Recently, another domestic drama has made a huge overturn.
that is, "Record of Apocalypse" .
Interestingly, this drama is also one of the top 10 in Douban's "The Most Anticipated Drama Series of 2024" .
has a good lineup and interesting themes.
Lu Yang is the general director of , and the main creator is the "Xiu Chun Dao" team. The starring roles of
include Huang Xuan, Wu Yue, Jiang Qiming and Zhang Rongrong.
And during the early promotion, this drama was still under the banner of "China's first zombie drama" .
combines various elements such as ancient costume, fantasy, martial arts, suspense, thriller, etc., and looks very fresh and interesting.
Never expected that after the official broadcast, the Internet was calm. The reputation of
is also unexpectedly bad, and its Douban score has dropped to 5.0.
Many people who have watched it denounced it as a scam drama .
What on earth is going on?
Let Uncle Yu, who was one of the deceived people, tell you slowly -
"Apocalypse Strange News"
Let me tell you what everyone is looking forward to in this drama.
is very simple, just two points:
is first, is better than .
From the movie "Xiuchundao" to the TV series "The Wind Rises in Longxi", director Lu Yang's works can always bring surprises to people.
This time, many familiar elements can be seen again:
Tianqinian, Xiuchundao, Feiyu suit, conspiracy and conspiracy...
People can't help but look forward to whether this drama can reproduce the aura of "Xiuchundao".
second, zombie monster .
In the domestic entertainment film and television drama market, there are too few serious monster themes, let alone zombies?
This "Chinese version of "Kingdom"" Once the name came out, who wouldn't be tempted?
However, as much as I looked forward to it before, I will be slapped in the face later.
because it's all a gimmick. The "zombie-like" scenes in the
trailer, such as cloudy eyeballs, actually turned into normal-looking in the feature film.
Top: trailer, bottom: full movie
The true face of the ghost in Lushan is also a monster that has nothing to do with zombies.
Well, it’s not impossible for “Kingdom” to become “Alien”.
After all, Lu Yang’s team has always been known for its excellent digital special effects.
is like the monsters in "Assassination of Novelists".
also looks unique in design and meticulous in production.
But in this drama, it has become Schrödinger's special effects .
You have to say it's not good, but the modeling of some monsters in it is quite detailed.
Especially the scene showing the changes of pupils against the face is a bit interesting in current TV series.
But if you really want to say how good it is, it's really not.
Because in the whole story, this is the only monster that is qualified.
Other special effects always have the quality of a low-quality game.
Let’s not talk about the obvious traces of studio shooting.
The characters and scenes don’t seem to be in the same dimension at all.
Take a look at this cutout, which is so rough that you can’t bear to look at it.
Take another look at this "asphalt" special effect with a strong plastic feel. How dare
appear in a TV series of this magnitude?
The special effects are not good, and the fighting scenes are not good either.
"Xiu Chun Knife" has a rigorous structure, and the moves full of Chinese martial arts charm are not seen in this drama.
was replaced by slow motion and showy scenes that have been common in domestic dramas in recent years.
draws the sword and goes into slow motion.
swings the knife in slow motion.
To save people, it’s better to go into slow motion.
When they really fight at a normal speed, it is a mess, which is a complete waste of Wu Yue's martial arts ability. The shots of
are also scattered and there are obvious editing errors.
One second the male protagonist suddenly appeared to kill the monster, and the next second he stood aside in surprise.
The acting skills of the actors are also a major drawback.
Huang Xuan, Wu Yue, Jiang Qiming and others either used too much force or were a little greasy.
all play a character based on the character biography they obtained.
Zhang Rongrong made Uncle Yu miserable.
Perhaps the most profound impression everyone has on her is Yang Guifei in "The Legend of the Demon Cat".
Although the character itself is a biased symbol, the few eye scenes in the film are still adequate.
But in this drama, Zhang Rongrong’s facial features seem to be out of control. She looks like crying when she smiles, and laughs like when she cries.
made the audience dumbfounded.
has said so many shortcomings, but they are still trivial.
What makes me speechless the most is the deception brought about by the story itself.
As a suspense drama, the story of "Apocalypse Strange Stories" is not complicated.
During the Tianqi years, wars continued.
During this process, Ningyuan City, which is an important military location, suddenly suffered from a strange disease that swept the entire city.
The initial symptoms of the disease are the same as those of ordinary colds, but in the later stages, patients will develop lesions, their sweat will turn into mucus, and many scale-like things will grow on their bodies.
In the end, the sick people will lose their minds and become monsters killing people everywhere.
The male protagonist Chu Sijing (played by Huang Xuan) is a member of the Jinyiwei Baihu family.
Two years ago, his younger brother went to Wumu Island, an isolated island near Ningyuan City, to investigate the matter. After
was infected with a strange disease, his whereabouts are unknown.
In order to find out the whereabouts of his younger brother, Chu Sijing took it upon himself to investigate, and the story unfolded from there.
The core of the whole story is to use Xundi to reveal the truth about the strange disease and the secret behind it. Compared with domestic dramas that often have more than 40 episodes, the volume of
12 episodes seems short and compact.
However, Uncle Yu still feels that cutting it in half is not too much. After explaining the background in the first episode of
, the entire narrative rhythm began to drag.
Chu Sijing discovered many anomalies on the island.
For example, the islanders are close to the sea but do not eat fish. There seems to be a cult on the island...
