagination of the original party.
At the same time, Pan Yueming, Jiang Chao, Zhang Yuqi and other major actors still maintain stable business capabilities. Even if fans complain that Pan Yueming has been able to play Wang Fatzi, but he and Wang Fatzi have a soft mouth, performing some ordinary daily life, you can make fans feel the original reappearance, and when this one appears solemn, the eyes leak a trace of decadence and gloom that has been rubbed by real life, fans can immediately feel the thickness and complexity of Hu Bayi's role itself, he is not a dashing adventure hero, he is an untimely downtrodden ranger in the torrent of the times.
This is the valuable place of "Yunnan Bug Valley", and it is also the reason why its Douban reputation scored 7.9 points. Only before the surprise appearance of "Longling Labyrinth", the audience's expectations for "Yunnan Worm Valley" are naturally higher, and this expectation has raised the psychological expectations of fans, so that when the plot rhythm and emotional direction of "Yunnan Worm Valley" do not meet expectations, the reputation of the episode has rebounded.
The first seven episodes of the series were evaluated by fans as over-injected, and irrelevant villagers occupied a considerable amount of space, and the sense of reduction that "Dragon Ridge Labyrinth" has always been proud of has also been discounted in this work. Part of the scenes of Hu Bayi and Shirley Yang made fans shout greasy, some of Wang Fatzi's lines were also rated as vulgar, and shirley Yang was dropped into the river and bitten by piranhas but unscathed was also considered to lack a sense of reality.
From "Longling Labyrinth" to "Yunnan Bug Valley", you can feel the love of fans for this series of adaptations. At present, "Yunnan Bug Valley" barely maintains the reputation of the previous work, but it does not completely satisfy fans, and "Yunnan Bug Valley" has a total of 16 episodes, hoping that its reputation can slowly pick up after that.
In fact, the adaptation of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series is not a good bone to gnaw in the film and television market.
On the one hand, the original novels of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series and the "Notes on the Tomb Robber" series are called the two mountains in the tomb robbery adventure novels, with huge content and an amazing fan base.
The "Ghost Blowing Lights" series is divided into upper and lower parts, including "Jingjie Ancient City", "Longling Labyrinth", "Yunnan Worm Valley", "Kunlun Shrine", "Huangpizi Tomb", "South China Sea Return Ruins", "Nuqing Xiangxi", "Wuxia Coffin Mountain" 8 volumes of stories, which also involves the tomb robbery of Chen Blind Zi and Partridge Whistle (Yang Shirley's grandfather).
And the richness of this series of works, the abundance of elements, and the random cutting out of a chapter can support a movie or TV series. This is one of the reasons why the adaptation of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series is so complex.
However, at the same time, such a wonderful novel work, film and television requires considerable industrial support, and has considerable requirements for narrative rhythm, scene scheduling and special effects production, if the hardware facilities are not up to standard, it will cause certain damage to the original content. And this requirement is not achieved by every adaptation team, which is why the reputation of various adaptations is uneven.
On the other hand, the IP copyright of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series is in a state of division. In 2005, the Tianxia Baxiang Liquor Bureau sold the copyright of the first four volumes of the story of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series ip to the starting point Chinese network for 100,000 yuan, and then all the property rights of the last four volumes were also transferred to the starting point. This story is now brought up, and the world's bully singing is still unhappy.
After starting with the copyright, I started to do IP business. The starting point sold the film and television adaptation rights of the first four volumes to Dreamer Pictures, and the company and Huayi Brothers launched the movies "Nine-Story Demon Tower" and "Yunnan Worm Valley", so everyone saw Zhao Youting's version of Hu Bayi, and a movie version of "Yunnan Worm Valley" with a Douban score of only 3.2 points.
At the same time, the starting point sold the last four copies to Wanda Film and Television, and Wanda Film and Television released a "Dragon Hunting Recipe" and a pending "Ghost Blowing Lantern Heavenly Star Technique", so that the audience could see Chen Kun's version of Hu Bayi, and possibly see Zhang Hanyu's version of Hu Bayi again.
Things are not over, in 2015, the online text market has changed, the IP copyright of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series has been in the hands of Tencent, so Penguin Film and Television has obtained the web drama adaptation rights of the 8-volume story of "Ghost Blowing Lights", so from 2016, Tencent Video has successively launched "Ghost Blowing Lights of the Essence of the Ancient City", "Ghost Blowing Lights of the Yellow Skin Grave", "Nu Qing Xiangxi" and other works, the initial cast is not fixed, so the public market has ushered in Jin Dong, Ruan Jingtian Lantern version of Hu Bayi, and finally found the most face-fitting version in Pan Yueming.
There is no content platform for the original copyright of movies and online dramas, and there is no "Ghost Blowing Lights" IP, which is a derivative development of the series of works in the form of online movies, so from 2019 to 2020, various online movies such as "Ghost Blowing Lights of Longling Shrine" and "Ghost Blowing Lights of Xiangxi Secret Collection" emerge in an endless stream.
According to incomplete statistics, starting from the 2015 movie "Nine-Story Demon Tower", counting all kinds of adaptations and derivative works that have been released or are waiting to be released, there have been 24 IP-related works related to "Ghost Blowing Lights" in the film and television market. This situation is not happy, ip uncontrolled development is the consumption of IP itself, in the various versions of Hu Bayi frequently out of the time, the audience market heard the "Ghost Blowing Lights" IP-related name will be dazed frown, "How many versions of this story in the end?" ”
Now Pan Yueming's version of "Longling Labyrinth" and "Yunnan Bug Valley" may be a reassuring pill for the fans of the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series, there are works on the market that can be used as masterpieces, Hu Bayi has an "orthodox template", the web drama has been filmed to the sixth, and the biggest hope of fans is that this series of works can continue to gradually upgrade, so that the "Ghost Blowing Lights" series has a good ending.