The just finished "Secret and Great" vividly shows the three forms of our party's underground workers-the spy elite "White Birch" Xia Jicheng (played by Wang Takizheng), who is in a high position on the enemy side and obtains important information; mature; Shen Qinghe (Jin Chen), an espionage officer of China, was able to complete the task of rescuing and covering comrades; the newcomer Gu Yaodong (played by Li Yifeng), whose main task is to hide in the Shanghai police station, and provide early warning and action for arrests without being exposed. Comrades in and out of Shanghai provide legal documents.
These three are just the tip of the iceberg for the protagonist of the spy war drama.
What kind of protagonists do spy war dramas favor, and what kind of background settings do they prefer?
A reporter from the Beijing News combed through 22 spy war dramas since "Hunting" and "Latent", and found that unlike the trend of younger characters in current dramas, middle-aged talents with abundant experience and energy are the main force of spy war dramas. The old Shanghai in the Shili foreign market was the main battlefield of the spy war.
Map Old Shanghai is home to spy war dramas
The narrative timeline of these 22 spy war dramas started from the September 18th Incident in 1931 and continued to around 1949.
Sometimes the protagonist has to face not only the Japanese, but also the forces of the Wang puppet government and the Kuomintang reactionaries.
Among the 22 spy war dramas, the stories took place during the War of Resistance Against Japan (the "September 18 Incident" in 1931-Japan announced its unconditional surrender on August 15, 1945), and the 10 dramas during the War of Liberation (June 1946-1950) In June), the number of 11 is evenly divided.
There is also one ("Rouge") spanning two time periods.
Judging from the locations of these spy war dramas, since the Republic of China, China's financial center and the Shiliyangchang Da Shanghai, a place where all parties at home and abroad are competing, is the main battlefield of spy war dramas.
Of the 22 spy war dramas, 10 took place in Shanghai at the time, including the recently broadcasted "Secret and Great" and "Aiming"; 3 took place in Peking and 3 took place in the Northeast, all before 1945 During the Anti-Japanese War; other locations include Nanjing, Chongqing, Hong Kong, etc.
The protagonist is the middle-aged man, and emotional intelligence is the most important
Skills EQ is the first, supplemented by others
What are the qualities of a good spy?
Most of the protagonists in the 22 spy war dramas have excellent memory and rigorous analysis and reasoning abilities. Some of them also have strong force values, such as sharp shooting skills and strong close combat capabilities.
A small number of characters do not have the power to bind chickens, but have other specialties, such as trace analysis experts (Chen Jiaying in "Peace Hotel"), surgeons (Yang Zhiliang in "Aiming"), and mathematical geniuses (Rong Jinzhen in "Decrypted").
These skills and expertise seem very powerful, but in fact they can only play an auxiliary role in spy warfare work.
The most important traits of spies are emotional intelligence and acting skills.
He needs to be able to perceive the weaknesses of human nature and think about how he can use these to achieve the purpose of obtaining information... This all requires rich life experience and super high emotional intelligence.
At the same time, he must be able to break into various groups like a chameleon and be recognized as his own, which again requires clever acting skills.
Xia Jicheng in "Secret and Great" is such a person.
He partnered with his boss Qi Shengping in a smuggling business; he posed a messy posture to his competitor Wang Keda; he played chess with the insignificant household registration section chief to establish a good relationship and took the opportunity to forge documents.
Although Xia Jicheng has good skills and accurate marksmanship, it is his emotional intelligence and acting skills, as well as his ability to respond without surprises, that really make him good at spying.
Middle-aged people are the main hidden force
Emotional intelligence and acting skills require not only talent, but also life experience.
On the other hand, in order to obtain valuable information, you must stand high enough, because the more precious information, only a small group of senior leaders have the right to know.
Therefore, most of the protagonists of spy war dramas are middle-aged people over 30 years of age with successful careers.
Qian Zhijiang in "The Conspiracy" is in his 40s, and his public identity is the chief decipherer of the KMT Shanghai Garrison Command; Yu Zecheng in "Latent" is in his 30s and is the director of the confidential office of the military reunification Tianjin station; "Minglou, 35 to 40 years old, is the chief financial adviser of the Economic Department of the Ministry of Finance of the Wang Puppet Government, the deputy director of the Secret Service Committee, and the chief inspector of the Customs Administration of the new government.
Among the 22 spy war-themed dramas included in this statistics, the protagonists are over 30 years old, including "Scheming", "Latent", "Before Dawn", "Cliff", "No War in Peking", "Kite", "Glory Times", "Winning Chance", etc. ; The protagonists between the ages of 20 and 30 include "Deciphered", "Rouge", "Spy Battle Deep Sea Sting", "Middleman", and "Cicada", etc., and the number is less than half of the former.
Among them, Rong Jinzhen (played by Chen Xuedong) in "Deciphered" and Lan Rouge (played by Zhao Liying) in "Rouge" are the youngest, both in their 20s.
It is worth mentioning that there are 8 out of 22 spy war dramas with a score of 8 or more, and 6 of them have protagonists over 30 years old.
In the ending, 30 protagonists sacrificed 6
The front line of intelligence work is usually carried out behind enemy lines, walking on the tip of a knife, and will face torture or even sacrifice once discovered by the enemy.
Therefore, sacrifice is also a major theme of the spy war drama.
In the "Death Plan" designed by Wang Tianfeng in "The Pretender", his own death is also an important link; Yang Zhiliang in "Aiming" resolutely went to death to prove to the outside that the Kuomintang did target the founder of the Chu army, Qin He The assassination plan in 1989; Qian Zhijiang in "The Assassination" even sent information through death to turn the tide.
However, statistics show that the probability of the protagonist of the spy war drama being sacrificed is not as high as everyone thinks.
There are 30 main characters involved in 22 spy war dramas, of which 6 are clearly sacrificed, accounting for 20%, including Qian Zhijiang in "The Conspiracy", Zhou Yi in "The Cliff", and Shen Fang in "The Man in the Game". ; And more than 70% (22) of the characters survived to the end of the play, including the three characters of "Secret and Great" that just ended: Gu Yaodong, Xia Jicheng, Shen Qinghe; in addition, Tang Fei (Liu Yunlong) in "Odds" , "Father's Identity" Yu Beiping did not clearly explain the ending.
Written by/Beijing News reporter Yang Lianjie
Data collation/Intern Cao Yuxin Yang Lianjie