I remember that time when I happily walked into the theater with a group of friends to watch "Tiny Times" together. It was a great joy in our school days. Four "Tiny Times" films, four ultimate viewing and complaining experiences, have left the imprint of youth. Nowadays, I am appreciating "Cloud Feather" alone. I feel really helpless, lonely, and have no one to say anything to me. I can't help but think of those friends scattered all over the world, and then I murmur and sing "We We promised not to separate but to stay together."

As for Guo Jingming, I did read a lot of his novels when I was a student. I can’t say I liked them, but I can’t deny the influence of his works in the popular culture at the time. Because if you don’t read them, you really won’t be able to keep up with the chats of your classmates after class. topic. Looking at him from the perspective of popular culture rather than elite culture, it must be said that Guo Jingming has a good sense of business and public demand. Moreover, when Guo Jingming was a teenager, he could feel the pulse of young readers' preferences. When Guo Jingming is forty years old, he can still feel the pulse of young audiences. The click data of "Cloud Feather" has remained high as proof. You can't deny that Brother Guo will always be young and always have tears in his eyes.

As of press time, the popularity of "Cloud Feather" on the iQiyi site reached 9,700.

The continuity of Guo Jingming's "aesthetics" is indeed strong. It is also very appropriate to say that "Yunzhiyu" is "Tiny Times: Feudal Era" because it has the same pretentiousness, pretended pain, forced contradictions, and confusing logic. Because the shell that wraps up all this nonsense is the same fake, high-end and genuine artificial aesthetic.

However, some people say that "Cloud Feather" is a bad drama. I disagree with this. I think badness is a "relative". Looking at Chinese TV dramas in recent years, I can honestly say that "Cloud Feather" It's definitely not the worst. Even after meeting some directors in the Chinese drama circle, I feel that Guo Jingming is at least serious as a director and is not like some Party B directors who take money to show off.

"The Feather of the Clouds" begins with dramas such as the costumed espionage, the murder in the escapade, and the substitute bride, which are fresh. The superimposition of ancient puppets and suspense genres is innovative and worthy of encouragement, but watch two more episodes. I began to miss the same stories, characters, art, and even filters in the ancient puppet genre. Why? Because "Xinghuo" is the bottom line of the genre, it at least means that it has achieved the technical foundation and story expression it deserves. However, before the benchmark of Xinghuo has not been reached, pursuing the fusion of genres and the superposition of elements can easily be superficial. Can't bear to think about it.

Yu Shuxin as Yun Weishan

In my opinion, the most important thing for a qualified film and television drama is to tell the story well and clearly, and the audio-visual language is accurate. On these two points, "Cloud Feather" does not meet the standards.

The loopholes in the logic of the story, and the forced reversals of plot and setting, may be ignored in ancient puppet dramas that emphasize emotion over logic, but in stories with strong suspense and high concepts, they are almost fatal. question. From the perspective of ancient puppets, the pale and simple character creation, especially the "weakness" of the male protagonist, will also make it difficult for the most important love line of ancient puppets to generate enough attraction.

Zhang Linghe as Gong Ziyu

Then in terms of audio-visual language, the much-praised aesthetics of "Cloud Feather", like the "Tiny Times" series, is an MV aesthetic that relies heavily on blowers + slow motion. We can certainly feel Guo Jingming's pursuit of "beauty" , this pursuit is especially concentrated when shooting men. At this moment, the camera is Director Guo's eyes. The men in Director Guo's eyes must be handsome, and they must be handsome in a way that men are objectified under the "male concentration"!

When men are "male-condensed", something wonderful happens. These men show feminine, lifeless, tool-like beauty that is fixed like butterfly specimens under the lens. Their beauty is so powerless that it is enough for the most beautiful men. The weak female audience "plays", which is a very rare way of showing male beauty in ancient puppet dramas in the past. Come and say with me: Thank you, Director Guo.

The male characters in "Cloud Feather"

However, in film and television dramas, camera scheduling serves the narrative. The so-called audio-visual language is to use pictures and sounds to tell good stories, rather than using pictures to show fashion aesthetics. Without giving more examples, let’s just say that in "The Feather of the Cloud", Action scenes that are praised as "beautifully shot" will be able to see the problem after watching a few more scenes: the flying hair and sleeves of the beauties in the flying snow and falling grass are indeed "beautiful", but sometimes you even see Can't figure out who is beating whom? Who has the upper hand? This may be a problem, which means that this action scene does not serve the character creation and plot development. If the shot scheduling does not serve the rhythm and efficiency of the narrative, it will be called a dynamic magazine cover at most, rather than the audio-visual language of a film and television drama.

You can only vaguely tell who is in the fight scene from the costumes.

Of course, Director Guo's service is also "exquisite". It is said that when filming a certain movie, Director Guo would spend money out of his own pocket to buy real antiques because he was not satisfied with a prop that only appeared for a few seconds. This shows that he is very sincere. degree. However, the "beauty" of props in film and television dramas still does not exist in isolation. They must still serve the characters and narrative, and must have a high degree of consistency in the dramatic worldview. To put it bluntly, there should be no sense of "collage". It may sound a bit false to say this. Recently, there has been a very high level of completeness and consistency in the design of Fuhua Dao. "Fengshen" is a good example. Those who have watched it can think about it and feel it (I don't mean to use the movie to criticize the TV series). , just a positive example).

As for the "beauty" of "The Feather of Clouds", with all due respect, it is better to spend thousands of dollars to buy a mug at Hang Lung, replace your home with Hermès furniture and curtains, and stand in a landscape of consumerist symbols. , the aesthetics of "Guli" who feel that they have the flavor of the old aristocracy. Taking "collage" as an "advanced" aesthetic does not possess cultural unity and logical integrity. This kind of "aesthetics" is reflected in film and television dramas, and the sense of stacking is naturally obvious.

Costume details from "Cloud Feather"

I used to watch a variety show, and I even felt fond of Guo Jingming. His high sensitivity and strong self-esteem, as well as the kind of hard work in his directing career that he wanted to prove to everyone, were by no means performed. As a non-professional director, his level of hard work is really impressive and his execution ability is also outstanding. However, his decades-long persistence in a certain "aesthetics" has, in my opinion, limited his progress. In film and television creation, especially in commercial projects, the importance of creative logic and content expression is far more important than the superficial display of beautiful wonders, because this kind of display is too easy to be copied through technology, and it is too easy for people to get bored.

But it has to be said that spectacle displays are the current currency on social media. In the era of short videos where all content is flattened, hammered, and sliced, a 10-second shot like the one mentioned above may be like "Beauty Flying in the Flying Snow." Bringing ridiculous praise and popularity. Since some movies can win high box office by relying on social topics, Douyin clips, collage aesthetics, and bloodshed, why can’t Director Guo continue to support a film in his safe zone of being superficial and painful but bloody and effective? What about the blue sky that looks up 45 degrees and "protects the whole world and makes all Guo Xue lovers happy"? This is fair. I think Guo Jingming can borrow another fifty years of great fortune from heaven.

Fighting in the Quagmire