Stills of “Acquaintance with Jun”
“Minority Party” members Bobo, Kelp, Erqiu, Carp in this issue
Recently, the ancient costume fairy tale “Acquaintance with Jun Chu” starring Di Ali Gerba and Ren Jialun is on the air. At first glance, this drama still continues the old routine of big heroine + sadomasochism in domestic Xianxia dramas in recent years. Director Zhu Ruibin is quite confident in “Acquaintance with Jun Chu”. He said that “the most touching thing is emotion” in this drama.
Why are the love routines in Xianxia dramas so popular? What other settings are flawed in the drama? Is it a decline from “Martial Arts” to “Xianxia”? Around these issues, Bobo, a senior fan of the Xianxia drama, Carp, a martial arts enthusiast, and the ancient costume drama Pure Passer Kelp and Erqiu chatted.
Can’t tell the difference between “Xianxia” and “Xianlian”
Why are love routines so popular?
Li: Why do all the domestic Xianxia dramas regard falling in love as the main selling point? Many years ago, the “Legend of Sword and Fairy” series and “Gu Jian Qi Tan” series were not so “sour”.
Hai: Zhu Ruibin, the director of “Acquaintance with Jun Chu”, is right. The most moving element of the current Xianxia dramas must be feelings. Except for feelings, the current Xianxia dramas have almost nothing.
Bo: This is quite correct. Their worldviews are similar, and they often include “four seas and eight wastes”, “rule the three worlds”, and “three lives and three worlds”.
Hai: The “inflation” of the time scale in the Xianxia drama is very serious. Three lives and three lives are not enough now, it takes ten lives and ten lives. Those tens of thousands of years old immortals in the play do nothing but fall in love. Every time I see this kind of plot, it is very popular.
Bo: It’s not enough to see only immortals falling in love. Immortals, demons, and people have to talk together. Now there are some more magical creatures, such as “merman” and “nine-tailed fox”. Every Xianxia drama begins with a scribbled explanation of the worldview at the beginning, and immediately begins to fall in love.
Carp: It’s not difficult to understand. Most of Xianxia dramas are adapted from Internet IPs. Most of the Internet texts suitable for film and television presentation are female novels, and the main theme of most female novels is to fall in love, ancient, modern, urban, workplace… no matter what. What type, change the soup but not the medicine.
Ball: Love is more eye-catching than special effects. Now Xianxia dramas generally let the protagonist go from being a pure, kind and weak fairy all the way to fighting monsters and upgrading to a hero who can lead the world, and by the way arrange a few romances on the way of his growth. This is a very classic “hobo novel” model in literature.
Bo: Yes, even if the female protagonists have low skills in the beginning, they always have noble bloodlines, such as “Daughter of the Emperor of Heaven” and “Descendants of Nuwa”, etc. The road to becoming stronger is the road to awakening their bloodlines.
Hai: Some people feel that the setting of the male and female protagonists in “Acquaintance with Jun Chu” is innovative. There is a gender switch in the play. At the beginning, the person who is ignorant is male, and the person who is strong is female.
Ball: Since ancient times, deep feelings cannot be retained, only routines win people’s hearts. No matter how the world changes, the “dog blood” plot is always just needed. Now Xianxia dramas are “destocking”. The currently broadcast Xianxia dramas are adapted from IP many years ago, and their values are already behind the times. Newly created Xianxia dramas may not necessarily follow these routines.
Bo: Some routines in modern dramas will be considered “dog-blood”, but if they are placed in a field that is detached from reality and completely empty like the world of immortals, everyone can accept it. For example, in “Sweet honey sinks like frost”, the heroine was planted with a “meteor pill” that cut off love and emotion, resulting in a delay in being able to show affection for the man. This setting is very “dog-blooded” in modern dramas. ”, but not in the Xianxia drama.
Li: The popularity of routines is also related to the audience. The audience of many Xianxia dramas are married women. Compared with the more advanced concept of marriage and love, they may prefer to watch the unconditional love of the male protagonist for the female protagonist. What’s more, real life is already very energy-intensive. Many people watch dramas to vent their emotions and relieve fatigue. Since the love in Xianxia dramas can already make people feel good, what truth and depth of thought are they pursuing?
Ball: People need a fantasy space, and sometimes they need to seek emotional shelter in Xianxia dramas. However, Xianxia dramas have not completely escaped the ethical framework of the real world. Their values need to keep pace with the times, and it is impossible to blindly use overhead elements to arrange the storyline.
