When "Lonely Boat" was first aired, Qihua commented that the advantages and disadvantages of this drama were very obvious. The advantage was that it could attract the audience to follow the protagonist to solve the mystery, but the spy puppet traces and the decent action line were too perfunctory, which were disadvantages.

If it can minimize its shortcomings and magnify its advantages, "The Lonely Boat" will still be a good choice for watching while eating.

It's a pity that now the plot is coming to an end, even if there isZhang SongwenDespite this "reputation guarantee", "Lonely Boat" still suffered a reputational Waterloo, and its Douban score fell below the passing line.

The actors have a good reputation, the story has a novel approach, and the beginning is flawed but still remarkable. Why did the reputation still collapse? From the perspective of fans of old spy war dramas, "Lonely Boat" still failed because of the word "spy puppet".

Traditional spy war style

Each genre of film and television drama has evolved in different styles at different stages. Spy war dramas are particularly obvious in this regard. However, among the top 10 spy war dramas rated on Douban, 99% of them are actually rigorous spy war styles.

This style tries to be as rigorous as possible in terms of logic and details when shaping the game of characters, and pays more attention to the background of the story and the brain-burning tension of the spy war showdown. It rarely makes jokes or uses coolness to attract attention.

For example, "Insidious".

The audience has to follow Yu Zecheng in fear in almost every episode. The lurker is always in a state of high tension and faces various emergencies with calmness and wit, which makes the audience empathize.

Even a very "ordinary" scene of picking up his wife into the city tests the protagonist's ability to respond. The villain's clichés are interspersed in every daily conversation, and the decent character's response may become a hidden danger if he is not careful.

For example,cliff》。

The daily life of a lurker is like walking on the edge of a cliff. Every step may lead to a fall into the abyss. In order not to reveal any flaws, every step must be taken carefully. Even when facing his wife and children, the protagonist must restrain himself and endure.

Every time I watch the scene where Zhou Yi pretends to be a passerby to visit his wife and children, I can't help but shed tears. Without any lines, the audience can feel the hidden emotions in it, and feel distressed and admire the sacrifices they made.

The final scene of the child and the puppy chasing the car brings this emotion to the extreme.

In a rigorous spy war drama, the core highlights must be the high-IQ, highly tense game. In a rigorous spy war drama, emotions will not account for too much, but the restrained pain and beauty will allow the audience to highly empathize.

Even though the plot is more lifelike and the group portraits of "red”, the highly intelligent male and female protagonists are still the key setting.

The protagonist may be mature and professional like an underground worker, or may have talent and a strong and calm heart. No matter which style, what is given to the audience is definitely professionalism and rigor. The plot is tense, brain-burning, and profound.

Popular spy drama

Around 2015, spy war dramas began to evolve into a "spy puppet" branch, and gradually became the mainstream in the following years. Nowadays, traditional spy war-style dramas are far less than spy puppet dramas starring popular actors.

The difference between the two lies mainly in the style of the plot. Spy puppet shows are often not so rigorous in plot and will highlight the characters a little more. Of course, the design of the actors and some elements will also be younger.

For example, in terms of costumes and props, it is common to see the protagonist wearing exquisite dresses no matter what action he or she is involved in. For example, various cool shots. For another example, they prefer growing "young" protagonists and love to design emotional lines.

The once hit drama "The Disguiser" showed signs of this.

This drama is a watershed between traditional spy war dramas and spy puppets. The three brothers of the Ming family have various handsome atmosphere shots, as well asHu GeThe character Mingtai plays a growth-oriented role, which has the flavor of an "idol drama" and is not so serious.

Although this drama is regarded as the originator of spy puppets, it is also the only positive representative of spy puppets.

This drama not only retains the appeal of "Idol" to young audiences, but also continues the brain-burning thrills of spy wars through a number of highly intelligent characters. In short, playing both sides may be the key to the success of "The Disguiser".

Fans of traditional spy war dramas can find what they want to watch, and audiences who like the idol feeling can also get addicted to it.

But when putting rigorous spy and puppetry that requires room for fantasy together, not everyone is as lucky as "The Disguiser". Most spy and puppetry works often take into account the "puppetry" but cannot maintain the "spy".

Audiences often see spy dramas with a lot of coolness from the protagonists, but not a strong sense of thrill, and weak storylines that often ruin the audience experience. The current "Lonely Boat" is a typical example.

