There is a new variant of the intertextual narrative strategy in drama production – starting with “Traveling with the Phoenix” – International Online

In terms of the male protagonist’s character, “The Legend of Chu Qiao” and “Traveling with Feng” are highly consistent. The male protagonist Yu Wenyue in “The Legend of Chu Qiao” is a man of power and strategizing thousands of miles away. As for the male protagonist Xingzhi in “Walking with the Phoenix”, as an “ancient god” who lives in the “outer world” and knows everything, he naturally has a transcendent perspective.The picture shows a still from “The Legend of Chu Qiao”

Intertextual production is relatively common in film and television works. For example, many film and television works adapted from traditional cultural themes can produce a certain kind of “memory intertext” in the audience, and these works can also use this intertext to successfully attract the attention of many audiences. .

Specifically speaking, works adapted from traditional cultural stories represented by “Nezha: The Devil Boy Comes to the World” and “Jiang Ziya” can be called “cultural intertextuality”; the “Detective Chinatown” movie and “Detective Chinatown” 》The works represented by TV series that rely on drama and movie interaction or IP interaction and derivative works can be called some kind of “series intertext”.

However, the recently aired “Traveling with Phoenix” seems to have made some expansion of the above intertextual creation method. The play is neither supported by the archetypal intertextual memory known to the public nor is it a series. However, the play still attracted many “old audiences” from the “Chu Qiao Biography” period, forming some kind of dialogue or creating “memory intertext” with them. This kind of different intertextual narrative strategy is worthy of discussion, and a summary of its rules will also be helpful to the creation and dissemination of similar film and television dramas in the future to some extent.

Intertextuality of emotional stories

Generally speaking, in film and television works, if you delve into the core of the story of many themes, there are many similarities in their essence. For example, the conventional “Taiwanese love story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Ying” and “Romeo and Juliet love story” etc. However, for these works with similar story cores, the audience will basically not have an obvious reaction or experience of being substituted for another story during the viewing process.

But this situation is different in “Traveling with Phoenix”. Many viewers mentioned “The Legend of Chu Qiao” in the barrage of “Traveling with the Phoenix”, and used the emotional stories in “The Legend of Chu Qiao” to correspond to the current “Traveling with the Phoenix”. But the reality is that the two works are completely different – “Traveling with Feng” and “The Legend of Chu Qiao” focus on two completely different themes. The former is a magical and fantasy theme, while the latter has some kind of “martial arts legend” Meaning; the former tells the story of how the male and female protagonists resist evil spirits to protect the family, while the latter is more of a Machiavellian plot.

The reason for the above situation is that the two have achieved a kind of “series continuation” in the emotional story. Because “The Legend of Chu Qiao” is an emotional story between Zhao Liying and Lin Gengxin, and “Traveling with Feng” is an emotional story with the two as the protagonists. This has led many audiences to naturally graft the former’s emotional stories and experiences into the current “Walking with the Phoenix”. For example, in the classic “Chu Qiao and Yu Wenyue fell into the water at the same time” scene in “The Legend of Chu Qiao”, in the play Yu Wenyue was not only not picked up by Chu Qiao, but even fell asleep in the water. This caused many viewers to be very unhappy when they watched it. Giving up, heart-wrenching. In “Walking with the Phoenix”, the emotional story of the two did not end completely in tragedy. When the audience saw the scene where King Bi Cang fished Xing Zhi out of the water, they all said, “The sleeping Yu Wenyue was finally fished out by Chu Qiao.” “Get up” and so on. Another example is the scene in “Walking with the Phoenix” where the male and female protagonists watch fireworks together. Audiences also said that their previous love came to a perfect end here.

In other words, the audience’s unfinished emotional story experience or imagination of the protagonists’ love and emotions in “The Legend of Chu Qiao” has been somewhat satisfied in “Traveling with Feng”. The “emotional trauma” caused to the audience by the emotional story ending in a tragic separation in “The Legend of Chu Qiao” was “filled” or “compensated” in “Traveling with Feng”. From this point of view, in terms of the plot settings of the two works, the relatively complete and complete emotional story in “Traveling with Feng” has become the “series continuation” of “The Legend of Chu Qiao”, although the two have different themes and stories. Completely different, but as far as the emotional story of the two is concerned, a certain kind of “serial production of emotional stories” has been achieved.

Intertextuality of character settings

Although the stories in film and television dramas may be different, the “characters” in many film and television dramas are actually very similar. “Traveling with Feng” and “Chu Qiao Biography” also have certain similarities or commonalities in their character settings, which prompts the audience to compare, mix, and continue to talk about the two.

