From "cop drama" to "anti-crime drama" China's "drama involved" for 30 years
China News Weekly reporter/
Published in the 1079th issue of "China News Weekly" magazine on February 13, 2023
Lu Tianming hasn't followed any TV series for many years, and recently he encountered an "exception".
When the last few episodes of the hit "Hurricane" were not aired, he felt a little anxious. What would happen to Gao Qiqiang?
Anxin won't sacrifice, right?
This well-known screenwriter who created China's first anti-corruption drama "Heaven Above" and is known as one of the "troika of anti-corruption dramas" has become a loyal audience of his colleagues.
In 2003, Gao Qunshu, who directed the classic anti-black drama "Conquer", also paid attention to this drama. A few days ago, a friend sent him a comparison chart made by netizens - Liu Huaqiang buys melons, Gao Qiqiang sells fish, 20 years apart Two generations of "Big Brothers" ride similar motorcycles.
Gao Qunshu thinks the jokes played by netizens are very interesting. After 20 years, people have not forgotten Liu Huaqiang.
Netizens said that Liu Huaqiang back then was a "thug bandit", but today's Gao Qiqiang has a deeper city.
Along with the changes in the characters in the drama, the types of films involved in China have experienced twists and turns in the past 30 years, from "cop dramas" and "anti-corruption dramas" to "criminal dramas" and "sweeping gangster dramas".
Gao Qunshu lamented that behind this is the change of the times and the change of the political ecology, all of which have profoundly affected the environment and content of creation.
Lu Tianming, who will turn 80 this year, is very envious of the current creative space, because it is not easy to produce a work like "Hurricane" that "breaks through all aspects of authenticity, sharpness, sensitivity and artistry."
Whether it is "Heaven Above" and "Daxue Wuhen" created by him back then, or today's "Hurricane", he thinks it seems too simple for people to summarize them as "anti-corruption" and "sweeping black". He believes that today's The creator is the same as he was back then, and his original intention was to use realistic brushwork to create film and television works, showing the complex and entangled real life and destiny in the development of the times.
"Realism", these words are the direction that film and television drama creators should really go.
"No matter how good a screenwriter is, life is better than life"
"Hurricane" concentrated director Xu Jizhou's accumulated experience in the industry for more than 20 years. As soon as he graduated from university, he entered the film and television industry. "... He has practiced his skills in these dramas, and the person who took him was Gao Qunshu.
In 2000, Gao Qunshu was preparing for the sequel "The Truth" of his famous novel "Thirteen Murder Cases". He met Xu Jizhou, who was introduced by an acquaintance, who had just graduated from the Directing Department of the Central Academy of Drama and was looking for a job with his resume. He felt that this child was literary. He has a good foundation, so let him start as an assistant director and screenwriter.
It was an era when police and gangster dramas were extremely prosperous, and the reason is not complicated. Police and gangster dramas are one of the few genres in peacetime that can reasonably involve life and death propositions. They are inherently conflictual and naturally attractive.
"Thirteen Murder Cases" filmed by Gao Qunshu has a strong sense of documentary. When it was broadcast on Beijing Satellite TV, it hit a ratings of 16%. Today, the Douban score is as high as 8.8.
Gao Qunshu recalled that the police and gangster dramas at that time used real interviews, collected materials, often adapted real cases, and even used the police who handled the cases to participate in the performances. The pursuit of the aesthetic paradigm of drama + literature + news sometimes seemed quite rough, but There will never be the sense of suspension like some TV dramas today.
Before filming "Thirteen Murder Cases", Gao Qunshu spent all day in the detention center and interviewed 13 murderers in detail. These interviews greatly touched him. Those murderers were not as vicious as people imagined, but like neighbors and colleagues The same ordinary people, "They are all the same people. He became a murderer. You sit here and interview him. The difference is that he was controlled by emotions and impulsive." This made him think that police dramas not only present legal issues, but also Social issues should also be presented, and a character who has committed a crime is not necessarily a simple villain, but complex with human nature.
This helped him to a certain extent to film the later classic police drama "Conquer", and created Liu Huaqiang, a multi-layered character who is fierce, cunning but also emphatic in love.
