" Mask ", " Secret Envoy ", " Chaser ", " Rival ", " County Party Committee Courtyard " and other works written by Wang Xiaoqiang, many viewers have followed one after another. The unconventional spy couple played by Guo Jingfei and Tan Zhuo in "Rivals" are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. He also won the Magnolia Award for Best Screenplay (Original) for "County Party Committee Courtyard".
The recently popular spy drama "Harbin 1944" is directed by Zhang Li, starring Qin Hao, Yang Mi, with Wang Xiaoqiang as the chief screenwriter. Its twin brother elements set off a chain reaction and once again attracted the audience "Get in". As a Jiangsu drama, it is also the first batch of key TV drama projects in our province from 2023 to 2025. Recently, Wang Xiaoqiang told reporters from the Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News about the creative code behind high-quality spy games.
"Harbin 1944" takes the puppet Manchukuo on the eve of the victory of the Anti-Japanese War as the background and tells a suspenseful spy story. Communist intelligence officer Song Zhuowen (played by Qin Hao) sneaked into the Special Service Section of the Harbin Police Department and was mistaken by the chief of the Special Service Department Guan Xue (played by Yang Mi) for his savior, Song Zhuowen's twin brother Song Zhuowu, and was reused. Guan Xue was cold-blooded and suspicious, but Song Zhuowen overcame all difficulties to gain the trust of Guan Xue and senior Japanese officials, clearing the way for the final victory of the war.
Actor Qin Hao plays the twin brothers Song Zhuowen and Song Zhuowu. Song Zhuowen is an underground party lurking in Harbin. His external image seems smooth, but in fact he is cautious and calm, with a strong sense of danger. Song Zhuowu is a patriotic activist who takes it as his mission to assassinate Japanese officers with special backgrounds. He is brave and rough. The two men are very different in character, but they are able to exchange identities and complete the mission under the nose of the Secret Service. They are the best partners to perform the mission, and together they perform the face-changing trick of The Bourne Supremacy.
Wang Xiaoqiang put the historical details he experienced at the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Invaders and the Crime Evidence Exhibition Hall of the 731st Unit of the Japanese Invaders in Harbin into the play, and worked with director Zhang Li to create the texture of the play. bonus. He said that after the age of 40, he will have more insights into life, and these insights will be projected into his creations. In the creation, human nature is tortured and the uncertainty of the fate of the characters is explored, so the spy story is full of charm.
Screenwriter Wang Xiaoqiang
hopes to make a different spy war
Q: Why did you choose the "Twins" spy war angle?
Answer: The spy war track is very crowded. According to the era, it can be divided into three categories: anti-special, spy war and national security. In order to break the convergence, everyone is working hard to design new narrative angles. I wrote a spy TV series "The Secret Service" more than ten years ago. At that time, I also used the theme of twins, which was relatively easy to use. The older brother disappeared as soon as he appeared, and the younger brother came to do many things. In essence, the protagonist was still "going it alone". "Longtan" model.
Lu Lunchang, the director of "The Secret Envoy" at that time, was also the director of "The Rival". We have talked before that if we were to make "The Envoy" again, we would definitely not do that. This is also one of the sources and intentions of "Harbin 1944". We do not shy away from the difficulty of creating the identity of the twins, and hope there are some differences.
asked: How is Qin Hao’s compatibility with the character?
Answer: The character Song Zhuowen has no prototype and is all fictitious. Qin Hao is a very good actor. When we have seen his different works over the years, he will add some small things to himself, such as the bald Zhang Dongsheng in "The Hidden Corner" and the potbellied Gong in " The Long Season " Biao and so on, he also added a lot of details to the differences between Zhuo Wen and Zhuo Wu in "Harbin 1944".
asked: From "Mask" to "Rival" to "Harbin 1944", why do you love spy wars?
Answer: Compared with other dramas involving crimes, I prefer the spy war theme. Although they are all "cats and mice", the spy war theme will have a more profound torture of human nature, and the lamentation about fate will be more subtle and complicated. , and nothing is set in stone.In the past few years, I have become more and more interested in the uncertainty of characters’ fates.
After "Rivals" was aired, I also contacted some producers and companies to see if they could write a sequel to "Rivals", or use the character relationship model of "Rivals" to do some creations, but I don't want to repeat it. Own. Innovation requires thinking about different expression methods, narrative angles, and character relationships. Partial innovation under the same theme is to try to provide some plots, details, character relationships, etc. that the audience has never seen before. I think although this is more laborious, it is also the core competitiveness.
