Why can ＂Hurricane＂ be ＂Hurricane＂？
It was on fire! It exploded! It went crazy!
At the beginning of 2023, the TV series "Hurricane" with the theme of sweeping away gangs and evil ushered in a "double harvest" in terms of audience ratings and word-of-mouth – since going LIVE on January 14, the peak audience rating of CCTV’s eight sets broke 3; during the broadcast, discussions about the drama were on hot searches almost every day, and it also broke the historical record of iQIYI popularity; the villain Gao Qiqiang’s "The Art of War", which he loved, topped the best-selling list of ancient books on the e-commerce platform; the number of searches and sales of the same food in the play increased by N times; and the "Qiangsheng Group", which has the same name as the black-related enterprise in the play, attracted millions of viewers when it did a live broadcast; what’s more rare is that Douban gave the drama an average of 8.7 points Of…
So, why is the domestic TV drama "Hurricane" so "hurricane"?
Script: Three Acts + Duel + Character Comparison
"Hurricane" uses the contradictory life curves of police officer An Xin (Zhang Yi) and fishmonger Gao Qiqiang (Zhang Songwen) to tell the story of a 20-year struggle against crime and evil. The plot starts in 2021: In the fictional Linjiang Province, the special project of anti-crime and anti-evil was commended and summarized and the mobilization and deployment meeting of political and legal team education and rectification was held. Xu Zhong (Wu Gang), the special supervisor of the provincial anti-crime office, just accepted the award at the meeting and was appointed after the meeting. With a report from Jinghai City (a fictional city), Xu Zhong and his partner Ji Ze embarked on a journey of normalization of the struggle against crime and evil. However, Jinghai City, which is at the center of the storm, is impenetrable. The steering group decided to look for clues from An Xin, an ordinary police officer who wrote a surprisingly careful "self-examination and self-correction" report, and the past of 2000 and 2006 began…
"Characters are all intelligent online" "All actors are acting fast" "The plot is compact, without any water injection" "Serving Dao in every era is very attentive"… This is the intuitive feeling of many people after watching the 39-episode TV series "Hurricane". In the fields of anti-corruption, anti-crime, and anti-crime, there are many well-known works in the front, but "Hurricane" can make a different new idea of "anti-crime and evil" and ride the dust, which is not easy.
Above: Director Xu Jizhou.
Director Xu Jizhou, who was born in 1976, has shot a large number of public security-themed film and television works since he started film and television creation in 2000, such as the series "China Criminal Police", "Black Storm", "Sniper", and the movie "City Light of Psychological Crime". For the public security-themed dramas, this Beijing man has just the right touch.
In 2019, iQIYI and White Film and Television Company are preparing to shoot a work of anti-black and evil to cooperate with the promotion of the three-year work of anti-black and anti-evil. In the same year, 43-year-old Xu Jizhou was invited to join the creation of the project. He recalled: "The Central Political and Legal Committee gave us a lot of dossiers and took us to do a lot of interviews. In the early stage, there were already anti-black and anti-evil dramas broadcast. In order to avoid repetition, the final tone was created against the background of the normalization of anti-black and anti-evil and the education and rectification of political and legal teams… Since we came into contact with this project in 2019, we have made several drafts of the script, and we have also written it out. It was not until 2020 that we worked with the current screenwriter Zhu Junyi and found the right direction before we officially started preparations."
"I graduated from the management department of the Central Academy of Drama and have been working on stage plays," says Zhu Junyi, an up-and-coming screenwriter born in Weifang, Shandong province, referring to their partnership. "I only became a screenwriter after meeting director Xu Jizhou. He is my master, and I have written with him for eight years, which has benefited a lot."
