Undefined ＂Happy Face＂ and X Theater with One Play and One Style.

Wen | Zero One

"After eating steamed bread and pickles for many years, I suddenly felt a plate of braised pork."

This is a description of the new drama "Huanyan" by a Douban netizen. As a masterpiece of Tencent Video X Theater since The Long Season, Happy Face has assembled the top domestic actors such as Dong Zijian, Zhang Yi, Edward Zhang, Liao Fan, Tong Liya and Tian Yu. After it was broadcast on July 15th, it received rave reviews on platforms such as Zhihu and Douban, and audience comments such as "The role is strong" and "The unexpected node is full of reversals" all confirmed the high quality of the play.

There are only 18 episodes of Huan Yan, and many characters who have appeared have impressed the audience. If they are placed in other regular dramas, they may all be the soul figures throughout the whole drama. As a result, when the eighth episode was just broadcast, more than one important person quickly "appeared" and "went offline". The whole drama style is humorous and profound, which makes the audience laugh for a while and want to cry for a while.

The rapid development of the plot rhythm, the strange expression and the characterization style of Huan Yan can be said to be beyond the inertia psychology of most audiences. In the drama market since the summer vacation, if the topic and popularity are different, it is difficult to distinguish, but in terms of "differentiation", I am afraid that "Huanyan" is the most important.

Xu Tian, played by Dong Zijian, returned from Nanyang and entered the west of Fujian. The old grandson, played by Liao Fan, was entrusted by the organization task to escort Xu Tianhe’s gold bars to Shanghai. Since then, the "road to breaking through customs" has been opened.

Powerful actors competed to compete for the drama, and two complex, profound and charming figures, Lao Sun and Yu Yixiu, surprised four people and quickly "went offline", which laid a shocking and amazing opening for Huanyan.

Unexpected and impressive characters have been a major attraction since the opening of Huan Yan. In just a few episodes, Liao Fan vividly shows Lao Sun, an atypical hero, and the final interaction with Xu Tian is full of emotional tension. The strength of the film emperor is worthy of the name, which can be said to greatly add points to the texture of the whole drama; In addition to my old grandson, Yu Yixiu, played by Edward Zhang, stayed at home for several years, and her seemingly crazy image also exceeded the audience’s expectations, becoming the most popular role in barrage and comments in recent episodes.

What is even more rare is that the drama of the Republic of China is not a cutting-edge theme, but "Happy Face" has abruptly found a new way, which almost makes all the audience feel "unprecedented".

Road drama, the local forces in the Tulou stockade in Fujian during the Republic of China, the wild rule under the warlord regime, some idealism and love are all in it … The temperament presented in the first few episodes of Huan Yan is unique, which is completely different from the conventional type mode of domestic drama.

There are almost no male and female protagonists in the conventional sense in Huan Yan, but they relate the local customs and the various forces in that era through a narrative vein. Through highly legendary and unexpected story development and character design, Huan Yan presents an extremely fresh aesthetic temperament both in form and inside, which not only has a dangerous atmosphere like westerns and Longmen Inn, but also has a little black humor and plot connotation of Jiang Wen and Quentin’s style, and even some plots are quiet and poetic.

The story began in the troubled times in western Fujian, but the protagonists have been "on the road" all the time, and the world full of danger and chaos is slowly unfolding, and there is no lack of black humor and awe-inspiring character brought by fleshy characters. The highly unconventional characters appear on the stage and fall into unexpected endings, which makes Huan Yan like a legendary romantic road drama, and the theme is full of ideals and beliefs after careful consideration, with full stamina.

From the 15th to 19th, the popularity of "Happy Face" in Tencent video station continued to rise, and the reason was that the innovative expression gave the audience a strong motivation to follow the drama, and the freshness persisted.

This also makes the audience more interested in the development of the follow-up plot. The first three "fellow travelers" played by Liao Fan, Edward Zhang and Xiaoliang Wu appeared one after another, each of which was a charming characterization. As of the 9th episode, Zhang Jiayi played by Zhang Yi, Tao Tao played by Tian Yu, Dao Meilan played by Tong Liya and Yang Zhi played by Ren Min have not officially appeared. The new characters are full of clouds. Considering the huge differences and amazing performances of the previous characters, the new characters and stories are obviously worth looking forward to.

The biggest feature of the early stage of Huan Yan is that the leading group is constantly changing, "some people get on the bus and some get off."

From Lao Sun to Yu Yixiu and Yu Zhou, these people caught a glimpse of their scenes and images in the play, rushing into the sky like holiday fireworks and dazzling, but they bloomed in an instant and had a long aftertaste. This kind of characterization in Huan Yan is very literary, full of legendary and romantic temperament, and each has different meanings of the times.

For example, the old grandson played by Liao Fan has his own rise, fall and sublimation. When I came out, I was taciturn and firm-eyed, much like those heroes who were reassuring and invulnerable as soon as I came out. When the train was robbed, my performance was really eloquent, which seemed to coincide with this inertial thinking. However, since then, there have been successive failures in revealing wealth, cheating on gold bars, cheating on taking medicine and robbing pawn shops. The audience has gradually discovered that Lao Sun doesn’t have so many "leading role rings", and he is just a more sophisticated agent. He didn’t fight with one enemy and didn’t see through all the magical powers of the unknowns. This is the "high opening" and "returning to the truth" set by people.

