Recently, the TV series " Three Brigades ", written and directed by Xing Jianjun and starring Qin Hao , Li Naiwen , Chen Minghao , officially ended. The play tells the story of criminal investigation captain Cheng Bing (played by Qin Hao) who led the third team to handle a vicious case that led to the accidental death of one of the suspects. After experiencing a change in fate, Cheng Bing persisted in pursuing the truth of the murder as an ordinary person, and finally lived out his inner feelings. The story of tone. As the first work of iQiyi's "Mist Theater" in 2024, "The Three Brigades" integrates suspense and criminal investigation into the fireworks of life and the changes in social times, opening up a new situation for suspense in life. However, some viewers said that as a drama adapted from documentary literature, the drastic adaptation of "The Three Brigades" seems to have made the drama far higher than the authenticity of the original work.
How should we view the balance between documentary and drama in IP adaptation? The film and television market is changing rapidly. What kind of suspense works can gain audience recognition now? A reporter from the Beijing News talked with Dai Ying, chief producer of the TV series "The Three Brigades" and senior vice president of iQiyi. As a producer, she has also directed many masterpieces such as "The Hidden Corner", "The Silent Truth" and "The Returned Daughter" for iQiyi's "Mist Theater".
Stills from "The Three Brigades".
The drama genre gives IP greater room for adaptation and expansion
Beijing News: How did iQiyi first come into contact with the project "Three Brigades"? What attracted you to this project?
Dai Ying: We have a long relationship with this project. Starting from "Undocumented Crime", Qin Hao and I have collaborated on five works. Although we rarely meet each other, every time we meet, we will exchange ideas with each other about the good projects we have seen recently. In August and September 2022, he told me that Wanda recently recommended a project to him called "Three Brigades". He thought the story was quite interesting. In fact, Wanda Film and Television approached me first to find Qin Hao’s contact information, but they didn’t tell me what the specific project was at that time. After Qin Hao told me, I felt quite destined. At that time, the script of "The Three Brigades" was still being adjusted and revised, and there were only the first three episodes of the script and a 10,000-word outline. I stayed up until 1 a.m. to read the 10,000-word outline and the first three episode scripts. I was immediately attracted by the story of this drama. I called Mr. Yin of Wanda Film and Television back and wanted to work together on this drama.
Before this, I had actually never met director Xing Jianjun, but when I knew that the script and outline were revised by him, I was very confident. Later, by chance, I happened to meet him before the project started. After a conversation, I knew that we had the same understanding, judgment, and aesthetics of the project, and we would definitely become good "comrades in arms." So we hit it off and started this cooperation.
Beijing News: When the platform intervenes in a work, what adjustments will be made to the story development? For a work like "The Three Brigades" that has original documentary literature, how can we balance drama and documentary in our dramatic adaptation of it? Because after the broadcast of "The Three Brigades", many viewers also expressed that the drama of the TV series seemed to be obviously stronger than the documentary.
Dai Ying: At the drama level, you have to enrich a lot of content, and the rich content of "Three Brigades" is actually the directors, producers and many real police officers who, during the communication process, put what really happened Cases and details are integrated into the drama structure bit by bit.
The reportage of "The Third Brigade" is only over 7,000 words. There are relatively few descriptions on the side of the "bandit" (Wang Dayong in the play). But considering it at the level of a drama or extending it into a TV series, you must portray this character. Otherwise, how can you better explain why Cheng Bing has been chasing the murderer for so many years without catching Wang Dayong? What kind of characteristics does this person have that enable him to move around so many cities for many years and hide himself well? From this perspective, we think, on the one hand, the popularity of cameras was not high at that time, and the detection technology was not that advanced, which would make it more difficult to track down the murderer. But at the same time, Wang Dayong must be thoughtful and very deep, and he has a strong motivation to escape.So we added a lot of scenes describing Wang Dayong and Wang Eryong in the previous episodes. For example, when Wang Dayong and his younger brother Wang Eryong arrived at the inn, Wang Eryong first thought of doing various risky things, but Wang Dayong counter-investigated step by step... These expansions The sexual shaping is all designed to make everyone believe that Wang Dayong is a very difficult criminal to track down, and he is very thoughtful. And he himself said that he just wanted to change his destiny against nature, so he had a strong inner motivation to survive. At these plot points, we will have in-depth discussions with the creative team. Our goal is to make the characters not singular. We hope that the audience can follow Cheng Bing while watching the drama and always want to capture Wang Dayong.