In the fall of 2020, Zhu Junyi had just finished writing the script for the urban emotional drama "8090." "Director Xu came to tell me that there is a theme of anti-crime and evil, but the time is tight and the task is heavy. Are you interested? I agreed almost without thinking, and did not rest at all. I immediately started to prepare. At that time, it was not called" Hurricane ", so I started to write a random name. Later, Director Xu changed it to" Hurricane ". Fortunately, it was changed, otherwise it would have collided with a similar theme that was broadcast later."
Xu Jizhou’s idea of naming "Huabeng" originated from Chairperson Mao’s poem "Butterfly Love Flower From Tingzhou to Changsha", "An International Elegy Song, Huabeng Falls from the Sky for Me". In his opinion, the first two lines of this poem written in 1930, "June’s Heavenly Soldiers Conquer Corruption and Evil, and Wanzhang Changying will bind Kunpeng", which is very compatible with this TV series. A storm and revolution are coming. Only with the determination of a strong man to break his wrist and the courage of the blade to turn inward can we truly achieve the eradication of evil and the treatment of both symptoms and root causes.
"Hurricane" as an original script, except for the three-act dramatic structure proposed by Xu Jizhou and the story framework of the duel between the two heroes, other content basically requires Zhu Junyi to build from scratch.
The so-called "three acts" correspond to 2000, 2006 and 2021 respectively, and each scene revolves around a core event, namely homicide, land acquisition disputes and the handling of cases by the guidance team.
Xu Jizhou revealed that the reason for choosing these three time nodes is that in 2021, the national political and legal team will be rectified, and the results of 20 years of investigation will be shocking, and the 20 years of investigation will just go back to the beginning of the millennium, and coincide with the turn of the century China has two major events, one is China’s formal accession to the WTO, the other is Beijing’s successful bid for the Olympic Games, during this period our country’s security environment is more complex; and the choice of 2006 as a time node is due to the introduction of a series of land control policies at that time. One of the characteristics of frequent cases in this period is to drill the loopholes in land control policies, find gaps and seize greater benefits; 2021 is the beginning of the normalization of anti-crime and evil, and the rectification of political and legal team education.
The "duel between the two heroes" is when An Xin, an idealistic police officer played by Zhang Yi, and Gao Qiqiang, a local evil force played by Zhang Songwen, met each other, but went to a different path because of different choices. The two are mirrored characters, and the entanglement of fate that is difficult to decompose attracts the audience with emotion.
In fact, the two roles of An Xin and Gao Qiqiang just represent two sides of the rule of law society and the human society – Gao Qiqiang is well versed in all the loopholes and laws of the human society, while An Xin is an idealist and stands on perfecting the rule of law, so behind them is actually a collision of two social concepts. In Xu Jizhou’s view, if An Xin was not an idealist with the spirit of the rule of law, he would not have to fight Gao Qiqiang for 20 years. The whole struggle is so cruel.
Because there are a lot of scenes in the play that describe the life of the police force, Zhu Junyi made a lot of calls to the young criminal police in Weifang’s hometown when he was writing, asking for a lot of details. The description of the old factory street where Gao Qiqiang’s gang made a fortune in the play stems from Zhu Junyi’s memories in Weifang’s hometown. "Gao Qiqiang’s scenes start from the vegetable market. I remember that the vegetable market when I was a child was always dirty, crowded, and quarreled. When I grew up, I often went to the vegetable market. I felt that it was more crowded than the supermarket, and I was no longer afraid of the noise. Instead, I felt that I was in the world of fireworks and very peaceful. Some people say that the performance of the present moment is the accumulation of all past experiences. In creation, I can read the case files and materials, but I can do more work in weekdays."
The archetypes of An Xin and Gao Qiqiang’s characters are actually spliced together with the images of many police officers and black bosses. Zhu Junyi said that the development of the underworld has similarities, and there must be morphological changes in the early, middle and later stages. From the beginning of violence to finding "umbrella companies", to later becoming an "umbrella company" by himself, and even controlling the appointment and removal of officials, it must develop into a similar form in the later stage. "Like the competition for mines and casinos, I basically demolished them. Gao Qiqiang’s story borrows some criminal trajectories, first selling fish and then engaging in land demolition and real estate, and then putting on the guise of legality, trying to whitewash the industry."
