“I can do so much more than just painting.” The crime suspense drama “The Hunt for Crime” is undoubtedly one of the most popular dramas in March.
Shen Yi, a simulated portrait artist played by Tan Jianci, showed various stunts such as “painting an old man at the age of three”, “skull portrait”, “painting a father according to a daughter”, etc., which kept the audience on top, but also let this special police work go away. into the public eye.
Not only does it have a vivid portrayal of unpopular occupations, but “Guild of Hunting Crime” also arouses heated discussions among netizens with its dual male protagonists, real case adaptations, and social issue discussions.
It is true that many viewers have pointed out that the series has many shortcomings, but in terms of topics and attention, it is still regarded as a leader in recent crime suspense dramas.
Without top-notch actors and IP endorsements, how did “Hunting Crime Guide” break out of the siege? Judging from the recent explosions, what are the new trends in suspense-type creation?
01
What did The Crime Hunter do right?
“Is this kind of genius real?” This is the first feeling many people have after reading “The Hunting Guide”. Restoring the face from the skull, inferring the father’s appearance according to the daughter’s appearance, and distinguishing the deity from the more than 10 fake faces after the AI face-changing, Shen Yi’s various divine operations seem to exceed the audience’s daily cognition.
There is undoubtedly an element of artistic processing in this, but such “magic detectives” do exist in the police force.
The well-known analog portraitists in the industry represented by Lin Yuhui and Zhang Xin have played an important role in the detection of major cases such as the Zhang Yingying case, the Lanzhou serial murder case, and the Southern Medical University murder case.
Lin Yuhui draws a portrait of the suspect in the Zhang Yingying case
When the screenwriter team created the character “Shen Yi”, they also referred to Luo Dong, a mock portrait artist from Xi’an Public Security Bureau. Similar to Shen Yi, Luo Dong also graduated with a major in fine arts. He is an excellent painter and has a sunny and handsome appearance.
This also made the screenwriter decide to change the stereotyped portrait of the police group in the public security drama, and created a “hunting crime group” composed of portraitist Shen Yi, captain Du Cheng, and forensic doctor He Rongyue, etc. face.
Shen Yi and Du Cheng, good brothers with very different styles but tacit understanding, have also become the “traffic password” of the series.
Focusing on the unpopular police type of portrait artist not only brings freshness and curiosity to the audience, but also makes the whole series more possibilities in terms of audio-visual style.
Combining the literary, drama, and martial arts filming of the process of “catching the murderer with a brush” and making the criminal investigation and art cross-border linkage, this type of theme innovation is the first step in the success of “Hunting Crime Guide”.
“Hunting Crime” is full of intertext between cases and world famous paintings
Not only does the identity of a portrait artist have many prototypes in reality, but the ten major cases in the drama also have real cases, such as “Dong Shanshan’s Domestic Violence Death Case”, “Lao Rongzhi Case”, “Playground Burial Case”, etc. , which provides a certain guarantee of authenticity.
Odd cases and major cases are presented in high-frequency turns in the form of units, which also caters to the audience’s demand for fast-paced and exciting suspense and detective dramas.
However, unlike the previous unit detective dramas, “The Hunt for Crimes” also conveys strong social care in addition to its own reasoning.
The ten cases in the film reflect social focus issues such as domestic violence, female appearance anxiety, school violence, empty nesters, and human trafficking.
The screenwriter team once revealed that in the selection and adaptation of cases, on the one hand, it must be forward-looking, that is, predict the social topics and hot spots when the series is broadcast in a few years.
On the other hand, it is consciously “inclined” to female audiences. Through the shaping of female images and the discussion of female issues, it has won the favor of female audiences and broadened the target audience of traditional suspense and detective dramas.
The so-called “painting sees people’s hearts”, while showing the process of reasoning and solving cases, “Pictures of Crime” also tries to arouse the audience’s psychological and emotional resonance to achieve a balance of spectacle, reality and sociality.
Granted, Crime Hunt is not perfect. Some viewers pointed out that the drama exaggerated the role of the portraitist in the criminal investigation work, the style of painting fluctuated between realism and suspension, some cases were anticlimactic, the language was vague, and the details could not stand scrutiny and other problems.