However, with the task of Lao Sun gradually approaching a desperate situation, the glory of his ideals and beliefs has become more and more dazzling and intense. With his sacrifice reaching the highest point, he gradually sublimated into the spiritual idols of Xu Tian, Yu Yixiu and others in the play, became the symbolic father, the original righteous person and the leader of the whole play, and also hit the tears of a large number of audiences outside the play.

Yu Yixiu played by Edward Zhang is completely different. He is the hidden leader of Sanzhai in western Fujian, but he claims to be a "clay bodhisattva" and has been hiding in the house for several years. He is full of interest in the outside world, but all of them come from books and maps, and he is crazy when he speaks and acts. Because I admire my sacrifice and firm belief, I made a promise to give up my head status and go out for a long trip, but I didn’t expect to face the collapse of my spiritual world.

Yu Yixiu has extremely contradictory and complicated characteristics, which has a strong symbolic significance in the eyes of readers. He was an old squire with benevolence, righteousness, morality and idealism at that time, and faced with the collapse of warlords’ scuffles, rituals and music, he could only be out of place and helpless.

Yu Yixiu enjoyed the days of escaping from the cage and going out for a long trip, but found that everything in the world was contrary to his own courtesy. Going out of the house to pursue a down-to-earth road, and then having to face all the failures of naivety, rules and morality, not only can I do nothing for a warlord like Assistant Guo, but I can only be beaten even when I face Hu Man. No one listens to the truth, and the authority can’t beat me, but I can’t beat me again. In the end, I can only hope that I can practice my promises and faithfulness through illusory gambling.

As the main narrative line, Xu Tian is just like a blank sheet of paper. The first shot of the whole film is the flying back of a crane, and Xu Tian also appeared in white, which is a metaphor of camera language. Although Xu Tian has an ideal and a high sense of morality and justice, he is also a bit confused and can’t fully understand his own direction and goals.

Until the death of his comrade, more and more blood was stained on his body, his white clothes became dirtier and dirtier, and his fiancee became a symbol of good hope, which together constituted the process of his growth and maturity after this struggle, as well as the real landing, clear and firm process of his ideas and beliefs.

The brushwork of characterization in Huan Yan is not limited to the main characters. For example, Lao Qi, as a leading figure in Sanzhai’s handling of foreign affairs, is not only a running dog who colludes with local warlords to seize the people, but also a burden-bearer who maintains Sanzhai’s Xanadu life; For example, Peng Ju appeared in just two episodes, which brought countless smiles and tears to the audience. Even Hu Man, a gambler who is "importunate" and forgets the righteousness, finally has a complex human performance when his conscience is discovered. The reason why the previous episodes have attracted many viewers’ heartfelt recommendation is that almost all the supporting characters are very three-dimensional.

If the plot and rhythm of "Huanyan" are the main sources of freshness, then the plump group of characters is the main reason for the sense of quality. Taking every character seriously and shaping it has laid the foundation for the overall quality, height and thickness of Huanyan.

When Tencent Video opened the X Theater in April this year with "The Long Season", many viewers didn’t understand what the concept and characteristics of this theater were. Fortunately, the work is always the best interpretation-"The Long Season" has become the best-known drama series since 2023 with the momentum of opening high and exploding, and the Douban score is as high as 9.4. The surging praise has made this drama strong and "sealed the gods", which also laid the brand foundation of X Theater with high quality, high reputation, stylization and innovative expression, as well as a very high starting point.

Successfully let the audience experience the content that has never been seen in domestic dramas, which is also the fundamental reason why The Long Season can gain a historical reputation. On the basis of advanced aesthetics in his previous works, Director Xin Shuang has achieved self-transcendence in editing, score and plot expression. The story has a heavy feeling across the times, and the audience seems to have experienced many people’s lives in just twelve episodes.

The opening ceremony of "The Long Season" not only brought the public’s expectation and attention like the tide, but also meant pressure. In the public’s mind, X Theater should have a sense of quality and cutting-edge temperament, well-made, distinctive and fresh, and have the courage to truly stand at the forefront of Chinese drama. The appearance of "Happy Face" proves that X Theater is not just suspense.

The "X" of X Theater is that it is unlimited and full of possibilities to realize "one drama and one format". Various types and styles of personalized works are bold "adventures" by the platform and creators again and again, and ultimately only to bring more novel content and fresher experience to the audience.

Although The Long Season and Happy Face have completely different types and expressions, the same thing is that they are deeply rooted in human nature, ideals and characteristics of the times, and they have profound connotations under the avant-garde artistic expression forms, which will be the common content background of X Theater.

After the broadcast of "Happy Face", X Theater can be regarded as "stable". What is mentioned most in the public opinion feedback of the play is the uniqueness and rarity of temperament. From the concept of legendary romantic road drama, super-first-line cast, to the perfection of specific details, Happy Face has achieved what X theater works should look like-exquisite, fresh, profound and interesting. With the climax of the plot, Zhang Yi and other new characters are about to appear one after another, and the subsequent development and word-of-mouth performance of Huan Yan are still worth our expectation.

* Original article, please indicate the source when reprinting.