A 15-episode lightweight online drama "The Beginning" exploded at the beginning of the year, boosting confidence in the Chinese drama market in 2022. During the Spring Festival holiday, the popularity has risen instead of falling, and topics such as "Aunt Pot", taking the bus and ringing tones of Cannon’s mobile phone have become the "hard currency" for gathering and socializing with high mention rate. Recently, the Beijing Youth Daily reporter interviewed the author of the original novel "The Beginning" and the screenwriter of the TV series Prayer Jun, looking for answers to the topics that the audience is still discussing.
Why did you choose the bus bombing?
Beiqing Daily: Please tell us about the creation process of Beginnings, such as "infinite flow"? Why did you choose the bus bombing?
Prayer Jun: Over the years, I have seen many videos about "bus accidents" on the Internet, which have had a great impact on me. When I first saw this, I thought, why can’t anyone stand up and stop these tragedies like those heroes in film and television works? Later, I began to imagine what I could do if I were on these buses. In these associations, I began to think again, are my ideas reasonable? Who will be on the bus together? Can these people help me? In the process of this series of thinking, verification and rethinking, my inspiration sparked and I drew up the outline of the beginning.
The biggest difficulty is how to balance the dramatic and logical contradictions in the novel at the same time, and how to set the whole progressive process from the first cycle to the end of the cycle. For example, this bus explosion, at first, no one knew it was an explosion. It was only after the protagonist group got more information through the circulation that it changed from a "traffic accident" to a "criminal case", from "investigating the real murderer" to "locking the real murderer" and then to "finding the hidden plot". These are all the logical and logical turns in advance. So in order to "break the game", I began to add the element of "time cycle" to the beginning. In the written stage, "infinite flow" has become the most conspicuous label of "Beginning".
Beiqing Daily: After watching several episodes, the most attractive content of Beginnings no longer relies on "surrealism", but returns to down-to-earth reality. Please tell us about the creations of ordinary passengers such as Lao Jiao and Lu Di, and what intentions have you placed on them?
Prayer Jun: At first, I modeled passengers according to two possibilities: quantitative and indefinite. I will definitely take action when I encounter danger, that is, quantitative. For example, the character "Lao Jiao" is in the quagmire of life, but he will still be "courageous" again and again. As for the role of "Lu Di", he is a young man who loves cats with social phobia. As long as he is aroused to identify with his own group, he will change from "variable" to "quantitative". Any passenger in the car can change from "variable" to "quantitative" as long as they can gain their "trust". "Trust" is the cornerstone of success. After that, I began to think, what is the difference between people? I began to try to answer this question through the way of "control group". For example, the old coke "Jiao Xiangrong" and the driver "Wang Xingde" are actually some kind of echo and contrast. In the car, the driving force behind Wang Xingde’s "crime" is his daughter; Drive Lao Jiao "The driving force behind "being brave" is also for my daughter. These two are both fathers and daughters, but they have made different choices, and these two different choices represent different human nature. Another example is "Lu Di", a secondary group that "speaks at once", and the police who "don’t believe" no matter how many times you say it, are also a control group. At the beginning of shaping, these passengers not only have the common ground of being ordinary people, but also represent the thinking mode and life experience of some groups in society. Everyone can play his role at a specific time. No matter how ordinary a person is, once he makes an extraordinary right choice, he is a "hero". This is what I want to express most when I shape them.
What are the differences in characterization?
Beiqing Daily: "Aunt Guo" went out of the circle and became a new topic. What experience can you summarize in your resumption?
Prayer Jun: Apart from Tao Yinghong’s complete portrayal, the actor’s understanding and reinterpretation of this role is the real reason for his success. No matter in the original work or at the beginning of the script creation, the image of Tao Yinghong is "numb" and "crazy", and she is a "broken person" after the collapse. Now the "Aunt Pot" on the screen is a process of remoulding according to her own understanding after thinking by the actor Liu Dan. Her persistence makes Tao Yinghong not only the "injurer" of the "broken", but also allows every audience to see the dignity, preciseness and love for her daughter that Tao Yinghong had before the "broken", which makes her identity as both "injurer" and "victim" more convincing.
