Text | Shen Xiang, author | Zu Yang, the summer show that is often dominated by ancient puppets, has now become the home of suspense dramas - the costume detective drama "The Secret of the Tang Dynasty: Journey West" has exceeded 10,000 hits on the iQiyi site. The Douban score is

Gu Yiran doing chemical experiments

The summer season, which is often dominated by ancient puppets, has now become the home of suspense dramas - the costume detective drama "The Secret of the Tang Dynasty: Journey to the West" has exceeded 10,000 hits on the iQiyi site, with a Douban score of 8.5; based on foreign suspense The Douban score of " Bianshui Past Stories " has risen all the way to 8.2, and the long tail effect is obvious; followed by " Snow Maze ", which was launched on September 3, it gave the Northeast suspense drama a new expression.

Before it was launched, "Snow Maze" caused a lot of discussion due to its original script and strong creative lineup: famous director Zhang Yimou supervised the production, "suspense professional" Lu Xing directed, and the screenwriters were Zhang Yuan and Melias, the two previous His representative works include suspense and anti-drug themes such as "Icy Rain and Fire" and "Old Nine Gates". With the guarantee of a professional team, the number of reservations on the site for "Snow Maze" exceeded 5 million before it was broadcast, and the popularity on Youku exceeded 6,000 on the night of the premiere.

Judging from the current broadcast content, "Snow Maze" is indeed somewhat "different" - it revolves around the story of how the anti-drug police in the Northeast region detected new drugs in the 1990s against the background of "having nothing". In addition to the main plot, a lot of relaxed daily routines of comedy, eating, and gags are added as embellishments. When watching, the audience can feel the thrilling suspense and the real and vivid fireworks.

While most suspense dramas try their best to use high-density and strong reversal plots to "fix" the audience in front of the screen, director Lu Xing positions "Snow Maze" as a criminal investigation life drama, in the middle of the tense and exciting plot , can have some interesting breaths that relax the rhythm.

"I hope it can become a suspense drama that makes the audience feel good and integrate it into the audience's daily life." Lu Xing told "Shen Xiang".

Different suspense in the Northeast: there is criminal investigation, and there is life

It must be said that the Northeast in the 1990s has become a fertile ground for the creation of suspense dramas.

In 2014, "Daytime Fireworks" combined the Northeast style of the 1990s with horrific and brutal criminal incidents, setting the tone of "Northeast Suspense"; later, "Undocumented Crime" combined cold, dry, snow, Ice and other cold natural elements are used to the extreme, echoing the characters created in the play; by 2023, " long season " opens with a train roaring through the green cornfield, telling the audience a bright story Northeastern suspense story.

With all the gems ahead, why does "Snow Maze" still set the time and place of the story in the Northeast in the 1990s?

screenwriter Zhang Yuanang told "Shenxiang" that on the one hand, most anti-drug film and television dramas on the market are basically concentrated in the Golden Triangle and the border areas of Yunnan and Myanmar, and narratives on the northern anti-drug frontline are relatively scarce; on the other hand, from a large time perspective, Looking at the background, methamphetamine first appeared in mainland China in 1991 in Guangdong, and then gradually moved from south to north. The northeastern region came into contact with methamphetamine later, and the story will be more twists and turns. The specific timeline of "Snow Maze" is set in 1997, the year before the Narcotics Control Bureau was established. Many local police and criminal police lacked professional knowledge, and criminal investigation methods will be relatively primitive. This requires front-line criminal police to rely on physical strength and The brainpower fights against criminals, and the dramatic conflict will be presented more directly.

It is also worth mentioning that most of the screenwriters, directors and crew are from the Northeast region, and have a stronger creative enthusiasm for their hometown. The inspiration and details extracted from their hometown memories will also be more daily and real.

Although they are all written about Northeastern suspense stories in the 1990s, "Snow Maze" still distinguishes itself from other dramas of the same type on the market.

In terms of background setting, most of the Northeastern suspense dramas in our impression take place in the icy and snowy winter, using extremely cold weather to add a sense of chill and chill to the story. "Snow Maze" extends the time span. It opens with a snow scene, and then gradually enters spring and summer, presenting a richer Northeastern appearance covering all four seasons.

In terms of narrative rhythm, "Snow Maze" breaks out of the orthodox suspense drama perspective that pays more attention to the spectacle of crime, and cleverly integrates professional and exciting logical reasoning lines with relaxed and interesting daily life lines, making the story more relaxed and relaxed.

Specifically speaking, the criminal detective case and the confrontation between good and evil are the main lines of "Snow Maze", which is professional and rigorous to the maximum extent. This is also the most difficult part of script creation.

