Through the 2015 movie "Detective Chinatown", "Detective Chinatown 2" which was released on the Spring Festival file for the first time in 2018, "Detective Chinatown 3" which was released on the Spring Festival file in 2022, and the 2020 web drama "Detective Chinatown", Chen Sicheng has already The prototype of "Tang Tan Universe" was constructed. These works share a logically consistent detective reasoning background and environment - based on "Crimaster" (the world's famous detective rankings), with shared characters, interrelated plots, and connected timelines.

Poster of web drama "Detective Chinatown 2"

This time, the web drama "Detective Chinatown 2" (hereinafter referred to as the web drama "Detective Chinatown 2") is a further extension and deepening of "Detective Chinatown", demonstrating the ambition to bring "Detective Chinatown" to fruition.

The online drama "Tang Detective 2" is divided into four units: "Angel's Melody", "Devil's Breath", "Amusement Park" and "Golden City". The cast of each unit is gorgeous and has a certain freshness. For example, "Angel Melody" has Xiong Dailin, "Amusement Park" has Yang Jinhua and Tian Niu, "Amusement Park" and "Golden City" have Du Dewei, Zhong Zhentao, Weng Hong, Lu Songxian... In addition, Wang Baoqiang, Liu Haoran, Xiao Yang, Zhang Junning, Zhang Other important faces in "Tang Detective Universe" have guest appearances.

Tang Ren (played by Wang Baoqiang) is still an introduction character

Qin Feng (played by Liu Haoran) appears in episode 13

There are four unit dramas. The protagonist of the first two units is Lin Mo (played by Qiu Ze). He is the detective successfully portrayed in the online drama "Tang Detective 1". Lin Mo ranked fourth on "Crimaster" and was known as "Alone". He earned the title of "Lin Black Dog" due to his extraordinary sense of smell.

Lin Mo (played by Qiu Ze) led the first two units to solve the case

The protagonist of the latter two units is Kiko (played by Shang Yuxian). She is ranked fifth on Crimaster. She has appeared in the film version of the "Tang Detective" series before and only played a functional role. Kiko is a genius hacker detective from Hong Kong, China. He always appears in a quirky two-dimensional image. He has superb computer skills and is good at obtaining case-related information through hacking methods, and quickly conducts data integration and reasoning analysis. In the movie version, she provided great technical support to Qin Feng and Tang Ren in solving the case, and there seemed to be an ambiguous emotional line between her and Qin Feng.

Kiko (played by Shang Yuxian)'s new hairstyle, neat short hair. She took the lead in solving crimes in units three and four.

The core purpose of the web drama "Tang Detective 2" is to shape Kiko and make Kiko an important role like Lin Mo who can take the lead on his own. This is crucial to "Tang Tan Universe". If "Tang Tan Universe" can successfully create multiple detectives with their own charm and unique skills, and create an independent and rich story line for each detective, let them show their talents in their respective cases while maintaining a certain degree of internal connection ( For example, a shared world view, the interweaving and linkage of different characters, the cross-work character relationship network, etc.) can continuously refresh the narrative method and suspense design, create a broad and deep fictional world, and bring endless exploration fun and persistence to the audience. of freshness. In this way, "Tang Detective Universe" may become the next Marvel Universe or DC Universe.

Overall, the web drama "Tang Detective 2" successfully established Kiko. This talented girl with a distinctive image, who usually wears colorful hair and fashionable clothes, looks lively, cheerful and cynical, but in fact she also has unknown sorrows and ambitions. Kiko shows the audience a girl detective image that is different from the traditional detective image, injecting new vitality and charm into the entire "Tang Detective Universe" and becoming an indispensable existence. The emotional line between her and Qin Feng was also "confirmed" by the screenwriter in the play.

At the same time, Q, the biggest villain in "Tang Detective Universe", has become more popular through the web drama "Tang Detective 2". In the previous movie version, Q, who has extraordinary intelligence and reasoning ability, has a confusing identity and is the center of the mystery. In the movie "Tang Detective 3", Q finally revealed: it does not refer to a single character, but an organization. This organization brings together talents with extremely high IQ and criminal planning capabilities from all over the world, with the intention of controlling and judging the direction of the world.

In the online drama "Tang Detective 1", Ivy (played by Zhang Junning), who fascinated Lin Mo and became dizzy, is one of the Q's. In the "Amusement Park" unit of the web drama "Tang Detective 2", the genius dark boy Neo (played by Rong Zishan) is rescued by Ivy. Neo will surely become a member of Q; and in the last unit "Golden City", Behind the giant financial company is a mysterious organization with the initials Q, so Kiko hacked the money into his account, paving the way for further confrontation with Q.

The mysterious Q behind Ivy (played by Zhang Junning) still shows a strong sense of presence

The web drama "Tang Detective 2" is quite ambitious, but whether the ambition can achieve the expected results depends on its execution. If the strength is insufficient and the execution effect is average, no matter how grand the universe concept is, it may become self-entertainment. Judging from the execution effect, the web drama "Tang Detective 2" is quite satisfactory. This is evident from the heat. Although the third-party rating still barely got S+, when the series started to add updates and went straight to the finale, the highest popularity stopped at 8291. For a big IP like Tang Tan, such a popular performance can be called mediocre.

where is the problem? It’s also easy to think of. As a mystery and suspense drama, the suspense performance of the online drama "Tang Detective 2" was lower than expected. The first two units "Angel's Melody" and "Devil's Breath" were slightly worse, "Amusement Park" was slightly better, and "Golden City" was slightly better.

