Beginning: Exploration of type development and superficial landscape
2022-02-08
After the lacklustre collective performance of domestic suspense drama in 2021, the appearance of "beginning" at the beginning of this year is a bright spot. The play tells the story of a young man and woman trying to stop a bus explosion in the cycle of time and space. It has attracted much attention because of the relatively novel "infinite flow" style and brain burning suspense story in China. Film and television dramas of space-time cycle are not uncommon in foreign countries. Groundhog day, Laura run, butterfly effect, source code, the edge of tomorrow and happy death are all representatives of them. In China, there are also works such as duannao to test the water first. The special feature of "beginning" is that it adopts the strategy of "suspense + reality", which combines the suspense reasoning story in space-time cycle / confined space with the current realistic issues. Now the play is coming to an end. Generally speaking, it can be said that the narrative rhythm of its suspense part has maintained tension and excitement for most of the time, and the suspense of "who is the murderer" is exciting, which is also the main reason why it can obtain high reputation; But at the same time, its presentation and exploration of practical issues are superficial and superficial, which has become a great pity. Ingenious adaptation from Bengue school to social school "Beginning" is adapted from the novel of the same name written by praying king. If we combine the style and genre of reasoning works, we will find that there are great differences between the novel and the drama: the original novel tends to focus on suspense reasoning, while the drama is more like a social school focusing on practical problems. In the original work, except for the bus driver Wang Xingde and his wife who retaliated against the society for their dead daughter's online violence, other characters on the bus have no relevant background extension. Their focus is to show the reasoning process of finding out the culprit and preventing the explosion, rather than to observe the reality. The cleverness of the adapters is that they see the potential of the original work to connect with social issues. Just imagine, what space is better than the bus to gather all kinds of people, close to grass-roots life and show all forms of society? Through the setting of space-time cycle, we can show the different living conditions of different characters in the car one by one. So we can see that in addition to the two protagonists Li Shiqing, a female college student, and Xiao Heyun, a game architect, there are also melon farmer Ma Guoqiang with a criminal record, wandering migrant worker Jiao Xiangrong, a two-dimensional youth Ludi who is over protected by his parents, and bus drivers Wang Xingde and Tao Yinghong, who are deeply in the haze of their dead daughter. With the help of these characters, the play touches on various practical issues such as online violence, live broadcasting industry, family education, game industry, bottom survival and so on. Even the little character who ran the red light in the first half of the period and caused a car accident has been set as a delivery boy who has been repeatedly reported in recent years to race against time and ignore life safety. In this way, the beginning melts diverse social issues into a hodgepodge of real life. This adaptation strategy obviously caters to the realistic trend of domestic film and television dramas, especially suspense works in recent years. The success of these works, from the film "burst silent", "heart maze" to the online drama "the truth of silence", largely lies in their observation of the depth of human nature and the complexity of society with a real realistic spirit. At present, the creation of film and television plays seems to be increasingly popular: if you do not deliberately focus on some social hot topics and cater to group emotions, it will be difficult to become a popular model in the market. For the production of Fang Zhengwu sunshine, the creation of realistic themes has always been his specialty, and sun Molong, the director of "beginning", has directed works such as "I am Yu huanshui", which can be said to be familiar with how to intervene in realistic issues. Role setting of game player and tool man However, it is worth further tasting that, specifically to the beginning, is this hodgepodge Book Effective? Although there are many characters in the play, there are not many characters with realistic depth. This part is because the setting of space-time cycle has limited the shaping space of character image to a certain extent. Another important reason is that the play enriches the background of supporting actors in order to add more practical issues, but ignores the characterization of the two protagonists. The essence of space-time circular narration lies in experiencing different life fates and looking for different meanings in repeated space-time. Therefore, circulation is not meaningless reciprocating, but spiral development. However, in the beginning, in addition to the strengthened identity of Xiao Heyun's game practitioners, the play did not further enrich the background and character of the two protagonists on the basis of the original work, resulting in a single image from beginning to end, and each cycle seems to be just a simple copy and paste. In addition to the emotional drama that has heated up too fast, it is difficult to see their deeper growth and transformation. In essence, the two protagonists in the play are more like the players of the game than the protagonists of the story. With their space-time circulation skills, they could have escaped safely, but decided to find out the truth for the safety of other passengers. This makes them in this clearance game of organizational explosion, they can die offline, archive and come back, and be in a free and spectator position. On the one hand, this setting dilutes the protagonist's sense of struggle and destiny when making a choice. On the other hand, it also makes them more anxious about how to complete the game task, and it is difficult to have more emotional and spiritual interaction with other characters. As for the other characters in the play, they are more like NPCs (non player characters) who cooperate with the two protagonists to complete the customs clearance game. In other words, the "tool man" deliberately set up to promote the plot. After Ma Guoqiang, Jiao Xiangrong, Ludi and other characters on the bus were relieved of suspicion successively, they almost disappeared in the subsequent plot and did not play more character value. The police criminal investigation scene in each cycle is cleared due to the restart of the next cycle, which not only leads to some narrative redundancy, but also makes the protagonist and vice captain Zhang Cheng and other characters unable to develop an in-depth character relationship. If Zhang Cheng, played by Liu Yijun, is relatively plump and credible, the deputy director, played by Liu Tao, is frequently popular because of dispensable settings and the actor's rigid performance. Therefore, compared with the original work, the number of supporting actors is more and the life background is richer, but the Procrastination of narration weakens the compactness and tension of the original work to a certain extent. A realistic picture that stays on the surface With the help of the space of the bus, "the beginning" did let the audience see scenes of life tragedies and Comedies: Guanong Ma Guoqiang was cut off by his family because of his criminal record, migrant worker Jiao Xiangrong was unable to afford the rent and had to be displaced, young Ludi was suffering from asthma and suffered from excessive protection from his parents Wang Xingde and his wife have been gazing at the double abyss of their daughter's death and cyber violence for a long time... Everyone's emotional trauma and life fetters together constitute a seemingly beautiful realistic picture. But this realistic picture is more fragments and appearances of life. They are deliberately stacked landscapes for the audience to stare at and hunt for wonders, so as to enhance the sense of reality of the works. It can't be said that they are not true, but they are superficial and lack of deep realistic logic. For example, Jiao Xiangrong, a migrant worker in the play, deliberately retained several bags thrown to him by the landlord because his daughter was not willing to buy sanitary napkins. He lent them to Li Shiqing when she borrowed sanitary napkins, which also relieved him of his suspicion. Replacing the paper towel in the original work with sanitary napkin, this adaptation shows not so much the bitterness and kindness of the bottom characters as the hot topic of "bulk sanitary napkin" two years ago, which seems too deliberate. There is such a passage in the beginning: after learning that Guanong Ma Guoqiang was abandoned by his wife and children, the heroine Li Shiqing made Ma Guoqiang believe that his son was always concerned about himself by making up a lie, which comforted his emotional trauma and staged a happy scene of outstanding people eating melons. This scene is just like an epitome of the reality writing of the whole drama: its strategy is to gently comfort the real dilemma, rather than further questioning and exploring constructive solutions. In addition to the slightly in-depth disclosure and complaint of the cyber violence suffered by Wang Xingfu and his wife, the intervention of the play in other social topics is always a little superficial and superficial, lacking the power of further empathy and resonance. Therefore, although "beginning" has opened a good beginning for the suspense drama in 2022 with the attitude of type development, there is still considerable room for progress in the road of realism of domestic dramas. (Xinhua News Agency)
Edit：Li Ling Responsible editor：Chen Jie
Source：Wenhui Daily
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