Author: a dead end
Reprinted source: a little drama reading (ID: yidianjd)
Xiaogang Feng has also come to shoot an online drama, which is still a fashionable theme of urban women.
Within 24 hours of the launch of the new drama "Beizhenanyuan" on the iQiyi platform, the drama began to show the quality of "explosion". From the night of the premiere, it won two hot searches in Weibo, # Liu Xiaoqing as Grandma Gina # and # Bo Huang Lyric as the opposite play #, and it was less than 12 hours since it was launched, and it became the top10 series of many professional data lists, such as Cat’s Eye, Detawen and Guduo, and "Going South" can be described as a hot start.
However, in sharp contrast, it is the word-of-mouth trend of the play. On Douban, more than 2,000 people have come to score the play, and more than half of the netizens have given negative comments such as "floating" and "ungrounded". What’s more, some netizens even labeled Xiaogang Feng, who was "descending to earth" to shoot online drama, as "Jing M.Guo", thinking that his creative content seriously violated the living soil. "His works have long lost their popularity." On Douban, a netizen vomited.
This is not the first time that Xiaogang Feng has filmed an online drama. As early as 2019, he and his "old partner" Lu Guoqiang jointly created a martial arts theme "Sword Dynasty". At that time, the drama also experienced a tug-of-war of traffic and word of mouth, and finally ended with Douban 6.2, with a mediocre response.
"Crossing the South" can be said to be more like Xiaogang Feng’s "pro-child".In this film, Feng not only personally acted as a director, but also brought his wife Xu Fan, his old friend Zhao Xiaoding (a photography director who has worked together for many years) and half of the entertainment circle to "play a supporting role".The leading characters chosen are also female artists with acceptable reputation and popularity in the entertainment circle at present, such as Lyric and Gina. Even Wang Luodan, who hasn’t been filming for a while, gave a "special performance" in this play.
Regrettably, even with such a "Big Mac" configuration, it failed to get a good reputation for the first broadcast. From another point of view, this may also be the common feature of women’s topic dramas, that is, the topic is greater than word of mouth. Can Xiaogang Feng’s "debut of online drama (director)" be successfully started?
"Petty bourgeoisie" version of her theme,
The "Trouble" in "Going North to the South"
"Never imagined that one day I would see the shadow of Jing M.Guo in Xiaogang Feng’s works. "After the broadcast of" North Zhe Nan Yuan ",the most commented on it on the Internet is the" suspended plot "in the play.
It is said that it is "suspended". In fact, there are many realistic topics in the play, such as the problem of "Mr. Digital" who directly hits the entertainment circle, the common phenomenon of male two acting without flow and male one grabbing the position, all of which make the audience hooked. "Small steel gun is still that small steel gun, dare to say and dare to criticize."
However,Once it returns to the main line of the plot, the drama will give the audience an impression of "it’s a pity to eat tasteless".The novel "Going North to the South" focuses on five urban women, who set up a restaurant called "Going North to the South" as the story background. In the process of starting a business, they have gained love and growth along the way.
At first glance, the setting of the whole drama is quite similar to many love women urban dramas such as Ode to Joy and Nothing But Thirty, but the core of the drama is far from it. If Ode to Joy and Nothing But Thirty still have a "realistic" side, then "Going to the South" seems to speak for China’s "rich areas". Unfortunately, it didn’t uncover the realistic topics such as class contradictions and social injustice in the upper class, like Korean dramas, but it covered a "realistic" shell and told the troubles of a group of rich people in petty bourgeoisie families.
Therefore, the troubles of the "protagonist" in the whole play are untenable. For example, Bao Xue, played by Lyric, graduated from the Central Academy of Drama and has been a walk-on for many years. Her acting skills are good, but there is no play to shoot. Just when the audience almost thought that she was a member of the drifting army, when the camera turned, grandma lived in a private luxury villa and Bao Xue lived in a courtyard house in Beijing … Of course, if she developed according to such a character, it would be feasible. After all, the audience also likes to watch the story of "rich girls wandering the rivers and lakes". But when the conversation turned, the rich girl who wanted to start a business couldn’t even get the 300 thousand principal, which really made it difficult for the audience to understand
If Bao Xue’s personal design is only a little controversial, then Dai Xiaoyu played by Gina and You Shanshan played by Wang Luodan are completely out of the category of realistic creation.
"Turtle" graduated from graduate school with beauty and wisdom, but Dai Xiaoyu was cheated by love rat for seven years, only to find himself "being a mistress" at the wedding; Not only that, Dai Xiaoyu, who was looking for a job after returning to China, won the job as a public relations manager with "beauty and alcohol consumption" in a wine game. Not only did Dai Xiaoyu’s grandmother not understand, but the audience did not understand: why did the screenwriter match him with "stupid" things, which failed to reflect the temperament of a turtle and an elite in the workplace?
