"Early Lights" ── Success is also Xiao He, failure is also Xiao He

When it comes to Taiwan TV dramas that have been discussed recently, I believe that most people's first impression is to think of "Hua Deng Chu Shang". At the beginning of this year, I was asked by a hair stylist if she had watched "The First Time in China", and when I answered no, she was very surprised. Following "The Distance Between Us and Evil", "The Beginning of Hua Deng" once again brought Taiwan TV dramas to the top. What exactly is "The Beginning of Hua Deng" popular?

The story of "Hua Deng Chu Shang" begins with a corpse burial case. In 1988, there were many hotels in the Tiaotong business district of Linsen North Road in Taipei City. Among them, the Japanese-style hotel "Light" was the most popular among Japanese guests. The management is very good, but they did not expect that a case of dumping a corpse would involve "Light" in the controversy. At the same time, the tense relationship between the young lady and her mother Sang gradually surfaced. Who is the victim? Who is the murderer?

• plot structure

A good work will have a clear structure. When we are thinking of a story, we will often mention "start, inherit, turn, and close". The structure of the story is more pronounced in "The Beginning of the Lights" than in other works, because the work is based on a quarter and clearly divides the story into chapters. In the first season of "The Beginning of the Lights", the audience will find out who the dead are; in the second season of "The Beginning of the Lights", the audience will discover who the suspects are and their motives; in the third season of "The Beginning of the Lights", the audience will find out who the culprits are. The story of "The Beginning of Hua Deng" is very clear. The audience will follow the characters into the plot step by step and discover together who is the real victim and murderer. The advantage of this approach is that the story is clearly structured and has a clear purpose in the different parts, thus building a full story content. However, there is also a downside to this approach, which is that the plot may become dragged and the popularity of the work will decline. When the seasons of a work are aired far apart, people tend to forget about the content of the work. Nowadays, film and television works are emerging in an endless stream, and the popularity of the works is easily overshadowed by other works.

In "The Beginning of Hua Deng", the third season was controversial. The reason is not difficult to understand. Some viewers think that the ending of "The First Time" is not unexpected; some viewers think that the rhythm of the plot is too slow. There is no doubt that "The Beginning of Hua Deng" is one of the most outstanding works of Taiwanese TV dramas this year. The plot and details of "The Beginning of Hua Deng" are very good, but because of this, the audience is dissatisfied. why? It is precisely because the plot is so fascinating that the audience constantly guesses who the murderer is and the murderer's motive as the plot develops and while waiting for the gap between the third season's broadcast. When the third season aired, many people were disappointed with the murderer. The disappointment was not that her motive was insufficient, but that the murderer was not surprising enough. When it was revealed who the murderer was in the third season, in fact, many netizens had already guessed who the murderer was and his motives on the Internet. When the first and second seasons of "Hua Deng Chu Shang" brought the sense of suspense to the highest level, the audience's expectations for the murderer also became higher. In the face of the audience's expectations, many suspense dramas hope to give a satisfactory answer to the audience. In many suspense dramas, most of the routines are: blackened supporting roles, sci-fi settings, new characters, open endings, etc. Most suspense dramas will arrange one or two supporting characters who seem to be very honest in the play, and then make a reversal in the plot to surprise the audience. Of course, the audience will be surprised if the plot arrangement is reasonable. If it is unreasonable, it violates the character design. If the plot becomes more and more exaggerated, some suspense dramas will end with sci-fi results, for example, everything is just a dream of the protagonist. Personally, none of the great suspense dramas I've seen focus on the murderer, they spend more time telling how the plot unfolds and how the murderer competes with the police or detectives, such as "The Silent Truth." In contrast, what about "The Beginning of Hua Deng"?

