Recently, Tencent X Theater launched a new suspense criminal investigation drama "Black Soil Without Words". The story takes place in a quiet northeastern town, where a bizarre murder unfolds. **In the process of in-depth investigation, a period of past in the 90s spanning 15 years was gradually revealed. Does this plot look familiar? Many viewers who love suspense dramas suddenly thought of the ceiling of "Northeast Suspense" "The Long Season", and their expectations were once full. However, with the broadcast of "Black Soil Without Words", the reputation has been declining. Some netizens complained that it rubbed the popularity of "Northeast Suspense", neither arranging the suspenseful rhythm of multi-line narratives, nor telling the Northeast stories in the context of the times. 
Since it is so sought after and expected by the audience, what is the top stream in this suspense drama - "Northeast Suspense"? As the name suggests, "Northeast Suspense" tells stories that take place in the Northeast. In the 1990s, the Northeast was experiencing a change of times, with a dilapidated economy and an industrial decline, and workers who thought they could retire in factories were facing a "wave of layoffs". Abandoned factories, depressed urban and rural areas, tired people, and unpredictable people's hearts have made the small northeastern towns a hotbed of crime and a bunker for unsolved cases. 
People are forced to rewrite their fate and lose their beloved, even if they retain the unique bold humor of Northeast people, the endless depression and embarrassment are still the background color of life. The fall of the individual is intertwined with the tragedy of the times, composing a unique rhythm of "Northeast Suspense". Today I will share with you 5 high-scoring Northeast suspense dramas, let's feel the charm of "Northeast Suspense" together! 01 "The Long Season": The brightest and most "godly" TV series in 2023 is "The Long Season", with a Douban score of 94, is the highest-scoring domestic TV series in recent years. 
The story began in 2016, in a small industrial town in Northeast China called "Birch Forest", taxi driver Wang Xiang was eating lunch and waiting for his brother-in-law Gong Biao to hand over **. Gong Biao drove a "new car" to show off with Wang Xiang, and Wang Xiang found that the car had been soaked in water and the engine had been overhauled. Gong Biao was trapped. 
Unexpectedly, there were even more pitfalls, not long after the two drove on the road, they were stopped by the police and taken to the traffic police brigade. Surveillance footage shows a taxi with the same license plate number as Gong Biao's "new car" and fled after hitting someone in Tiexi. But at that time, Gong Biao was transferring the ownership of the "new car", and it was obvious that the car had a ** license plate. Because the victim of the hit is still in the hospital, the car can only be impounded. As a big brother who is good at "managing things", Wang Xiang took Gong Biao to the hospital to look for the victim, but found that the victim had pulled out the needle and ran away. The two could only continue to search, and in the process, Wang Xiang gradually suspected that this person was related to his son Wang Yang's ** eighteen years ago, so he found the retired police horse team and investigated the truth of the year together. 
As the investigation deepened, more clues surfaced. The truth of a corpse shredding case that happened eighteen years ago and a dusty past about young boys and girls are gradually revealed. "The Long Season" is another masterpiece of director Xin Shuang after the hit ** work "The Hidden Corner". The play uses three timelines of 2016, 1998, and 1997 to tell the story alternately. The director didn't deliberately mark the time, but the supernatural transitions, closely connected clues and the delicate micro-performances of the actors made the timeline switch very silky, and at the same time increased the suspense and freshness of the narrative, which made people can't help but shout "advanced". 
The Long Season also breaks the stereotype of "Northeast suspense". There is no gloomy sky, cold snow scene, or oppressive atmosphere in the play, but instead of the golden and warm late autumn scene of the small town in the northeast. 
After being crushed by the wheels of the times, even though there are regrets, grievances, and unwillingness, people still have love, expectation, and perseverance in their hearts, and spend every "long season" in their serious lives. "Look ahead, don't look back! It is a sentence echoed from the beginning to the end of the play, and it is also Director Xin Shuang's attitude towards continuous creation. Xin Shuang didn't deliberately follow certain definitions, he just wanted to keep doing new things. 
The novelty of "The Long Season" lies in the fact that the crime suspense theme is handled in a life-like way, so that the story can be integrated into people's daily life and fully mobilize the audience's emotions; It also lies in the attention to modern social issues such as the elderly who have lost their independence and the plight of women, which injects richer and more vital emotional clues into the story. The essence of the success of "The Long Season" is to tell a good story in a good way. 