From the perspective of reasoning style, the web drama "Tang Detective 2" prefers social reasoning, in-depth analysis of the motivations behind the case and the psychological state of the characters, focusing on social issues in real life, such as class, fairness and rights, focusing on through Cases reflect and criticize social phenomena, human contradictions or institutional shortcomings to highlight the social value and humanistic care of the work.

As the director said in an interview with "Entertainment Manager": "In the first season, we focused on how to make the case thorough and exciting; in the second season, we thought about whether it was possible to touch on more universal issues. , allowing the audience to have some connections with the real world they live in after watching it, and we are constantly expanding the boundaries of suspense and detective themes."

The mental hospital setting of "Angel Melody" and the cult theme of "Devil's Breath" are both "cliché" settings in suspense dramas. These two units focus on gaining insight into the lives of some "poor people" and focusing on how they went astray, which is sad.

The themes of "Amusement Park" and "Golden City" are somewhat innovative. "Amusement Park" is reminiscent of the "Room N" and "Sin Island" ("Epstein's Slave Island") incidents, and its critical meaning is obvious; "Golden City" explores justice through a financial scam with layers of reversals. issue.

"Amusement Park" is reminiscent of the events of "Room N" and "Sin Island"

Although social reasoning is not only to solve the mystery of the case, but also to reveal social contradictions and analyze the complexity of human nature through the case, in any case, "reasoning" is always its core and duty. Only by taking both into consideration can the charm and value of socialist reasoning be truly reflected. If you overemphasize social issues and morals and are busy preaching, while ignoring the rigor and logic that reasoning should have, the originally exciting reasoning process will become weak, and the entire story will lose the tension and attraction that a mystery drama should have, and the effect will be poor. Counterproductive.

At this point, the web drama "Tang Detective 2" has a lot of room for improvement.

On the one hand, there are actually many plots in the play that can be called "intellectual reduction", especially the first two units led by Lin Mo. For example, he disguised himself and went into a mental hospital to investigate a case. After discovering that the person was dead, he shouted that he was a detective. Another example was that he came in to investigate the case but did not leave any backup plan. How to escape if he was in danger.

If you shout in a mental hospital that you are not sick, obviously no one will believe you.

The "Devil's Breath" unit is in contrast to the hit "Zhou Chu Deterring Three Evils", and it pales in comparison. For example, Lin Mo once again went deep into the tiger's den and exposed the leader in front of everyone, while the leader and followers just sat like this Listen to Lin Mo's righteous speech...

"Devil's Breath" is a bit of a waste for Yang Jinhua

Similar scenes make Lin Mo's behavior, decision-making, and reasoning process contrary to common sense or below the normal intelligence level, breaking the internal logic of the plot, weakening the persuasiveness of the story, and putting people in danger of collapse. Lin Mo, who had such a distinctive reasoning style in the web drama "Tang Detective 1", almost eclipsed everyone in the web drama "Tang Detective 2".

On the other hand, the reasoning is insufficient. Otherwise, it depends on the extremely low probability of chance. For example, in "Devil's Breath", the lawyer who was killed received 3 million from the editor-in-chief of a TV station before his death. The reason was that the lawyer wanted to sell him a secret worth tens of millions. It happened that the editor-in-chief of the TV station had just left the company. The husband of a female cult believer, who is also the best friend of the current cult talker... Apart from various coincidences, is it reasonable to remit 3 million when you don't know what the lawyer's "secret" is?

Or just rely on lines to reveal the secret. In "Amusement Park", there are also dazzling plots that reduce intelligence (for example, by capturing the trajectory of a vehicle on a mobile phone, the powerful people who visited the "Sin Island" were killed). At the same time, there are wonderful suspense settings, meticulous clues, and unexpected surprises. Not enough truth is revealed. For example, the most crucial twist in "Amusement Park" is that Kiko exposes Neo all through the character's confession. Although the audience vaguely felt that Neo was not simple, the clues were not laid out enough, and the sense of sudden realization was missing when trying to expose him.

Neo's true identity revealed

"City of Gold" has the highest degree of completion among the four unit cases. However, this unit has come late, and some viewers may not be willing to follow it here. On the line of reasoning, the unit is logically clear, tight and compact, with constant reversals and is not abrupt; after unraveling the cocoons, the entire case becomes a carrier for the creator to express social themes. "Golden City" poses a key multiple-choice question: If "rob the rich and give to the poor" and make many poor people rich overnight, will society be more fair? Or could this lead to inflation, social shutdown and social chaos? Different audiences have different options.

Will society really be fairer if countless people become rich overnight?

In short, the web drama "Tang Detective 2" is an important part of the "Tang Detective Universe". It has at least successfully shaped Kiko, further strengthened the mystery of Q, and expanded the story boundaries of "Tang Detective", setting the stage for subsequent movies and dramas. The collective development has laid an important foundation.

Of course, the "failure" of the web drama "Tang Detective 2" in the suspense reasoning also reminded Chen Sicheng, the operator of "Tang Detective Universe": If you really have the urge to preach, please do your reasoning well first. This is fundamental. , is the key to success or failure.