Text | Hedgehog Commune, author | Ai Lao, editor | Chen Meixi
When all the disputes are gone, it’s time to calm down and discuss "One Thought Guanshan", this costume drama that gives people a "roller coaster-like experience of watching the drama" .
As Liu Shishi's second work, "One Thought Guanshan" almost booked a spot in the hit drama before it was broadcast. The combination of the three labels "Liu Shishi", "costume heroine" and "cold assassin" is more like stacking buffs , which has raised everyone's expectations - this can be seen from the fact that the popularity of the broadcast has refreshed iQiyi's first-day broadcast popularity record on the site in 2023. Does
look good?
There is no doubt that Liu Shishi’s beauty remains as beautiful as before in terms of makeup and demeanor. Even in the early plot, the group portraits of "One Thought Guanshan" are also very outstanding. Yuan Lu, a descendant of the Mohist family who is pure and loyal, Yu Shisan, the romantic and humorous Asura Taoist captain, Yang Ying, the Prince of Li who is not experienced in the world but has a solid growth path, Li Tongguang, the Marquis of Changqing with crazy attributes... Everyone is expected to take action. Come out, it can become the highlight of costume dramas. Is
hard to describe in one word?
This is indeed the case. There has been a lot of controversy over the script revision, and the audience has gradually abandoned the show, so much so that the Douban score has dropped from the original 7.5 to 6.5 today. Some people in the comments love the generous flirtation between the male and female protagonists, and some people suggest cutting off the male and female protagonists' heartfelt expressions of love to each other. People who liked it did not hesitate to give it five stars, but one-star comments also appeared every now and then.
In any case, "beauty and ugliness" and "epileptic drama" have become the key words for the success or failure of "Yi Nian Guan Shan".
Ningmeng Film and Television, the production company behind "One Thought of Guanshan", is good at portraying women and group portraits. Just in 2023, it also produced "It's Just Love" with a Douban score of 8.2 and "Ask the Heart" with a score of 8.4; pushing forward, this company also has many excellent works, such as "The Illustrated Book of Sin Hunting" and "Twenty Not Confused 2" ""Coward"... In contrast, "One Thought" seems to be the failure of a good student.
The public opinion controversy that "One Thought Guanshan" has been involved in is not only a problem of a drama, but also a concentrated outbreak of costume drama issues at the end of the year; and why is an excellent production company unable to complete a good costume story? This is an issue that Ningmeng Film and Television needs to review, and it is also an experience that all costume production companies need to learn from.
double strength, a pseudo tag
At first, the appearance of the female director Ruyi was enough to meet the audience's perception of "beauty" and "sassy", and the rich group portraits and characters were also the main driving force to attract the audience to follow the drama.
However, as the story progresses, Ren Ruyi, who should have been like a tree, gradually begins to look like a "beautiful wife". On the one hand, she always pounces on the male protagonist Ning Yuanzhou suddenly when the storyline is tight, claiming that she wants to complete the side task of having a child with him; on the other hand, when she comes to her own territory of Anguo, her aura of being a strong person is even more so by the male protagonist. After the protagonist took her away, knowing the truth about the death of Queen Zhaojie, she fell into the male protagonist's arms and washed her face in tears. The soft contrast of the cold and cold assassin had not yet been reflected, and the male protagonist's considerate qualities became more prominent.
appears to be a dual character, but in fact it is an emotional imbalance.
Ren Ruyi, who was the first to initiate the flirtation, seemed to have the initiative in the relationship. In fact, Ning Yuanzhou, who had the right to refuse, was the leader of the relationship. Don't forget, "The Son-in-law" allowed women to take the initiative in the relationship. ", is actually a male-led drama. Ren Ruyi's active flirtation does not mean that the heroine has an emotional advantage. "Giving children to the hero" is the uncomfortable aspect of this character setting.
The truth is that Ren Ruyi and Ning Yuanzhou seemed to have picked up the wrong two characters in the script. Ren Ruyi got the script of the former overlord, with only the domineering scenes without the halo of the CEO; Ning Yuanzhou got the script of the real heroine, Gao Leng Ruizhi is inviolable and will always make the right decision.
's efforts are not equal. In Episode 10, after Ren Ruyi was accidentally injured by Liu Daotang, he was seriously injured and insisted on leaving, but Ning Yuanzhou's decision was to respect and let go; correspondingly, in Episode 20, Ning Yuanzhou was also seriously injured, but Ren Ruyi cried bitterly She shed tears and tried her best to save people with blood.Along the way, Ren Ruyi seems to be decisive and dedicated, but in fact, the hero always turns the tide and reverses the situation at the last moment.
