Gao Kaiping is talking about the web drama " reborn ". Since the broadcast of
, this crime suspense drama has been regarded as a "little hit" whether on domestic platforms or Netflix.
However, perhaps the higher the expectations, the greater the disappointment. When the finale ended with the scene of investigative reporter He Shan played by Zhou still typing "(End)" on the computer, it hinted that the previous ten episodes of fraud stories and confessions can all be regarded as He Shan Created novels. This dull punch made the viewers who followed the drama "The Top" tighten their chests.
That’s not all. The confused audience followed the director's Weibo instructions and paid to watch the so-called "extra chapter", thinking that they could get a supplement to the finale or a parallel ending. As a result, when I opened it, it turned out to be the main creator's supplementary interpretation of various details of the plot. The accumulation of this emotion directly linked the word "bad ending" to the series and became a hot search topic.
In Biyou's view, it is not so much the "bad ending" of the series itself, but rather the director's superfluous "explanation" that made the project "bad."
To be fair, the drama quality of "Rebirth" is online. In terms of subject matter, there have been many stories focusing on fraud in recent years. However, works that link serial fraud cases through clever plot arrangements and present different weaknesses of human nature are actually relatively rare in China. As for the production level, whether it is from the compactness of the plot, the audio-visual language, or the exploration of the theme, we can see the intention and efforts of the main creator. In addition, as Jing Boran's long-awaited film and television work, his performance in it is remarkable, especially in the first half of the narration by others, which better demonstrates the convincing power of the "villain" who can frequently deceive people. And this is why the series gained a lot of attention through word of mouth from the audience when it first aired, and it also gained a prominent advantage in overseas markets.
However, in the second half of the series, its shortcomings were gradually exposed in the so-called "reversal". The biggest problem is that the top-heavy plot structure weakens the suspense of the series.
reviews the narrative structure of the entire series, first through a funeral of the male protagonist Fei Ke played by Jing Boran , and gathers the victims of his fraud in the name of a memorial service. Subsequently, through the experiences narrated by each victim, the whole process of the protagonist's fraud was pieced together. The core twist and highlight of the play is that the "victims" are not completely innocent. Each of them hides their own sins and puts the blame on Feike. The creators chose to reveal this highlight in the middle of the episode.
Then the audience naturally expects an even more explosive "reversal" later. At this time, the main creator chose to turn to the character's history, telling the audience how a proud man turned into a fraudster, trying to attribute the alienation of his humanity to the tragedy caused by his original family and class differences. In fact, this part of the content is far from bad, and it plays a big role in shaping the complete character. But the problem lies in the narrative rhythm and structure. Whether it is the suspense setting or the weight of the plot, it is not enough to "compete" with the previous content.
In the last episode, we came to the point where the audience complained the most. First of all, for suspense dramas, the final season should be the real climax of the whole drama, which means that the audience's expectations will be highest in this episode. However, in such an important episode, the creator spent two-thirds of the page describing the history of the secondary characters that are extremely weakly related to the main character story, that is, the love line between Chen Jiajia, the daughter of the mine owner, and Liu Mo, the driver. There was a top-heavy problem.
Secondly, suspense dramas are ultimately a mental “game” between the creators and the audience. In this relatively "invented" story, the audience's expectations for unexpected but self-defeating reversals are higher than their persistence in authenticity.This is why, compared to the "script-killing" setting of why the victim was willing to accept the fraudster's "memorial meeting" invitation at the beginning, and then told the story under He Shan's aggressive questioning, what is more unbearable for the audience is this " Actually the first nine episodes are all novels” narrative ruse. From the perspective of expectations for watching suspense dramas, what needs to be completed in the last episode is to provide a perfect and appropriate explanation at the end of the "suspense" that was previously buried, which is what the audience calls "filling in the pit."
