Please allow me to start with a dialogue between the "fake father and son" played by Zhang Songwen and Rong Zishan in the finale of "The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow" -
"I can't walk anymore, carry me." . "Okay, why are you so heavy? It's time to lose weight."
has been on air for seven days, and the finale of Zhang Songwen's second Mist Theater drama has arrived, and all the suspense has been revealed.
I think many people are like me. In the trailer, Jin Manfu threatened Wang Shitu with the whereabouts of his son Doudou and threatened him to "save" his daughter. Lao Wang knelt down to him in desperation. He couldn't wait to know. Wang Shitu How to choose Tuhui?
Tonight's ending is indeed like what Zhang Songwen said before, no one can guess it -
For example, Bian Jie is really dead. Still buried alive by his stepfather.
Doudou is actually not dead. The trafficker at the beginning lied to Wang Shitu. But in the end, it was not found.
As for Xiaoqi , of course they are not Doudou, they just look like them. All the previous foreshadowings of
also formed a closed loop in the finale.
After watching the finale, I was filled with emotions. I felt like the dust had settled, but also had some unfinished thoughts, was a little touched, and was a little sad. Even if
wins five consecutive platform popularity titles, with the finale reaching over 8,000 hits, the popularity of the series is not only inferior to Zhang Songwen's "Hurry Up", but also lags behind the mediocre " Hunting Ice ".
But in my mind, this drama moved me no less than the best suspense drama " The Long Season " last year.
I don’t feel at all that this new Mist Theater drama featuring Zhang Songwen and Rong Zishan as the “father and son” is a failure.
Because this is not a strong conflict drama like " Mo Yuyunjian " that goes straight to the audience's adrenal glands, but a slow-burning drama that needs to be chewed and savored.
Next, let us talk about this twists and turns finale.
also gives a final review. In "The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow", what is the slow-burning thing and what is the invisible shadow?
1: Regarding the finale of a suspense drama
, what do you most want to see?
is of course a puzzle solver.
But this has always been a weakness of domestic suspense dramas. There are too many suspense dramas to dig up but not bury.
But "The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow" dug a hole, it really buried it.
Let’s take a look at the pitfalls of the two major cases and how they were filled.
Case No. 1: The truth about Doudou’s abduction case
As most of the truth has been found in the 417 case of the disappearance of three teenagers, how Doudou disappeared and whether he is alive or dead has become the biggest suspense in the whole drama.
And the entire finale is also to reveal the answer to this mystery.
Previously, Jin Yan finally got the news from Jin Manfu that Bian Jie was probably dead. Out of guilt in her heart, she surrendered and said that she had killed Bian Jie, taking the whole matter on herself.
Jin Manfu took the money to find Wang Shitu, but he had already guessed that he would only get one thing - get out.
Until he took out the small wooden gun that Doudou was holding when he disappeared,
Wang Shitu completely broke his guard and could only agree to his conditions: you rescue my daughter, and I will drive you to see Doudou myself.
Then Wang Shitu came to the evidence room and took away the key evidence that Jin Yan "manslaughtered" Bian Jie - the nails hidden in the snow globe that Bian Jie gave to his sister.
But why could Jin Manfu threaten Officer Wang with a small wooden gun?
Back in 1984, Jin Manfu, who was married to the factory lace Meizhen, colluded with a human trafficker in order to have his own child with his wife and asked him to abduct Bianjie and give him to another family to raise.
He buried Bian Jie's favorite toy train in the park in advance, then put him in a police uniform and asked him to go find treasures under the tree. The police uniform was the mark he left to the traffickers.
But what he didn't expect was that when 5-year-old Doudou and Bian Jie were playing together, they exchanged clothes. During the hide-and-seek game, the trafficker mistakenly arrested Doudou in his police uniform.
But Bian Jie went home wearing Doudou’s clothes.
Jin Manfu quickly contacted the trafficker and exchanged the child back, but on the way to send Doudou home, he saw the police on the road, so he put the child down on the overpass and asked him to go down to find the police and let them take him home.
But I never expected that the child failed to return home and was taken away by other traffickers.
Wang Shitu has been searching for so many years, but still can't find Doudou.
Although Jin Manfu's agency calculated everything, Wang Shitu's belief as a policeman was not included. Stealing evidence is false, but luring the snake out of the hole is true.
When he got home, he kidnapped Bian Meizhen and Xiaoqi who came to see his "mother". He secretly went to the grave where Bian Jie was buried to deal with the evidence. When he looked up, he saw Wang Shitu arriving, and was tricked out again. He discovered the truth behind his murder of Bian Jie.
At this time, all the ambush police officers showed up. It turned out that everything was planned by Wang Shitu and the director, in order to make Jin Manfu mistakenly think that Wang Shitu was really desperate to steal evidence and let him lead the police to find Bian Jie's body.