However, it is undeniable that such a small and medium-cost drama with no IP and no traffic stars can break through the siege, which has certain reference significance for the creation of domestic suspense dramas.
02
After “Hunting Crime”, how should the suspense be filmed?
From the birth of “Undocumented Crime” and “Chasing the Murderer in the White Night” to the explosion of “The Hidden Corner” and “The Silent Truth”, major platforms and producers have increased the layout of the suspense track. In the past two years, suspense dramas have been in The small screen has become a blowout trend.
Although the number has increased significantly, popular models are still rare. The “Mist Theater”, which has just launched its banner, has a weak follow-up, and the four dramas launched in 2021 are tepid and ended flat. Highly anticipated suspense dramas such as “Double Detective”, “Rebirth” and “Wolf Hunter” also failed to achieve the expected popularity.
On the contrary, at the beginning of this year, suspense dramas such as “The Beginning”, “Jiang Zhaoliang”, and “The Hunting Guide” have been realized one after another with small and broad, arousing market thinking.
It is not difficult to see from the above films that in the context of the increasingly crowded suspense track, the innovation of genres and themes has become the only way to “break out”.
“Picture of Hunting Crime” selects a group of simulated portrait artists that have not been featured in previous suspense detective dramas, and uses “portraits” to “picture” the criminal investigation process, forming a unique audio-visual style.
Similar attempts include the early “Forensic Qin Ming” series, which opened criminal cases from a forensic perspective; “Fox Hunt” and “Trident” focused on the economic investigation police, “Rivals” showed national security police officers, and “Icebreaker” depicted anti-drug police officers, etc. etc., all of which are in the category of criminal suspense, and are continuously subdivided, realizing the expansion of the themes of traditional dramas and criminal investigation dramas.
“The Beginning” is even more special, combining suspense, sci-fi, love and other types of elements in one pot, bringing the high concept of “infinite flow” to fire, and also opening the popular search mode for the whole people.
In recent years, such multi-type “suspense +” works are not uncommon, but how to balance the suspense and other elements is not easy.
“Doomed” and “Deadly Wish”, which also tried sci-fi suspense, had a mediocre reputation, and “Gold Digger” and “Wolf Hunter”, which mixed suspense and adventure action elements, also failed to make it out of the circle. In the end, it’s the story itself that’s the problem.
On the other hand, social issues and realistic care have also become standard for suspense dramas out of the circle. “The Beginning” still does not forget to involve social topics such as cyber violence and intergenerational conflicts in the almost overhead “Infinite Stream” setting, and it has caused heated discussions in the society in combination with news hotspots.
“The Silent Truth”, “Criminal Hunting Guide” and “Jiang Zhao Liming” also try to find the intersection between the suspense narrative and the realistic theme, and achieve out of the circle and break the circle through the display and discussion of social topics.
Once upon a time, suspense dramas focusing on brain-burning and reasoning were mainly “male-oriented”, but in recent years, with the increasing proportion of female audiences in the suspense genre, women are the protagonists, involving women’s topics, and paying attention to women’s plight. “Her” suspenseful works are also rising.
“Jiang Zhao Dawn” is a typical representative. It starts from an ordinary woman, how to save herself in the face of her husband’s betrayal and malice, pays attention to real dilemmas such as son preference and domestic violence, and tells a female suspense story with a realistic background.
Not only the small screen, but also the number of suspenseful works on the big screen in recent years has also been on the rise.
“Famous” integrates suspense genres, script killing elements and female topics, which refreshes the audience and successfully counterattacks, all of which provide new ideas for the creation of suspense genres.
It is not difficult to see from the above high-scoring works, stripping away the overlapping elements, they first tell a suspenseful and fascinating story.
If it is said that science fiction, adventure, love and other composite elements are “flowers”, then there must be a “brocade” of suspense in order to achieve “icing on the cake” and not put the cart before the horse.
In the future, there will also be a number of suspenseful films such as “The Last Truth”, “The Victim”, “Blade of Wandering”, “Kidnapping Game”, “The Man in a Wig”, “Night Walker”, “Gate of Rebirth”, “The Case of Zhang Gong” and “The Cloister Pavilion”. Waiting for the suspense drama to be released. Who will be the next suspenseful explosion?