In addition to the love of “student tyrant” and “student scum”, campus youth dramas should have a broader vision
“The Wit First Half” and “Today Is Not the Last Day” focus on growth puzzles and arouse empathy among the audience
Our reporter Jiang Fang
Because of its own topics such as “youth”, “hot blood” and “growth”, youth dramas have always been popular on domestic screens. However, when a large number of dramas flooded into the market, they fell into some patterned routines, such as the story of “student tyrant” and “student scum”, and the love that will inevitably arise between them. The two recent episodes of “The Wit First Half” and “Today Is Not the Last Day” have broken this ambiguity and opened up new horizons for the narrative of youth dramas.
“The Wit First Half” adopts the narrative from the perspective of female group portraits. It tells the story of the growth of four girls in college in the form of a unit topic in each episode. Both are among the best. “Today is not the last day” uses black humor to tell how two teenagers with mental illnesses can heal each other. The two dramas revolve around propositions such as native family and intimacy, allowing many audiences to see themselves from the characters, and empathize with them.
The realism and imperfections of the characters allow the audience to find emotional resonance
“The Wit First Half” is based on a university campus and tells the youth growth story of four girls with distinctive personalities. Sha Langlang is a school bully who looks like a tomboy. Fan Xiaoyu, a wealthy girl, looks domineering and is actually very loyal. The charming Huangfu Shumin makes video calls with her mother every night. Yang Jiaqian is an “good old man” who doesn’t want to offend anyone. Many netizens said that the details of the relationship between classmates and roommates in “Witty First Half” are quite true, which reminds people of their university life. For example, during military training, Huangfu Shumin asked Sha Langlang to help her wash her clothes; there were four girls in the dormitory but there were five WeChat groups; Sha Lang Lang secretly poked a tissue box “fight” with Fan Xiaoyu, but because the other party was in her When needed, hand over a piece of paper to get closer to each other and so on.
In the setting of characters, the producer of the show, Zhang Bo, admitted frankly that it has been carefully designed. “The personality defects of each of these four girls are very obvious, and the gradual change and growth of each person along the way is the true foundation in my opinion.” And this sense of reality and imperfection just makes the audience find emotional resonance. .
If “The Wit First Half” tells about the growth puzzles of young people before they enter society, the topic of “Today is not the last day” is even more serious, focusing on two marginalized teenagers with psychological problems. The play uses the real cases of the Ninth Procuratorate of the Supreme People’s Procuratorate (Ministry Procuratorate) as a character reference. The play involves social topics such as “native family”, “sexual assault”, “scam”, and “mental health risks”.
“Today is not the last day” less than four minutes into the start, it uses absurd means to explain the tragic life of the protagonist Michong-on the day he was born, his grandfather passed away because he was too “happy”. Immediately afterwards, Michong’s grandmother, mother, father and other relatives also passed away one after another. This kind of character is set according to the general routine, and then he may “open all the way”, but he is just an ordinary social fear otaku. Although Michong had a house to live in and had income from rent collection, when his last relative died, he lost his hope of survival. So the actor decided to jump into the river, and at this moment he met the heroine who fell into the water. Knowing is a rebellious girl who is good at scams and abductions. At a young age, she followed the bar owner Qiang Ge and her male partner Jin Jie to deceive. Unexpectedly, Jin Jie and outsiders designed drugs to cause a coma. When she woke up in the car, for protection I am inviolable, so I can only jump into the river on the bridge nearby.
It is not difficult to find that the childhood and past of the two protagonists have deep shadows in their hearts. The play is named “Today is not the last day” because every time the actor wants to end his life, he is interrupted intentionally or unintentionally by the heroine. In this way, the two teenagers who are burdened with the past will eventually heal each other. The way to stand under the sun again.
After throwing out a hot topic, you need to tell the story more closely and touchingly
For youth dramas, the presentation methods of “Witty First Half” and “Today Is Not the Last Day” are quite innovative. In terms of themes, “The Wit First Half” superimposes the characteristics of group dramas, topic dramas, and unit dramas, and uses real campus life as the cornerstone of its creation. Each episode captures some current hot spots, such as appearance anxiety, Cyber violence, graduation breakup, etc. “Today is not the last day” presents social cases in the form of a black humorous short play, which is unique in domestic works by virtue of stylized special effects, monologues and rhythms. There are only eight episodes in the show, and each episode is about 20 minutes in size. In terms of narrative style, the work uses a lot of comic-style exaggeration techniques, and presents a large number of characters’ inner psychological activities with animation special effects and protagonist monologues. As a result, the two works have won a good reputation and click-through rate, and some topical plots have also been on the hot search.
However, truly outstanding works shouldn’t just be satisfied with hitting hot spots and throwing up social topics. “Wisdom First Half” has achieved certain life scenes and details of the “reality”, but in the observation of the realistic logic of life and its spiritual value, as well as the proportion of topical plots and individual living conditions, the combination of inheritance and transformation There is still room for improvement. For example, Sharan Lang is a student who “can understand all English and take care of her martial arts life”, but she actually gave up 985 college for a high school crush, and followed boys to a 211 college. This kind of motivation is not unique in reality, but after all, it does not belong to most people’s youth, so the topic of “giving up 985 for love” is currently limited to the hot search list. The ending of this episode is warm and upward-Sharan Lang discovered that the netizen “One Piece” who had cheered him up for many years turned out to be his mother, not his crush. It’s a pity that this short, warm plot turn is a bit abrupt, in the words of netizens, “it is suspected of suddenly raising the bar.” In fact, when the plot of the plot is based on the topic, it will test the ability of the dramatist to control the direction of the character-to truly focus on the life experience and growth of the individual, the psychological motivation and behavior logic belonging to the character are required to be more reasonable.
“Today is not the last day” uses black humor to dilute the heaviness, and indeed allows the audience to see the healing side, rather than blindly immersing in the grief experienced by the protagonist. But it is undeniable that the real problem teenagers and those heavy topics in reality still need people to face and resolve with a more serious attitude.
Article source: Wen Wei Po
Author: Jiang Fang | Chief Editor: Zhang Zhuhua