Jin Manfu was arrested and confessed. Another answer to the mystery was revealed - the second case of
: the truth about Bian Jie's disappearance. The
417 case was originally a death case.
In 1993, Bian Jie and his two friends Du Yi and Wang Shuai mysteriously disappeared after coming out of the game arcade.
The body was not found, nor were any tools used to commit the crime. Without new key evidence, this case will always remain unsolved.
Until the fake Bian Jie - Xiao Qi came back, Du Yi also came back, and in order to solve the problem of Xiao Qi not being able to play Bian Jie well, Lao Jin deliberately dropped the knife that Wang Shuai was killed with. , so that the dead case became a living case.
Du Yi, who knew that his father wanted to take the blame for himself, broke through during the interrogation and told the truth about that year: The three of them came out of the game hall, had enough to eat and drank, stole a dog and went up the mountain to barbecue, Wang Shuai revealed that Du Yi had secretly filmed The two had a dispute about Jin Yan, and eventually Wang Shuai died under Du Yi's knife during the fight.
Bian Jie, who was threatened by Du Yi, took his sister's photo and knife in a panic and went home to get money to help Du Yi run away, where he met Jin Yan.
In panic, the photo fell to the ground and was seen by Jin Yan. As the siblings pulled him, Bian Jie was accidentally pushed to the wall. The back of his head hit the nail where he hung his nunchucks, and he fell to the ground bleeding.
After returning home and seeing everything, Jin Manfu took care of the aftermath for his daughter, and took Bian Jie straight to the mountain to bury the person.
Unexpectedly, Bian Jie in the trunk was still alive and struggled to climb out.
At this moment, Jin Manfu saw the photo of his daughter in the rain. He mistakenly thought that Bian Jie had taken the photo. He became furious and dragged the dying Bian Jie directly into the pit.
The truth about Bian Jie's life and death was finally revealed - he really died in the heavy rain in 1993, or was buried alive. It was his stepfather, Jin Manfu, who killed him.
But everything actually originated from a misunderstanding caused by a photo of Jin Yan taken by Du Yi.
At the end of the story, the family finally cannot return to the beginning. People can't help but sigh, fate is a trick.
Although Jin Manfu finally confessed everything, he still ruined his daughter's life, and Doudou could never come back.
As soon as this plot came out, I don’t know how everyone felt. I was really filled with emotions. I had a deeper understanding of the title of the play "The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow" and the entire story.
It turns out that the biggest suspense in the story is never the case, but human nature.
The human heart is the same as the shadow behind it. No one will look at the shadow in their own heart, but it follows them like a shadow.
2: About "The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow"
When I first watched "The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow", I discovered the two biggest disadvantages of the series: First, its answer is too similar to "The Returned Daughter" -
A fake outsider breaks into a family that has lost a child. His identity is discovered from the beginning but no one reveals it, but he discovers that there are secrets everywhere in this family.
The two ideas happened to collide, but the problem was that "The Returned Daughter" was broadcast first.
Secondly, the series uses a lot of techniques from literary and artistic films. The result is that the rhythm is not exciting enough and the narrative is not gripping enough. It can even be said to be anti-refreshing drama routines, and the suspense approach is also distracting.
This has raised the threshold for watching the drama, which is why the drama did not become a big hit as quickly as Zhang Songwen's other dramas - it needs to be calm and watched.
didn’t expect that the series would have such great staying power.
The whole drama seems to be told at a slow pace, but in fact there are foreshadowings everywhere, and every suspense has a closed loop.
The return of the boy pretending to be an identity is just an introduction. What really leads to it is the suspenseful story and the fate of the characters in the three families of Jin, Du and Wang. The story slowly flows forward in 16 episodes, sometimes calm and sometimes stormy. The waves were high and fast, and sometimes they would go around a dangerous bend and hit new waves.
And Doudou’s disappearance is like a tributary, silently waiting to join the main line.
After watching a few episodes, you will really get into the drama. The more you watch, the more addicted you will be, and the more you will want to know the truth.
After watching the whole drama, you will feel that the pace of the plot is actually not slow, and several key conflict nodes are also rendered very movingly.
And the finale successfully raised the topic, paving the way for all the previous plots and completely sublimating it.
It turns out that the most suspenseful thing is never the case itself, but the people's hearts.
In the story, everyone is struggling and choosing between family affection, morality and law. The
drama series has never been a simple crime-solving drama, but a combination of suspense and family ethics, and finally touches people's hearts.
In the Easter egg of the finale, Xiao Qi, who is not a father and son, carries Wang Shitu on his back as if carrying his father. The anti-trafficking theme of the story has been sublimated. I couldn't hide my excitement, was speechless, and shed tears of emotion.
It turns out that in addition to criminal investigation, suspense dramas can also have a sense of life, like father and son, social reflection, and a bowl of scallion noodles that runs through the "father-son love".
3: Regarding the acting skills of actors
In addition to the plot, "The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow" also has a major focus: the performance of the actors.
