Those who have read my review of "Chang Xiang Si" last year should know that I am definitely a fan of the drama, and a rational fan who has read the original novel, treats all three equally, supports every pair of CPs equally, will not support the real people even if I am crazy about it, and is not tolerant of the plot (when I wrote last time, the plot had not collapsed yet).
Therefore, with the return of "Longing for Love 2", this review of mine will first add a layer of rational discussion buff. I hope that all fans of the drama, CP fans and celebrity fans will make money in harmony and love each other instead of fighting.
Poster of "Longing 2"
After watching four episodes, to be honest, I have given up my expectations for the political plot of this sequel. The familiar formula of playing badly: political struggles rely on marriage and concubines, and the peace of the court relies on the villain's voluntary resignation. And what about the drama structure? There is no structure, and each episode is loose. I am afraid that even if GPT is used to edit the film, it will not be able to draw a plot line with decent logic and coherence.
So, is the opening of a drama attractive enough? The answer is of course no. Compared with "Joy of Life 2", which is also the second part, at least Wang Juan gave a serious opening of a new drama: giving enough new suspense and crisis of the protagonist, which whetted the audience's appetite and made them want to watch. The opening of the new drama of "Longing 2" is episode 40 (the first part has 39 episodes).
The popularity value of "Longing 2" on Tencent on the first day exceeded 28,000, exceeding the first-day popularity value of the first part.
But objectively speaking, "Longing 2" is still a special drama with extremely long strengths and extremely short weaknesses. Its strengths are the extremely tense script writing, actor performances, and atmosphere in the emotional scenes, and its weaknesses are everything else. I would like to call it an "immersive ancient idol drama", which is the first to "make dramas based on the idea of love travel".
The so-called "immersive ancient idol drama" is nothing more than family and country feelings, court struggles, power struggles, and palace intrigues. If you can't do it, it's better not to do it. Everything is clearly a backdrop for love. This is rare in the ancient idol drama market in recent years.
The comments on the political marriage of Xuanxuan: "His marriage is like visiting a grave, and visiting a grave is like getting married."
In recent years, the platform has reduced costs and increased efficiency, and the careful calculation of living has been applied to the genre track. If a main genre is not superimposed with five, six, seven or eight sub-genres, it cannot be considered cost-effective. This is why there is "Gu Gui + N". The so-called "Gu Gui + N" means that Gu Gui dramas must pull multiple elements, such as family and country feelings, court struggles, and at the very least, suspense detective stories and business war counterattacks. The most basic thing is that there must be "revenge", "rebirth" and "face-changing" to attract attention, right? Look at the next door "Du Hua Nian", the rebirth of one person is not enough to watch, and "three people's rebirth" must be given enough appearance. Even so, some "baby power struggles" must be arranged, otherwise the "big heroine S+" flavor of the heroine cannot be reflected.
As for the ancient idol drama, the most important thing is the emotional drama, and other types of elements are just icing on the cake. The basis of the stunt is still the emotional drama. If the emotional drama of the ancient idol drama is poor, but you still force it to be "ancient idol + N", it's like when I was a child, I would spin a pen in class. When the top student spun the pen, the head teacher would be pleased that "the child learns easily", but when he saw me spinning the pen, he would only say: "Hey! You are not doing your job properly!"
"Longing" doesn't deal with those things, such as family and country feelings, power struggles, and palace fighting. Everything is just a background for love. The whole wilderness is just a part of the play of those four people. What you want is an immersive love story between the protagonists, and you immerse yourself in CP. Don't think about anything else. So what is the creative idea? This is the creative idea of the love game.
The heroine's quote poster of "Longing 2"
In my opinion, in the past, the so-called male drama had "I'm Surrounded by Beauties" and the female drama had "Love and Producer"; now, "Longing" has realized the love game experience of a long drama in the form of a traditional TV series: the three male protagonists are not only handsome, but also have distinct personalities, detailed histories, and different personalities. The three emotional lines with the female protagonists have achieved completely different emotional patterns, character relationships, main contradictions, love details, heart-warming memories, and CP experiences. Isn't this a love game operation?
This kind of creative thinking was very well used in last year's "Longing". The first-day popularity poster at that time featured the heroine and her CPs.
In the past, there were emotional scenes with the heroine dragging two or three people, but usually the roles were clearly divided into the main and supporting roles. When the screenwriter was writing, the "main CP" and "sub-CP" would be clearly defined. The main CP not only had to have a large role to depict the development of their relationship, but also had the task of leading the main plot in addition to the emotional line; while the sub-CP was limited to the role, usually using "highlights" and "famous scenes" to complete the establishment of role labels and character relationships in limited roles, leaving an impression in the minds of the audience, and the story development and character changes of the main and sub-CP characters must be unified in the overall plot task.
