When you close your eyes, you open them. Enter the 19th floor.
Eight male and female college students in the real world were suddenly trapped in the game world and entered a dream-like, mysterious and eerie alien space.
Before they had time to react, a Nian beast rushed toward them with its mouth wide open.
Being hunted endlessly, they have no choice but to work together to escape from danger, or fall into a coma in the real world.
The heroine was quickly defeated and offline, and it seemed that no one among the college students was spared.
The main character is destroyed when he comes up?
Are domestic dramas doing this now?
Not long after, the monsters, wreckage, game levels, and all the shocking scenes disappeared.
The girl pushed open the foggy door again, as if nothing had happened. The game restarts.
This explosive and suspenseful clip comes from Mango TV's upcoming show tonight -
"The 19th Floor". The broadcast time is very interesting: 19 o'clock, 19 minutes.
is adapted from Cai Jun's novel "The Nineteenth Level of Hell".
starring Sun Qian, Wei Zheming, Bai Shu, etc.
Before watching the show, it is necessary to understand what unlimited streaming means.
's so-called infinite flow means that the protagonist is summoned into a strange world and must complete tasks again and again before returning to the real world.
Foreign classic movies such as "Groundhog Day", "Edge of Tomorrow", "Source Code" and "Happy Death Day" all belong to this type.
In comparison, although domestic unlimited streaming-themed film and television works include "Duan Nao" and "The Beginning", they have not become popular.
The success of "The Beginning" lies in the fact that Noon Sunshine combines unsolved cases, human nature, soft science fiction, social criticism, etc. It does not mean that Chinese dramas have truly opened the door to unlimited streaming.
"unlimited streaming" has indeed not become the new favorite of domestic entertainment.
suspense + surreal elements, in this era of sweet pet dramas and ancient puppet dramas, the themes are novel and eye-catching, but they are also easy to be labeled as plagiarized, including "The Beginning" back then.
Mango Channel's "19th Floor", can domestic unlimited streaming themes really get out of the cycle?
1. Story: Infinite Game, Shadow Puppet "Ghost House", Deserted Village with Terracotta Warriors, full of fantasy
The story starts with the heroine, Chun Yu, a college student played by Sun Qian.
She entered a game called "19th Floor" without actively playing the game.
In the game, you can open the next copy after passing one level, and you can go back after clearing all levels. In the
game, Chunyu met the smart and calm Gao Xuan, the powerful Doudou, and the funny Yang Bawan and others.
She and her friends experienced levels such as a "ghost building" full of shadow puppets and a deserted village pursued by leather figurines. Her friends failed to pass levels in different game stages and fell into a coma in reality.
No one can predict the crisis between dreams and reality.
What's even weirder is that when she loops to the 19th floor again, she finds that she must complete the game, otherwise her family will be threatened.
What is the conspiracy behind the game?
What happens to people who die in the game?
Who is controlling the game and what is their motivation?
If death in the game is equivalent to infinite coma in reality, how to prevent tragedy from happening?
Under the crisis, Chunyu decided to find out the reason why they entered the game and the conspiracy behind it.
The suspenseful suspense is thrown out one after another, making people eager to start the drama chasing mode.
can see that compared to the core of Cai Jun's original horror thriller novel, the extent of the story adaptation is almost subversive.
not only uses a background setting similar to the Hollywood science fiction blockbuster "Source Code", but also references some settings of the classic Korean drama "Whale Game", but has its own innovations. The
trailer is only a few minutes long, already full of suspense and fast-paced.
In every cycle, the protagonist team is competing with the mastermind behind the game, and they have to jump repeatedly between "I predicted your prediction, and your prediction was arranged by me in advance."
No one can guarantee that they have truly spied on the opponent's chassis.
"19th Floor" not only draws the characters in the play, but also the audience step by step into the infinite loop game.
2. Highlights: Players, tasks, NPCs, puzzles, and reversals. This infinite flow has an escape flavor.
is also an infinite flow theme. "The Beginning" is a standard noon sunshine realism style.
"19th Floor" is a standard Mango TV style.
In addition to the novel and eye-catching subject matter, the drama has won the audience because of at least three major highlights:
The first is escape + Cai Jun-style unlimited streaming.
