I've been walking on thin ice in my life. That year, I was jailed for intentional injury. After I got out, I found a job helping my eldest brother watch the show. As time went by, he became the most capable younger brother of his eldest brother. Later, the eldest brother was hacked to death by people from the "Yuanjiang United" in a chaotic battle. But the group cannot be leaderless for a day, and the "Xicheng Club" needs new leaders to step forward. So, I, who is usually closest to my eldest brother, was pushed to the front of the stage. After going around in circles for more than ten years, I became a well-known Yakuza, and looking back at this wonderful experience, I feel a lot of emotion.
Now, I give up all honors, strip off all identities, sit here and talk with you, just because I promised my brother one thing -
"At six o'clock in the evening on January 17, 2024, the live-action TV series "Sword and Sword IV" will be broadcast. Remember to watch it."
Okay, the ridiculously embarrassing joke above was made up by me at random, but I said that I have been a fan of "Sword and Fairy" for ten years, and it is true. Moreover, I am also a "low-class" author who is criticized by everyone: "I like to chase shit every day". Therefore, I chose to take the initiative to join in the fun - squatting on the iQiyi homepage early in the morning, preparing to see what this drama is like as soon as possible.
However, what no one expected was that before the show was officially released, I saw "a good show" on Weibo that might be even more exciting.
According to common sense, the officials of most domestic dramas have a bad habit of "selling off the facts". Especially when it feels like it's about to be aired, they still beat around the bush and don't tell the audience the specific time. It's not until fans are rolling around in the official news that they will reluctantly announce the specific airing time in a tone of "there's really nothing you can do about it" - making fans very worried.
However, this time "Sword and Sword IV" is different. At the beginning of last year, a message suddenly came out about "Four of Swords and Swordsmen" that "the filming work is basically over and the crew has finished filming", and then there was no news.
For nearly a year, everyone has been speculating, "Did the show fail?" and "The crew ran away with money?" There are various speculations, but there has never been an official response.
Until yesterday afternoon at 1:24, the official Weibo of the live-action drama "Four of Swords and Swordsman" suddenly posted an update: "Long time no see, Young Hero, the drama will start airing at 6pm tonight."
To be honest, there is something wrong with the official account that has been dormant for a long time and suddenly "pretends" and abandons all the publicity process and directly broadcasts the news. But for fans, this doesn't seem to be a bad thing.
However, not long after the official "surprise update" was released, some of the "own people" couldn't sit still.
Drawing circles is a knowledge point and needs to be tested
The personal studio of Ju Jingyi, who plays the heroine, was the first to take the offensive, saying, "I have repeatedly tolerated it, but now I can't bear it anymore because the official "Sword and Sword IV" has unilaterally breached the contract."
The studio stated that the original filming contract signed between Ju Jingyi and "Sword and Sword IV" included an "absolutely one-size-fits-all" clause, that is, in any announcement, Ju Jingyi's personal signature must be in a single subtitle and ranked first before the signatures of all actors.
However, in the last official announcement of "Sword and Sword IV", Ju Jingyi's name was placed second.
As a well-known "little traffic flower", Ju Jingyi naturally has an extraordinary number of fans, and these fans will not just watch their idol being bullied. As a result, a large number of Ju Jingyi's fans began to swipe the screen and curse in the comments section of the official Weibo of the "Four of Sword" live-action drama and the leading actor's Weibo.
Subsequently, the actor's company also issued its own statement: The artist and the crew signed a "sequential alternation of signatures" - in layman's terms, "the leading male and the leading female are not all our own. You and I will change each other one by one."
Obviously, the actor's side didn't know what went wrong. However, the contract they signed with the official crew also involves the "title" clause - therefore, if the crew officially follows Ju Jingyi's signature rules, it will offend the male protagonist.
Moreover, the woman is quite popular as a "traffic niche", but the man is naturally not bad as a "traffic niche".
Nowadays, the fans of "traffic florets" are taking the initiative to attack, and the fans of "traffic niche" will not sit idly by. As a result, the comment areas on both sides of Weibo became an octagonal cage for the two factions, with fans tearing each other's hair apart like old ladies acting in the street.
However, the Weibo scolding war has not stopped, but it has not affected the TV series on the other side. It still started airing on time quietly.
To be honest, domestic costume dramas and adapted IP dramas have been scolded for more than a day or two, and everyone has known their virtues for many years. It is nothing more than choosing one of "the worst of the worst" and "one bad one is better than the other." However, seeing the IP that they once particularly liked have the opportunity to "rejuvenate" - this always makes fans look forward to it.
And now, the scene where the actors are fighting for a signature also gives people an inexplicable feeling: it seems that this drama must be very good, so these two are fighting to put their signatures at the forefront, making this drama their masterpiece.
To be honest, I also hold this fantasy and look forward to what kind of wonderful performances this drama, which has been so popular before it even starts, will provide to the audience.
However, after watching the three free episodes, I immediately turned off iQiyi. It's not because iQiyi membership is too expensive and I can't afford it, but I suddenly understood something - why the Spring Festival Gala is becoming less and less funny, because people who "know how to do things" have come to film TV series.
In the original work, the heroine Han Lingsha is a thief who "robs ancient tombs and steals things" every day - therefore, her clothes must be smart and not draggy, so that she can "jump up and down" easily.
