Note: This article contains slight spoilers
iQiyi is currently experiencing some bad times. While competitors Tencent Video (" Celebrating More Than Years 2", " Rose Story ") and Youku (" Mo Yuyunjian ") are both popular, iQiyi's S+ drama " Fox" "The Fairy Matchmaker " encountered a rare Waterloo, causing the industry to doubt iQiyi's vision in selecting dramas. "The Boy Who Can't See the Shadow" (hereinafter referred to as "The Shadow Boy") starring Zhang Songwen and Rong Zishan, which was launched by the Fog Theater at the right time, has a bit of a "bailout" flavor.
The poster of "The Boy Who Can't See Shadows"
is a pity. Although Zhang Songwen and Rong Zishan are collaborating again after the high-scoring drama "The Hidden Corner", and there is the so-called "The Threesome of "Cyclone" reunion" gimmick, The performance of "Shadow Boy" was mediocre, and its highest popularity value during the Super Points Direct finale could not even surpass this year's Fog Theater's first film "The Unmentionable" with mediocre reputation and popularity.
What happened to Mist Theater, what happened to iQiyi? While we analyze "Shadow Boy", we can also catch a glimpse of the whole story.
16 episodes of "The Boy Who Can't See a Shadow" and 12 episodes of "The Unspeakable" went straight to the highest popularity of the finale night.
"Mist Theater" is a pioneer in the field of suspenseful short dramas. Through precisely positioned theatrical operations, strict content quality control, standardization requirements, and centralized release of similar high-quality content, we have successfully created a high-quality, typed brand, providing a strong support for the membership system and payment model of the long video platform. support. After Mist Theater, Tencent Video now also has "X Theater", and Youku this year also upgraded its previously large and unsuitable suspense theater to "White Night Theater". It can be said that Mist Theater has played an important role in promoting the diversified development of industry content forms.
"The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth", which are both popular and popular, have launched the brand of Fog Theater
. Of course, " new " has also been successfully launched, but the brand influence of Fog Theater is still the greatest, not only because Fog Theater has been in business for the longest time, but also because Fog Theater has launched the most plays. In 2020, from the first "Ten Days Game" to "Shadow Boy", Mist Theater has launched 16 works.
The results of "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth" have not been surpassed so far. The other dramas generally fall into the following four categories. The first category has good reputation and popularity, but it is not at the level of being a god, such as "Thirteen Years of Ashes"; the second category has reputation but not popularity, "Moses on the Plains" is the least popular drama in Mist Theater Collection; the third category, which has good popularity and average reputation, such as " who is the murderer ", "the returning daughter" and " echoes "; the fourth category, has neither popularity nor reputation.
When iQiyi had frequent hits, Mist Theater performed quite well, and the problem did not appear to be serious. Anyway, hits could stabilize paying members; once iQiyi's major dramas frequently had problems, x Theater and Baiye Theater is coming again with great momentum, and Mist Theater no longer has a reputation as a hit. How can the platform retain members?
To be fair, "Shadow Boy" is not a bad drama, it is about average for Mist Theater. It also typically embodies the common problems of Mist Theater plays - both content and form are biased.
"Shadow Boys" revolves around the "disappearance" of two teenagers. In 1993, young Bian Jie (played by Rong Zishan) disappeared unexpectedly; in 1996, a young boy named Xiaoqi (played by Rong Zishan) who looked almost exactly like Bian Jie returned home as Bian Jie. He soon discovered that this Reorganizing a family is full of strange things. For example, his father Jin Manfu (played by Cheng Taishen) has long discovered that Xiao Qi is not Bian Jie, but let him play Bian Jie... Where has the real Bian Jie gone?
Bian Jie and Xiao Qi look almost exactly the same, and are both played by Rong Zishan.
Interpol Wang Shitu (played by Zhang Songwen) intervened in the investigation of Bian Jie's disappearance three years ago. He is particularly concerned about the disappearance case and his personal experience. related.In 1984, his 5-year-old son Doudou was abducted and has not been recovered. At that time, Doudou and Bian Jie were playing hide-and-seek. The trafficker was actually heading for Bian Jie, but he abducted Doudou by mistake. Where did Doudou go? Who wanted Bian Jie to disappear in the past?
