After three years, "Tang Tan Universe" has finally ushered in a new chapter.
The online drama "Detective Chinatown 2" (hereinafter referred to as "Tang Detective 2") was launched on iQiyi last Thursday, and after more than half of the broadcast, the new protagonist is about to appear. Continuing the first part of the online drama, "Tang Detective 2" still adopts the form of a unit drama, with every four episodes as an independent unit.
If "Tang Detective 1" provides a sense of continuity for movie lovers, then the appearance of "Tang Detective 2" brings a lot of additional surprises on the basis of a consistent structure and style.
After the first four works, Tang Detective IP already has a very complete world view, therefore, the return of the original cast in "Tang Detective 2", the compact plot rhythm and the still gorgeous and rich audio-visual language can pull the audience back to "the days of watching Tang Detective in those years" in one second; And the addition of detective Kiko, an old friend in the Tang Detective series, opens a new story continuation and a more socially topical case.
For a "universe", continuity is always the basis for its vitality, which is why even after three years, "Tang Detective 2" still received a lot of attention and expectations when it was launched: it is rich enough to tell many more stories, but it is unified enough that the audience can have the joy of piecing together the universe in several works.
On the occasion of the launch of the series, Poison Eye chatted with the two young directors of "Tang Detective 2", Yao Wenyi and Wang Tianwei from Yitong Production, and tried to dismantle the vitality code of "Tang Detective Universe" with the show as a new sample of film and drama linkage.
In addition, "Tang Detective 2" also provides us with a new perspective for observing iQIYI's layout on the suspense track: the wind of suspense has been blowing for so many years, where will the next breaking point of the genre track be?
Every viewer who opens "Tang Detective 2" can feel a sense of familiarity.
Familiar faces are naturally the first step to lead everyone back to the "Tang Exploration Universe". Lin Mo, who ranked fourth in the Crimaster detective rankings, is back and once again plays the lead role in the first two units of the second season of "Tang Detective". In addition, Tang Ren, Qin Feng, Sasha, Ivy and others also appeared one after another, focusing on a "reunion of old friends".
In addition to the familiar lineup, "Tang Detective 2" also has new changes in casting, first of all, it has ushered in many new friends, Zhong Zhentao, Du Dewei, Yang Jinhua and other actors have joined the "Tang Detective Universe" in "Tang Detective 2". "After the new characters enter this world, they will quickly feel what the rhythm of Tang Tan is, and the Tang Tan universe is constantly absorbing more essence, which is also an interesting experience for the audience. Director Yao Wenyi mentioned.
In addition, the appearance of new protagonists also brings a new perspective to the story. In the last two units, Kiko, who has always assisted in solving crimes, and Kiko, who is fifth on the detective list, has become the protagonist.
Wang Tianwei, the director who directed Kiko's chapter, refers to Kiko as "the most familiar stranger", and although she has appeared in every previous Tang detective story, she has always played the role of "helper". In the previous works, Kiko has left the impression of some prominent labels, such as colorful hair, double ponytails and lollipops, "hacker genius" and "poisonous tongue detective", and when the story unfolds from her perspective, her background and personality traits will be more ample to show.
Although it continues the form of a unit drama, "Tang Detective 2" obviously has not given up the pursuit of story coherence. For example, Lin Mo, who showed extraordinary ability in "Tang Detective 1", showed the audience for the first time his vulnerability and helplessness as an "ordinary person" in the closed "Angel Sanatorium", and when the "superpowered" has weaknesses, he naturally has a more three-dimensional personality.
Director Yao Wenyi once directed "Tang Detective 1" and directed Lin Mo in "Tang Detective 2". For him, the feeling of this shoot is also familiar and unfamiliar.
Different from the last time he directed a single unit, this time he and Wang Tianwei were responsible for the filming of the two units, due to objective issues such as venue and time, the shooting needed to be interspersed, which was a new challenge for the entire crew and production team. "We try to put the same story together, but a lot of times it is unavoidable, and all the crew and actors have to quickly switch between the two stories in a very short period of time. ”
This feeling of "familiar and unfamiliar" is equally transmitted to the creator and the audience, and producer Chen Sicheng's summary of "Tang Detective 2" is to "seek common ground and seek differences": not only to ensure the unity of the overall style, but also to bring the audience a different feeling.
"There are many elements that are interconnected, and there is a lot of communication between us, so the overall style is very 'Tang Tan', but after all, it is a different protagonist and story, and I hope to bring the audience a different feeling." ”
When the first season of "Tang Detective" was broadcast, most people would regard it as a continuation of the movie, and it was not until the second season of "Tang Detective" came out that we could really feel the "ambition" of this IP.
It provides a new sample for us to observe the development of IP: what qualities does an IP need to have in order to become a universe?
The first is a unified worldview, style, and story core. Looking back now, the movie "Tang Detective 1" is more like the pilot film of the entire "Tang Detective Universe", starting from the second part of the movie, around the two protagonists of Tang Ren and Qin Feng, the crimaster detective ranking and the first-ranked mysterious person Q appeared one after another, symbolizing the settlement of the universe.
