Yang Zi, Xu Kai starring " Cheng Huan Ji " has received a lot of ratings recently, creating a small climax for the sluggish modern idol drama market. 14 days after the launch of
, the drama not only ranked top 1 on Maoyan's popularity list, but also set a new record on Tencent Video for the fastest popularity on the urban drama site to exceed 30,000 in 2024.
Corresponding to the high ratings, there are polarized evaluations of the show: some people think that it captures the pain of love and marriage of East Asian girls who are "under the influence of love"; others think that it deviates from the original intention of the original novel and is uncompromising. The buckle is "destroyed and comfortable".
To be fair, "Cheng Huan Ji" is not a bad drama. In terms of actors' acting skills, plot rhythm, photography composition, etc., it is undoubtedly the best among domestic dramas. However, as an adaptation of Yishu, there are flaws in the adaptation that cannot be ignored - uses "The Boss Falls in Love with Me" to modify Yishu , which weakens the independent introspection of the heroine Mai Chenghuan.
In recent years, Yi Shu's novels such as "My First Half of Life", "Xibao", "Golden Years", "The Story of Joy" and "The Story of Roses" have been adapted into films and televisions to meet the audience. The Traffic Xiaohua + Yishu's adaptation of the drama has also become an important "drainage formula" in film and television creation.
Although there are many Yishu adaptations, they have not received high praise, and most of them only hover around the passing line.
The reason is probably because is "easy to change and difficult to change" and has long been a recognized fact. Yi Shu's writing style is short and quick, and he can often turn over a scene in just a few words. He uses adjectives very sparingly and never piles on words. Although the character dialogues are throughout the novel, they are almost all short sentences and spoken loudly. There is not much emotional foreshadowing of the back and forth between you and me, only an almost cruel truth and sobriety.
Therefore, there are almost no dramatic climaxes in Yi Shu's novels, and there will be no intense scenes where each other's heads are turned. The Yishu girl in her works is always proud and proud, maintains a strong sense of propriety with others, and does not believe that love is everything in life. Whenever she discovers that a man is interested in something different, she will quickly end a relationship. Everything is based on "The most important thing in life is to look good" as the premise.
"The Story of Cheng Huan", which is currently on the air, has been criticized by book fans because of its drastic film and television adaptation.
The original work "The Story of Cheng Huan" tells the story of the heroine Mak Cheng Huan who was born in the civilian class of Hong Kong. She was about to get married, but due to her mother's interference and the huge family gap with her fiancé Xin Jialiang, the marriage fell through. At this time, Mai Chenghuan inherited a huge inheritance from her grandmother. With this money, Mai Chenghuan left Xin Jialiang and lived an ideal life of self-respect and independence. The
drama series "Cheng Huan Ji" has moved the story background to current Shanghai. Although it continues the original story framework in a general direction, it has made major changes in many aspects such as setting, plot, and character relationships.
In order to highlight the so-called "Shanghai flavor", some character templates full of stereotypes are embedded in the play. For example, Mama Mai, played by He Saifei , Liu Wanyu , is portrayed as a chattering, snobbish middle-aged Shanghai woman. Seeing Xin Jialiang ( Niu Junfeng ) sending Mai Chenghuan home, Liu Wanyu immediately went to question him, looking like he was going to quarrel. Later, when she learned that Xin Jialiang was the second generation of rich people, Liu Wanyu immediately put away her old ways and revealed a flattering spirit that despised the poor and loved the rich. This kind of characterization of being arrogant but respectful is the screenwriter’s stereotype of Shanghai women.
In the play, Mai Chenghuan (played by Yang Zi) was also given a straightforward enlightenment through the words of her best friend - the word "Huan" can be the "Huan" in "Cheng Huan's knees", or it can also mean "the pride of life". The "huan" in "all the fun". The implication is that Mai Chenghuan is allowed to enjoy himself in time and be himself soberly and independently.
The reason why my best friend enlightened Chenghuan like this was because she didn’t want Chenghuan to live in the expectations of the older generation.In the original work, the relationship between Cheng Huan and her mother is very subtle. Her mother pins all her life expectations on her, hoping that she will marry well and has a strong desire to control her. However, she is secretly jealous of her daughter and is unwilling to "be compared with her daughter." Marry yourself well." This complex mother-daughter relationship is greatly simplified in the play and transformed into a traditional family ethics drama - Liu Wanyu becomes a typical "Chinese mother" who loves her deeply. Daughter, but she used the wrong way of love, which turned love into control.
