文 | Niu Jiaojian
The 1990s was not only the golden age of Hong Kong movies, but also the heyday of Chinese martial arts. From the text and images constructed by "Golden Ancient Liang Wenhuang", to the frequent film and television adaptations of martial arts novels, to the reshaping and deconstruction of classic martial arts by well-known masters, martial arts themes have long realized the transformation of quantity and quality, and have become the essence of Chinese culture. One of the important signs.
Recently, iQiyi’s self-made oriental martial arts legendary drama "Sword Dynasty" once again brought the former "brilliance of martial arts" to the audience. Its extremely Zen-like oriental poetic aesthetics and full and tense martial arts stories made the audience shine. At present, the peak content of the show on iQiyi Station has reached 7659, ranking first in Maoyan, Lighthouse and other data fields, and has become a popular drama that has attracted much attention recently.
The hit of "Sword Dynasty", on the one hand, presents the martial arts images with the ultimate film aesthetics and the tense martial arts story, and at the same time, it also brings the long-lost "traditional martial arts" back to the audience. Behind this, as iQiyi, which has many years of experience in making popular dramas, what upgrades and innovations will it bring to the audience on the martial arts circuit? With the heavy blessing of the movie-level team of
, iQIYI's "Sword Dynasty" reproduces the "movie-level" texture. The development of the
web drama market is no longer the crude and niche era that early audiences knew. From iQIYI’s self-produced drama "Old Nine Doors" to promote the drama market into the era of tens of billions of views; to iQIYI’s blockbuster launch of the "Super Web Drama" concept, to the introduction of Han Sanping, Chen Kaige, Xu Jinglei, Chen Guofu, and Zhao Wei Well-known filmmakers such as Lu Chuan and Lu Chuan devote themselves to online dramas. The online drama market has already undergone earth-shaking changes. In recent years, there has been a saying comparable to "movies" and "beautiful dramas."
, as an important member of iQiyi's "Super Series", is currently broadcasting "Sword Dynasty", which places deep hopes on the market in terms of the appearance and popularity of the series. This is the first web drama project launched by Director Feng Xiaogang in 2017. He mainly plays the role of producer in the drama. Producer Lu Guoqiang is a well-known filmmaker who has co-created many Feng's New Year comedies such as "Party A and Party B" and "Never See You"; action director Jiang Daohai has worked with director Feng Xiaogang in "A World Without Thieves". And many other films. It can be said that the "movie sense" is the special temperament that the play exudes from the inside out, and it is also one of the biggest advantages of the play that distinguishes it from the shows in the same period.
At present, what the audience sees in the play is that the martial arts scenes that have been presented many times, or the exquisite service design and setting layout, all show the "film-level" beauty. For example, in the opening scene Ding Ning (played by Li Xian) assassinated the Book of Gods of the Song Dynasty. Under the close-up shots of water patterns, waves, long streets, umbrellas, as well as acupuncture points and pulse cuts in the fighting scenes, the sense of killing and freehand brushwork in martial arts drama , Abruptly on paper. Similar to
, Ye Ce coldly killed Zhao Zhan, Liang Jingmeng was "ambushed" at the banquet, Queen Ye Zhen (played by Yao Di) changed the clothes of King Heng (played by Liu Yijun) who had just left the customs, and it was constantly presented in the play. The aesthetic composition, service design and lighting design, etc., all vividly show the film-level texture.
First, its prominent lens language expression, service-oriented design, and scene scheduling are all benchmarked with the current film-level production; second, it also wants to reproduce the glory of traditional martial arts through these upgraded image aesthetics .
goes to fantasy and focuses on martial arts, "Sword Dynasty" returns to the original heart of classic martial arts
is similar to the previous classic martial arts dramas. "Sword Dynasty" also follows the martial arts route of "young revenge" in the big plot direction. The difference is that in the plot design of retaining gangs and rivers and lakes, the team has also joined many temple plans. For example, in the play Liang Jingmeng led Bashan disciples to assist Heng Wang Yuanwu in defeating the Lie Nation. He thought he would be rewarded by his merits, but he did not expect Heng Wang to set up a bureau to kill him, and Ye Zhen, who was with Liang Jingmeng, was the queen of the queen. Bit, betray Liang Jingmeng.
This is how the descendants Ding Ning (played by Li Xian) and Gongsun Qianxue (played by Li Yitong) have common revenge. Director Ma Huaqian once said frankly that the ultimate core point of martial arts drama must fall on the "human heart" and "human nature".