This kind of documentary aesthetics is related to Gao Qunshu's background as a journalist, and also comes from a "Bole" who brought him into the industry. This is Gao Qunshu's eyes. In the eyes of Gao Qunshu, a person who set the tone for the style of Chinese police and bandit dramas at the beginning of its formation. His name is Chen Shengli.
"He was the beginning of Chinese police dramas." Gao Qunshu told China News Weekly that some people in the industry called him "the godfather of documentary police dramas".
In the development of Chinese TV dramas, although there were TV dramas on public security in the 1970s and 1980s, they really focused on cases and the fight between "police" and "bandit" as the core content. "Case Records" begins.
On September 18, 1992, a major event occurred in Kaifeng, the ancient capital—69 treasures and cultural relics from Kaifeng Museum were stolen, including Yongzheng blue-and-white glazed red flat bottles with broken branches and fruit patterns, etc., with a total value of more than 600 million yuan.
After that, it was the joint investigation of the police from all over the country, and the tracking was carried out thousands of miles away.
This case caused a sensation both at home and abroad.
In order to popularize the law and establish public awareness of cultural relics, CCTV approached Chen Shengli, who was working in Henan Film Studio at the time, and asked him to make the case into a TV series.
When the project was just being prepared, Chen Shengli and the main creators found that no matter how they wrote, they couldn't write about real cases. It seemed to echo the old saying, "No matter how good a screenwriter is, life is better than life."
Recalling that past event now, Chen Shengli is still moved by the drama of the case and life itself: "The screenwriters of this drama are policemen and criminals, and they have already 'edited' it, and the 'edited' is better than our elaborate creations. Many cases The turning point in the story is unexpected, so why do we have to make it up again?” Therefore, Chen Shengli simply gave up on recreating the plot to make the plot 100% true. He synthesized the contents of the original case file and only used drama The structure and narrative techniques of the novel have been slightly processed.
Wu Heping, then Director of the Public Security Bureau of Kaifeng City, Henan Province, once issued a military order when the September 18 incident occurred: If the case cannot be solved, resign on the spot!
When the investigation of the case reached a stalemate for a while, in order to obtain the clues left by the perpetrator, Wu Heping made an unprecedented request to his superiors to allow the public security organs to introduce the case to the public on TV, and asked the public to help solve the case, so that the limited police force can be expanded into a thousand troops of ordinary people. Kazuma.
In Chen Shengli's eyes, Wu Heping is extremely charismatic, and no actor can play himself better than him.
Once he opened his mind, he simply called all the police officers who solved the case and asked them to replay the case-handling process.
It is of course complicated and not easy to apply for approval layer by layer, but in the end, except for some policemen who have been undercover for a long time and cannot reveal their identities, all the police officers involved in handling the case participated in this film, including Wu Heping, who played themselves in the film.
With such a breakthrough creation, the TV series was a great success, and the style is too real, so many people still mistakenly think that "9.18 Major Case Documentary" is a documentary, not a TV series.
This drama brought about a trend of police and gangster drama documentaries, "12.1 Major Shooting Case", "Xi'an Great Hunt", "Jinan 7.9 Major Case Detective Documentary"... A number of TV drama projects adapted from real cases and inviting real police to star in one after another mount.
At this time, Gao Qunshu had resigned from the local TV news unit, and wanted to be a director and shoot a TV series.
After reading "September 18 Major Case Documentary", he felt "too awesome", so he called Chen Shengli who had some contacts.
Chen Shengli is preparing "China's Major Case Records", so he asked Gao Qunshu to be the producer of the film.
The two traveled around half of China, went to public security departments at all levels for interviews, contacted many front-line police officers handling cases, and collected a wealth of first-hand cases.
During this trip, Gao Qunshu accumulated a lot of experience and contacts for the later police and gangster films. When he made "Thirteen Murder Cases" again, it was rumored that there was no case that he could not cover.
Recalling the past, Gao Qunshu sighed with emotion in that era when simplicity and new machines coexisted, and film and television dramas flourished, "there were fewer rules and regulations, and creation was encouraged."
"Okay, old Lu, don't change it"
In 1992, Lu Tianming, who worked as a screenwriter at the China TV Drama Production Center, received a task—to write a realistic script.