The Regret of "Lonely Boat"

The drama "Lonely Boat" designed a growing protagonist named Gu Yi Zhong, whom I like very much. Even in that era when teenagers were generally precocious, we still got a protagonist with the temperament of a young master.

Although he had a more glorious background than Mingtai, he was far less sensitive than Mingtai at the beginning. This was even though he had been a non-staff member for a long time, while Mingtai had no experience in underground work at the beginning.

Comparing the images of Gu Yizhong in "The Lonely Boat" and Ming Tai in "The Disguiser" is not to rank them, but it is not easy for a growing protagonist to blend into a spy war drama.

Even though "The Disguiser" received high reviews, the Ming Tai story line was still controversial at the beginning. At the beginning of the story, the protagonist relied on the support of several mature brothers and sisters of the Ming family.

On the other hand, in "Lonely Boat", while setting up a growing protagonist, it does not provide a strong positive story line to support it, so that the activities planned by the positive group often feel like a makeshift team.

At the beginning of the rescue mission, the protagonist said something harsh, and the person in charge made an exception and let him join... Later, the traitor Cell No. 8 appeared, from Eagle to Xiao Ruotong and Gu Huizhong, each one was more emotional than the other.

When Hu Zhiping of Cell No. 8 was exposed, the actions of the frontal team were even more jaw-dropping. This group of old soldiers who claimed to have rich experience, whether they were traitors or loyal, died one after another.

When these characters died, the screenwriter didn't even provide them with any useful clues. After watching the show, I realized that their deaths were more to highlight the sadness and misery of the male protagonist rather than the danger and difficulty of the spy war.

When the image of a group is created to highlight the protagonist's experience rather than to present the original characteristics of the spy war, the creative thinking has completely regarded the spies as the foil of the puppets, and the basic charm of the spy war has been lost.

When it comes to the game between good and evil characters, "The Lonely Boat" leaves another regret: too much is as bad as too little.

As mentioned earlier, one of the common creative styles of spy war dramas is to set up a evenly matched game between pros and cons. The duel between masters will give off a lot of sparks and convince the audience.

For example, in "Before the Dawn", the brothers Liu Xinjie and Tan Zhongshu, the two masters, fought back and forth, which made the audience very excited. By the end of the film, they would even feel sorry that they went their separate ways.

The ones that are more clearly black and white, such as Qian Zhijiang and Director Dai in the third unit of "The Counterfeiter", one is calm and resourceful, the other is ruthless and suspicious. In the werewolf-style interrogation in a closed space, Qian Zhijiang used his life to exchange for intelligence and break through the siege.

"The Lonely Boat" also obviously adopts a similar style in its character structure. Most of the plot revolves around the fight between Gu Yizhong and Zhou Zhifei, one positive and one negative. But it is obvious that the screenwriter prefers to write something "different" through the villains.

The good guys have a love triangle, and the villains also have one. The good guys have family and emotional entanglements, and the villains also have their own entanglements, experiences, conspiracies and tactics, and, love... If there are too many idle words, it will become really idle.

In some ways, the design of the protagonist and antagonist in "The Lone Boat" is quite similar to "The Storm". Both want to portray the villain fully, but when writing about the protagonist, they continue the stereotyped character design.

This results in the two sides looking neither balanced nor tense, especially at the beginning, when one side is professional and the other side is messy.

But not every drama can become the second "Kuaishou" if it wants to attract attention by relying on villains.

The love entanglements and family honors of the traitor Zhou Zhifei are not that attractive. Objectively speaking, Gu Yizhong's undercover plan of "traveling alone in a boat" is not that eye-catching until he becomes mature and calm.

Because... their game is not brain-burning, nor does it have that strong sense of thrill.

After all, the scenes of many of the protagonists going offline were filmed as "normal" as eating, and it was really hard for the audience to experience the thrill with them. The word "spy war" was not satisfying.

Objectively speaking, today's spy war dramas have no shortage of good actors or good story entry points. What is lacking more is the creative team's understanding of the story positioning and confidence in the spy war subject matter.

No matter it is a spy war or a spy idol, the "spy" is always in the forefront. The audience can appropriately relax the requirement for the rigor of the "spy" because of the charm of the "idol", but it is impossible to really watch it as an idol drama that does not require thinking.

Whether they want to shoot a traditional spy war drama that targets spy war fans, or they want to shoot a spy idol drama that is easier to gain popularity, I hope the creators will not forget that this is a spy war theme, and the basic charm of spy war cannot be lost. Once lost, it will be difficult to win.