Therefore, in Ding Ning, the audience can see the psychological change of a teenager from aspiring to revenge in the early stage to giving up revenge in the later stage, and this is exactly the growing pain and transformation that a generation of "heroes" have to endure-not only "successful assassination" "It has the meaning of revenge. The real revenge should be reconciliation with oneself and the world. This is the "style of a chivalrous man."
Li is now interviewed by reporters, Zeng frankly said that DingNing is the most complicated character in his role. Firstly, this is mainly related to the large number of complex plots in the play and the psychological transformation of the characters in the later stage; secondly, it is mainly related to the large number of more complex martial arts actions involved in the play.
is different from the more popular ancient costume fantasy and ancient costume fairy chivalry in the market. Every martial arts scene in "Sword Dynasty" basically relies on the "hand-to-hand" competition between actors and actors, rather than often used in fantasy dramas. "Lightwave" special effects. For example, in the first episode of at least 5 martial arts scenes, the actors basically rely on fist-to-body martial arts moves to win.
This is also the great sincerity of the entire crew of "Sword Dynasty" from the early stage to the later stage. At the same time, it is also the determination and original intention of iQiyi to return to the traditional martial arts drama.
Re-upgrading of traditional martial arts drama: iQIYI continues to innovate to lead the industry trend
Actually, martial arts dramas also faced many difficulties during the development process. On the one hand, with the blooming of various themes in the mainland market, martial arts dramas no longer occupy the quantitative advantages of the past; on the other hand, in the current homogenization of various remakes and themes, martial arts themes are also facing an urgent "seeking new".
In this regard, iQiyi has a forward-looking layout and has gradually formed the leading edge of the platform martial arts track. Since 2015 "The Legend of Shushan", iQiyi has shown a unique vision of martial arts dramas and strengthened the layout of the martial arts track. During the broadcast of "The Legend of Shushan", the show used the exquisite service to transform the Tao and the "Eastern martial arts element" that young people love, and won nearly 4 billion online views. Subsequently, the play succeeded in feeding back the TV station with the broadcast mode of "first network backstage", becoming the first case of a web drama back feeding satellite TV.
Later, iQiyi has successively output two martial arts dramas with Douban scores over 8 points-the new version of "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "Drawing the Bad Man", one pays tribute to the classic traditional martial arts drama, the other Then boldly open a new oriental martial arts style. From these two martial arts dramas, it is not difficult to see that in the field of martial arts drama production, iQiyi pursues the ultimate return of classic martial arts; on the other hand, it will inject a lot of fresh elements into traditional martial arts dramas.
In these two martial arts dramas, the audience can not only see the long-awaited "Jin Yong" style of martial arts drama with one move and one fist to the flesh, and at the same time, they will also see the style that focuses on the young circle and breaks through the dimension wall. Design etc.
returns to "Sword Dynasty" itself, this is undoubtedly a "master" of iQiyi in the field of martial arts drama. Its outstanding film-level aesthetics, as well as the Zen-rich oriental poetic aesthetics and the powerful martial arts stories are slightly different from the previous ancient puppets. In addition, the team is also quite ingenious in detail production. For example, in the play, with only the "sword" prop, the team has created hundreds of them, striving to show the personality differences between different characters. Similar to
are the aesthetic style based on the "black" tone in the play, the restoration of the classic scenes in the original novels, and the construction of a huge martial arts worldview. They all refer to a large number of historical classics to a certain extent, the purpose is Efforts to create a traditional martial arts aesthetic full of oriental charm for the audience.
In fact, it is not difficult to find that whether it is "Sword Dynasty" and other martial arts dramas, or dramas in other themes, iQiyi has always been constantly upgrading in the direction of content innovation:
has been using "Psychological Crime" since 2015. "Tomb Notes" was the first to knock on the door of the online drama market, to the launch of "The Best of Us", "Hello, Old Times", "River God" and "Undocumented Crimes" such as super online dramas with obvious typology and high reputation and high traffic. , And then to actively build two theaters of "Love Youth" and "Suspenseful Suspense" to create a content theater for users in a more vertical circle. This year, we will focus on realistic themes to create a real big case national drama "Ice Breaking Action", and promote China's excellence The traditional culture of "Golden Eyes" and "Sword Dynasty"... Thanks to the innovative spirit of the platform, iQiyi's film and television content is constantly breaking through and upgrading. The return of
to "Sword Dynasty" itself is undoubtedly another blockbuster for iQiyi in the drama market, and it is also another lead and breakthrough in the industry trend.