With the Northeast comedy performance method of "three sentences and one stalk, five sentences and one biao" in the play, Fan Wei, Qin Hao and other old drama bones "down-to-earth" character creation, and finally created the "god" work of domestic TV series. If you feel too warm and not "hardcore" after watching "The Long Season", then the following "Northeast Suspense" criminal investigation drama, don't miss it. 02 "Undocumented Crime": The most hardcore is an ordinary Northeast town, an ordinary cold winter night, and an ordinary mink brother walks into an ordinary alley. I don't know how long it took, but a guy who drove a tricycle slowly drove into the alley. The guy saw a snowman on the side of the road, and a person was sitting behind him. Xu was worried that someone would freeze if he fell drunk on the side of the road late at night, so the guy got out of the car and came forward to check. This didn't matter, so frightened that the guy screamed, and ran away with a rolling belt. 
The man died, strangled by a skipping rope, the ends of which were tied to the snowman's "hands". The snowman has four big words on it: "Please come and catch me". * The reason why it is so arrogant is because this is already the third victim of the "Snowman" series of murders, and ** there are not enough clues so far. In order to solve the case as soon as possible, the police transferred back the detective Yan Liang, who was demoted and delegated.
Yan Liang quickly zeroed in on the suspect, his once most trusted partner, forensic doctor Luo Wen. All the clues point to Luo Wen being a snowman, but there is no direct evidence. Luo Wen trapped Yan Liang with superb technical means, but at the same time, he was also trapped by Li Fengfeng, the ** of the disappearance of his wife and daughter.
Luo Wen tracked down Li Toyota in his own way and wanted to avenge his wife and daughter, but he didn't expect to be killed. Li Toyota also destroyed the evidence and created another undocumented case. "Undocumented Crime" Douban score 80, adapted from the name of the famous suspense writer Zijin Chen**. But this is not a series that attracts with "suspense". In the first half of the plot, ** has already appeared, and the motives have been clarified early.
"Undocumented Crime" focuses on human nature, how people deal with themselves in the center of the whirlpool, how to choose right and wrong in the face of good and evil, and how to play the game of fate. In addition to the characters in the play who are highly intelligent and god-like, an ordinary supporting role also impresses me. Guo Yu, a trainee lawyer who has just graduated from college, is involved in a murder case because he wants to protect his lover. In order to exonerate himself, he accepts the help of the "snowman" to erase the evidence of the murder. But he never thought that in the game between Yan Liang and Luo Wen, he was swept deeper and deeper.
He went from a hairy boy who was not deeply involved in the world, impulsive, had a sense of justice, and wanted to protect his lover, but was gradually eaten away by the dark desires in his heart, and became an extremely selfish and ruthless "big boss". His ordinariness and his fragility have changed under the chaotic social environment. "Undocumented Crime" was filmed in Harbin, which truly restores the cold, embarrassed, depressed, and struggling life slices of "Little Paris of the East" in the gradually declining era. Some netizens once commented that some of the plots about the social atmosphere in "Undocumented Crime" are too absurd.
Immediately, a netizen who lived in Harbin in the 90s appeared and said: "There was a conflict when the bus was crowded, and the elbow was light." Often, as soon as the car stops and the door opens, the two people pull each other's hair and roll down, slipping a few meters away on the frozen ice, and the hair falls out and does not let go. "Undocumented Crime" is not only a "hardcore" suspense criminal investigation drama, but also a realistic drama that portrays the social atmosphere of the Northeast at that time. 03 "Coward": The most youthful "Coward" is adapted from Zheng Zhi's feature** "Swallow Raw", with a Douban score of 77. Its uniqueness lies in its "youth". The original work "Swallow Alive" is known as "the light of domestic suspense". From the perspective of the "second generation of the Northeast", the "foursome" of Qin Li, Huang Shu, Wang Di, and Feng Xuejiao tells the story of youth pain belonging to that era.