For example, in "Do You Know?", the main storyline follows the male and female protagonists' struggles in the palace, while the actions of the second male protagonist, the young master, basically always develop and change along this line, creating crises, hindering or helping the male and female protagonists, etc. Love game creation also divides the roles into primary and secondary roles, but each playable character basically has its own separate story line and action line, exclusive scenes, triggerable tasks, etc., which means that each character is a copy. This approach allows each playable character to have its own complete character changes and emotional development space, with enough details to be presented, leaving enough private love space with the players and the possibility of drama for fermentation of heartbeat memories.
The way the love line of "Chang Xiang Si" is written is closer to the writing style of a love game. Each character is filled with details and almost given enough treatment as the "male protagonist". They all have enough space to talk about love with the female protagonist. Moreover, in general idol dramas, even if the female protagonist has many suitors, she only has her heart in one person. However, in "Chang Xiang Si" it is the opposite. It is precisely because the play gives enough ambiguous space to the "one woman and three men" that each CP in the play is "good to eat", and there are bloody storms on the Internet among the CP parties.
The problems that come with this writing style are also obvious. The dramatic capacity of a play is limited, so it is important for the screenwriter to "grasp the big and let go of the small" and clarify the dramatic structure. "Longing" focuses too much on the extreme delicacy of emotional drama (it is rare to see a play that misses one or two micro-expressions of the male and female protagonists in a single scene, which will reduce the "darkness"), resulting in insufficient writing space for the story line and character growth except for emotional drama.
For example, this four-person play is an extreme tug-of-war between the two characters. A joke reveals Xiaoyao's attitude, Tushan Jing suddenly loses his temper, and Xiangliu's eyes change, all of which are very good.
There is also the scene where Grandpa is urging her to get married. Xiaoyao asks and the rhythm of Xuanxuan's answer makes the audience gasp. Grandpa: I see through it but I don't say it.
So now looking back, why was the first episode of "Longing" slow but still able to retain most of the audience, because Xiaoliu's life experience is a big suspense in the plot line, and the audience is looking forward to when the brother and sister will recognize each other; and why did some viewers start to complain about being driven away in the latter part, because apart from love, the personal growth and changes of several characters have stagnated, and almost no longer give the audience anything to look forward to. These problems will only be further concentrated in "Longing 2".
Let me reiterate my point of view. The story of "Longing" is a complete tragedy. What makes this tragedy better than other ancient idol dramas is that it is not a tragedy artificially created by screenwriters such as amnesia or terminal illness, but a tragedy with a high degree of unity between the character's personality and fate.
For example, Xiangliu's tragedy is apparently the conflict between his loyalty to Hong Jiang and his feelings for the heroine, but this conflict is not unsolvable. However, his paranoid and sentimental character makes him destined to be trapped in it.
Only when he heard that he was with the person he loved, Xiangliu, who usually didn't show his true feelings, showed a little bit of real emotion.
The emotional tragedy of Xuanxuan is a classic conflict between the path to becoming an emperor and personal emotions, but it is not unsolvable, because the starting point of his path to becoming an emperor is emotion, but he loses emotion in the process. The main problem lies in his self-willed and ambitious character.
On the wedding night, Xuan Xuan abandoned his bride and looked at the swing alone, reminiscing about the past. Wasn't this a torture to another woman?
The heroine's tragedy is caused by a whole set of perfectly matched tragic history and emotional experiences. Her caution, pessimism, worries and excessive rationality correspond to her every emotional choice.
Xiaoyao, who was used to disguising herself with a strong appearance, couldn't even understand why her defense was broken.
Tushan Jing should have the last laugh in "Longing 2". I think this character is very meaningful as a sample and benchmark in the ancient idol genre. When ancient idol projects still emphasize the male protagonist's "dominant boss feeling", "su feeling" and "high position feeling", Tushan Jing, as a character, should be pitiful, act coquettishly, and open his mouth when necessary. He established a school with the pitiful image of "male Daji" and "little wife". Ten years later, if the track of "virtuous and virtuous love-brained men" is carried forward in ancient idols, then Tushan Jing can be regarded as a master. How can this not be considered a kind of character that determines destiny?
Compared to Tu Shanjing, who is now unable to express his love, many viewers, like Xiaoyao, miss Ye Shiqi in Qingshui Town more.
Can the success of "Longing" be replicated? Personally, I think it is unlikely. For a project with a purely sloppy plot line and relying entirely on emotional drama, if any link from writing to directing to acting to editing is off, it will be a tragedy. To be honest, can you imagine some directors who always shoot "death shots" shooting this project, or changing a few actors to play this project? Tong Hua and her bestie's absolute control over every aspect of this project, the almost paranoid meticulousness of the female director Qin Zhen, and the full commitment of the actors make the success of the drama only an accident, rather than a normal state that conforms to the laws of industry and the market.
Even so, if nothing unexpected happens, I will still finish watching the second season, because I really want to immerse myself in learning Sister Tong Hua's way of writing emotional scenes this summer, and indulge in the epic be scene of a Chinese ancient puppet drama: Let all the rain fall.