’s promised “double strength” turned out to be just a fig leaf for the creative team’s inability to create a heroine—on the one hand, Ren Ruyi was allowed to be the coolest killer, and she was allowed to dominate the world and fight against the heroes, while at the same time, she was allowed to become the “life” "Child" was on his lips, and he looked at Ning Yuanzhou with praise all the time in the later period.
While claiming to be an independent woman, she has become the most feudal scene in domestic dramas. The sense of fragmentation in the characters spreads from the drama to off-screen. In the later period, the female protagonist was more like a tool to prove the male protagonist's strength, allowing her to save the situation repeatedly and become the backbone of the Guanshan team and even some members of the enemy country. It once evolved from a "two-strong drama" to a "male protagonist drama".
On the Internet, there are many netizens who suggest "taking off the emotional line". In fact, cutting off the emotional line is to remove the negative points of the female protagonist, so that she can be "evenly matched" with the male protagonist in terms of personality. According to
Yunhe data, in the list of effective broadcasts of all online dramas in 2023, "Do You Know Should Be Green, Fat, Red, and Thin", which was broadcast in 2018, still ranked sixth with 2.36 billion effective broadcasts of the feature film. In 2011, The broadcast of "The Legend of Zhen Huan" ranked 13th with 1.5 billion effective broadcasts of the feature film. The once excellent heroine dramas are still watched repeatedly by the audience. Minglan and Zhen Huan may not have high status at the beginning, and may have the blessing of male characters, but over time, they have completed their transformation more on their own. The three-dimensionality of the character is presented to the extreme.
Later heroines became more and more beautiful and their status became higher and higher. The creators tried to use this to prove their halo as the protagonists, but ignored the growth of the core, so they became superficial and lost in adversity. The struggling supporting characters. The current situation of supporting characters on the table just proves that the protagonist cannot truly make the audience empathize with him in terms of growth core and emotional changes.
At this time when the topic of women is hotly debated, to make a "double strong" drama is not to win the recognition of female audiences through male perfection, but to win the resonance of female audiences with shining female characters.
The biggest misunderstanding in "One Thought Guanshan" is that by weakening the strength of the female protagonist, it makes the male protagonist powerful, making the dual strength a false proposition.
Fans and viewers who were stabbed in the back
Before the broadcast of "One Thought Off the Mountain", the biggest stunt in the whole drama was none other than Liu Shishi. After all, in the actor's previous works, "Step by Step" and "Legend of Sword and Fairy 3" have already It is the youthful memory of most viewers.
This is also the root of the problem, because Liu Shishi started to follow the audience of the drama, but eventually found that "Ren Ruyi" was not as "strong" as imagined, and even became the "background" of the male protagonist Ning Yuanzhou, so naturally she felt stabbed in the back and decided to Abandoned the play midway.
In the Douban comments, a large number of netizens who gave one-star reviews wrote comments about the male protagonist not being good enough. Some netizens boldly gave a solution: "If the male protagonist is replaced by Chen Xiao, it will not be a problem to get 8.5 points."
Faced with the attack on appearance, fans of the male lead did not hesitate to give in, expressing emotions related to "the female lead's skills are not up to par". For a time, the public opinion storm caused by fans of the protagonists choking each other overshadowed the popularity of the series, affecting the normal judgment of tap audiences on the series. "One Thought Guanshan" was once called "Drama Fan Hell".
In the film and television industry, it has almost become a universal truth that chasing big traffic and big IP is a double-edged sword. They can not only bring high popularity, but they will naturally also face the scrutiny of fans. However, there are still many drama producers who are still happy with it. After all, choosing traffic is an invisible insurance for broadcast volume and investment, so IP and traffic are still effective magic weapons in this industry.
Rather than saying that the fight between fans has disrupted the good ecology of film and television creation, we might as well think about the considerations that film and television companies originally considered when choosing traffic or IP.
If the heroine of "One Thought of Guanshan" was not Liu Shishi, no matter how rich the group portraits were, it might not be as popular as it is today. In terms of casting, if the film and television companies want to get more dividends, they must also be aware of the risks from the beginning. After all, Song Yan, who belongs to the "sy" universe this year, has brought too many lessons. .
Even without the annoying fights among fans, "One Thought Guanshan" is not a perfect work.
In 2023, there are many ways for audiences to be backstabbed, such as bad endings and difficult CPs, but the most shocking way to backstab is still the plot going crazy.
