All employees have a secret love with a single arrow？ This new play is so daring.

Author | Gu Han

Editor | Li Chunhui

　

Compared with the high incidence of unrequited love, there are quite few domestic dramas about unrequited love, and even fewer successful ones (remember "Unrequited love with orange in Huainan", which is at the bottom of the whole series). In the fifth episode, the "two-way secret love" has not been uncovered, and in the seventh episode, there is no "two-way rush". The audience accustomed to the fast pace and high sweetness is afraid of waiting impatiently. Secret love, it seems, can only be used as a secondary line of youth drama, adding a little sour and bitter flavor.

　

However, unrequited love is the most resonant, even more so than "sweet love".The vigorous love in those youth films, too many people said that they had "no blessing experience". But most people have had the experience of unrequited love, and the reasons for unrequited love in adolescence are so varied and strange. I love you, and it has nothing to do with you. That grand loneliness and futile enthusiasm is a part of youth. The success or failure of adolescent secret love will also draw a different period for everyone’s youth, and even put it into a lifetime bag.

　

Perhaps because of this, "Upstream" with all the newcomers and "all the unrequited love" will become the dark horse of youth drama in the summer file. Youth is an art of regret. Secret love is a fascinating game of youth.

　

"Upstream" is an adaptation of the self-evident work "The Upstream of Tears", which was jointly produced by Youku, Simei Guanda Film and Television, directed by Sha Weiqi and starring Richards, Hu Yixuan, Chen Bohao and Judy Qi. With the bold setting of "secret love for all" and the mixed taste of sweet and sour, it is quite different from the sweet drama in summer.

　

To be fair, unrequited love is the hardest thing to shoot, but it’s ok in movies and even harder in dramas. Youth drama itself is no longer a strong plot type, and unrequited love is an inner worry. I can’t wait to name all the children after this person, but they haven’t even said a word alone. The atmosphere and mood are the most difficult to express and convey, but Upstream captures the subtle psychology of ignorance and recklessness by restoring the truth and details of high school life. Helpless miss and sudden growth may be the enduring charm of youth theme.

　

Anti-routine, not only sweet.

　

Since ancient times, sweet dramas have sprung up everywhere and become the new favorite of the market with high cost performance. However, some films are overly superstitious about the explosive routines and cater to the audience too much, which leads to many sweet dramas blindly seeking sweetness and quickness, the plot is suspended and Ma Pingchuan, and the emotional development is simple and rude. The works lack authenticity and artistic value, and eventually become "industrial saccharin" in the audience’s mouth, which is sweet and endless emptiness.

　

You don’t have to worry about this when you watch Upstream. In fact, "Upstream" is not the first time that the works after the rain before and after the Ming Dynasty have been put on the screen. As early as 2018, "Suddenly Summer", which was adapted from its novel of the same name, cried a lot of netizens with real and suffocating long-distance love. Two years after the novel Upstream was published in Suddenly Summer, its writing style is more mature and its ending is more realistic, which has become a "difficult meaning" for many readers.

　

This time, the live-action drama version, although it seems from the preview that the ending may be different, will not be disappointed after years of guardianship. But at least for now, it seems that the drama has faithfully restored the heart-warming food chain of "Lu Yi → Xia Xiaoju → Cheng Lang → Linyou". The whole staff has a single arrow, and in particular, the States of the protagonists Xia Xiaoju and Lu Yiyi are described in detail and in different ways.

　

Nowadays, watching romantic dramas, Hard Sugar Jun’s biggest distress is that he doesn’t understand "how these two people fell in love, and how they are committed to life and death again", as if they were either predestined marriage or seeing the color. "Upstream" portrays the young people’s heartbeat instantly, which is much more real.

"It was only his 0.1-second flight, and Xia Xiaoju’s fate turned around."

　

Most of the time, Upstream is told from the perspective of the heroine. Xia Xiaoju played up several important moments of Cheng Lang’s heart-the first time when she set off firecrackers, the help on the first day of school transfer, the high jump jumping over her head, the intimate contact on the train, and the secret "holding hands" on the beach. They all played up the atmosphere in slow motion and BGM, which amplified the actor’s reaction and made the audience feel Xia Xiaoju’s inner panic and throb together.

　

Lu Xun Yi appeared more often as tell it to the judge, who had a headache for Xia Xiaoju. In the eyes of Xia Xiaoju, Lu Yi has no aura of male gods, and contact does not need to be cautious. The transformation of this relationship depends more on the audience’s own taste from specific events and actors’ performances.

　

For example, in the sports meeting, Lu Xun was bent on winning, ignoring Xia Xiaoju’s foot injury. But in the end, he was the first to rush over and pick up Xia Xiaoju who fell on the track and rushed to the infirmary. And when traveling by the sea, he secretly bought Xia Xiaoju’s fancy hairpin, only to find that Cheng Lang had given her a string of wind chimes first, so he testily left the hairpin in his own hands.

　

Teenagers are naive, and unrequited love is sour, but for a good audience, the exquisiteness of the play can definitely make them swallow a knife with a smile.

　

Of course, Upstream is not only sweet, but also abusive. On the one hand, it can be seen from the poster that this is a youth group drama, with six characters and three groups of CP, reflecting quite diverse views on love and couples’ patterns. On the other hand,The play did not take the old road of youth pain, but was very simple and pyrotechnic, and even had some comedy elements.