Interpol Wang Shitu (played by Zhang Songwen), he is also an orphaned father
"Shadow Boy" has a particularly good story origin, which is rarely touched on in previous suspense short dramas, that is, in the 1980s and 1990s. The chaos of child abduction and trafficking has brought serious disasters to many families, and there are still many babies who have not returned home. At the end of each episode of "Shadow Boys", there will be missing notices for some abducted children, which shows the show's intention on this issue.
At the end of each episode, there is a different missing person notice for an abducted child.
As a person born in the 1980s and a witness to that era, my parents repeatedly reminded us when we were young that we must be wary of strangers, because children are abducted and sold. It was so common at the time; among the author's childhood playmates, two of them were "sold" to our village. The only difference was that they were "sold" by their parents rather than abducted.
Why was the abduction or sale of children so rampant in that era? This is an issue that a suspense drama can explore well, and it can reveal many "scars" of a specific era. For example, the concepts were backward. At that time, many people had weak legal awareness and insufficient understanding of the dangers of child abduction/sale. Parents, while preventing their children from being abducted, were not surprised by villagers "buying" or "giving away" children; another example is the relevant laws at that time. Laws and regulations are not perfect, law enforcement is insufficient, cross-regional cooperation mechanisms are also very imperfect, and the cost of crime is relatively low, making it difficult to form an effective deterrent; for example, the severe punishment of family planning at that time and the decadent concept of favoring sons over daughters drove trafficking/trading Children's needs...
Therefore, "anti-trafficking" in the context of the 1980s-2000s is a subject that can be explored in depth. The series repeatedly presents Wang Shitu's pain of "losing his orphan", which is indeed very sad and touching. The tragic situation of Xiaoqi and others in the den of thieves also fully stimulates the audience's hatred of child trafficking... However, "Shadow" "Youth" stays at the most superficial issues. It does not explore the causes of the chaos, whether it is conceptual, lawful, or institutional.
The existence of this missing factor is destined to make "Shadow Boy" unable to become a classic work like "The Hidden Corner" or "The Silent Truth" that relentlessly explore, analyze and criticize human nature.
This is a major mistake of Mist Theater's play: it captures a very good subject matter, but only touches on it. The era background should not be just a curtain, it should dominate the progress of the story at all times.
did not focus on the issue of scars of the times. The plots of the first few episodes of "Shadow Boy" reminded some viewers of "The Returned Daughter". For suspense dramas, this kind of association is a taboo. Most of the novelty is lost, and the appeal to the audience is also weakened. However, "Shadow Boy" cannot avoid the audience not thinking about it - they are all "fake children" who have returned, and they all have ulterior secrets in their families. The most terrifying one is the father in the family, and there is a "madman" in the family. " or "fool", there is an undercurrent surging behind the surface harmony of the family...
The "terrible" father Jin Manfu (played by Cheng Taishen) is indeed very reminiscent of Li Chengtian played by Wang Yanhui in "The Returned Daughter"
Fortunately, the plot Halfway through, "Shadow Boy" ensnares the audience with continuous suspense points, such as where Bian Jie went, whether Bian Jie is dead or alive, and where is Doudou. Fortunately, there is also regret. Although the suspense setting of "Shadow Boy" is attractive, its way of solving the suspense is too "foolish".
Guo Keyu plays the role of the mother who becomes insane because Bian Jie goes missing. His acting skills are particularly impressive.
As mentioned in the "First Episode" of the previous drama, "Shadow Boy" is "wrapped with suspense, crime, murder and other elements". It is not just a family relationship based on blood, this is indeed a story with a bit of Keigo Higashino's flavor. Emotion is the motivation for crime, and family love is the motivation for atonement.Of course,
has its role: an emotion-driven story of crime and redemption, involving discussions of morality and ethics; focusing on the family relationships of the characters, the audience may be moved by the complex and profound emotional ties between the characters; in the end, because The plot design of surrender due to family affection can also convey a positive message, that is, after the dark side of human nature, there is still the power of love and hope.