Beiqing Daily: It is reported that the names of young CP Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun coincide with Liu Yuxi’s Autumn Poems. What do these two characters imply?
Prayer Jun: Yes, the names of Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun are taken from "Autumn Ci". This is a poem I like very much, because its artistic conception is broad and lofty, which is in line with the minds of two young people I originally wanted to shape. "Poetry" is romantic. Li’s poetry is not in contact with too much society. Her romance can make her tolerant, kind and empathetic. "Crane Cloud" is high-spirited, eager to soar, and has the potential of "blockbuster". In addition, "A crane in a clear sky rows clouds, which leads poetry to Bixiao" is also a cycle from beginning to end, and a crane cloud named Xiao (Xiao) is embedded.
Interpretation and speculation of hidden plots are endless.
Beiqing Daily: The final case "bottom" fell on the bus "pervert" and cyber violence. How did these two ideas come into being?
Prayer Jun: As a woman and a mother, I have been thinking about how to teach my daughter to "protect" herself and learn how to "ask for help" when she meets something wrong in this complicated world. The purpose of designing the plot of "pervert" is to make readers and audiences understand that different people have different degrees of tolerance by comparing the different reactions of two girls with different personalities, Wang Mengmeng and Li Shiqing. Maybe what seems like a big deal to you will have completely different results for people with different degrees of tolerance.
The element of "cyber violence" is more about my thinking and reflection on my own experience over the years. Do people who cause "cyber violence" have to "harm" something in the first place? After thinking about these problems, I stayed away from the internet and warned myself that writers should speak with their works. It is these feelings and reflections that made me shape the plot of "cyber violence" in "The Beginning" and the "beginning" that made Tao Yinghong’s family "the tree wants to be quiet but the wind does not stop".
Beiqing Daily: This drama has caused netizens to chase the drama, and various interpretations and speculations about the cycle, details and hidden plots have emerged one after another. Which ones can you come forward for official certification?
Prayer Jun: Many details have been guessed by readers, and I am very touched. For example, Tao Yinghong was going to die on the day of her daughter’s death, but because Tao Yinghong was testing detonators in the garage and caused a fire, the fire department paid attention to it, so the fire department began to check the garage. This fire caused the old coke to be retired, and Wang Xingde, who was working normally, was caught off guard by Tao Yinghong’s temporary boarding. In the original plan of the husband and wife, there should be no one in the car that day, just taking the bomb to the designated place to die.
I also saw the speculation about officer Zhang. Officer Zhang did not enter the cycle. To enter the cycle, he must meet several requirements. First, he had to fall asleep in the car (there was a path to enter the cycle), second, he had to die in the car (once existed normally in the cycle), and then he had to survive in the cycle (left the cycle). Lao Zhang and others in the car did not meet these conditions. He will let it go lightly, just based on his own experience and the normal reaction of a police officer without evidence. Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyun’s "catching the pervert out of the car" is the beginning of Xiao Heyun’s cycle, and it is also the only possibility to turn Tao Yinghong’s "variable" into "quantitative". In Tao Yinghong’s subconscious, she hoped that her daughter would be as strong as the poetry she resisted in the car, and she could resist and even subdue the pervert.
Beiqing Daily: What impact will the success of the film and television of Beginnings have on your future creation?
Prayer Jun: First of all, it has strengthened my confidence in continuing to create "stories of ordinary people". Before I wrote the Kai series, my famous works, Mulan Without Eldest Brother and Everyone Loves Ma Wencai, were either emperors or princes, or geniuses and heroes. When I wrote the Kai series, I was in my thirties, and it was a transition period when I was thinking about what I could leave for the world. The Beginnings, the Lottery and the Opening of the Kai series were actually stories about how ordinary people broke the shackles and completed their self-growth. In fact, this theme is not the mainstream of online novels, and it lacks a sense of coolness. I have never known whether my "transformation" is valuable, and now I have at least taken a reassurance. Good works, in fact, the theme is not important, the most important thing is to tell a good story.
Text/reporter Yang Wenjie