Chu Sijing is fighting wits with his opponents while searching for evidence and greeting the people. He seems really busy.
But in fact, halfway through the plot, a series of clues such as the whereabouts of the younger brother, the struggle between the forces between North Korea and China behind Ningyuan City, the truth about the epidemic, and the secrets of Wumu Island have not been resolved.
The reason why it is so slow is because everyone does not have the necessary Riddler posture.
is like the high priest of the island. He knows all the secrets, but he is always secretive and unwilling to reveal the truth.
Even at the end of his life, he still kept half of what he said.
In dramas, there are always problems with character communication.
There was a little girl on Wumu Island who knew Chu Sijing’s younger brother, but Chu Sijing asked her where his brother was.
The little girl's answer was: I miss my mother.
He was obviously eager to find his younger brother, but when Chu Sijing heard someone say, "Your brother is a good person," he didn't rush to ask further questions and went silent.
When Uncle Yu saw this, he became angry.
What's even more terrible is that the same thing happened more than once.
Like this, the plot always seems to be spinning in circles.
has no development except for suspense.
Not only that, the overall logic of the show is also untenable, and many plots have no cause or effect.
Like Frankie played by Rongrong Zhang, he is a very divided existence.
The reason why she went to Wumu Island to catch monsters was to prove her ability to the king, fulfill her brother and father's last wish, and also to change the fate of the Franji people.
But where all this started and how she got to this point are still unclear.
And looking at the whole drama, she doesn't have many roles, but she inexplicably develops a relationship with Chu Sijing, which makes people confused.
What makes people laugh or cry even more is that just when you think the strange disease may be some shocking secret, the screenwriter tells you:
is actually caused by alien .
It seems that there are too many clues buried and too many questions raised. In the end, there is no way to come back, so we can only use some mysterious power.
In short, after watching the whole drama, there is only one confusing and illogical feeling, nothing else.
is exactly what netizens said:
's script is like a particularly bad online novel.
What’s interesting is that this drama also made a big mistake.
Because it was about the Ming Dynasty, many people took it for granted that it was Ma Boyong’s work, and directly criticized it on Weibo.
made Ma Boyong even more unjust than Dou E.
In fact, to a certain extent, Uncle Yu can understand the mood of these netizens.
There have been a lot of bad dramas in the past two years, but this one made me very angry.
because it is "rubbing salt in the wound" of and .
Mainland China has been enjoying high-quality Chinese-style "Qi Tan" for a long time.
obviously has an extremely rich "material library" of oriental exoticism, but there are few good stories.
For some well-known reasons, domestic entertainment with monsters, monsters, and monsters is considered a taboo.
So how to shoot and how to present it is a problem.
Faced with this situation, he took the simplest path instead, which was the fairy tale and ancient puppet show.
Under such a framework, demons and ghosts have a foothold as a superficial existence.
Then I put more effort into the art, and it’s done.
But the problem is that the so-called strange stories are not just simple monsters and demons.
The traditional culture and philosophy rooted in it are the essence.
is just like last year's eye-catching "The Remover of Bad Thoughts".
uses Chinese strange literature as the basis of the story, and uses traditional calligraphy as a clue throughout the story.
uses one stroke of paper and one ink to write about the unpredictable human heart.
Although there are still traces of Japanese style, it still has the meaning of Lin Zhengying's movies of "red rope glutinous rice and black ink lines".
Unfortunately, the foundation for its establishment is still Taiwan.
What is even more ironic is that works with the same theme in other countries have become popular. The most typical representative of
is "Kingdom", which is regarded as the benchmark by "Apocalypse Strange News".
Although it is about the power struggle of the Lee Dynasty of North Korea.
But in the zombie part, a lot of pen and ink was also spent to show the story of traditional medicine.
As we all know, Korean medicine is greatly influenced by traditional Chinese medicine.
In comparison, "Record of Apocalypse" is really vulnerable.
Let’s first talk about the skin of Zhiguai, the monster image.
Not to mention how many interesting and weird monsters a copy of "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" can provide.
In Lu Yang's own "Assassination of Novelists", the red-haired ghost is also a precedent.
But in this play, although names such as Black Ibis, Heng Gong, and Xuan Ming from Eastern mythological systems such as "The Classic of Mountains and Seas" and "The Classic of Divine Miracles" appear.
The monsters either look like venom or aliens, which are creatures that appear in Western fantasy or superhero movies.
is indeed a bit uninteresting.
Even if the monster went astray, Lu Yang’s best story of the Jinyiwei also failed.
Perhaps, he wanted to use the monster epidemic as a shell, use alien creatures as a symbol, and then use partisan struggles, the matches of the Franji people, and the Japanese pirates in the little girl's ballads to tell the story of the late Ming Dynasty. Internal and external troubles.
But obviously, it failed.
All the content about history and power is only reflected in a few simple lines.
Some of them are even conveyed directly in the form of narration + ppt.
Of course, many people say that Lu Yang is just the chief director.
may actually be directed by someone else.
But in my opinion, this kind of statement is just like censorship and deletion of movies, and it is a proper blame-shifting behavior.
Since the name is placed in the most conspicuous position, it should bear the corresponding responsibility.
Once upon a time, Lu Yang once said in an interview:
I just want to shoot stories that I believe in.
doesn’t know, does he believe this story this time?
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