An Xin doesn’t have the original prototype either. This role gathers all the qualities of a good police officer, such as loyalty, responsibility, kindness, etc. In fact, the idealists in reality have a worse life than An Xin. Xu Jizhou revealed, "We came into contact with a political and legal cadre in Guangdong, 34 years old with white hair, just like An Xin. Anti-crime is as cruel as anti-drug, and the other party will use all your weaknesses to restrain you. So we designed An Xin to be an orphan, unmarried, and without a family. We blocked all his weaknesses. If not, the power of Gao Qiqiang’s gang will definitely destroy all your weaknesses and break through all your defenses."
An Xin, who is regarded as a "solitary brave man", is also very particular about the style in the play. Producer Qin Ge introduced: "In 2000, An Xin had very short shaved hair on both sides, and the hair on the top of the head stood up in high spirits; in 2006, An Xin’s standing hair was all down, and he was struggling to pull and game with the evil forces; in 2021, An Xin’s hair was all white, showing his efforts to compete with the evil forces."
This ingenious design is not only in the shape, but also in the names of the characters in the play. In Zhu Junyi’s pen, the names of the characters in the play are all designed. For example, An Xin is peace of mind, and his partner Li Xiang is the ideal. The eagle-eyed audience found that the name of Zhao Lidong, the evil force in Jinghai City in "Hurricane", was only one word different from that of Zhao Beginning of Spring, the "umbrella company" in "In the Name of the People". In this regard, Zhu Junyi admitted that "there is no connection, it is just a coincidence. If you have to say it, it can also be said to be a tribute to excellent works".
It is worth mentioning that Zhu Junyi uses a lot of control groups in the play, "An Xin and Li Xiang are a pair, Gao Qiqiang and Gao Qisheng are a pair, Meng Dehai and An Changlin are a pair, and they have similarities and differences."
An Xin was an orphan, and her father was also a policeman, but he died young for some reason. Meng Dehai (played by Zhang Zhijian, Gao Yuliang in "In the Name of the People") and An Changlin (played by Shi Zhaoqi), who were also policemen, took care of An Xin very much, and An Changlin adopted An Xin. An Xin and Meng Dehai’s daughter, Meng Yu, were childhood sweethearts. In fact, everyone didn’t have high expectations for An Xin, hoping that he would be calm. But An Xin happened to be very stubborn and was an idealist who pursued justice in his heart.
An Xin’s partner, Li Xiang (Li Jian), was born in the countryside (Mang Village, which appears in the second act). His parents hoped that he would be amazing, and Li Xiang hoped that he would be able to establish a foothold, but fate dictated that because the dead master Cao Chuang (Hao Ping, also An Xin’s master) was sandwiched between black and white, and he couldn’t help himself. Until he met Tan Siyan from the Municipal Government Research Office, who had been writing the report letter, Li Xiang embarked on the road to liberation. Although both he and Tan Siyan died, Li Xiang provided a lot of clues for An Xin before his death.
As for Meng Dehai and An Changlin, Zhu Junyi portrayed Meng Dehai as a "Fang" with a strong character, fragile with edges and corners, and destined to fail to achieve a bright ending (he was punished for his son-in-law Yang Jian’s crimes in the seat of the Standing Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress). An Changlin’s design is "round", which is more sophisticated and thoughtful. He is a good partner with Meng Dehai, and he is also a rare positive character in the play to reach the end.
Along with these characters are also the means by which the underworld forces corrupted the political and legal teams in different eras. As Zhu Junyi said, "The common means of bribery and courtship have been passed by, and some relatively hidden ones are set up in the play, such as the kindergarten and nursing home in the third act." Gao Qiqiang deliberately created kindergartens for the children of grass-roots civil servant families and nursing homes specializing in serving retired cadres, and "caught" both ends of the officialdom in such a way to buy people’s hearts. Such plots not only increase the appreciation of the play, but also make more people realize the difficulty and complexity of anti-underworld in reality.