However, Han Lingsha in "Four of Swordsman" has long hair reaching her waist and wears a red long-sleeved dress. Although nominally living a life of "not seeing the sun every day", the Korean-style semi-permanent makeup on her face is still exquisite.
You can still have such delicate skin and makeup despite getting pierced every day. It would be a shame if you don’t endorse some cosmetics.
To be honest, this is obviously a low-level mistake caused by a lack of understanding of the original work.
And this has also caused many game fans to question: Have the crew ever understood the setting of the original work? Could it be that when Baidu got the names of the people in the original work, they started "making things up"?
Not only that, Han Lingsha's "eccentric" character also turned into "shaking her head and beaming" under Ju Jingyi's interpretation.
Speaking of which, it seemed like this wasn't the first time she'd done this. No matter what type of work or role she plays, Ju Jingyi always wears a pair of "semi-permanent" makeup and a harmless expression. Looking at her roles in different dramas, it always feels like she is playing "Lianliankan".
How long do you think it was between these two dramas?
It is worth mentioning that this drama is said to have taken "three years of filming and an investment of over 300 million." You know, the recently released "Flowers" cost less than 300 million, and even science fiction movies like "The Wandering Earth" only cost 400 million to produce.
However, despite the huge investment, the special effects and scenes in this show are full of inexplicable cheapness.
The wild boar in the original work has been adapted into a pig demon, and it is a very weird "3D special effects pig demon". You can even see in the play that the pig demon was not careful enough when cutting out the pictures, leaving various jagged edges around the objects.
In addition, what is even more surprising is the clumsy "shack smell". For all the exterior scenes in the play, the backgrounds are basically made of rockery and artificial trees. What’s even more exaggerated is that sometimes even the artificial mountains and trees are gone, and the characters are directly cut out and pasted into a certain scene.
And this also makes most close-ups of characters require a large aperture to blur the background, so that they don't look so "cheap". But in this situation of "not being able to clearly see the mid-range and long shots", the audience sometimes wonders: Are you filming near a chemical plant, so it's so foggy that you can't see anything clearly?
However, in addition to "cheap", "gang" can also be found everywhere.
At the end of the live-action drama, there was even a scene of "cars appearing". If you are cheating on someone in the film, you can excuse it by saying "it's just one episode." But the "ending credits" have to be replayed at the end of each episode, which means that every time the audience watches an episode, they will see a bright scene.
To be honest, if I were not worried about not passing the review, I would even use more vulgar words to express my doubts about "Where did the 300 million go?"
However, even if all these adaptations are unacceptable, there is at least a possibility of improvement - the plot of "Legend of Sword and Fairy IV" is very good, and there is a lot of room for development.
However, the plot, which is supposed to be about "seeking immortality and seeking medicine for immortality", instead lets the audience experience "the sweetness of love" first.
In the play, the audience first saw the two chasing each other into the Shichenxi Cave - according to the original setting, yes, this is very Nice.
During the chase, the two were accidentally cast by the pig demon and were tied together by a rope. Immediately afterwards, the two sides began to look at each other affectionately for more than ten seconds. And Yun Tianhe, who a second ago had a sideways face and was embarrassed to look at the heroine, and repeated "men and women are not intimate", now stared at the heroine with wide eyes, giving people an old-fashioned style of "I don't want to pretend to be pretending for so long".
Then, he moved closer, put his face close to Han Lingsha's ear, and said softly: "You smell like my mother."
It can be seen that the screenwriter put a lot of effort into making the two fall in love quickly and start living a happy life between you and me.
At this point, the possibility of "getting better" that I originally imagined was shattered by the "mom taste" in Yuntianhe's mouth. After going around and around and looking back, it turned out that it was still the old way of domestic costume dramas.
To be honest, everyone understands that adaptation is not an easy task - to interpret the same story in a different medium, some changes must be made.
We have always heard a saying, "You can't understand it even if you copy it, and you can't understand it if you remake it directly from the original work?"
But if you really listen to the fans and copy it exactly, it won’t necessarily make it look good. After all, "there are a thousand Hamerets in a thousand people's hearts." The "original work" in the eyes of the screenwriter and the "original work" in the eyes of fans may not be exactly the same.
Even if it is truly authentic, will it definitely be very attractive to fans of the original IP? It’s really not necessarily true. After all, fans already know what the story will be about next, so what else is there to say about it? On the contrary, if it is adapted and innovated, it may bring some "surprises" to fans.
However, in this adaptation process, "how much" and "how to change" cannot be decided by outsiders. It all depends on the level of the official screenwriter.
Speaking of which, the live-action dramas "Legend of Sword and Fairy 3" and "Legend of Sword and Fairy 3", which are both under the Fairy Sword IP, have been adapted to a very serious degree, and even directly tampered with the plot and characters. It would not be an exaggeration to call it "adaptation is random editing". But to this day, these two are still the best "Sword and Sword IP adaptations".
For a moment, I didn't know what words to use to express my mood at this moment.
However, I suddenly remembered that during the years when I was a Yakuza on the "road", I once met an old man. He is very arrogant and calls himself the "first person in monkey drama".
That day, while he was sitting on the chair, his face suddenly tensed up, and he stepped back hard, and then told me something -