Specifically, Chu Qiao in “The Biography of Chu Qiao” came into contact with Yu Wenyue and others because of her loss of memory, and was trained. After finally finding her memory and identity, she achieved her goal. King Bicang in “Walking with the Phoenix” also fell in love with the ancient god Xingzhi because he lost his skills or mana, and his identity was finally revealed. In other words, the heroines in both dramas are “strong women who are forced to lose certain skills due to a certain incident”, and their identities are inherently “responsible”.

Not only that, the women in both dramas are independent, self-reliant, and leading “generals” who rely on their own strength to make a difference in the male-dominated army, and they all have extremely high leadership skills and loyalty. Obviously, the heroines in the two dramas just changed from the general in “The Legend of Chu Qiao” to the war king in “Traveling with Feng”. Their character settings and identity reversals have similar cores. .

In terms of male protagonists, the two dramas also use similar strategies. The male protagonist Yu Wenyue in “The Legend of Chu Qiao” is a man of power and strategizing from thousands of miles away. It can even be said that he was always on the outside in the war situation at that time and had a detached perspective. As for the male protagonist Xingzhi in “Walking with the Phoenix”, as an “ancient god” who lives in the “outer world” and knows everything, he naturally has a transcendent perspective, and the layout of each step is also completed after calculation, and The strongest in the whole show. Obviously, the identities and roles played by the two male protagonists in the play have certain echoes. At the same time, both Yu Wenyue and Xingzhi changed from the image of lofty “gods” to concrete and sensible “people” because of the heroine. From this point of view, the setting of the male protagonist and the reasons for the changes in his character and actions are highly consistent.

Obviously, viewers who originally have the vision of “sequel to an emotional story” will naturally increase their association and interaction practice with the two dramas when they see that the male and female protagonists in the emotional story have basically remained unchanged, but only changed their identity settings. The intertextuality or consistency of the characters continuously increases the intertextuality and participation of the two dramas, thus making “Traveling with Feng” and “Chu Qiao Biography” seven years ago become some kind of interactive texts. Promoted the spread of the play.

intertextuality of character combinations

The continuation of “character combinations” is also relatively common in film and television dramas, such as the “Detective Chinatown” series, “If You Are the One” series, etc., but these works are all continuations of “character combinations” based on the series. Different from this, “Traveling with the Phoenix” does not use the series as a link to continue the character combination, but the “character combination” and the “emotional story” of the play prompt the audience to consciously or unconsciously conduct a “series viewing” “.

The play uses real character combinations or real star CPs to create a “character combination intertext”. The combination of Lin Gengxin and Zhao Liying has been well-known by the public since “The Legend of Chu Qiao”, and in reality, both of them have greater influence. The way they are combined again will naturally remind the audience of their former roles. One combination. Moreover, from “The Legend of Chu Qiao” to “Traveling with Feng”, the two have experienced many life changes. This way of collaborating and reuniting after life changes will undoubtedly attract more attention from many audiences. The story development logic of the combination of characters in the play also has coherence and intertextual qualities. The combination of the female warrior and the male counselor and the emotional development of the two’s meeting, getting to know each other, separation, and staying together make the two dramas naturally connected.

And this two-way continuation from the combination of reality to the combination of plot and story makes the audience seem to be not only watching the sequel of “The Legend of Chu Qiao”, but also watching the real-life growth story of Zhao Liying and Lin Gengxin. Relying on the combination of real people to achieve a certain kind of intertextuality in the drama, and the combination in the drama inherits the setting of similar plots in the past. From this, the dual intertextual memories of the audience’s reality and imagination are activated. “With “Feng Xing” has become a reflection of the character combination between Zhao Liying, Lin Zhenxin’s reality and Chu Qiaoyu and Wenyue’s imagination.

In summary, the intertextual strategy of using a realistic combination to collaborate with another work outlined in “Traveling with Phoenix” is presented, but the premise of this strategy is the stability and appeal of the realistic combination and “the emotional imagination that can be aroused by the audience.” power”, as well as the dramatic integrity of the work itself. In other words, the creative thinking of combining reality to reversely promote the relationship between dramas is worth learning from. However, this method requires a large brand portfolio and relatively solid support from the drama. Otherwise, while intertextuality will bring attention, it will also It may bring about a crisis of public opinion.

(The author Zhang Minghao is a doctoral student at the School of Media and International Culture, Zhejiang University)