Personally, I think the problem with "The Beginning of Hua Deng" is that the plot arrangement is not full enough. The plot of the story is very substantial in the first season. This is because the story needs to explain the background of the story, the relationship between characters and so on. In just a few episodes, there is enough information about murders, victims, related people, etc., and because of this, the audience I don't think the storyline is slow. However, in the second season, the shortcoming of the thin plot gradually revealed. Even though the plot adds a number of new characters in the second season, such as Bao Bao, Ma Tianhua, etc., in terms of murder alone, there is no progress in the second season. This is mainly because the plot begins to revolve around different characters, describing the past between them and the victim, and even the story of the characters themselves. As a result, the story no longer centers on the murder case, but begins to extend to the hotel lady of the Japanese-style hotel "Hikaru". In the third season of "The Beginning of Hua Deng", the plot does not need to explain the background, the characters, or the relationship between the characters, so the story becomes vague. Perhaps to enrich the content of the third season, the plot spent a lot of time describing the drug cases mentioned in the first two seasons. The story came to the third season as if it had nothing to do with the Japanese-style hotel "Hikaru" and the victims. Officials protect each other and the cooperation between police and black has become one of the focuses of the third season, and the part of the murderer did not spend a lot of time describing. Perhaps so, many viewers feel that the plot of the third season is dragged down, and after watching it is the same as not watching it.

I personally think that the third season of "The Beginning of Hua Deng" could have been shot with new meanings. If it is shot in the third season, it can be shot from a different angle, such as the second season of "Hannah's Last Words", "The Hidden Corner", etc., from the perspective of the murderer , describe how they used trust and relationships to mislead investigators, and the whole story might be different. However, the ideal situation is that the series will only have two seasons. After all, the story of "The Beginning of Hua Deng" is not long and the complexity is low.

• grateful?

 Su Qingyi: "It's been like this since I knew you before, rushing to take care of others, rushing to stand out for others, as if you are the only one in the world, Luo Yunong, who is the most powerful, and everyone else is weak. You never thought about how I feel, You don't care if I need it or not, everything you do is to fulfill your sense of superiority."

Looking at the entire work, it is not difficult to find that the core of the story revolves around "feeling". I help others without thinking about whether they need our help from their standpoint. Many times we do bad things with good intentions. We think that helping others through difficulties is a kind act, and we subconsciously think that we should be grateful for helping others, but when the facts are different from our presupposition, we will feel that the other party is overstepping and does not understand gratitude , just like Su Qingyi in the story. Interestingly, in "The Beginning of Hua Deng", the story tells the psychology of the recipients from another angle. In the play, Su Qingyi said: "I knew from the first day I met you. The reason why she helped you and saved you was because of your existence, just to satisfy Luo Yunong's illness. That kind of self-confidence that can help Wouldn’t it be very sad to sympathize with other people’s illnesses?” I believe that most people who help others have never thought that the recipients are not grateful or even resentful towards them. In the story, Su Qingyi accepted Luo Yunong's help to overcome difficulties, but in the process, Su Qingyi felt dissatisfied. I personally think that this dissatisfaction stems from her sense of powerlessness about herself. Because she has no ability to change the situation herself, she has to rely on the help of others. As a career-seeking and independent woman, Su Qingyi possesses extraordinary self-confidence and ambition. The one who asked Luo Yunong for help was the one she looked down on and the one she hated. Interestingly, she transfers this disgust to Luo Yunong, who lends a helping hand. Because she thought she didn't need Luo Yunong's help, everything was Luo Yunong's initiative to help, and she just accepted Luo Yunong's kindness. To some people, Su Qingyi looks like a bad person, but to those who know her, she is a gentle, friendly and talkative mother Su. Emotions are very complex, and we don't necessarily get gratitude from others for helping others. Here we can see a contradiction. We are a bystander because we don't want to be told that we are doing bad things with good intentions, but there will always be people in society who accuse those bystanders of not helping. When people need help, others should lend a hand; when people don't, others should not be meddling. This bipolar response is elusive.

This work has experienced two polar views from its launch to the end of its broadcast, from being highly anticipated to being discussed whether it is "unfinished". There is no doubt that the editing and story arrangement of "The First Time in the Light" are very good, but the editing and story arrangement also make the work lack stamina. I don't know if everyone thinks "The Beginning of Hua Deng" is "unfinished"?

Friends who want to know the update of the article in real time can follow my IG: momo_no.name to learn more~