There are indeed not many excellent domestic film and television works with unlimited streaming themes. In the
genre, Hollywood leads the way, followed closely by Japan and South Korea.
But whether it is Hollywood's "Edge of Tomorrow" or the latest popular Korean drama "The End of Time", the essence is that the protagonist group cannot escape in a different world space and is forced to complete tasks issued by the system, or to escape and survive.
Although the domestic IP "The Beginning" opened up the situation, it is still a niche in nature, and most similar works have been defeated.
Wang Qianyuan and Lu Han's "Do Not Escape" barely passed the mark in suspense, and the science fiction part is hard to describe. It scored 6.0 on Douban, which can't be called a high-quality film.
But when I saw that "The 19th Floor" was adapted from Cai Jun's original work, I instantly became interested.
The suspense elements in the original story involve science fiction elements such as "multiple time and space" and "infinite loop". Many readers hid in bed and read the entire book.
Another of his adaptations, "Masterless City", was adapted into a domestic zombie apocalypse-themed drama and has a good reputation.
With the adaptation of Mango Channel, it is natural to add the style of the popular Mango variety show escape room.
unlimited streaming + escape settings are interesting enough.
Not to mention anything else, just how the protagonists find clues in the continuous loop and finally break out of the secret room has attracted my attention.
The second is strong suspense + large-scale tension.
In addition to the direct escape of DNA, the series also superimposes multiple world views, which can be described as all-encompassing.
It can be seen from the trailer that the series will have five dungeons: "Ghost House", Deserted Village, Circus, Abandoned Factory, and Ultimate Space. Each dungeon contains two games.
Whether it’s a shadow puppet that comes to life from the curtain wall and hunts down everyone, a huge Nian beast with a bloody mouth that can devour people, stitched leather figurines that look exactly like everyone else in a weird deserted village, or a weird clown, a hallucinogenic fog, Parasitic moths, etc., all make my scalp numb.
There are constant high-energy scenes in the trailer, hysterical life-threatening surges, characters being pierced through the chest without any defense, accompanied by the eerie and weird background music, as soon as a few scenes and a few lines are released, it seems that the mysterious old house is suddenly surrounded. A cloud of mist appeared, lingering and gloomy, and the cold air was so cold that it made people take a breath of air.
Third, the protagonist’s settings are visible.
The characters played by Sun Qian and Wei Zheming are not heroes or goddesses, nor are they high-IQ characters with facial expressions, but are closer to ordinary college students.
Facing the weird infinite loop, the protagonist group also accumulated experience in actual combat.
Chunyu, a freshman girl played by Sun Qian, is the intellectual responsibility of the team.
Gao Xuan, the campus male god played by Wei Zheming, has a confident and powerful aura and is the leader of the breakout team.
Yang Bawan, played by Bai Shu, has a unique brain circuit and can be called the person in charge of the atmosphere team.
Chunyu’s roommate Nan Xiaoqin was once an athlete. She suffered a leg injury and became disabled. In the game world, she regained her sound limbs and has good fighting power.
Faced with the weird and terrifying escape room game, the people in the temporary team not only unite to fight against the enemy, but also have their own small calculations, and their motives are very suitable for ordinary people.
As humans, we have struggles, dilemmas and hesitations, emotions and ties.
In "The 19th Floor", we can see the true side of the characters, and the character arcs continue to advance.
3. Actors: Sun Qian, Wei Zheming, and other veteran actors help out. Mango Channel plays the youth card.
The plot and creative lineup are all in one word: new.
director Cai Cong has filmed the suspense drama "Dark Clouds Meet the Bright Moon" starring Li Yitong, which is also about time travel. Douban scored 6.5 points, which is actually not low among similar Chinese dramas. It depends on whether she can master this new theme.
Like "The Beginning" and "Duan Nao", the starring cast of "19th Floor" also focuses on a young person, but there are also veteran actors to help out.
There are three actors I am most looking forward to.
One, Sun Qian
Speaking of Sun Qian, she is Xu Yan in "I'm Very Good in a Foreign Country", the wild cat in "Wind Blowing Pinellia", and Liu Jiayi in "Lighting Store".