Wang Luodan’s You Shanshan is even more outrageous. After graduating from college, she happened to be in the investment industry, and now she is a "businesswoman" with small achievements. The reason why she brought several sisters she just met to open a restaurant is also quite rich. "I really think you are a good person." Netizens also said to this, "This is not a female entrepreneur, this is a female philanthropist."
In fact,Not only is the character setting slightly "suspended" in "North Crossing the South Pole", but the whole drama reveals a "luxury" wind from the setting to the story background.. For example, the car driven by Wang Luodan in the play is a million luxury cars that ordinary people can’t reach, and the luxury private villa where grandma lives is on the Second Ring Road in Beijing. The usual hobby of "sisters" is not swimming and feathering, but "riding" as standard for the rich.
The realistic version of "Beijing Circle" is full of honey and the rising version of "petty bourgeoisie" life is the consistent description of the drama by netizens. Judging from the theme and the core of the play, this is more like a "misplaced" expression directed by Xiaogang Feng, that is, covering the shell of the rich and telling the troubles that only the poor have.
This is an important factor for the controversial reputation of the play at present, and it is also another "beginning" for netizens to point to Xiaogang Feng himself.
The great director entered the online drama:
Can Xiaogang Feng pull it back?
At present, the online drama market has already entered the era of high-speed development with the highest standards and strict requirements. In the first six months of this year alone, there were more than 10 online dramas with a score of more than 7 in the market, among which there were many well-received and well-received word-of-mouth works such as Shan He Ling and Si Teng.
The rapid development of online drama has also attracted a group of well-known filmmakers and even movie actors to come to the game. At the same time, their co-creation dilemma, that is, much cry and little rain, also makes the market eye-catching. For example, the legendary drama Legend of the Early Republic of China, which was previously supervised by Chen Kaige and starring Seven and Oho Ou, was mentioned by Chen Kaige in the previous interview. The reason why he supervised the drama was that he valued the theme of the work. Many elements contained in the drama, such as the early Republic of China, strange people and gossip, also convinced the audience that this was an attempt to "touch the net" based on the rationalization of the theme.
However, judging from the word-of-mouth and final volume of the works, the market is unwilling to admit that this is an attempt by the famous director Chen Kaige to "touch the net", and the rumor that the great director "touches the net" is a nominal producer has been widely circulated.
Things came to Xiaogang Feng. As a first-line director in China, who is on par with Chen Kaige, Zhang Yimou and other famous directors of the fifth generation, Xiaogang Feng was not a trained director, but he made his debut by directing TV dramas in his early years. In terms of film artistic attainments, he may not be as brilliant as the directors in the same period, but he was the first leader in creating Chinese New Year comedies. According to the statistics of some media, by the end of 2010, the name "Xiaogang Feng" had appeared 12 times in the annual list of the top ten mainland films. Feng’s comedy style is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
(Some works directed by Xiaogang Feng)
The "transformation" is from the beginning of 2010, when a number of "newcomers" such as Ning Hao, Xú Zhēng, Chen Sicheng, Bo Huang and Jason Wu began to emerge in the film market, which belonged to the box office era of the fifth generation directors and gradually came to an end.
Since then, Xiaogang Feng’s name has rarely appeared in the list of the top ten box office in China. Only two or two records were made, including mr. six in 2015 and Fanghua in 2017. Since then, Xiaogang Feng’s new work "If I don’t know" has fallen into the dilemma of both word-of-mouth and box office, and Xiaogang Feng is losing the film market that he is gradually proud of.
In 2019, it was Xiaogang Feng’s first experience of "touching the net", producing the martial arts drama "Sword Dynasty", but the result, as mentioned above, was "no success". The first shot of Feng’s online drama did not start. "North Crossing the South" can be regarded as Xiaogang Feng’s second work after "touching the net", and it is also a real directorial debut.
Except that the above-mentioned "group disk" resources are basically brought by himself,In the play, "Beijing flavor" breaks the mouth and attacks the illusion of entertainment circle, which also fully shows the comedy style of Feng’s early works.It’s a pity that once we get into the drama, this "garrulous" comedy creation style can only be brought into play under the double insurance of "Xiaogang Feng+Ge You"-young actors such as Lyric and Gina are obviously not suitable for this kind of creation style.
Fortunately,This is a drama about urban women, that is, the more controversial it is, the more topical it is.For example, the social issues such as "virgin complex" and "gold digger" touched upon in Ode to Joy before, and there are also "vampire son", "stay-at-home mother who is asked by her husband not to do his own business" and "postdoctoral fellow with male chauvinism in the late stage of cancer" in the plot of "North Road South". Judging from these plot settings, there is no shortage of topics in the later stage of the drama.
This is director Xiaogang Feng’s first hands-on experience after "entering the network", and it is also a weighing of advantages and disadvantages based on the current market. Perhaps, compared with other "great directors" who entered the online drama in the same period, Xiaogang Feng has also pulled back-after all, before Chen Kaige and Xu Jinglei entered the online drama, there was no online drama with explosive potential in the market.