Beijing News: When the same IP is adapted into two genres: movies and dramas, what advantages does the drama theme have?
Dai Ying: The series actually gives IP a lot of space, allowing the audience to experience the changes in the entire world, characters, and mentality with the characters. All the turning points of events can be extended emotionally, including the depiction of character details. This is the advantage of drama creation.
Beijing News: 4 episodes, will a series with 24 episodes have more operational advantages than a series with 12 episodes?
Dai Ying: I think may have some advantages, because the promotion cycle of 24 episodes will be longer than that of 12 episodes. You can cooperate, ferment the operation work, schedule arrangements, and publicity rhythm, and you will be more relaxed. . The entire fermentation cycle in episode 12 will be shorter, and the overall strategy will be somewhat different. But if the story is good, it will hold true no matter how many episodes it takes.
"Suspense+" is the creative trend in the suspense drama market
Beijing News: When you see the outline and character biographies of "The Three Brigades", how do you judge whether it is consistent with the underlying spiritual value of "Mist Theater"?
Dai Ying: This drama uses the fate of the characters as a suspenseful line to tell the story, and at the same time, the plot has a very touching aspect. Whether Cheng Bing wears or takes off his police uniform, he still retains the mentality of a policeman and his deep-rooted insistence on justice. This spirit is very touching. Including the entire group of characters from the Third Brigade, in this process, everyone has faced difficulties and faced the "restart" of life. The synopsis also states that they ran out of funds while chasing the murderer and needed to find a way to survive locally, so they went to open a kebab shop together. These are very touching and different from the suspense genre films we have seen in the past. of.
I have produced a lot of suspense dramas over the years, from the earliest "Psychological Crime" and "Undocumented Crime" to "The Hidden Corner" and "The Silent Truth". In fact, after finishing these, we all hope to be able to There are new explorations of existing genres and themes. So for films like "Police Honor", "Hurry", and "The Third Brigade", in a sense, I think the creators have made breakthroughs in existing themes, and this breakthrough actually lies in the in-depth exploration of the characters themselves. When these works receive good feedback, we will hope to continue this kind of exploration in "Mist Theater".
In fact, "Mist Theater" has been a "question mark" since the day it was born. Maybe for the audience, everyone will think that "Mist Theater" must be the kind of thrilling suspense - everyone will have this expectation. But for us, "Mist Theater" was born without expectations, so it actually assumes a great innovative function. Why do people always say that Qin Hao is one of the souls of "Mist Theater"? It's also because he always wants to be the first to eat crabs. Now when we look back, we have a lot of feelings. At the beginning, no one was aware of the 12-episode short drama, or was willing to cooperate with us; including "The Hidden Corner", which is actually about telling children's stories, but Qin Hao was willing to join such a project. Come on an adventure with us.
Qin Hao stars in "The Hidden Corner".
Actually, after the filming of "The Three Brigades" was completed, Qin Hao also asked me, would you like to watch this kind of suspense drama that focuses on life style? I think the audience will like it, because in fact, the most attractive thing about a drama is that people believe in the character and are willing to watch the character's fate.We need to explore the complexity of human nature and the sense of destiny of the characters themselves. This is true no matter what type of work it is placed in.
Beijing News: Does the narrative method of life flow also consider opening up new audiences for suspense works beyond the traditional audience?
Dai Ying: definitely hopes that suspense dramas can continue to break through the circle and gain more users. But for the main body, I think we still have to make a good-looking story. This is the foundation, and then we will talk about whether it can break the circle.
Beijing News: "Suspense+" seems to have become a new direction in the market?
Dai Ying: Right. Take the work of "Mist Theater" as an example. The moving part of "The Hidden Corner" is its unique perspective, which includes care for the growth of children, the different living conditions of different families, etc. This attempt has received good market feedback. On this basis, we made "The Mystery of the Octagon Pavilion", which is actually a suspenseful way to show a family; "The Returned Daughter", "Thirteen Years of Ashes", etc. We can all see its unique care in such suspense stories Some shining points.
I think that if the suspense genre wants to continuously and continuously output high-quality works, and excellent suspense dramas are produced every year, it actually takes a long time. Whether it is domestic or foreign movies like Netflix, when you see influential works, they must always make innovations and breakthroughs in themes and types under the same theme, giving the audience certain surprises.
Beijing News reporter Zhang He
editor Tong Na
proofreader Wu Xingfa
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