Bo: For me, watching Xianxia dramas is like entering a game. It’s good to go directly to the plot. You don’t have to think too much about it. I like the routine and labelled character settings. But to reflect the complexity of human nature in them, I really do not understand.
Carp: Don’t you get tired of watching too much?
Bo: Yes, so there are not many Xianxia dramas that I really like. Before I choose a drama, I will first look at the actors. The script of “Chen Xiyuan” is quite sloppy, like a mess of various fairy tale drama routines, but the acting skills of Zhang Zhen and Ni Ni have supported it. I was happy to see it. Now that the audience has so many choices, it is still very important to identify with the actors of the male and female protagonists.
“Legend of Sword and Fairy” poster
Empty concept, love dragging big words
The fantasy setting is just a form
Li: There are still many flaws in the setting of Xianxia drama. In addition to the infinite “inflation” of time, the space in the Xianxia drama is also “collapsed” infinitely. The main location of the first few episodes of “Meet Junchu” is “Valley of Thousand Flowers”. I don’t know, there is still a world of rivers and lakes composed of “Shaolin”, “Wudang” and “Beggar Gang” in martial arts dramas. Can’t the vision of Xianxia dramas be bigger?
Hai: I am the exact opposite of you. The reason why I can read “Acquaintance with Jun Chu” is that it has very few scenes. I can only understand if the story is limited to a local scope. Bahuang, I can’t make it through the first episode.
Bo: These flaws are still related to the IP of web texts. When it comes to online texts in ancient costume romance, many authors will write about some ancient occupations, such as zhuangzuo, which requires some professional knowledge, but most of the authors of online texts are amateurs, maybe their writing is good, and they also have abundant inspiration for feelings, but Lack of professional knowledge can only write about love. Whether it is an empty concept of “four seas and eight wastes” or the “collapse” of the world of Xianxia, it actually reflects the professional level of the author of the online article. Love online articles are the least technically valuable, and how high can the remakes be? go?
Li: That’s right, but I can’t leave all the blame to the female novels. The most classic Xianxia drama “The Legend of Sword and Fairy” is a drama transformed from the martial arts RPG game of the same name, which can be said to be very “male frequency”. Even though “Legend of Sword and Fairy” has complicated settings, the routines are not necessarily high-end. There is a chain of contempt about Xianxia dramas on the Internet. The status of male Xianxia dramas is much higher than that of the heroine Xianxia dramas. In fact, everyone is like a raccoon dog, and no one should look down on anyone.
Hai: Kill a chicken with a bull’s knife. Xianxia drama builds such a big world, and it is all over the world and people, gods and demons. In the end, they only fall in love in a small scene. Since everyone has noble blood “The Chosen Son”, why not save the world? And this kind of setting completely separates life from love. Did they grow through love? I really didn’t see it.
Qiu: You think too much. The current “Xianlian drama” has been tested by the market. This kind of drama is all to meet the emotional needs of female audiences, so love is the main line.
Bo: Yes, in Xianxia dramas, the male protagonist’s father doesn’t matter how high his status is, all of them are scumbags. Apart from the immortal setting, isn’t it a modern emotional drama?
Stills of “Three Lives Three Worlds Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms”
“Xianxia fever” routine
It might hurt the actor
Hai: “Xianxia fever” is actually an accident. On the one hand, it was because “Gu Jian Qi Tan” in 2014 directly popularized a group of young actors at that time, such as Li Yifeng and Yang Mi, and a group of artists such as Huang Zitao, Zhang Yixing, and Lu Han returned to China for development, which brought a wave of traffic. Hot; on the other hand, those years were in the era of “water injection” of domestic dramas, and capital suddenly poured into the film and television market. When people and money are combined, Xianxia dramas are equated with good resources.
However, the body movements and eye dialogue methods of ancient costume dramas are very different from modern dramas, and the requirements for actors are undoubtedly higher. Coupled with the imaginative world view of Xianxia, it is more difficult for actors to enter the play than modern dramas. Why do the little fresh meat pick such hard bones to gnaw?
Bo: The first challenge of the “Big Heroine” drama is the heroine’s acting skills. The requirements for the male actors are not so high, as long as the body is tall and straight, the face is expressionless, and the voice is magnetic. Moreover, the ultimate test of Xianxia dramas is the director. For example, Lin Yufen, the director of “Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms”, can express all her fantasies about love in the drama, and can make the feeling of a smart little sweet drama.
Li: But now many actors with aura are always spinning in the stereotyped Xianxia drama, which may not be particularly beneficial to their personal development. For example, Yang Zi is suitable for a flexible heroine, but if she plays such a role in every play, it will be a drain on the actor’s aura and reputation.