In addition to the relationship between mother and daughter, the most criticized aspect of "The Story of Cheng Huan" after its adaptation is the relationship between Mak Cheng Huan and the two male characters, Xin Jialiang and Yao Zhiming (played by Xu Kai). In the original work of
, after breaking up with Xin Jialiang, Mai Chenghuan still has unlimited possibilities in life. However, the play’s original character Yao Zhiming directly weakens the unknown nature of the heroine’s emotional relationship. After all, as soon as Yao Zhiming, the handsome and domineering boss, appeared on the stage, the plot of the whole drama was already a given: Mak Chenghuan will definitely break up with Xin Jialiang, and her "natural boyfriend" must be Yao Zhiming.
Mak Chenghuan in the novel has long known the identity of Xin Jialiang, the second rich generation; in order to create more drama and conflict, Xin Jialiang deliberately concealed his wealthy family background.
In the drama, Mai Chenghuan and Xin Jialiang have been in love for three years, and Xin Jialiang has been disguising himself as a beautiful and poor boy from Shanghai. So when his identity was revealed later, Xin Jialiang was labeled as having "cheated on his girlfriend for three years."
After learning that Xin Jialiang is the second generation of rich people, although Mak Chenghuan complained about the other party's deception and subconsciously doubted the other party's sincerity and the purity of the relationship, he also felt a sense of joy for "finding a treasure" and showed some small joy. , and then there will be a feeling of anxiety: with the palm of the hand pointing up one day, it is cute, coquettish, and interesting; if the palm of the keeps pointing upward for ten years, it will become a horror story.
The mixed emotions enrich the character of Mai Chenghuan. This down-to-earth choreography is one of the few highlights in the play. It is not only in line with human nature, but also in line with Mak Cheng-huan's independent character setting.
This means that Mai Chenghuan's character in the play still retains some "good-looking" postures. But she no longer looks like a complete "Yishu girl", but has shifted towards "universal girl" , becoming a "universal girl" influenced by current feminist values.
She fell in love, and once sacrificed herself for love. She longed for a dream love and met a rich, handsome man who cherished her. For example, when she was in love with Xin Jialiang, she would take care of him in every possible way, from carrying a power bank and stain remover pen for Xin Jialiang to using a small notebook to record the big things and small things for Xin Jialiang. This humble behavior is similar to what we often call the "love brain."
The Yishu girls in the novel will never go to such a level for a man like Mai Chenghuan. So fundamentally speaking, Mai Chenghuan is not a "Yishuan girl", and the plot of "Chenghuan Ji" is also not "Yishuan".
What is even more unacceptable is that in terms of character creation, the play also involves some immature value tendencies , such as portraying Mai Chenghuan as a noob-style female character. After dating Xin Jialiang for three years, Mak Chenghuan "rejected" her boyfriend's kisses three times in a row. Seeing that her boyfriend wanted to kiss her goodbye, Mai Chenghuan's first reaction was "Are you ashamed?" From body to language, everything was full of "disgust". It was difficult to imagine that this was an adult man and woman who had been dating for three years.
After the relationship between Mak Chenghuan and Yao Zhiming further developed, the drama fell into a routine narrative of "the domineering president fell in love with me". Yao Zhiming's character is a cold elite man with childhood trauma. He meets the kind and upright Mak Chenghuan. Through frequent contacts at work, the two get to know each other better. The kind-hearted Mai Chenghuan influenced Yao Zhiming and changed his cold and sinister personality. Yao Zhiming's suggestions at work also allowed Mai Chenghuan to grow rapidly, and the two couldn't help but fall in love...
can be seen , Mai Chenghuan's growth and self-realization still require to depend on male .Before Yao Zhiming came on the scene, she had worked conscientiously as a sales manager for seven years. Although she was rigorous and favored by her boss, she never received much promotion. As a result, Yao Zhiming had not grown much in the past seven years as soon as Yao Zhiming came on the scene. Mai Chenghuan suddenly grew up, got bigger projects, and had a bigger role.
Yao Zhiming's setting, coupled with the rewriting of the love line, largely obliterated Mai Chenghuan's personal struggle, bringing out the "fake shot" background of the show: adapting the novel in the name of Yi Shu, but actually failing. Sheep's head sells dog meat, and the picture still shows the cliché of pure love and domineering boss.
is adapted from Yishu's big IP, which is certainly a good way to make a lot of money, but from the perspective of book fans, this is another story - "a dead pig is not afraid of boiling water" between capital and creation. After all, IPs have been destroyed a lot, so everyone is not surprised. Even though we are numb, we still have to ask: When will we see a Yishu adaptation that really hits the spot, and see a Yishu girl that really hits the mark?
Gang Zan'er
editor-in-chief Chai Yingrui