For screenwriters, if everything you come up with has been seen by others, you will not be competitive. If we could do something different, I think the value of the story might be higher. On the one hand, it is the novelty of the narrative perspective or other aspects, but in fact the foundation of the script is still a character. The foundation of the script is still the characters, and the characters are the core.
The texture comes from the real details
Q: What is your pursuit of the spy war theme?
Answer: I have seen other crews before, such as patrol sticks, stirrups, etc. Many of them are fake. But without exception, everything in the "Harbin 1944" crew is real. The stick props are very heavy to lift and are made of solid wood. I think Director Zhang Li is quite strict in this regard.
I remember a scene where Japanese leather boots passed through a quagmire on the ground. This shot was a close-up, and you could see the bloodshot sewage on the ground in the close-up. Because in the plot, the Japanese shot some people and their blood flowed into the sewage, which left a deep impression on me. This drama has the texture of a movie camera lens, and you can feel the details. Later, the director said that the bloody water was caused by him and the art department adding some glue to the sewage, so it had such a texture.
This is something at the shooting level. In fact, at the script and text level, there should be a lot of detailed things for reference and use in shooting. I think a screenwriter is essentially using the script to talk to the director, actors, and audience. In essence, it is to write a story and use words to talk and communicate with everyone. I think the screenwriter should prepare some details and elements as comprehensively as possible for reference, especially for the director team and actors.
I think a lot of details come from reality. I have been to the Memorial Hall of the Victims of the Nanjing Massacre by the Japanese Invaders before and to the Crime Evidence Exhibition Hall of the 731st Unit of the Japanese Invaders in Harbin. I felt very shocked. I could feel as if there was someone telling a story silently, until it reached the climax at the end, especially when I saw some of the equipment used by Unit 731 for human experiments. After I came out of the venue, it was very desolate outside, and the overall feeling was overwhelming. I'm very impressed. There is truth and power behind those details. The plot of Unit 731 will also appear in the middle and later stages of "Harbin 1944".
asked: By choosing the location and time node of Harbin in 1944, what kind of history do you hope to let the audience understand through the story? Answer: I still want to place the characters at a more subtle historical time point, because we look back now and the Japanese surrendered in 1945, but maybe in early 1944, the characters involved in this period of history were not aware of it. He may have feelings, but they may not be obvious. In this short period of more than a year, the mentality of these characters will definitely change dramatically. I think the changes in these characters are worthy of creation.
Drill into the character’s inner world
Question: The villain Guan Xue portrayed by Yang Mi is very complex. Which scene impressed you the most?
Answer: I think Guan Xue is different from many male spy leaders I have seen in the past. Her expressions of weakness, strength, anger, grievances, etc. in the workplace are all true and false, and she just wants to make use of those around her. People, including Song Zhuowen. When Guan Xue chooses to be close to or indifferent to Song Zhuowen, and when to test more, these are all very subtle and complicated.The so-called emotional drama is the more interesting content in the field of espionage. It is about what is true and what is false, what is false and what is true. For example, in the fourth episode, you think that kind of interaction is an emotional drama. By the eighth episode, you may look back. , and found that it was a test, and it turned out to be false.
Many things that Guan Xue shows are performed for the people around her. She will make use of her feminine characteristics. Regardless of her grievances, showing weakness, sometimes getting angry and other emotional states, these are her methods and means. But she is indeed a villain through and through.
asked: There is a hot search saying, "Everyone in the Secret Service is crazier than the last one." How did you design it?
Answer: I think group portrait creation is a very interesting thing. When there are more people, everyone's differences come out, and story creation is still very happy. There are many people in the Secret Service, and everyone is not a good person and is complicated.
is like Hu Bin. On the surface, he is a loyal and crazy licking dog. The audience will find out later that he also has an agenda, and he will also use some things to manipulate Guan Xue.
The plot of Pan Yue going to see a psychiatrist was also intended to give this character more psychological support. People who engage in this kind of work actually have great psychological barriers and psychological pressure. Because they have blood on their hands, they cannot sleep peacefully every day. He was actually just like the people we saw in the psych hospital, he was anxious and stressed.
I was deeply impressed by the actor Jiang Qiming who played Tian Xiaojiang, because he was indeed different from the character I imagined. He's definitely crazier than I thought. The script still provides a literary image. I think this person acted very well. He exaggerated Tian Xiaojiang's powerful and ruthless character.
The creator still has to get into the inner world of the character. If he can get in, the positive character will have a way to express some of his things; if he can't get in, the negative character may not be able to impress the audience. Character creation, whether positive or negative, is a relative proposition. In fact, it is essentially not easy to write well for everyone.
Yangtze Evening News/Ziniu News reporter Zhang Nan
Proofreading Xu Heng