"Snow Maze" is a purely original story. In order to make the plot more realistic, the screenwriting team did a lot of desk work and collecting stories. For example, we can find materials and inspiration from the news about relevant cases in the past, select some real cases with prototypes to build a basic framework, and then go to the field to collect stories, consult with frontline criminal police and professional anti-drug units in the 1990s, and verify the materials on the desk. While ensuring the accuracy of the script, they also added some cases they had actually experienced and their daily life conditions, and finally completed the entire script creation.

"There is a book called "Introduction to Anti-Narcotics", and we have almost finished it." Screenwriter Melias said.

The difficulty for screenwriters is to create a story "from scratch", while the difficulty for directors is to express the text in the script accurately in visual language. Gu Yiran, one of the five protagonists in "Snow Maze", is a drug expert. He will have a lot of scenes of doing chemical experiments to detect drugs. How to experiment, how to operate the equipment, what are the process steps, and finally how to use visual symbols Let the audience understand the final conclusion. These are all issues that the director must consider during the filming stage.

"The main plot points will be shown in the script, but how to achieve it in the end, including what type of measuring cup to use and what color the liquid will appear after heating in the test tube, are not in the script. We need to figure it out bit by bit. "Restore it." Lu Xing said frankly that before filming every experimental scene, Gu Yiran had to learn and understand it from experts and chemical consultants. "It is actually a very complicated and cumbersome process, which is equivalent to what we have to do on our own. Learn it from beginning to end."

If the criminal detective case is the main line, the relaxed and interesting daily life line is the branches growing out of the main trunk. "Snow Maze" deliberately amplifies the scenes and elements of daily life, making the story more realistic , fresh. For example, in the first five episodes, the five detectives have many eating scenes. Pork stewed vermicelli, Lao Zheng's chicken rack, iron pot stew, etc. are all foods with Northeastern characteristics.

This is due to the special nature of the profession of anti-drug police. They have no holidays and are always on call. Life and work are closely intertwined. "Snow Maze" restores and presents this. Zhang Yuanang told "Shenxiang" that hopes that what the audience will see is not the facial makeup of police heroes, but vivid and real ordinary people, with friends, family, and lovers, full of joy, anger, sorrow, and joy.

On the other hand, the special geographical location and dialect culture give the people of Northeast China a natural sense of humor and optimism. For Lu Xing, a native of the Northeast, his original intention for this drama was to restore the impression of life in the Northeast, show the enthusiasm of the Northeast people for life, and make the audience feel that suspense stories in the Northeast can also have fireworks.

The criminal investigation line and the life line are cleverly integrated, giving the audience a different look and feel - instead of just showing everyone bloody violence, there is some space to relax between the more thrilling plot points, allowing the audience to get involved in the characters. Find more empathy and empathy in relationships.

There are frequent hits, how can suspense dramas be innovative?

Suspense dramas have always been one of the important categories in domestic dramas. In the TV era, there are the costume suspense dramas "Young Bao Qingtian", "The Criminal Officer of the Song Dynasty" and "Detective Di Renjie", and the modern dramas include the childhood memories of the post-90s generation " Serious Cases Group 6 ". Later, with the rise of urban romance and family ethics dramas, suspense dramas gradually withdrew from prime time. However, with the rise of video websites, suspense dramas once again entered the public eye in the form of online dramas and became synonymous with popular dramas with high reputations.

Director Lu Xing can be said to have witnessed the "ups and downs" of suspense web dramas all the way.From directing "Undocumented Crime" in 2017 to "The Returned Daughter" at Fog Theater in 2022, and then becoming the director of "Snow Maze" at Youku White Night Theater this year, he is currently filming "The Imperative" about prison guards. , Lu Xing has always followed the development trend of domestic suspense online dramas, "It used to be a state where one person had nothing and I had nothing. At that time, more emphasis was placed on showing various criminal spectacles. With the development of suspense dramas, now relies on pure spectacle. , it may be difficult to attract audiences. "

As he said, we found that most of the suspense web dramas in the "previous stage" retained the "orthodox suspense flavor" of the TV drama period, and titles often contained "sin" and " "Punishment" and "Cruelty", the plot is centered on the case, focusing on presenting various criminal spectacles and hard-core reasoning.

"Shen Xiang" counts some of the suspense online dramas that were released from 2014 to 2017. 2017 can be said to be the first small peak of suspense dramas, "河神", "White Night Chase", "Undocumented Crime" " were all popular dramas of the year, with Douban scores above 8. Among them, "White Night", which was broadcast on Youku, had a Douban score of 8.9, setting a new record for suspense online dramas. And their names do contain words such as "sin" and "fierce".

