On the evening of February 6, the TV series "The Case of Tang Di Gong" was launched on Youku for 4 episodes, officially opening the premiere mode. After the episode was broadcast, a large number of bad reviews appeared on Douban, almost all of which criticized the point of "Monday is greasy". Personally, I don't think it matters if it's greasy or not. What really matters is that the plot of this TV series is typical of Western narratives and lacks the true cultural heritage of China. As a suspense drama, many of the twists in the work seem stiff and unreasonable, making it a farce that is intricate and cannot be justified.
Monday looks a little greasy on the outside. As an actor, he does have solid acting skills, or rather, he was born with a shrewd and slippery temperament. Therefore, many viewers do not like his image very much. Zhou Yiwei is good at playing tricky roles, but this time he wants to challenge the role of Di Renjie who is Ding is Ding and Mao is Mao. Since the role itself does not match Zhou Zhouwei's slippery temperament, he faces certain challenges.
The character of Di Renjie insists on asking the truth and upholding the principle of justice in the play. However, the actor's comical temperament on Zhou Yiwei seems too flamboyant and incompatible with the image of shaping firm beliefs. This mismatch of appearances has sparked criticism from the audience for Zhou Zhouwei's greasy performance, which is also understandable. However, I don't agree that Zhou Yiwei has no acting skills, he just hasn't met a role that can highlight his temperament.
It is actually obvious who has the worst performance in "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty", that is Ling Zi. There are no highlights in her role in the play, and her acting skills are quite average. This is not the first time that Ling Zi has dragged his feet in a TV series. In "Loading the Stage", the audience complained because of her acting skills, thinking that her role was not interesting. And in "Happy Parents Group", Ling Zi once again played a boring role.
In the TV series "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty", the problem raised by Ling Zi is that he cannot find a reason for the character's existence. He believes that in this drama, Di Renjie was given a male and a female bodyguard, but what is the point of doing this? Because in the play, Di Renjie showed very superb fighting ability from the beginning, obviously better than the bodyguards. In the 4 episodes so far, it is difficult to see the necessity of the existence of these two bodyguards. Therefore, Ling Zi was quite troubled by this.
Di Renjie was portrayed as an image of both civil and military, and this setting was the biggest failure in "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty". The protagonist's ability to be both literate and martial means that he has no weaknesses, and the absence of weaknesses makes the audience take for granted how he overcomes difficulties. This is the most taboo in screenwriting. If the protagonist can cope with it no matter what, the audience will not be able to feel the danger that the protagonist is facing, resulting in the TV series not being able to attract viewers to keep following the show.
Therefore, in costume dramas, many TV dramas involved in the case set up that the male protagonist is good at writing and not good at martial arts, and he is often in danger and needs a strong martial arts helper to protect him. It's only when the protagonist is in constant danger that the audience gets nervous. If the protagonist's martial arts are too strong, the audience will not worry about him. The plot unknownness of the story is the most critical. And if the actor is good at martial arts, ordinary people can't match him, which will lead to the lack of plot uncertainty in this TV series, thus losing the story.
The story of this TV series is derived from a Western narrative. It is based on the popular ** of a Western **, and the **** is really just using the story of the Tang Dynasty to attract Western readers. In short, the ** of "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty" still has Western characteristics in essence. As a TV series produced in the East, if the Western characteristics are retained in the adaptation, it will make it difficult for the whole TV series to gain a foothold in front of the Eastern audience.
I can illustrate this with two examples. First of all, Taiwei held the pines and cypresses that were struck by lightning to show off on the streets of Chang'an City to show the people, and then Di Renjie appeared and made a bet with Taiwei. This is actually a typical Western narrative, or more precisely, a narrative with the characteristics of ancient Greece. The author of the original work of "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty" imagined Chang'an of the Tang Dynasty as the ancient Greek city-state he was familiar with.
The ancient Greek city-states were known for their principle of universal deliberation, but not all citizens had the right to participate in decision-making, but only some. This point is mentioned in many philosophical works, so I will not go into details, but you can read it on your own if you are interested. Since the ancient Greek city-states practiced the principle of national deliberation, the "taiwei" (*) would take to the streets if they needed to manipulate public opinion when problems arose.
The "Case of the Tang Di Gong", created by the Chinese themselves, actually staged a scene of the Taiwei selling on the street, which is purely a disregard for knowledge and Chinese history. In Chang'an City, ordinary people simply do not have the right to participate in the "national deliberations", so what is the point of them seeing such a performance? Logically, this scene makes no sense. Therefore, it is crucial for screenwriters to read more books.
The same is true for the second example. Wu Zetian and Taiwei confronted each other there, but in fact, they were just staging a drama, and there was a group of onlookers around them. It's almost like treating Chang'an as an ancient Greek city-state. Real Chinese history tells us that the people of Chang'an City did not have much influence, and the affairs in the palace were resolved by the palace itself. Therefore, the emperor, empress, and eunuchs did not need to perform a drama in front of the common people. This kind of large-scale performance is more in line with the Western narrative tradition.
The fifth episode of this TV series mentions the irrationality of the plot twist. In the first four episodes, the most typical irrationality is that the investigation relies on accidental events, and the crime is illogical. The first thing to say is that the investigation of cases relies on fortuitous events. An important turning point in Di Renjie's investigation of the case occurs when Ling Zi's petty thief character enters the imperial court's internal archives and inadvertently steals something, which he uses to help Di Renjie find clues (false clues).
Seeing the turn of this case, I believe many viewers will laugh. In TV drama narratives, plausibility is far more important than coincidence, and this is a commonplace fact. Anyone trained as a screenwriter knows that in the creation of a TV series, one should not use coincidence, but rather pursue necessity.
It's hilarious to rely on fictional facts to commit crimes. In the first four episodes of "The Case of Tang Di Gong", what is the most striking suspense? That's why Qinglou suddenly **. Do you know how this TV series unravels this mystery? It is said that the character played by Zhang Jiayi put "that stone" into the male host's wine jug. Why do I use the word "that"? Because in the TV series, the word is described as "one fire on the left and two fires on the right". What is the word?
If you are interested, you can try to check it to see if this word is included in modern Chinese dictionaries and ancient Chinese dictionaries. The two dictionaries I have at home may not be comprehensive enough, so I haven't found this word for the time being. Even after trying many handwriting methods on the Internet, I still couldn't find this word. Therefore, I suspect that this word may be a new word coined by the screenwriter and director of "The Case of Di Gong of the Tang Dynasty".
If this is the case, should the TV series be taken down and revised? The creation of Chinese characters cannot be fabricated at will, which is the basic common sense of TV drama creation. If it is really a self-created word, then the so-called "what stone" is obviously also a fictitious product. To commit a crime with a non-existent stone is simply nonsense.
Therefore, I think that although the star lineup of the TV series "The Case of Tang Di Gong" is strong, the quality is very poor, resulting in a large number of bad reviews on Douban, which is also a predictable result.