The title of the book, "Swallowing Raw", explains through the mouth of the protagonist: "Only suffering is treated equally, and no one is allowed to chew and swallow slowly." Suffering is a portrayal of the lives of the protagonists Qin Li and Huang Shu, and it is also the real situation of the children born in thousands of ordinary Northeast families in the difficult and confused era. Ten years ago, Huang Shu, a beautiful 17-year-old girl, died on a cold night with heavy snow. She was abandoned naked in a "ghost building", with suspicious patterns carved on her belly, and had been violated before she died.
The heavy snow obscures all clues and makes the girl's death a mystery. Ten years later, another girl's body was found in the "ghost building", also naked, with the same suspicious patterns. Feng Guojin, the criminal policeman who once handled the Huang Shu case, launched an investigation again, found Qin Li, and found that he had an inseparable relationship with these two girls. The suffering given by the times, through the parents, is imprinted on the children. Qin Li's father was a murderer, a robber, and was sentenced to death. Qin Li, who lost the pillar of his family, was not only scolded as a "murderer's son" and bullied by his classmates, but also changed from a talented boy in Olympiad mathematics to a deaf disabled person because he had no money to see a doctor.
Huang Shu's mother has mental illness and started a pyramid scheme in order to make money, and she is wanted. Huang Shu, who was fostered in her uncle's house, had to make money by dancing in bars to save money for college tuition. Exposure to the dark side of society too early laid the groundwork for Huang Shu's tragedy.
After his son was unreasonably violent, Wang Di's father accepted a settlement of 5,000 yuan from the other party and chose not to pursue it. The originally talented literary young man began to understand that money and power are the laws of social operation, and turned to associate with the rich second-generation classmates, and had a dislike for Qin Li. Later, when Qin Li was framed by the school and dropped out, he chose to become a **.
Feng Xuejiao's mother went south to do business and was good at calculation, and her father Feng Guojin was obsessed with investigating cases and didn't ask much about family affairs. The pampered Feng Xuejiao has a cowardly personality and has no opinions. At the request of her mother, as the initiator of Qin Li's frame-up, even if she felt guilty and uneasy, she never had the courage to tell the truth.
Friendship falls apart, and fate befalls once again with an unbearable weight. In order to buy hearing aids for Qin Li, Huang Shu took a money-making job and sang with the boss. As a result, he was imprisoned in the boss's private club, violated by many people, and finally died. The suspense of "Coward" is also created by a multi-line narrative. One is the warm and bright youth memories of the foursome, and the other is the gray and cold investigation and solving the case from the perspective of the police.
The repeatedly switched perspectives, the strongly contrasting fates, and the repeatedly reversed plots, until the last moment, the audience's hearts can't really land. However, when the suspense is revealed, what remains in the hearts of the audience is still the sigh of the protagonists' youthful separation, the regret of succumbing to the rules, the bravery of fighting against fate and the tragedy of fighting back against suffering. 04 "Moses on the Plains": The most literary and artistic Northeast suspense drama must be "Moses on the Plains". It was shortlisted for the drama unit of the 73rd Berlin International Film Festival, blowing the wind of suspense in the Northeast to the world.
Moses on the Plains is adapted from the eponymous ** by Shuangxuetao, one of the masterpieces that reflects the scars of the transformation of the Northeast at the end of the last century. The protagonists of the story, Zhuang Shu and Li Fei, are childhood sweethearts' neighbors, and their parents are all employees of the Qingcheng cigarette factory. The two families had a good relationship, and the children grew up together and had a carefree childhood.
Later, the state-owned enterprises were restructured, and the original employees were dismissed. Zhuang's father contracted the old factory and turned into a boss; Li's father received a severance pay and worked all day long to make a living. The fate of the individual has taken a different fork in the road in the change of the times, and the circumstances of the two families have begun to change drastically. A few months after moving out of the factory, by chance, Zhuang Shu and Li Fei met again. The two agreed to meet in a cornfield in the suburbs on Christmas Eve and set off fireworks together. But that night, Zhuang Shu didn't wait for Li Fei, and at the same time, not far from the agreed place, there was a **.
Li Fei disappeared from Zhuang Shu's life. When they met again, Zhuang Shu was the criminal police officer who investigated the ** of the year, and Li Fei was a participant in the case of that year, and lost his legs due to a car accident. The beautiful childhood and the obsession in my heart have disappeared forever under the misfortune of fate. "Moses on the Plains" was shortlisted for the Berlin Film Festival because of its literary and artistic nature.