If "Shadow Boy" sets the villain's motivation as a deformed desire driven by family affection, and makes the intellectual game between police and gangsters exciting, the emotion + suspense will be convincing; the problem is, "Shadow Boy" is The atonement motivations of every criminal are set to be exactly the same - family affection, and the game between police and robbers is almost non-existent. There is no need for the police to solve the case. The suspects will surrender out of love anyway...
When solving suspense depends on emotion, This makes "Shadow Boy" suspenseful, but without reasoning. It's almost all coincidences. At the same time, too many emotional scenes (endless flashbacks) dilute the suspense atmosphere, making the series look more like a bitter drama under a suspense shell.
Mist Theater should still return to the original intention of suspense: reasoning! The core charm of suspense dramas is the process of logical reasoning and puzzle solving. The audience expects to enjoy the fun of uncovering secrets through clue collection and logical analysis. No matter how profound social criticism, observation of human nature, or the core of warmth you want to express, at least the reasoning clues must be interlocking, logically self-consistent, and fascinating. The
16 episode of "Shadow Boy" is not too long, but it gives people the impression of being very long. I don’t know whether it was because the length of 16 episodes was set in advance, so the editor had to fill in the content, or whether the editor was too eager to play tricks on the form. In short, the editing of "Shadow Boy" was unsatisfactory and the rhythm was very problematic. The excessive preference for non-linear editing in the
series is incomprehensible. According to the normal chronological order, the occurrence of an event is 1-2-3-4, but the editing method of a large number of scenes in "Shadow Boy" is 1-3-2-4. Appropriate use of non-linear editing does have good artistic effects. Covering up some key information can stimulate the audience's curiosity and maintain a high sense of participation. By adjusting the sequence of events, some key information can be highlighted and keep the audience engaged. A deeper emotional resonance occurs when understanding cause and effect.
Despite this, "Shadow Boy" uses non-linear editing too much. Important and unimportant information is suddenly given to you as 1-3-2-4, or even 1-3-2-5-6-7-4, frequently disrupting the chronological order, resulting in the coherence and smoothness of the story. Damage, adding redundant plots, increasing the audience’s understanding of the plot, and affecting the movie-watching experience.
The emotionally tense scene where Wang Shitu saw his wife and children in a hallucination was edited to pieces
What makes things worse is that the play takes emotion as its core, and a large number of flashbacks of emotional scenes take up a lot of space, which makes some of the episodes even worse. There is very little effective information on numbers.
Various long flashbacks, not limited to black and white shots
In the past, the suspense short drama mainly consisted of 12 episodes, and the 16 episodes of "Shadow Boy" can be edited to 10-12 episodes, improve the rhythm, and the viewing experience will be much better .
It is true that those high-scoring suspense short dramas are of high quality. Not only are the stories beautiful and profound, but they also put a lot of effort into the narrative structure, visual style, sound effects and soundtrack, so that the audience can feel the suspenseful quality at a glance. However, form must serve content. The bad tendency of many suspense dramas nowadays is that in order to create a mysterious atmosphere, there are too many twists and turns in advancing the main plot and revealing the core themes. The key clues and plot twists are too scattered, which instead affects the overall narrative rhythm and tension.
Remember, "pretending to be mysterious" will not make an ordinary story profound; if overly complex art forms or technical means interfere with the smoothness and enjoyment of the story, it will harm the audience's experience.
To a certain extent, "Shadow Boy" exposes a common problem in today's fog theater: the lack of ability to tell a good story.A "good story" must at least be logically rigorous, have a coherent plot, and be engaging. On this basis, if there is a more profound social criticism and analysis of human nature, it would be the icing on the cake. To "tell" a "good story" well, the narrative should also be efficient, compact, concise and powerful. , form serves content.
Whether it is Mist Theater or iQiyi, they definitely want to make good content. Maybe it’s because they had a lot of hits in the past two years and were proud of the crowd, but they were a little too confident or narcissistic, pursuing too much “high-end” images. But in fact, not just for high-quality short plays but for any play, the first priority is to tell a good story. In any narrative art, stories are the bridge between the creator and the audience. If it fails to provide a solid and good story that attracts the audience, no matter how advanced the format is, it may become a showpiece.