Obviously, the reversal of "It's all He Shan's narration/creation that is unilaterally beneficial to herself" is not strong enough in terms of conception and creativity. The creator of
does not seem to be aware of this gap in viewing experience, but instead attaches great importance to the ending. The director's Olympic bid specifically posted on Weibo, elevating this treatment to the level of "an important motivation for filming this drama." Seeing that netizens didn't buy it,
liked a Weibo post, meaning that he originally wanted to be quite proud of his ending and elaborate on it, but he didn't expect that the audience would criticize him. In order to persevere in his creation, he "dedicated "Sacrifice" his own reputation.
Regarding this, a netizen on Douban praised and commented very sharply - good white space is interpreted by the audience, not by the director himself on Weibo.
As Roland Barthes said, the moment the work is completed, the author is dead. A first-class creator is a sower. He only needs to sow his creative meaning on the land of the work carefully during the creative stage, allowing it to take root and sprout, and ultimately allow the audience to become a rice reaper, with their own harvest and insights. You know, the text is ambiguous. The more classic a work is, the more it has the author's deep ingenuity, and thus has unlimited space for interpretation.
This does not deny the author the opportunity to explain his work. For many cinephilia works, the audience will also look forward to the director's interpretation, but this is never the "standard answer" or the "ultimate secret", but one of the countless branching paths in the garden, which is the icing on the cake for the fun of solving puzzles. Sideshows. In other words, the premise for the creator's expression and public expectations to flow in both directions and inspire each other is that the work itself has an exquisite structure, smooth narrative, and excellent quality.
On the other hand, if the creator insists on explaining his every detail and creative intention in detail as a tour guide, talking to himself and being moved by himself, then this kind of expression will not only be unhelpful to the interpretation of the work, but will also expose the hidden meaning of the work. It’s either a lack of confidence in one’s own creative abilities or a distrust of the audience’s aesthetics.
Of course, the unsatisfactory ending of a work cannot completely deny the advantages and talents of a new director. From the first feature film " beneficiary ", to last summer's movie " desperate " which earned more than 3.8 billion yuan in box office, to the current online drama "rebirth". Although his three film and television works all use "deception" to explore human nature, they basically achieve the same style. "The Beneficiary" uses "killing his wife and cheating for insurance" to gain perspective on the fate and struggle of little people. "All or Nothing" not only dismantles overseas electronic fraud schemes one by one, but also describes in detail the mental journey of ordinary people being alienated by gambling and leading to madness. Compared with the first two movies that are based on reality, although the drama "Rebirth" is adapted from an online novel, as a suspense drama that digs into the loss of human nature behind individual fraud cases, the adaptation has a deeper understanding of the protagonist's psychological journey. A more detailed analysis. The heated discussion triggered by the three works is enough to prove that the Olympic bid is unique in its sensitivity to new themes and its grasp of market trends.
Perhaps it is because the debut is the peak, so the creators have no time to make up for their shortcomings. This leads to the fact that although the three works have all the advantages in subject matter, they continue to expose the director's inability to control the core of "suspense" - although each work has "reversals", "narratives" and "flashbacks", they are never fully able to control them. Mobilizing the audience's desire to explore and curiosity, on the contrary, it repeatedly exposed his unclear understanding of the details of characters and events. As a result, the story that should have climaxed one after another was flat and mediocre in narrative.Take "All or Nothing" as an example. It relied on relatively solid case investigation and a true and brutal restoration of scenes in northern Myanmar, which greatly satisfied the audience's curiosity. However, in terms of structure, he also put aside Zhang Yixing and Zhang Yixing in the middle of the film. The characters played by Jin Chen and are about escaping and saving themselves in northern Myanmar, but they spend a lot of space describing the alienation of individuals' humanity and the resentment of their families due to gambling. In terms of character coverage, it is indeed comprehensive and has a warning meaning. However, the lack of choice between primary and secondary pages also inevitably delays the originally enjoyable viewing experience. In the feedback on the completion of
's "Rebirth", many viewers have given their own creative ideas based on the original character settings and story framework, which has won a lot of recognition. This is enough to confirm the subjectivity and aesthetic level of the audience in interpreting the text.
In this case, the main creator may wish to return the right to interpret the work to the audience, leaving the responsibility of tempering creative abilities and reviewing deficiencies to himself.