The center is affiliated to CCTV, and in the 1980s, it created classic TV series such as "Journey to the West" and "Dream of Red Mansions".
In the early 1990s, Beijing TV produced "Longing", and not long after, "The Story of the Editorial Department" was released. The audience's viewing interest turned to real life, and CCTV was eager to make a TV series with realistic themes.
Lu Tianming recalled that anti-corruption was a topic of discussion in the streets and alleys at that time.
"That's not a general discussion, it's an uproar. When you get home from get off work, everyone is talking about the corruption that happened in your unit. What happened to a section chief in your unit? What happened to a team leader in my unit. Just like the common people in Shanghai later. Talk about the real estate market and the stock market with such enthusiasm." What the hell are you writing?
Lu Tianming felt that it was better to directly write about the pain points and hot spots that ordinary people care about.
He didn't dare to go down to the grassroots level, fearing that the local leaders would "take the right position" and that someone would report to the higher authorities and "complain".
After closing the door for 5 months, Lu Tianming wrote "Heaven Above" based on the discussions and public reports of relatives and friends around him.
It showed the economic crimes of a high-ranking cadre, which was unprecedented at the time, and the bolder scale was that the anti-corruption fighter sacrificed his political future in exchange for the victory of the anti-corruption, without leaving a familiar big Happy ending.
The book was written, reviewed by several departments, and the opinions were very unified: the play is a good play, but it needs to be changed, and there are more than a dozen suggestions for revision.
How could the positive protagonist not end well?
Can the villain be changed to deputy county level?
Even the title of "Heaven Above" has attracted controversy.
Lu Tianming insisted on not changing it, and took the title of the film as an example, "Heaven refers to the party and the people, why can't they call it?" The unit leader was very embarrassed and asked him to take the book outside to shoot.
It just so happened that Beijing TV saw the script, praised it greatly, and expressed its willingness to pay for the filming.
Our unit also agreed, but asked Lu Tianming to say at the office meeting the next day that he had voluntarily proposed to withdraw the script.
That night, after thinking about it, Lu Tianming couldn't figure it out: "If I ask myself to withdraw, isn't it an admission of failure? My script is clearly for the party and the people, why should I change it?" He decided to give a report to a leader of the senior management department On the phone, he had never dealt with this leader before. After asking around, he found the contact information.
At night, Lu Tianming called the leader.
He recalled to "China News Weekly": "I chatted with him for an hour, and expressed my confusion. How can "People's Daily" write, but literary and artistic creation can't?" Finally, the leader made a decision: "Okay, Old Lu, don't change it."
"Heaven Above" finally started filming.
The director’s concerns were also shared by the actors. A well-known actor was originally scheduled to play the male lead, but after reading the script, he bluntly said that he couldn’t act.
During the filming process, the main creator and crew have been walking on thin ice, "as if living on a knife's edge".
They read the editorials of the "People's Daily" every day, and they are afraid that the top leaders will no longer mention anti-corruption. As long as they see the central government talking about anti-corruption, they will quickly call each other and tell each other, and the main creators will hug each other.
All TV dramas to be broadcast in the 90s would be previewed in "China Television News". After the filming of "Heaven is Above", there was no movement until the end of 1995. One afternoon, Lu Tianming suddenly received a notice that "Heaven is above" It starts tonight.
Lu Tianming couldn't believe it, because it wasn't even on the program list of "China TV News".
That night, he and a few main creators waited anxiously in front of the TV, and waited for the "News Network" to end, the weather forecast was over, the clock reached 8 o'clock, the opening music sounded, and the title of the film was typed out. Lu Tianming saw the main creators beside him Like myself, tears welled up in my eyes.
Lu Tianming told "China News Weekly": "This is not the achievement and breakthrough of any one person. Every leader who signed the signature has taken responsibility." This groundbreaking first anti-corruption drama in China with only 17 episodes has caused It was a huge sensation, and the single-episode ratings reached 39% when it was aired on CCTV's prime time, and it is extremely difficult to surpass it so far.
Someone from Lu Tianming's hometown called him and said, "Now the crime rate has dropped, because thieves have to go home and watch "Heaven Above."