When describing Tang Tan's style, the two directors both mentioned the "comic sense", and "Tang Tan Universe" is based on the real world, exaggerating within a certain range, and at the same time building a new world view.
This is also the most special thing about the Tang Detective series, its stories all take place in a modern setting, but superimposed with fictional settings such as detective rankings and superpowers. When this fictional setting is solid enough, it is integrated with the real world, forming a unique "Tang Tan World" that wanders between the virtual and the real.
Unity provides the building blocks of the universe, and continuity is the core of its outward expansion. In the first season of "Tang Detective", Lin Mo, who appeared in the rankings, became the protagonist, and Kiko, as the first female detective protagonist of the "Tang Detective Universe", brought a new perspective and style to the story. This also makes the audience have more imagination of the "Tang Detective Universe": which detective will become the new protagonist in the future?
As the core of the Tang Detective series, the case itself is also continuable. The second season of "Tang Detective" adds some social elements on the basis of the familiar "Tang Detective-style inference", and also integrates live broadcasts, mobile payments and other fields that are more closely connected with reality.
In the first unit, "Angel Sanatorium", you can feel the discussion of deeper social issues and the excavation of complex human nature wrapped in visual spectacle and madhouse weirdness. Each so-called "villain" in the story has a past that is difficult to dissect, triggering the audience's thinking about good and evil, and it is also a depiction of the grayscale of human nature that a suspense drama can carry.
The hardcore brain-burning reasoning process is certainly fundamental, but on top of that, we also hope to touch on some social issues. In Yao Wenyi's eyes, "Tang Detective Universe" is an inexhaustible library of materials, detectives with different styles can bring new cases, and more aspects of society can be reflected behind the cases.
Because of this, under the framework of "Tang Tan Universe", movies and dramas are not about who continues the relationship with whom, but under the unified creative soil, each with its own focus and complements each other. The first season of "Tang Detective" perfectly connected the story lines of the three movies, and brought new characters such as Lin Mo and IVY to the movie, while the second season of "Tang Detective" was based on suspense and broadened the boundaries of the universe as much as possible.
This is also the consensus of the main creative team when creating "Tang Detective 2". Wang Tianwei said, "With the suspense of a strong plot as the core element, the movie may focus more on its family carnival and comedy attributes, and online dramas can relatively touch more new genres." ”
Whether it is the "Tang Exploration Universe", which has fully demonstrated its malleability, or the Fog Theater, which has become the head IP of domestic suspense, what is reflected behind it is iQIYI's determination to cultivate the suspense track and its consistent creative ideas.
In the past, our imagination of suspense was still stuck in criminal investigation stories and thriller plots, and since "The Hidden Corner" fired the first shot of the Fog Theater in 2020, suspense dramas have begun to have more appearances. As Wang Xiaoshuai, the director of "The Fog of the Octagonal Pavilion", said, "Suspense dramas don't have to have earth-shattering cases, nor is it the tension of ** rushing in with a knife." ”
It takes a process to train the audience to adapt to a more complex suspense story, and this process needs to be realized by more high-quality works.
It is not difficult to see from the broadcast list of "Peach Suspense" that iQiyi has been looking for a more complex suspense story. "The Hidden Corner" is a standard social reasoning, "Octagonal Pavilion Mystery Mist" explores the realizability of "family suspense", and the ancient suspense drama "Tang Dynasty Legends" integrates the history and humanities, legends and customs of the Tang Dynasty into various cases, creating a "Chinese-style suspense".
The compounding of genres has the opportunity to leverage a wider audience. Taking "Crime Hunting Guide" as an example, this suspense drama that has been screenwritten as "female-friendly" has brought a new audience to the suspense story that is "more masculine" in the traditional sense, from the aesthetic style and artistic temperament, to the shaping of female images and the attention to women's issues.
How to meet the needs of specific audiences under the increasingly layered content trend, and at the same time complete the circle of breakthroughs, and reach a wider range of audiences. This is a real problem that genre dramas, including suspense dramas, need to solve, and it is also the value that the platform can bring to the industry when it takes the lead in investing in the genre drama track.
On the basis of the superposition of genres, the suspense does not just stay on the surface, but has a thicker background. Since the "Fog Theater" has caused a wave of suspense in the industry, this genre, which was not mainstream originally, has begun to occupy the public eye, and has also triggered a lot of discussions about the nature of suspense.
The answer given by iQIYI, or the temperament that "peach suspense" presents to the audience today, is behind the audio-visual language and reversal of the bridge, the excavation of human nature, and the social issues that can trigger thinking. From the school violence and appearance anxiety involved in "Crime Hunting Guide", to the attention to marginalized groups and the ** of emerging technologies in "Tang Detective 2", the value of suspense has been proved to the market: in addition to the plot of hunting, we can also ask for more from suspense.
From a broader perspective, the development of suspense dramas over the years has carried many of our thoughts on the industry: how a single type of drama can spark national discussion in the era of integration; how to solve the scheduling, business model and habits of the genre that is more suitable for the form of short dramas; How many different dimensions of thinking can an episode type label hold?
Although there has always been great uncertainty in the content industry, it seems that "peach suspense" has felt an accurate pulse in many uncertainties.