The first person to bear the brunt is, of course, Zhang Songwen.
This is Zhang Songwen once again playing a policeman, Wang Shitu, an orphaned father.
Some people say that Zhang Songwen's performance this time is not as outstanding as his villain. Some people pointed out several of his famous acting scenes to refute.
How did Zhang Songwen perform? Of course it can't be bad.
Watching Zhang Songwen act is like handing the ball to Ronaldo in his prime. You just need to watch his performance quietly.
But the most exciting thing about Zhang Songwen's performance in this drama is actually not the famous acting scenes, but the four words : Still water runs deep.
Zhang Songwen didn't just play a few highlight scenes, but completely sketched out an old detective who suffered day and night from the pain of losing an orphan.
Facing the counterfeit Xiao Qi, his calm but sharp eyes seemed to be able to see through people.
He comes and goes with a piece of clothing, because his wife passed away and he was so focused on finding his son that he had no intention of taking care of himself.
In addition to being full of brokenness, this old policeman also has a lot of personality and is even full of obsession with finding children.
Zhang Songwen and Cao Lei played the director's rival scenes with a battle of wits and full of human touch, and they cooperated with Qin Yong played by Li Jian without confronting them.
He was wary of Xiao Qi at first, but gradually developed a father-son-like relationship. Zhang Songwen acted this process naturally, and every change in his eyes was a drama.
In the scenes opposite Rong Zishan, you can feel that many interactive scenes contain improvisation. Zhang Songwen showed the intimacy of being like a father and a son in a very layered and daily way, and played a character that was not rich enough in the original script in a real way. And touching.
In the end, the character has no trace of "Gao Qiqiang", but is full of flesh-and-blood life details of an orphaned old policeman, which makes people cry just watching it.
This is not called good acting, how can it be good acting.
As for Rong Zishan, I think it’s not unreasonable for him to get first place in both Beijing Film Academy and China Film Academy.
From the very beginning, facing Wang Shitu's probing step by step, and being frightened when he first entered the Jin family, Rong Zishan's eyes were full of forced composure and helpless anxiety.
From gradually feeling the softness of human kindness, to the changes in facial expressions when looking at the stutterer at the beach, the performance progresses step by step.
Through his expressions, eyes and body movements, Rong Zishan fully played the kind-hearted Xiao Qi. I can't ask for more from this young actor.
Cheng Taishen is as exciting as expected.
The character Jin Manfu can be called a classic two-faced man.
looks full of ulterior motives and is creepy.
On the other hand, it makes people feel that he really wants to protect Meizhen and his daughter, and he always has a human side.
is hard to figure out and impossible to guess until the end.
The most surprising thing is Guo Keyu.
Just as the director said, the Bian Meizhen she played is really a calm, crazy and unfathomable person.
In the beginning, he was ill and took medicine for a long time, and he seemed mentally disturbed and haggard. Later, when he met his "son", he was filled with motherly love from confusion to tears, and there was always a hint of weirdness in his cuteness.
Guo Keyu's every movement and expression are perfectly executed, making the character full of imagination.
I think it’s not an exaggeration to give full marks to the actors’ performance in the entire drama.
4: The suspense about Mist Theater
But when it comes to this drama, there is one fact that cannot be avoided: as Zhang Songwen's second new Mist Theater drama, it is not popular enough.
In terms of reputation, it is not as good as "The Hidden Corner" which has become the flagship of Fog Theater.
In fact, in recent years, Mist Theater has indeed been deeply questioned by word of mouth.
In contrast, Goose Factory launched White Night Theater is coming with a bang.
But compared to the dilemma, I saw the "change" of Fog Theater in this new suspense drama by Zhang Songwen.
"The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow" is indeed different in its creation from typical suspense dramas that focus on bizarre cases and multiple reversals.
The suspense in the play is just the scallion oil in a bowl of scallion oil noodles. The real noodles are actually the fate of the characters in the case, the changes in people's hearts and emotions.
And the soup base of the whole bowl of noodles is the real theme of the story: "anti-trafficking".
There are very few domestic dramas. The "Baby Comes Home" picture is displayed at the end of each episode, which is an image of abducted children in reality. Compared with the large-scale plot, this kind of package showing the reality behind the case is more touching. Behind the suspense of
, it leads the audience to pay attention and face up to the real core and vitality of the drama, the orphaned families and the invisible teenagers.
In the play, Wang Shitu finally found his son in another way. In the end, the Easter egg of Xiaoqi carrying Wang Shitu away seemed like a message from the creator: May the lonely souls who are displaced in the world have a home, love, and happiness. reunion.
is another suspense drama.
In this era of domestic dramas that pursue instant pleasure, leaving such a work that is not explosive but leaves a lingering aftertaste is the greatest significance of the drama.
And good dramas that are truly heart-warming can always break through the fog of popularity and traffic to reach people's hearts.