One person plays two roles in "White Night", the logic of the character reasoning is rigorous, the information density is high, and the crime scene layout is authentic and credible; "Undocumented Crime" has a duel between three heroes, using complex characters and social relationships to weave a large criminal network , deeply burying the motive of the crime, and using strict logic to attract the audience to immerse themselves in watching. And except for "Undocumented Crime" which has 12 episodes, most suspense dramas are still the length of regular TV series, between 20 and 40 episodes, with longer episodes and richer plots.

As the audience’s requirements for watching movies increase, simple criminal investigation plots gradually cannot meet the high-level needs of the audience. After 2020, suspense dramas began to become “theatrical”, with shorter episodes and new themes and content density. upgrade.

First of all, takes the "suspense +" route, integrating with different content types to add new ideas. "The Hidden Corner" by iQiyi Mist Theater in 2020 combined native family and suspense. "Jiang Zhao Liming" by Mango Monsoon Theater in 2022 added a discussion of the plight of women's survival on the basis of suspense; Youku's "Rebirth" "The Gate" focuses on niche theft themes, interspersing new theft methods in a major case, presenting the whole process of a black and white showdown; the just-released "Snow Maze" also combines criminal investigation and life, with professional reasoning and passionate scenes. life.

Secondly, not only discusses the case itself, but also uses the case to write about people, human nature, social insights and responses to real problems. Especially in the past two years, there have been more and more realistic suspense dramas. The suspense is more like the outer shell. The core wants to present the destiny choices and trends of people under the background of the times. A typical representative is "The Long Season", one of the "Kings of Drama" last year. The corpse dismemberment case in the play was deliberately downplayed. The story of three middle-aged and elderly people, Wang Xiang, Gong Biao, and Ma Desheng, is more like the main line. They use their nearly two characters to tell the story. The changes of ten years show the changes of the times behind them.

In addition, when writes about human nature and character conflicts, the expressions of confrontation between good and evil, and the contrast between good and evil, have also begun to be replaced by multi-character portraits. There are no absolute bad guys and good guys, but more different choices made from different positions. For example, "Once Upon a Time on the Edge of Water", which ended in the summer season, Uncle Guai, portrayed in the play, is a big boss who walks in both black and white, but when no one knows, he will use Buddha worship to resolve his inner conflicts.

And there is no doubt that after each video platform completes the layout and upgrade of suspense theaters, the competition in suspense dramas will become increasingly fierce - is not only a competition of quantity, but also IP, innovative perspective, and creative quality. , user volume and other all-round competition.

"It is difficult to see a new theme or type in the market now. What is more important is to find some new angles in the previous themes to give the audience a new look and feel. This is a development direction in the future." Lu OK, tell "Deep Sound".

breaks down the list of suspense dramas to be broadcast on the three major video platforms of iQiyi, Tencent Video and Youku. iQiyi’s Mist Theater has the most "volume", including "Crime of Low IQ", "Above Dark Clouds" and "Twenty One Days" " Justifiable Defense ", "Born by Life", "Perfect Redemption", "Notes to Drive Evil: Maze of Tree Shadows" and other high-quality suspense dramas that bring together veteran actors and big IPs, such as "Low IQ Crime" is Zijin After "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth", Chen once again made a film and television work at the Mist Theater.

Tencent Video's suspense dramas focus on "surprise". The upcoming drama "人之初" chooses a protagonist who is not highly socialized and professional, and pays more attention to presenting the conflict between the character and his own heart. Director Li Lu will It is positioned as a "suspense drama".

Youku White Night Theater has newly upgraded and announced a list of eight suspense dramas in April this year. Currently, there are four more "Black and White Jue", "The Wilderness", " Breaking the Cocoon " and "Sandstorm" to be broadcast. Judging from the film list, on the one hand, Youku emphasizes the segmentation and differentiation of themes, striving to meet the needs of suspense fans with different preferences; on the other hand, it focuses on diversified social topics and value cores, including emotion, adventure, and anti-fraud. , increases the thickness of the story, and has a lot to watch.

can foresee that under the multiple incentives of the platform and the market, the capacity and gold content of the suspense track will become higher and higher.

Looking overseas, suspense themes are also a content category that focuses on layout. The Japanese drama "Your Turn" and the Korean drama "Dark Glory" have become popular around the world. Nowadays, domestic suspense dramas have also found a localized narrative method, telling a story that resonates with the times in a way that directly touches human nature, is close to reality, and has oriental aesthetics. This kind of resonance does not distinguish between time, space and national boundaries, and more people will recognize it again. Eastern suspense.