Above: An Xin’s partner, Li Xiang (Li Jian), is from the countryside (Mang Village, which appears in the second act).
Actor: They all have social experience, and the crew changes while writing and filming
In recent years, domestic dramas have been widely criticized for not only the script problem, but also the acting skills of the actors. Fortunately, "Hurricane" not only has a solid script, but all the actors not only have online acting skills, but are even praised as "Hurricane Acting".
Whether it is the game of "Shuangzhang" (Zhang Yi, Zhang Songwen), the blessing of the old drama bones (Wu Gang, Zhang Zhijian, Ni Dahong), or the wonderful supporting roles such as sister-in-law Chen Shuting (Gao Ye) killer Lao Mo (Feng Bing), or Li Hongwei (Aruna), the son of the village party secretary of Mang Village (Aruna), the actor and character are very suitable. In addition to the two protagonists An Xin and Gao Qiqiang, many supporting roles in the play also left a deep impression on people. "I am looking for actors with life experience, because this play is about Chinese social ecology, and it has a 20-year span. When I talk to each actor, I don’t talk to him about the play or the role. Basically, I talk about my past life experiences and family environment… When I go to the actor to talk about the play, everyone will have a basic consensus on their respective characters. Most of the TV dramas I direct are written by myself, which will give the actors sufficient space for second-degree creation to play. If there is anything I don’t understand, I will discuss with the actors. If there is a problem with the direction, everyone will collide and seek common ground while reserving differences. "When they encountered mutual intransigence, Xu Jizhou would shoot two or three plans according to each other’s ideas, and finally get them to the editing stage to decide.
"Hurricane" allows the audience to see the awe and strength of a group of non-famous good actors for their professions. In order to play Gao Qiqiang’s royal killer Lao Mo (Huang Yao’s father Chen Jinmo), actor Feng Bing went to prison to experience life, and also learned to fish and kill fish. In order to grasp the accurate image of a single father, he went to the orphanage to enhance his sensibility and ponder Lao Mo’s emotional support and character motivation, thus establishing the character’s lonely, moral and incomplete personality. Lin Jiachuan, the actor who plays Gao Qiqiang’s sidekick Tang Xiaolong (nicknamed "Brother Dao"), pondered with the director how a prison release scene could better express the characters’ emotional treading and caution. In the end, only two lines were kept to silence Tang Xiaolong. In Lin Jiachuan’s view, silence is an observation.
Sometimes, the temporary changes on the scene of the actors are more exciting than the presentation of the script. Zhu Junyi recalled: "For example, in the scene of the 12th episode of An Xin Celebration Party, Teacher Zhang Yi contributed a very good performance. The original script wrote that he called Li Xiang, and the mobile phone was in his pocket, but Teacher Zhang Yi adjusted it very well on the spot. He put the mobile phone in the bandage, and it immediately connected with the previous injury, and it was much better visually. After he said that line, he also broke the microphone, which looked more powerful from the camera."
Xu Jizhou revealed that in the "Hurricane" crew, there are so many good actors, and everyone also plays against each other. If you want a move, I have to think of a move. For example, in the first act, Xu Jiang, played by Jia Bing, finally fell down and went to call the public phone. After the call, he took out the money and thought about it.
In Episode 24, when Gao Qiqiang goes to "visit" Li Hongwei, who was beaten half-dead by his younger brother Gao Qisheng (Su Xiaoding) with a frozen fish, he is stopped by the police in the hospital with a cordon, and Gao Qiqiang keeps retreating with a group of younger brothers. The footage here is ingenious, with close-ups frozen on the word "police". And this scene was Zhang Yi’s impromptu intention on the set.