Gao Qunshu recalled that in the years when police and bandit dramas were just emerging, the conflict was relatively simple, that is, the police and the bandits, because "the standards at that time did not write about corruption, and even if some corruption was involved, it was only at the department level, at most it was a deputy. Secretary".
The broadcast of "Heaven Above" paved the way for the anti-corruption content in literary works.
After that, there were more political novels. For example, Zhou Meisen, who was later called one of the "Troika" together with Lu Tianming, published "The Righteous Way in the World". record.
In the past, the police and bandit dramas also began to add anti-corruption content. In Chen Shengli's impression, "it should be from the end of the 1990s to the beginning of the 21st century." Police dramas and anti-corruption dramas began to infiltrate each other. It is inevitable that the police will encounter corrupt colleagues or leaders when handling cases," and they merge with each other.
In 2000, the public security organs across the country launched a special campaign to crack down on gangsters and eliminate evil for the first time, and the "fighting gangster drama" came into being.
"Black Ice" and "Black Hole" in the "Black Trilogy" were broadcast in 2001, and "Black Mist" was first broadcast in 2003. In this year, "Supreme Interest" "Absolute Power" and "Absolute Power" written by Zhou Meisen were also concentrated. State Public Prosecution and Conquest directed by Gao Qunshu.
A large number of criminal investigation dramas in the direction of solving crimes, such as "Starscream" and "Six Serious Cases", also emerged during that period.
These TV dramas not only have complex plots and involve deep social issues, but the most attractive thing is that they portray complex and plump characters.
"They are no longer 'telling cases with people', but 'telling people with cases', showing the complexity of human nature when society changes, and changing the simple black and white stratification of characters in Chinese TV dramas. This is a fundamental change." Chen Shengli told China News Weekly.
forward after twists and turns
"Prosperity" and "hotness" often have another side.
After Gao Qunshu finished filming "Conquer", he would receive calls every few days. People and companies who brought him money to make movies kept looking for him. There were only two requirements.
"Conquer" became popular, "Liu Huaqiang" became popular, and follow-up works came one after another.
This is the epitome of the film and television industry rushing to shoot "dramas involved" at that time.
In 2004, some media made statistics, and there were so many anti-crime dramas and anti-corruption dramas being filmed, which accounted for almost half of the total number of TV dramas filmed in the country.
Some of them are purely shoddy. In pursuit of ratings, the producers overemphasize violent pornography, gambling and murder, and power-for-money transactions, but are unable to present the social roots and contradictions behind the cases.
Chen Shengli remembers that when he participated in a seminar, a supervisor said that the current TV series involving the subject matter of the case are a bit too "indiscriminate" and should be controlled.
On April 19, 2004, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television officially released the "Notice on Strengthening the Review and Broadcasting Management of Dramas Involved in the Case", requiring that all film and television dramas and special programs involved in the case should be broadcast after 23 o'clock every night, and strictly controlled The number of broadcasts "must be drastically reduced."
Gao Qunshu told "China News Weekly" that all TV dramas with themes of "police and robbers", "cracking down on gangsters", "anti-corruption" and "criminal investigation" are among the "dramas involved in the case".
Chen Shengli, who pioneered the form of documentary police and gangster dramas, said helplessly: "In fact, no matter whether it is police and gangsters or anti-corruption, there are very high requirements for screenwriters and directors. Not everyone can shoot."
Not being able to enter the prime time has raised the threshold again, and the drama involved in the case is no longer a favorite.
Gao Qunshu switched to filming historical and espionage-themed movies, such as "Tokyo Trial" and "The Wind"...Chen Shengli switched to military dramas because of his job transfer.
Zhou Meisen also went into hibernation, no longer writing anti-corruption dramas, but collecting materials.
Lu Tianming still created an anti-corruption drama "High Latitude Trembling", which was successfully broadcast, but he felt that it was an isolated case.
Although there is no "one size fits all" for all the dramas involved in the case, due to the inability to accurately grasp the creative boundaries, the creators dare not "trial and error" easily, and the film and television dramas involved in the case began to cool down.
In a flash, it is ten years.
At the end of 2014, Liu Meiru, deputy director of the TV drama management department of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, mentioned for the first time at a meeting that public security themes should be "differentiated." He not only acknowledged the positive value of the theme, but also explained the notice ten years ago: "The industry may have misunderstood the policy, or may be clear about the policy, but choose to avoid it because of the difficulty. It is true that there are not many excellent public security dramas that have been widely recognized over the years."
