Throughout the Spring Festival, the competition from box office to word-of-mouth on the big screen was full of smoke and momentum. But on the small screen, it is the "Hurricane" family that dominates. This TV series not only broke the popularity record that had been dominated by "Zuo Son" for several years, but the Douban score has risen all the way to 9.1, and the daily trending searches on Weibo are also unshakably linked to the plot and characters of the show .

The popularity of "Hurricane" on iQiyi has exceeded 11,000.

What's more interesting is that the popularity of "Hurricane" has made the filming location of the show also popular, and it has become a check-in place for Internet celebrities. The villain Gao Qiqiang (played by Zhang Songwen) in the play is familiar with the settings of "The Art of War", which triggered a wave of "Sun Tzu's Art of War", which rushed to the best-selling list of Internet shopping platforms such as Dangdang.com and JD.com in a short period of time. Even sold out. The popularity of the show has spread from the film and television industry to other industries, because the appearance of the talk show actor Meng Chuan and Gao Qisheng (played by Su Xiaojing) in the play are slightly similar. rise.

"Sun Tzu's Art of War" became a hot seller due to the popularity of "Hurricane".

The popularity of the show, for the production and production of the film and television industry, in addition to the excellent quality of the work itself, it is worth discussing and analyzing from the broadcast schedule, cast combination, creation and production experience, value expression, and audience psychology place.

The first is the joint broadcasting of the CCTV platform and iQiyi, which once again proved the superiority of the "Internet Channel" broadcasting method and maximized the audience group of "Hurricane", covering all aspects from young audiences to middle-aged and elderly audiences , and the Spring Festival holiday gave enough time for the show's word-of-mouth to ferment. Secondly, there are no "traffic" stars in the show, and a full-strength cast. At the beginning of the show, there was no "drainage" effect, but the superb acting skills of the powerful actors maximized the charm of the script and characters. And this maximization has pushed the characters in the play to the front of the announcement stage. Even Internet users who do not follow the show will inevitably be screened by content related to characters such as "Brother Qiang" and "Sister-in-law" on social platforms in recent days. Then arouse curiosity and start the journey into the pit.

"Hurricane" stills

In terms of creation and production, director Xu Jizhou introduced the production process of the play in an interview, but the core selling point of the play is still the story itself. In addition to the main theme of anti-crime and evil narrative, the counterattack and revenge of the little people are the commercial attraction of the show. Although counterattack and revenge narratives are not uncommon in film and television dramas, in the domestic drama creation environment, counterattack is usually the privilege of the positive protagonist. The "counterattack" of the small character becomes the big villain, which is new to domestic audiences, and some audiences even will Gao Qiqiang's growth is compared with "Old White" in "Breaking Bad"; while the revenge narrative is placed on the positive character An Xin (played by Zhang Yi) in "Hurricane", whose idealism and gloomy reality The contrast formed brings a tragic color to the play, and also makes the audience prone to sympathy with the enemy, similar to the works of "the protagonist and the whole world are against each other". In recent years, "The Silent Truth" is the representative .

The motif of "fate and rebellion against fate" mentioned by Xu Jizhou many times in interviews is also relatively rare in the narrative of the main theme drama, and its artistic expression is also complex and deep, so it is very different from some slogans and grandiose plots. Narrative works with similar themes are also very different from some anti-crime works with strong plots and weak characters, which can impress ordinary audiences with their characterization and value thinking.

Zhang Yi as An Xin

Zhang Songwen as Gao Qiqiang

The success of "Hurricane", to a certain extent, can also observe the changes in the direction of industry creation and production. In the era of the hottest capital, it is unimaginable that a TV series without traffic stars and no big IP endorsement can become a hit. . However, a complex villain like "Gao Qiqiang" caused great repercussions, and it was like a return to the aesthetics of the audience and the author. Twenty years ago, impressive crime themes such as "Black Hole" and "Conquer" The image has proved the importance of villain characterization for this type of drama.

Undoubtedly, "Hurricane" has become the first hit series in 2023, and its return and innovation in the field of creation and production may have a longer-term impact on the industry than the series itself. But what is worth questioning is whether the show, which has been taken care of by multiple departments, has received the resource blessing and convenient "green light" that many film and television dramas in creation can hardly match? Can such subject matter and creation bring effective methodology to a wider range of practitioners?