Old Mo, who inherited Gao Qiqiang’s fish stall in the old factory street, eats a lollipop every time he kills someone or makes a major decision. This character feature is actually a temporary design by actor Feng Bing. He doesn’t like sugar in life, but this design can add a bit of humanity to the character of Lao Mo beyond the killer. Even the scene where Gao Qiqiang eats a lollipop in front of Lao Mo is impromptu. Zhang Songwen thought Feng Bing was going to take out a cigarette at first, but he didn’t expect it to be sugar, so he took it and ate it. At that moment, the two were more like real-friends on an equal footing outside the identity of boss and killer.
In addition to the actors taking the initiative to change the play on the spot, because the script was polished for a long time, resulting in a situation where the crew "wrote while filming, and changed while writing". It is reported that "Hurricane" will start on September 26, 2021 and be completed on January 18, 2022, while the script will be written until January 5, 2022. Because the script has not been written yet when shooting starts, many actors do not know that they are "bad guys" or how they "get a box lunch".
For example, the veteran detective Cao Chuang in "Hurricane" is the master of An Xin and Li Xiang, and is also the "inner ghost" in the first act. When the villain’s true face is revealed, the audience is taken aback. In fact, the actor Hao Ping is as surprised as everyone else, because he thought he was a good cop when he filmed Episode 11. It was not until 12 episodes before the filming that the director informed him that he was the "inner ghost", and Cao Chuang was removed from the line in Episode 12.
Sun Yan, who plays Tang Xiaohu (and Gao Qiqiang are both gangsters from Old Factory Street, Tang Xiaolong’s younger brother), has always been alone when filming, but in the 37th episode (a total of 39 episodes), the director suddenly said, "Tomorrow you have a scene with your wife" (in order to expose Gao Qiqiang’s self-directed and self-directed role in the Hong Kong murder scene), Sun Yan was all confused, and then he also made a special post saying, "I just heard that Tang Xiaohu has a wife."
The third act (episode 27) begins in 2021, when Gao Qiqiang’s wife, Chen Shuting, is dead and becomes a photo on the wall. But the actor at the time, Gao Ye, said that he did not know how the character died. It was not until episode 38 that the plot revealed that Chen Shuting died in 2014 due to a car accident. The cause of the car accident was the killer sent by Gao Qiqiang’s enemy businessperson Jiang Tian (Zhao Longhao) to cross the mountain (Zhao Da).
Fortunately, the actor’s acting skills made up for the embarrassment of rushing to work on the script.
Above: In one of the show’s "famous scenes", Gao Qiqiang is cordoned off by the police at the hospital when he goes to "visit" Li Hongwei, who was beaten half to death by his younger brother Gao Qisheng with frozen fish.
The location and props were carefully selected, but there were still "flaws".
In addition to a good script and good actors, the location and props of "Hurricane" are also outstanding.
"Hurricane" was filmed in Jiangmen, Guangdong, and many Lingnan social features of Xinhui, Taishan and Kaiping are everywhere in the play.
In "Hurricane," many important scenes are completed at the dinner table. Some netizens asked "why the characters in the play don’t add soy sauce when they eat rice noodles." In this regard, Xu Jizhou explained that in fact, the rice noodles bought are actually accompanied by soy sauce, but the crew basically eats them dry, because the dip is easy to get on the face, and the actors’ makeup is easy to get dirty. Once dirty, they have to touch up their makeup and reshoot, and sometimes they don’t take the scenes. "It’s the same when you shoot dumplings. Everyone eats dumplings without dipping them in vinegar. It’s the same reason. They don’t want to lose their makeup."
As for "why did the characters in the play eat dumplings on New Year’s Eve when the filming was in Guangdong?", Xu Jizhou responded, "I am from Beijing, and the screenwriter is from Shandong. Dumplings symbolize reunion in our hearts…. Jinghai is a virtual city, which condenses the characteristics of the whole country. We thought of using dumplings as a clue from the beginning. A police officer and a bandit met through dumplings, and the last time they met was also eating dumplings."