"One Thought Guanshan" has a relatively stable performance in the early stage. With outstanding supporting characters and a solid main quest line, the audience can still watch it with gusto. However, the later plot completely exceeded the audience's imagination. One second, Changqing Hou went crazy and wanted to marry Ren Ruyi. The next second, he married Princess Yang Ying. In another scene, Ren Ruyi had already paid homage to Ning Yuanzhou, leaving no trace to the audience. reaction time. The plot of
also seems to have a 3x speed, and every character is like an arrow on the string, derailed at any time.
survived the love scene and avoided the trouble caused by the fight between fans. The audience who really followed the drama may have a few complaints in the end - the epileptic plot and the all-be-e ending almost exhausted the audience's patience.
director Xin Shuang once mentioned in an interview that if he had to sum up the secret of hit dramas, it would be to "respect the audience." Perhaps this sentence is particularly inspiring in the face of the film and television industry where dramas are constantly happening. It is not impossible for
characters to go crazy, and it is not unacceptable for all members to be, but these are necessary, are they reasonable? The market is changing, and the audience's aesthetics are upgrading. At a time when costume dramas are coming one after another, if "One Thought of Passage" wants to win the audience's love, there are still more hurdles to overcome.
Ning Meng's ptsd
Ning Meng's costume drama has always been a leader in the film and television industry in the modern drama field. It has its own distinctive style in terms of casting and content expression.
It is difficult to find popular actors in its modern drama productions. Whether it is Tan Jianci and Jin Shijia in "The Illustrated Book of Hunting Crimes", Bu Guanjin and Li Gengxi in "Twenty Not Confused", or the young actors in the "Little Shed" series, Ningmeng Film and Television has achieved a high level of adaptability in casting. We will focus on the development of original content.
hit dramas have also emerged, such as "Little Joy", "Thirty Only", "Twenty Not Confused 2", etc., which can take into account reputation, popularity and topicality, and bring fame or masterpieces to actors.
Compared with the strengths of modern dramas, costume dramas are more like Ning Meng’s shortcomings.
In July 2019, "Jiuzhou Piao Miao Lu" produced by Ning Meng was broadcast. In the era when big female protagonists are prevalent, Ning Meng innovatively transformed male costume dramas into films. Not only Liu Haoran, Song Zuer, Xu Qing, The cast, including Wang Ou, even moved to more than ten locations including Shawan and Kuqa in Xinjiang for filming.
lasted for nine months, but the effect was average. Although it ranked high in ratings for the same time period, compared with the real hit dramas, the ratings of "Jiuzhou Piaomiao Lu" were not high, and the Douban score was not as good as expected, with only 5.9 points.
can be seen in Ningmeng Film and Television's productions such as "The Story of the Destiny", "Fuyao", and "Eternal Jue Chen". In these dramas, the popularity of traffic is still there, and the "descendence" of the movie queen is also a highlight, but the audience does not seem to buy it. The final Douban score of the dramas is fixed at below 6 points.
Compared with the comfort zone of modern dramas, Ningmeng Film and Television has seldom worked on the costume track in recent years. The 2023 "One Thought Guanshan" is not only Liu Shishi's debut work, but also Ningmeng Film and Television's ambitious costume drama. It failed again in terms of reputation.
Ning Meng understands modern people, but it is difficult to hit the cool points of modern people with costume dramas. After "Jiuzhou Piaomiao Lu" failed to test the male channel, in November of the same year, the production company Xinli handed over the answer sheet for "Celebrating More Than Years". The venue where Liu Haoran failed to become popular became Zhang Ruoyun's home court. From "Celebrating More Than Years" to "Sister-in-law", the male-channel costume dramas that Ning Meng failed to win have become Xinli's signature. The
market is changing and Ningmeng is developing. In 2022, Ningmeng Film and Television was listed on the Hong Kong stock market. In that year, the revenue from the broadcast rights of copyrighted dramas accounted for more than 90% of the total revenue. Ningmeng not only has a single business structure, but also has a high proportion of modern dramas among copyrighted dramas, and the content Lack of diversity.
At the same time, the audience's preferences are unpredictable, and the once popular realistic themes are gradually losing their effectiveness. Although "It's Just Love" and "Ask the Heart" have good reputations, in Yunhe Data's 2023 drama webcast performance and user analysis report, These two dramas are not among the top 20 most effective dramas dominating the screen.
On the one hand, the comfort zone is no longer so comfortable, and on the other hand, costume dramas are dominating the screen all year round. The anxious Ningmeng must not only develop new tracks of short dramas, create IP derivatives, enrich the business structure, but also let The content of copyrighted dramas has become diversified, which is not difficult to see from the film list announced by the company - in 2024, the Ningmeng drama film list will cover the five major tracks of reality, suspense, romance, costume, and innovation.
Don’t worry about Ningmeng’s ability to create reality, suspense and romance themes. After all, they all have masterpieces ahead of them. Innovation is also the goal that this company has always pursued. Just came to the ancient costume track where the flowers are becoming more and more charming. When peers have handed over their report cards of martial arts, fairy tales, male videos, rebirths, and monsters, Ningmeng seems to be an unlucky novice in ancient costumes. Although he seizes the right time, place and people, he still can't find his own way.
If it cannot take advantage of its strengths, then there will not be much room for Ning Meng to develop in the costume drama market.