With just 6 episodes and 420 minutes, "Moses on the Plains" is more like a super long movie. "Suspense" is just the lead in the play, and director Zhang Dalei does not use cross-narrative, but uses documentary footage to tell the present of each moment slowly. There are few suspense dramas in the play that have a tense and exciting atmosphere, slow shots, beautiful pictures, and real sets, as if you saw a quiet flow of time at the end of the last century.
There is less suspense and more literature and art, which makes the evaluation of "Moses on the Plains" polarized. Some people complain about its bland narrative and scribbled reasoning; There are also people who are amazed by its hidden emotions and lingering aftertaste. Compared with suspense dramas, "Moses on the Plains" is more like a life movie that reflects the era of change in the Northeast. The fate of the characters in the play is like the boat when Zhuang Shu and Li Fei met at the end, floating in the ** of the tide of the times, calm but implying pathos.
In the last scene, the plain cigarette box with the appearance of Xiaofei in his childhood fell on the surface of the lake, as if Li Fei dissipated with those beautiful childhood memories.
The picture is beautiful, the imagination is surging, and the great sorrow of the times echoes on the water. 05 "Meritorious Service: Old Things in the Northeast": The last recommended "Northeast Suspense" in the Northeast, with a Douban score of 74, starring Mr. Fan Wei, with the genes of Northeast comedy at first glance. "Meritorious Service: Old Things in the Northeast" released many ** as soon as it opened. In 1990, it was rumored that the Pisces River in the northeastern city had **, which attracted many people to come to pan for gold.
People from all walks of life gathered, and vicious incidents occurred frequently.
However, these strange things finally focused on the small worker Quan Liang of the security department of the thermos factory played by Mr. Fan Wei.
Lao Shang was a middle-aged "loser" of that era, his wife ran away, his relationship with his daughter was also tense, his work was ordinary, and he was obsessed with exploring alien civilizations and qigong all day long**.
In order to win the opportunity of a supernumerary temporary worker in the Public Security Bureau, he wanted to make a great contribution, so he began to track down the ** at the beginning, and was gradually involved in a series of bizarre cases. The reason why "Meritorious Service: Old Things in the Northeast" is the most northeastern is because of its comedy core. The old businessman's whimsical actions brought ridiculous results, stringing together a series of bizarre cases, and the whole drama seems to be a case-solving version of "people are embarrassed", and it is like a northeast version of "Stranger Things".
In the play, a large number of fragments of life unique to the 90s are used to build the "Beas River World". For example, qigong fever, photographing flowers (a means of abducting and selling children), lottery cars in vegetable markets, and small advertisements for "miracle doctors" on the streets. There are also station tabloid stalls selling various magazines with various celebrity scandals, bizarre murders, and emotional disputes as the titles, and various magazines covered with flowers.
Some of the bizarre stories come from them, and some come from folk tales that circulate in the Northeast. For example, Nibiru and Anunnaki, the mystery of Bermuda, the mountains of the Great Khing'an Mountains that the Japanese army did not have time to take away when they retreated, and the Fengman Hydropower Station in Jilin is still supplying power to unknown areas......
These bizarre and unverifiable stories are the common memories of children in Northeast China, making the Beas River both real and absurd, Northeast and full of fantasy. "Meritorious Service: Old Things in the Northeast" is not a standard suspense drama, not a traditional criminal investigation drama, nor a simple Northeast comedy. But you have to watch the tough guy duel, this drama has; Thriller reversal, this drama also has it; Funny and humorous, this drama is still there.
In the huge plot network that has been rolled out at the beginning, light and dark are intertwined, intersecting in the development of the story, and advancing the development of the story in the intersection. There are many but not chaotic, the slightest touch, the suspenseful ending has been completed in the laughter, and the "meritorious sublimation" of the characters. 06 Written at the end, "Northeast Suspense" has always been an excellent representative of the suspense drama genre, not only because of the retrospective look back at the past era, but also because of the deep thinking about modern development. "Snow Labyrinth" supervised by Zhang Yimou is about to be broadcast, and the Northeast suspense ** "Silent Cold Night", which became popular as soon as it was launched at the end of last year, is also about to be filmed. In the future, there will be more excellent Northeast suspense stories to meet the audience, which is worth looking forward to.