Ball: Yes. Li Yifeng only turned around with the realistic drama “Secret and Great” the year before, and he is about to move closer to the acting school. This year’s Xianxia drama “Mirror Twin Cities” suddenly brought his reputation back to its original shape.
Hai: Our current Xianxia dramas have all been made into costume idol dramas, which is a big problem.
A few years ago, there were also “Flower Thousand Bone”, “Fragrant Honey Falls Like Frost”, and “Three Lives Three Worlds Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms”, but after 2021 there will be no hits. In addition to the various Tucao videos that can be found on station B, there are hardly any positive comments. So far this year, the two fairy tales “Mirror Twin Cities” and “Acquaintance with Jun Chu” have been broadcast. The former has a Douban score of only 3.9, and the latter is often on hot searches, but so far, Douban has not scored. It can be seen that the audience still has a little aesthetic fatigue for this “fairy love drama”.
Li: Speaking of too few genres, a number of ancient costume dramas such as “The Rumored Chen Qianqian” have risen in recent years. The actors of this type of costume drama are not high in popularity and investment is not large, but there are some Points can attract audiences, but they can be small and big. Xianxia dramas have to spend a lot of money to do special effects, but the effect is really a thousand dramas. For example, after “Three Lives, Three Lives and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms”, Taohualin has become a must-have item for every Xianxia drama.
Ball: Bamboo forests, peach blossoms and these elements can reflect the artistic conception and atmosphere of “everything in words and endless meaning” to a certain extent. Sometimes, Xianxia dramas are more like an expression of oriental culture. Domestic Xianxia dramas often “go to sea” now, and the fairy tales and scene arrangements in them can satisfy foreigners’ imaginations of the eastern world.
Hai: I can understand. But as a Chinese audience, I think that Xianxia dramas are a bit intangible now, and their borrowing of traditional Chinese culture is still too sloppy. Even borrowing the names of “nine-tailed fox” and “merman” is a mere form. The behavioral motives of the characters in the play are very modern and have nothing to do with traditional Chinese culture.
“Wuxia” to “Xianxia” is a decline?
Seriously, they have nothing to do with origin
Ball: The martial arts drama is about the growth history of “grassroots” characters. In the martial arts world, “xia” and “grassroots” are synonyms. For example, “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” tells the story of Guo Jing’s growth from an ordinary person to a “chivalrous man” who serves the country and the people. We can see our own shadow from him and be touched.
But in the current Xianxia dramas, the spirit of “Xia” has disappeared without a trace, people are abstracted, and replaced by “Son of Heaven” with noble blood, each character is created around love , we and their psychological distance is too large, it is difficult to empathize. From “Martial Arts” to “Xianxia”, it is more like a mental decline.
Li: “Xianxia” and “Martial Arts” are not the same concept, nor have any origins. “Martial arts” can be traced in traditional Chinese culture, such as “Assassin’s Biography” and the style of rangers in the Western Han Dynasty, and other martial arts schools such as Shaolin and Wudang; “Xianxia” is more like a fairy tale and a lot of “magic” The category of “biological” collage has no real basis in itself, and has no inherent compatibility with traditional culture.
Many of the criticisms against Xianxia dramas are actually looking at the new type of Xianxia dramas from the viewpoint of a traditional martial arts drama, which is actually debatable. In any case, Xianxia drama is undoubtedly a subcategory of costume drama, and the “Xianlian drama” with big heroine + sadomasochism can also be considered to enrich the subdivision of Xianxia drama. Isn’t it refreshing to be born?
Bo: Xianxia dramas can’t be hot forever. If there are fewer and fewer people who love to watch Xianxia dramas, and continuing to do a low-cost theme will outweigh the gains, maybe in a few years, the current Xianxia dramas will return to the ordinary type of falling in love with “five hair special effects”. state of the play.
Li: It may be better for Xianxia dramas to focus on the element of “xia”. The word “Xia” contains not only fighting and killing, pleasure and revenge, but also reflects the high and vigorous spirit of human beings. Compared with simple scene special effects, it can undoubtedly express China’s cultural self-confidence.
Hai: Exactly. Immortals have their troubles, and people have their troubles. The setting of the long years of tens of thousands of years has no effect on the character setting. Our Xianxia drama is still too simple to grasp the characters.
Ball: I hope that the creators of Xianxia dramas will use less routines to deceive people and focus more on character characterization and plot polishing. Even if they really want to fall in love in Xianxia dramas, they will try their best to make this relationship more brilliant. Rather than mechanical imitation, copying the Internet routines.
Editor: Wang Yu