At the same time, the crew did a lot of homework in terms of prop collection, costume preparation, etc. In the early stage, the crew recycled a lot of old things in Taobao, Xianyu, etc. Some things were outdated in the mainland, but there may be more along the coast. When the audience saw old things such as black Jetta, Santana car, PHS, Nokia N70, etc., the memory of the times came to them.
Inadvertently, the cast arranged for Gao Qiqiang to read "Poor Dad, Rich Dad" recommended by An Xin at the beginning. Because Xu Jizhou had a deep impression, "In 2000, many people in our dormitory were watching" Poor Dad, Rich Dad ", and they talked about how to make a fortune. It was a best-seller at that time, and Zhang Yi also suggested this book. Later, when the props were not found, I said that Gao Qiqiang would mainly read" The Art of War "."
Of course, after the hit of "Hurricane", fans of the show also became woodpeckers and found many "mistakes" in the show. This may be due to the short filming cycle and the pandemic. Many places in the third act were not filmed, resulting in some suspense buried in the front not being exposed. The final ending was a little hasty, and some characters were not fully set or even somewhat contrary to reality.
For example, when the stubborn An Xin killed his relatives righteously (Master Cao Chuang and benefactor Meng Dehai), he had no mental burden at all and lacked human touch. Even so, he was adored by Meng Yu (Meng Dehai’s daughter, reporter, Li Yitong), Gao Qilan (Gao Qiqiang’s sister, doctor, Ronnie) and his colleague Xiaowu (Wu Jingli), and the latter two even never married because of him. And how An Xin’s father died in the line of duty was not revealed until the finale, and the audience had speculated that it might be related to the underworld forces or inner ghosts in Jinghai City.
Although the screenplay of police life is well written (the big competition is particularly exciting), some of the clear rules of officialdom are "flawed" in the play. For example, Secretary Wang has worked as Zhao Lidong’s full-time secretary for at least 20 years. Since Zhao Lidong became the secretary of the Political and Legal Committee of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee in 2000, Secretary Wang has already been his full-time secretary. After Zhao Lidong was promoted to mayor in 2021, Secretary Wang still served as his full-time secretary. Under normal circumstances, when the secretary of the same leader changes positions, he rarely transfers to a new position with the leader. And Zhao Lidong has been the main leader of the same city for more than 20 consecutive years. It is also unreasonable.
As for the gang boss Chen Tai (Ni Dahong) who was forced out by Gao Qiqiang, and Huang Lao (Shu Yaoxuan), a retired veteran cadre from Linjiang Province who lived in Gao Qiqiang Nursing Home, they did not explain the outcome.
Xu Jizhou revealed that the original 43 episodes of "Hurricane" were filmed, but only 39 episodes were broadcast in the end. The cut was mainly the sex-related and drug-related scenes of sister-in-law Chen Shuting, and some of the too violent scenes of Xu Jiang, which had little impact on the development of the plot. But careful netizens found that Meng Dehai’s mouth shape and dialogue in the last few episodes did not match, and it seemed that the words were changed later. Users speculated that Meng Dehai was also a "inner ghost", but his "black" character seemed to make the plot too dark, so the crew "whitewashed" the character in the later stage.
In one scene, Secretary Wang came forward to make peace for Gao Qiqiang and Jiang Tian instead of Zhao Lidong. Secretary Wang said this to Gao Qiqiang: "Gao Qiqiang, the leaders will not pursue the small actions behind you and Meng Dehai and Yang Jian." This basically confirmed that Meng Dehai was also Gao Qiqiang’s "umbrella company".
It is reported that the original novel of the same name of "Hurricane" will also be published by Qingdao Publishing House in 2023. It is hoped that the bugs in the series can be fixed in the book, so that "Hurricane" can truly become a classic of anti-underworld dramas. Reporter | Jin Ji
