"Failing to save lives" and unspoken rules
Everything is for news
TVB used to be called the "light of Chinese professional dramas" and filmed almost all types of work. But in recent years, it has been dormant for a long time. It was not until this "News Queen" that it once again aroused public interest.
has a Douban score of 8.2 and a pretty good reputation. The lines are sharp, the fights are exciting, and all the characters have an unquenchable ambition.
When ordinary workplace dramas still focus on romance, this drama has already used "find a man to marry" to criticize the other party's incompetence.
Who needs love when you have a job?
It feels like going back to the golden age of TVB twenty years ago. Young people who follow the drama deeply empathize with their own workplace experiences. This is the attitude that a leading heroine should have.
Infighting among anchors, workplace rules, and full of topics. But it is not without flaws. It pursues too much plot conflict and fails to make further progress in its core. The profession of news anchor itself is also falling behind.
But its flaws do not hide its flaws. It is still a rare workplace drama in recent years.
There are spoilers below.
01
Boyfriend was shot and insisted on filming
Beauty is a tool for information
It has been a long time since I saw such a sassy group of women in a drama. The plot of
revolves around the factional struggle between the "Wen Family Army" led by heroine Wen Huixin (played by Charmaine Sheh) and the faction led by male anchor Liang Jingren (played by Ma Guoming). Not only Wen Huixin herself is the "Queen of News", but the other female anchors also hold back their fierce determination to fight to the death.
Wen Huixin is known as "Sister Wen" in the world and has aired for 3,000 hours in prime time. No one can replace him for his professionalism. As the famous saying goes, "The live broadcast room is wherever I am."
There is a famous scene: in the middle of the live broadcast, Liang Jingren, who was one level senior to her, suddenly turned off her teleprompter, waiting to see her make a fool of herself.
I saw that she was not in a hurry, and with ten years of broadcasting skills, she dictated the news directly on the spot and told the case.
Liang was unwilling to give in and challenged her again during the live broadcast, threatening to cut off her live broadcast.
She directly produced an exclusive report that had been thoroughly investigated. If you do it, it may become the most popular live broadcast in the past decade; if you don't do it, the company may lose huge profits.
Her opponent is just a high-ranking pawn in the company. The senior leaders are right behind her. Who dares to interrupt her live broadcast? Naturally, I can only submit obediently.
It is this courage that is not afraid of danger that allows her to secure her position as the "first sister".
But even though she is so famous now, she was forced to sacrifice a lot when she was young and first entered the industry.
In order to pursue first-hand news, she and her ex-boyfriend, who was a company photographer at the time, went into danger alone and set up shop on the street to commit a robbery.
As a result, during the melee, her boyfriend was accidentally shot in the leg and fell to the ground. She was stunned. Her boyfriend knew how hard she worked and insisted on handing her the camera. She had no time to call an ambulance and finished filming the news in tears.
In the end, she captured the exclusive news of the crime scene of the "King of Thieves" and became the chief anchor. But the boyfriend was left with the root cause of his illness because he did not receive treatment immediately.
Looking back on those years, she murmured to herself that if she had another chance, she would not be willing to join SNK. But now that she has entered the journalism industry, she can only grit her teeth and go on. There is no turning back in life.
At this point, the characters are richer.
What impressed me deeply in the drama was the second female lead, Xu Shiqing (played by Gao Haining).
This character is curvy, plump and charming. If he were placed in an ordinary workplace drama, he might be portrayed as a villain who "relies on beauty to get to the top".
But in this drama, although she also has unspoken roles, the initiative is completely in her own hands.
When seeing a client, he took the initiative to lower the zipper of his shirt to impress the client, and gave underwear to his colleagues as secret flirtations. At the same time, he did not forget to flirt with his male boss.
All of this is for one ultimate purpose, which is to "make a career."
Beauty has become one of her work weapons. According to her: "What era are we in now? Should I eat him or he eat me?"
Of course, her real abilities don't stop there. No one dared to report a piece of news about the death of a rich man whose authenticity was uncertain, for fear of taking responsibility. Only she took the initiative to come forward after conducting a detailed investigation, and the result was a great success.
competed with a female anchor with similar qualifications on the same stage. The other party was still waiting for her colleagues to hand over information. She already knew the information by heart. Decisively report accurate news first and steal the show on the show.
is capable and "spending". This is her trump card.
In addition to the two mentioned, the other female characters in the play also have distinct personalities.