Many people realized that the opening for creation was opened.
In 2015, the relevant staff of the Supreme Prosecutor's Film and Television Center approached Zhou Meisen three times, hoping that he could write a new play.
Zhou Meisen remembered that the other party said to him: "After the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, anti-corruption, a major issue of national concern, has not yet had a decent TV series. I hope we can do a good job of this matter."
Using the materials collected during the dormant period, Zhou Meisen quickly wrote a 300,000-word novel and rewrote it into a 600,000-word TV script - "In the Name of the People".
At this time, CCTV also found Gao Qunshu and invited him to direct the anti-mafia drama "National Action" adapted from the Sichuan Liu Han case.
In 2017, "In the Name of the People" became the hit drama with the highest ratings as soon as it was broadcast, and it was called "the largest anti-corruption drama in history".
Coupled with a batch of police dramas such as "Captain of Criminal Police" broadcast after 2015, the dramas involved in the case have returned to the screen in an all-round way.
Similar to the order at birth, the revival of "fighting black drama" followed them.
And reappearing after many years is no longer a "fighting gangster drama", but a "sweeping gangster drama".
From "beating" to "sweeping", there is a difference in one word, which contains a change in connotation.
In January 2018, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the "Notice on Carrying out a Special Campaign to Suppress Gangsters and Eliminate Evil".
Among them, the special campaign of "fighting against gangsters and eradicating evil", which has been carried out for more than ten years, has become a special campaign of "sweeping gangsters and eradicating evil".
Some media have interpreted the difference. For example, "cracking down on gangsters" is more from the perspective of social security, emphasizing point-to-point crackdowns on crimes committed by gangsters. Underworld-related crimes, providing convenience for underworld forces to commit crimes, and national officials who help underworld forces evade punishment.
In this context, "Ice Breaking Action", "Sweeping Darkness Storm", "Confrontation", "Punishment", "Itinerant Inspection Team", "Sweeping Gangsters-Decisive Battle"... a series of "sweeping gangster dramas" were released one after another until the Spring Festival not long ago "Hurricane", which tells a fight against gangsters and evils spanning 20 years, broke the historical record of domestic dramas in recent years with an effective broadcast market share of 59.6%.
Xu Jizhou, who followed Gao Qunshu to interview criminals, check case files, and film police and gangster dramas, based on his 20 years of experience and feelings in society, as well as the old-school shooting methods he taught since the 1990s, tells the story of a group of people who have experienced social changes in the past 20 years. In the novel, the story of the friction between fate and the times.
In the past 30 years of tortuous development, the Chinese drama involved in the case has also completed the iteration of the director.
Gao Qunshu lamented that in the era when he was filming "Conquer", the underworld would at most open a bathing center and a game hall, and Liu Huaqiang would only set up a consignment station if he was invincible.
In today's anti-crime dramas, the underworld has already begun to demolish and engage in construction projects. Gao Qiqiang in "Hurricane" even established an intricate business group. The difference between the roles in the two generations of TV dramas has reflected the times and is also in line with the overall social situation in China. Development is inseparable from the increase of national anti-corruption efforts.
Comparing the past and the present, Lu Tianming is very emotional. He believes that the first anti-corruption drama "Heaven Above" he produced back then was not simply "anti-corruption". As simple as "sweeping black", he admires his current colleagues who have taken a step forward and wrote a group of Chinese people in the struggle of contemporary life, struggling with the ups and downs of fate, so it can move the audience, and also moved him, a veteran screenwriter, Because this story "is describing contemporary China for us".
Lu Tianming doesn't quite agree with the phrase "real art is not equal to real life". The theory itself is not wrong, but too many colleagues use this sentence as an excuse to avoid the need for art to face reality.
"It's not difficult for a mature screenwriter to play some gimmicks and suspense." Lu Tianming said, the difficulty is to face the reality.
In his eyes, "Hurricane" has set a new benchmark. Starting from this benchmark and moving forward step by step, China should have more realism-based creations, and this call has been around for a long time.
"China News Weekly" Issue 5, 2023
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