The finale of “Out of Court · Blind Spot” and the first episode of “Out of Court · Drowning in Water” were launched at the same time on the evening of the 18th, and the AB units were seamlessly connected, showing a new way of playing domestic suspense dramas.
The first appearance of Unit A “Blind Spot” is only six episodes. The protagonist is Judge Lu Nan, tracking his participation in a death penalty review process. The dazzling rhythm and action scenes such as fighting and car chase bring a hearty feeling of refreshment. In the 14 episodes of “The Falling Man” in Unit B, which began, more attention was paid to the characters and a picture of the industry from the perspective of lawyer Qiao Shaoting. The AB units are neither equally divided nor of the same style, but share the two main roles of Lu Nan and Qiao Shaoting, both belonging to the “Jingang Universe” created by the screenwriter’s fingerprints. Under the umbrella of the play title “Outside the Court”, this series, with judges and lawyers as the first protagonists, moves the main battlefield of the narrative to outside the courtroom. It tells the story of two independent but also thousands of silks in the same time and space. A connected story.
Short enough, new enough, fast enough, and exciting enough, coupled with the texture of the picture created by director Zhang Li, the initial look and feel of “Outside Court · Blind Spot” is indeed amazing and refreshing. It’s not surprising that the day after the finale of Unit A, in the hot search entry of “show off 6 episodes of blind spots in one breath”, a piece of domestic suspense was praised as “the best of the year”. But once intuition is relieved from the stimulation of high-density information, reason will ask – is the “blind spot” of the play bigger?
Like a hurricane train, passing through countless scenery and carrying the audience to the truth
The story framework of “Outside Court · Blind Spot” is not complicated: Lu Nan, a criminal court judge of the Supreme People’s Court, traveled to Nanjin for a short time. When reporting his work to the chief judge in person, he was asked to help in the review of the death penalty of a murderer in a corpse case. His stay in Nanjin is limited, so this trip to find the truth is actually a 16-hour limit to solve the case. Although the six episodes are short plays or even mini-series, for 16 hours, it is not a short length. It needs to be filled with enough rich information, and also needs to use a variety of plot layout methods to make the progress of the story more exciting. .
Zhang Li, who once directed “Da Ming Dynasty 1566”, is the first time to test the waters of a short play, but his exquisite craftsmanship and neat rhythm are in the same strain as his classic works. The famous work “Chasing the Murderer in the White Night” by the screenwriter’s fingerprint is the peak work that cannot be avoided in domestic suspense dramas in recent years. Working together with the director, “Outside Court · Blind Spot” has six episodes, each episode is as short as 40 minutes and as long as an hour.
The first episode, introducing characters and throwing questions. In the murder case nine years ago, the murderer Tian Yang has already been arrested and has entered the death penalty review stage of the High Court. But the murderer always claimed that the mastermind was someone else, a woman named Li Mengqi. The strange thing is that the latter ended in an unknown as early as seven years ago, and another smuggling group leader named Chen Man had a close relationship with Tian Yang’s company. The timing of Chen Man’s sudden appearance and his plastic surgery history seem to imply that she is Li Mengqi’s incarnation. At the same time, the delicate atmosphere in the meeting room of the Public Security Bureau and the narrative of Tian Yang’s defense lawyer Ran Sen have planted the seeds of suspicion for Wu Han, the vice captain of the Criminal Police Team, in the hearts of Lu Nan and the audience. Who is Li Mengqi, where is she, whether she is really the leader of the murder case, whether there is an umbrella of smuggling groups in the police force… Questions came to the face, and the audience described it as “one episode into the soul”.
Afterwards, mouthwash, vanishing cream, BlackBerry, car keys, clues surfaced one after another; the persistent lawyer, the suspicious wife, the ruthless female leader, and the two tit-for-tat leaders of the criminal police force, the threads of the suspense maze became more and more complicated. A frame of waste footage” has the conditions to trigger “brain burn”. Various common and uncommon criminal investigation methods are also launched one by one, including but not limited to using undercover to hide from the sky, the judge and the lawyer play Li Dai Tao Zong in the air, and after the truth is revealed, they contribute to the car chase scene, etc. Beyond the main line, the constant flashbacks, hypotheses, and illusions are mixed together, the virtual and the real, and the reality that occurs linearly within 16 hours together constitute the “one-step reversal” praised by the audience.
