“Continuation” The fate of the protagonist in the big era is ups and downs, and the ratings have continued to rise since the broadcast
“The Road of Life” ended, and the word-of-mouth ratings doubled
■Our reporter Zhang Yi
On the evening of April 10th and 11th, the “Shanghai Produced” TV series “The Road to Life” ended on iQiyi and CCTV. Since its inception, the show’s ratings have continued to rise, which can be described as a double harvest of word-of-mouth ratings. According to China Audiovisual Big Data, the ratings of “The Road to Life” exceeded 2.5% for several days, ranking first in the ratings list of prime-time TV dramas. The popularity of the webcasting platform is also considerable. According to the data of Maoyan Professional Edition, as of press time, the show has been ranked first in iQiyi’s popularity list for many days.
“The Road to Life” is based on the classic literary work “Life” that became famous by Lu Yao, and “continues” the ups and downs of the protagonists in Gao Jialin, Liu Qiaozhen and other books in the great era. The film and television works drove the sales of the original novels. On Dangdang, JD.com, Amazon and other platforms, the novel “Life” entered the best-seller list.
After more than 40 years, when Lu Yao’s “Life” is brought to the screen again, the primary problem faced by the creators is how to organically combine the thick classic core with the galloping context of the times. Screenwriter Hong Jinghui said that Shanghai is the forefront of reform and opening up. As a native Shanghai screenwriter, “continuing” the story of Gao Jialin in “Life”, the stage naturally chose Shanghai. In the play, Gao Jialin develops from the countryside to Shanghai to become an excellent reporter and novelist. The growth of this character is inseparable from the influence of the city of Shanghai. “After the plot entered Shanghai, the ratings rose, and there were a lot of ‘tap water’ on the Internet, which also proved that the continuation of the Shanghai chapter was successful.” She revealed that the supporting roles in the play, such as the grandma of the Fu family, were all from people in her memory , including the gift of real estate by the elderly to Qiaozhen was also inspired by a real event in Shanghai in 2011.
“Although the road to creation is bumpy and tortuous, we feel that only in this way can we answer the question that Lu Yao was asked repeatedly for this era, that is, ‘What happened to Gao Jialin’. Standing in the perspective of the era, it is the era I am continuing to write this work with a strong penetrating power of time and space.” Wei Wei said that the core proposition of “Life” is the growth of young people, and the TV series hopes to resonate with contemporary young people at the same frequency. “The script has been adapted no less than 20 times. More than 100,000 words, the main creative team strives to inherit the spirit of Lu Yao’s literature and the spirit of the characters in the novel. It must be accepted by middle-aged and elderly audiences, and it must also attract contemporary young audiences.”
There is one most important principle in the adaptation of classic masterpieces, which is to follow the spirit of the original. “We stand on the shoulders of giants and use the adaptation method of continuing the context. All the successes, Lu Yao’s original work is the ‘1’ in the front, and we are the ‘0’ in the back.” Hong Jinghui believes that “The Road to Life” “‘s success is inseparable from the shaping of the protagonist “Gao Jialin”, “He is not a flat character, but a protagonist with flaws, an ordinary person. Gao Jialin’s struggle and unwillingness in the TV series, The resistance to fate was given to him by Lu Yao’s novels, and we just continued writing.”
The TV series will usher in the finale, Hong Jinghui is very emotional. “Netizens are talking about ‘everyone scolds Gao Jialin, everyone is Gao Jialin’; in the process of finding actors for the project, there is also concern that ‘playing Gao Jialin will be scolded’. Such a man who is destined to be scolded One can imagine how difficult it is to find a first-line actor.” She described Gao Jialin as an unflattering character with complexities and obvious shortcomings. , understand the characters, and really like Lu Yao’s original works.”
(Source: Jiefang Daily)
(Editors in charge: Yan Yuan, Xuan Zhaoqiang)
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