The currently airing "Scouting Heroes" is a war-themed TV series shot by the famous director Zheng Xiaolong. His experience in joining the army in his early years had a profound impact on him, and he has always regarded reflecting the war and the troops as his creative vision. "Reconnaissance Heroes", which has accumulated a lot of experience, finally chose to focus on the special branch of scouts on the battlefield to resist U.S. aggression and aid Korea. It tells the story of a certain division of the Volunteer Army's reconnaissance troops who made huge sacrifices and successfully completed many arduous tasks such as reconnaissance, rescue, and surprise attacks assigned by their superiors. , to pay tribute to the martyrs’ noble spirit of not fearing powerful enemies and safeguarding peace.
Recently, director Zheng Xiaolong accepted an interview with the media and told how this war drama, affectionately called "a colorful TV series outside the night" by the audience, was born.
Reality is the key, and the filming locations and props are all very particular.
"There has never been a TV series told from the perspective of a scout in China before," Zheng Xiaolong said. In order to make the work fresh and watchable, after comprehensive consideration and judgment, the creative team unanimously decided to tell the grand war story from the subtle perspective of the volunteer soldier's reconnaissance, surprise attack and other combat processes, through a small-scale narrative method.
The story takes place during the period of resisting U.S. aggression and aiding Korea. Liang Chen, the reconnaissance section chief of a certain division of the Volunteer Army, led the division's reconnaissance company to complete many seemingly impossible tasks. They rescued the cultural workers who were captured by the enemy's infiltration team, went deep behind enemy lines to capture prisoners and reconnoiter the enemy's situation, providing our army commanders with important and accurate intelligence and laying a solid foundation for victory in the battle. In a major battle, Liang Chen led a platoon of the reconnaissance company, especially a group of several highly skilled and courageous scouts, to penetrate behind enemy lines and cooperate with the offensive troops in the front to attack the enemy headquarters. He used wisdom, courage, blood and Life creates legendary achievements.
Scouts, as a special force, are known as the "tip of the knife." The intelligence obtained through reconnaissance is the basis and important basis for the commanding authority to formulate operational plans. Zheng Xiaolong believes that truth is the most important thing when it comes to war themes. "The latitude of Chengde, Hebei Province is very close to the actual environment of the Korean battlefield, and the vegetation and climate are also consistent." Therefore, the crew chose Chengde as the filming location for the drama. The crew overcame many difficulties during the filming, building bridges over water and clearing roads over mountains, just to highlight the scouts' ability to outwit and use mountains and rivers barriers to win the battle, while also showing the details of the real battlefield to the greatest extent possible.
Zheng Xiaolong also revealed that the script creation of "Reconnaissance Heroes" took more than two years, and went through many revisions, polishing, adjustments, and repeated optimization of the overall framework, characters, emotions, plot settings, etc., in the spirit of faithfully , artistically restore and extract the attitude of that period of history and character traits, and do our best to scout heroic statues for the volunteers under the guidance of a correct outlook on war and history.
During the filming, the crew specially invited military instructors to follow the group throughout the process to explain how to fight tanks, use rockets, use firearms, etc., and conduct tactical training for the actors before filming, including how to clear mines, how to find landmines, tactical explanations, etc.; Some of the vehicle radios, gun scopes and firearms used in the film are things that have actually experienced the war and are truly left over from the Korean War. They are as large as a map and as small as a piece of note paper. After a lot of data inquiry, we strive to make it Accurate.
Taking "people" in war as the starting point of the narrative
Zheng Xiaolong emphasized that "Reconnaissance Heroes" tells the story of people in war, especially the story of ordinary soldiers, which is the biggest feature of the play. "Scouts are lone heroes. They have firm beliefs and outstanding personal abilities." The creators strive to find a balance between protagonist centralism and group portrait writing, so that each group portrait character has its own characteristics without being flat.
During the script creation stage of the play, different combat skills and personality traits were designed for Liang Chen and the soldiers of the reconnaissance company's reconnaissance squad. They come from different places and have different growth experiences. When faced with tasks, they will make With vastly different choices and judgments, these characters are the epitome of the Scout class on the battlefield."We not only talk about the bravery of the volunteer soldiers, but also want to tell the audience why they did what they did, their growth and changes; restore the choices made by the volunteers on the battlefield and their fighting spirit, which is not just about not being afraid of death, but using intelligence and wisdom to fight. Fighting against invaders is very different from other war movies."
As for why Luo Jin and Ma Sichun were finally chosen to play the male and female protagonists Liang Chen and Wen Jie, Zheng Xiaolong said, ""Reconnaissance Heroes" is a group drama, and we To show the cruelty and unpredictability of war, our actors need to show a kind of character change during the filming process. I worked with Luo Jin when he was filming "Happiness to Ten Thousand Houses", and I think he has a sunny and intelligent personality. Her temperament is more suitable for the role of the chief of the reconnaissance section, and his age is also very suitable; the same is true for Ma Sichun. She has a kind of simplicity of the volunteer army. She was a member of the cultural team in the early days and later became a broadcaster at a frontline radio station. Using enemy broadcasts to dismantle the enemy's fighting spirit is very consistent with this role in any period."
text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Yang Wenjie
editor/Cui Wei