In the frequently switched picture information and successive inversions, the process of reasoning becomes secondary. The progress of the plot is like a hurricane train, passing through countless scenery and advancing rapidly until it carries the audience and rushes towards the truth.
Between the mysteries and surprises, the strict logic is the Chuhe Hanjie
It’s just that it’s right to take fast-paced and brain-burning as the highest standard for evaluating suspense dramas? If those ingenious designs are contrary to the logic of characters and stories, can the brain-burning in the process of solving puzzles be exchanged for the surprise at the end of the chapter? For the six episodes of “Out of Court, Blind Spot,” the answer may be debatable.
It must be admitted that the play favors Lu Nan and Qiao Shaoting, the two male protagonists of the AB unit. Lu Nan is also a civil and military officer, and his shrewdness is carved into his bones. Wen, he can detect clues that were ignored by the punishment teams in the two places, and he can also conclude that the trump card has been leaked based on the other party’s three questions and his own 0.5 second hesitation, and he can also catch the case file in the interval of 16 hours of running around. The important information in the book, Qiao Shaoyan’s file elements; Wu, the flashback scene at the beginning of each episode spells out the history of him as a retired non-commissioned officer who can fight one against three, and after the truth is revealed, he fully renders the image of his car god. . Looking at Qiao Shaoting again, although he is the male protagonist of “Out of Court: Drowning in the Water”, in the blind spot unit, his highlight moment was arranged early. The first time he dealt with the Jinnan Criminal Police Team, he was able to cooperate seamlessly with the monitoring police officers under the eyes of the devil. Not to mention, the unrehearsed dialogue between him and Lu Nan, the words are high-energy, and the sentences point to the sound beyond the strings.
Compared with the dazzling protagonists of Lu Nan and Qiao Shaoting, the supporting roles such as Wu Han and Qiao Shaoyan deviate from the logic of the characters themselves to varying degrees. Wu Han’s judgment is erratic. She can control Chen Man effectively and lead the team to make contributions, but she is also at an important juncture in arresting Ran Sen, which indirectly leads to Jiang Xiao’s murder. The indication of such fluctuations is only to match Lunan or set off Lunan. Qiao Shaoyan was magnified by the emotional side of the character. She was too cold in handling the case, but she showed grief in front of everyone when she learned that Li Mengqi had passed away. It is hard to imagine that such a political commissar of the Criminal Police Force who often shows his emotions is a person who has completed two years of undercover missions.
What’s more intriguing is the logic of the story. If the high-density rhythm and amount of information in the process of real-time chasing dramas cover up logical loopholes, then when the plot is reviewed, the fog dissipates, and there are many mistakes. As small as the purpose of the key that Ran Sen put on the police car at the last moment, as large as the “female” suspect in the eyewitness account of the dismemberment case nine years ago, the play leaves too many unsolved mysteries. This makes Qiao Shaoyan look far-fetched and deliberate, despite the correct procedures, and investigates the case privately; it also makes Chen Man’s role appear superfluous when the main line is still foggy.
Unit A of “Out of Court” is named “Blind Spot”. The play gives echoes of at least two layers of “blind spots”. The traffic accident in the prologue begins with the blind spot at the angle of the rearview mirror, and it finally becomes Lunan’s enemy. The local criminal police’s blind spot for his identity information cognition. Unfortunately, for a play whose core is suspense, when there is a flaw in the logic, no matter how many forms of innovation, it may fall into the suspicion of dazzling skills. Between the mysteries and surprises, the strict logic is the realm of Chu and Han. The logical reasoning that cannot stand scrutiny is after all a “derailment” of the suspense train. (Text/Reporter Wang Yan)
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责编：张晓荣 ]