As a powerful young actor, her performance style is natural, her expression control is excellent, and her emotions are well expressed. She is not inferior in party scenes with powerful actors such as Ren Suxi and Zhao Liying.
This time her role is the core of the whole drama, and the audience follows her perspective into the entire infinite flow loop.
In addition to game levels and decryption, her story line also includes the estrangement and reconciliation with her father. In the
trailer, Sun Qian performed the surprise, confusion and courage of a freshman who was involved in a strange incident.
Infinite streaming-themed dramas have always tested the protagonist's acting skills. In "The Beginning", Zhao Jinmai's performance is different every time, and he is also good at handling extreme emotions, thus becoming the most promising little star in one fell swoop.
I am optimistic that Sun Qian will achieve a breakthrough with "19th Floor".
Second, Wei Zheming
Wei Zheming acted in many idol dramas such as "The Road Is White Tonight" and "Long Riyi, You Are Dead" in his early years.
Among young actors, he is the kind of actor who is handsome, has relatively solid script skills, has no obvious traces of performance, and is still down-to-earth. Whether an actor with such potential as
can be successful depends on watching the drama.
The team leader he plays in this drama has a lot of room for performance. Refer to Bai Jingting in "The Beginning". It is easy to excel in this type of role, it depends on the actor's performance.
In addition to young actors, powerful actors in Infinite Stream are also prone to acting, such as Aunt Siguo in "The Beginning".
Thirdly, my favorite veteran actor in "The 19th Floor" is Chen Chuang.
When it comes to Chen Chuang, the most famous role is naturally the roaring dog he played. Because of his vivid appearance and Chen Chuang's excellent performance, he brought joy to many people's childhoods.
But Chen Chuang’s real acting masterpiece is actually "Fugui" which was rated 9.5 on Douban.
After watching this drama, I realized how much it underestimates his acting skills to define Chen Chuang as a comedian. There are not many domestic actors who can truly portray the flavor of life, and Chen Chuang in this drama is one of them.
In recent years, Chen Chuang has gradually produced more and more works, including "The Mountain's Daughter", the suspense drama "Forensic Qin Ming: The Mind Reader", and his performance as Fei Jishi in "The Strange Stories of the Tang Dynasty" is also quite exciting.
This time he played the heroine's father, who was scolded by the heroine for abandoning his wife and daughter, but the look in his eyes showed fatigue and vicissitudes of life, and it was obvious that he had a hidden agenda.
In just a few scenes, he established the image of a haggard father. The role of
will most likely be the ceiling of the entire show's acting skills.
4. Odds of winning: Can you copy "The Beginning" and become a dark horse at the beginning of the year?
The launch of "19th Floor" at this time has obviously demonstrated Mango Channel's ambition: to replicate the success of "The Beginning" and become a dark horse at the beginning of the year.
It's time.
Since the ending of "Flowers", there have been no major dramas. However, CCTV dramas such as "Dajiang Dahe 3" and "If Running Is My Life" are all serious dramas.
In addition to "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty" to be aired during the Spring Festival, there is now an obvious vacancy in the suspense drama market.
This time is the best for "19th Floor". It just happens to be stuck at this point and there is no strong competitor.
The stage has been set, it just depends on how Mango Channel sings this drama.
infinite loop is an old trick.
From Hollywood's "Groundhog Day", "Terror Cruise", "Edge of Tomorrow" to the Korean drama "The Day I Die", the audience has actually watched a lot, but each time the story is told in a slightly different way, with a little different accompaniments. material, it will still look good.
Because the classic narrative method has its own special charm, you will never tire of it.
The success of "The Beginning" in 2022 can make a good start for the domestic "Infinite Streaming".
is full of tears, laughter, joy, and social thinking.
The most important thing is that the story respects the audience's intelligence.
So its reputation comes naturally.
It has been two years, and the domestic unlimited streaming theme seems to have fallen into a new cycle. Can Mango Channel open up a new situation for Chinese dramas for domestic "unlimited streaming" this time?
It depends on whether it can break through the 19th layer of domestic unlimited streaming themes.