Some are idealistic but are forced to "blacken", some are indecisive and reduced to "double-faced puppets" by others, and some, like the young Wen Huixin, have just embarked on the journalistic path and still need to be polished.
In any case, every character is not simply black and white, they are all in the gray area of human nature. You don’t have to be morally perfect, but you must live your life.
This alone is something that has been lacking in female workplace dramas in recent years.
02
Mission: Impossible, Three-Way Battle
Workplace is like a battlefield
Many people say that this drama is like a workplace version of "The Legend of Zhen Huan".
However, this time what everyone is competing for is no longer the emperor's favor and harem status, but their own career achievements.
In order to become a prime time anchor, the characters in the play do everything possible.
It is common for different groups to plant spies for each other.
male anchor Liang Jingren used his power and charm to make Xu Shiqing and Sister Wen's general Xu Xiaowei all his lovers.
Whether it is stealing information or "doing dirty work", it is much more convenient to cover it with a layer of emotional skin.
However, the two female anchors were not vegetarians. Later, when they gradually discovered that the benefits brought by Liang Jingren were not that many, both of them quickly "surrendered."
Xu Shiqing directly joined Sister Wen’s camp in front of the entire company.
And Xu Xiaowei became a "Mission: Impossible" and pretended to continue being intimate with Liang Jingren, but in private she had already seen through the selfish nature of the other party and chose Sister Wen who could bring her more benefits.
If the fight between peers isn’t enough, this show also has fights between various factions.
In order to balance the different forces within the company, the big boss Fang Tai specially cultivated three forces to fight against each other.
The first share is Sister Wen, and the second share is Sister Wen’s former student and current rival Liang Jingren. Zhang Jiayan (played by Li Shiwei), a senior reporter who tries to remain neutral and focus on news, also becomes the boss’s hand and is forced to take action. .
In the play, bags are used to personify people, and Fangtai’s employment ideas are discussed, which is also known as the "bag buying theory".
Some bags are noble and evergreen, like Sister Wen, who makes you feel at ease having her in the cloakroom; some bags are sensational, but as long as they are used properly, they can also be eye-catching, like Xu Shiqing, who is good at using hidden rules.
In addition to these, there should also be men's bags in the cloakroom to balance different views and angles, just like Liang Jingren.
In the final analysis, the subordinates were fighting to death, and in the end it was just Fang Tai's "bag". Which one to use and how to use it all depended on the boss's ideas.
03
Success is also a cool drama
Failure is also a cool drama
Catch up to fourteen episodes in one go. This drama is really enjoyable to watch.
The short video plot rhythm makes it full of exciting twists and turns, and the TVB screenwriter's control makes the characters stand out enough.
It’s a pity, it’s a great drama if it succeeds, and a great drama if it fails. While pushing all the plots to the extreme, it also loses the deeper core.
In order to produce good news on the day of resignation, Sister Wen did not hesitate to let young employees go deep into the fire scene. But she is good at rhetoric. She does not say it clearly, but just constantly encourages the other party with her journalistic ideals.
As a result, the other party accidentally knocked over a flammable object and caused an explosion. If the fire sprinkler system had not been triggered at the critical moment and was discovered by other colleagues who arrived in time, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
At this time, she justified her morals again, saying, "I just let you peek at the surveillance camera. I didn't expect you to actually go to the fire scene."
In addition, she also used fierce words to constantly question her subordinates who suffered from depression. After the subordinates collapsed, they promised to comfort them in the future.
A series of similar behaviors have once again deepened everyone’s stereotype of the news industry.
Although it is said to describe the news industry, the content so far has only highlighted the process of "competing for news" and over-linked news broadcasting with interests.
TVB anchor Mai Shimin, who just resigned this year, said that some of the situations in the drama would never happen in reality, such as having someone in the live broadcast studio touch up makeup, threatening her boss 30 seconds before the show started, etc. Former cable news anchor Zhang Hongyan also said that the news department has such a tight schedule that there is no time to sit in the dressing room and blame each other.
The drama also failed to show the professional sense of mission of journalists. Although it is packaged with celebrity quotes at the beginning of each episode, it still feels like it cannot hold up the weight.
But in the end, this drama is still worth watching.
Everyone has been suffering from "workplace idol drama" for a long time. There is a great need for a drama that can represent the spirit of contemporary professional women. Instead of being "assisted" by different men again and again, they go to the battlefield themselves and win a kingdom. Although
is not perfect, at least it captured the voice of the current times.
text, editor/kelp
pictures from the Internet
The above content comes from "The Bund"