　

As soon as the man came up, the woman accidentally blew her ass with firecrackers, which is definitely a rare opening in the youth drama; The hostess’s mother found the folk prescription of "Garlic walnut juice" for the college entrance examination, and the screen of the barrage seemed to have a taste. All kinds of complex tastes completely break the simple sweetness or abuse, which is the richness of life itself.

　

Three views are correct, more than a little love.

　

The theme of domestic youth has been criticized for the pain of youth, so-called "cheating, car accident, abortion" three-piece set. Although some excesses may be a way to amplify adolescent anxiety, for one thing, most people’s youth is still spent in honest study. Secondly, the audience who have passed that age, especially the social people who have been beaten by life, have changed their value measurement, and often can better understand the harshness of parents and teachers, but feel worthless for the rebellious and impulsive people in the play. Many people dare to say that the youth film "Summer Future" in the same period caused such controversy, and one of the major "crimes" was the "slightness" of the college entrance examination.

　

At present, Upstream has handled this very well. There are 30 episodes in the play. The first six episodes are all about how Xia Xiaoju, who was forced to transfer to a new school in senior three, is ready to take the college entrance examination. Although the drama shows the great pressure brought by the college entrance examination to students and a family in the form of comedy ridicule, on the whole, Upstream is quite positive for the writing of senior three and the college entrance examination.The last class meeting before the college entrance examination has aroused many people’s memories of that day.

Like many ordinary high school students, Xia Xiaoju and Lu Xunyi are aware of their feelings, but they don’t choose to show them in senior three, but go all out to become better themselves. It was not until the graduation trip to the seaside that the seeds planted earlier broke through the ground. In the first six episodes where there were not many love scenes, Upstream put a lot of pen and ink on friendship, affection and warmth and mutual assistance between people.

　

Xia Xiaoju joined Lu Xunyi’s relay race team partly because of her yearning for Cheng Lang, but her loyalty and hard work on the field also made Lu Xunyi change her mind. The friendship of several teenagers is gradually warming up in the process of training together and being punished together, which makes Xia Xiaoju feel a sense of belonging in this strange environment.

　

On New Year’s Eve, Xia Xiaoju quarreled with his mother and rushed out of the house and bumped into Lu Yiyi. He always took Xia Xiaoju to his "secret base" with Cheng Lang. The three of them drank fruit beer on the roof and imagined the future. They agreed to go to see the sea together after the exam.This situation has nothing to do with romance, but it is warm and touching enough to be just a concern between friends.

Since life, there are always accidents. Xia Xiaoju’s accident was that the college entrance examination was extraordinary, and he was admitted to the desired university as he wished. Xueba Cheng Lang’s accident was that he witnessed a car accident on his way to the examination room in the morning. His father was also killed in the car accident, so he couldn’t bear to stand by and miss the first exam.

　

For any 18-year-old boy, this is an extremely difficult choice and extremely bitter consequence, but his relatives and friends around him have not let him bear it alone. Outside the examination room, Lu Xun’s father, Xia Xiaoju’s father and the class teacher argued with the staff. When I got home, my always weak mother didn’t blame me, but tried to keep her mood stable. Adolescents will inevitably have rebellious ideas to break away from their parents’ arms, but the most firm support and selfless tolerance often come from them.

Not dog blood, but also a topic.

　

Generally speaking, "Upstream" is a relatively warm and restrained drama, and it doesn’t kill dogs or catch horses. But as we all know, nowadays, if there is no topic to discuss, a drama will be difficult to move. The remedies of Upstream are social topics such as nostalgic background and family education in the 1990s.

　

Nostalgia, sometimes as the finishing touch, and often as a way to quickly arouse the feelings of the audience and make up for the thinness of the plot, prevails in the youth theme of large and small screens-even some other works. For example, on the National Day of a certain year, "goodbye mr. loser" and "Lost in Hong Kong" happened to tell the story of a middle-aged crisis man looking back at his youth campus, and they all used the audience of various nostalgic golden songs.

　

The basic operation of playing nostalgic cards is to use some classic images to outline the face of the times. Upstream does the same in detail: children’s blue and white school uniforms, mothers’ exaggerated perms, bulky walkman, old-fashioned mobile phones with narrow screens …

　

However, nostalgia is also high and low, because many works only stay on the surface, but there is no "nostalgia core" on the character and story thickness.Upstream selectively magnifies people’s simplicity and the strong connection between neighbors before the arrival of the Internet. As soon as the camera is turned to the community, even the tone will become warmer. Just like Hi, Mom’s dream presentation of the 1980s, it is not completely realistic, but it is enough to make people yearn for and cherish today.

　

In terms of social topicality, among the three protagonists, Xia Xiaoju is a second-child family. Although his younger brother is stubborn, he always gets his mother’s preference. Lu Xunyi’s mother is away all the year round, and his father is generous and generous to the outside world, but he is always cudgeled and unwilling to communicate with him. Cheng Lang is a single-parent family, living alone with her mother, being careful and sensible at an early age. The family problems of the three people are typical and can resonate with the audience.

　

However, while sharply reflecting educational problems, Upstream always uses some details of warmth or comedy to dispel hostility, instead of fighting for conflict, it talks about topics. Although Xia’s education level is not high, she lives carefully, but she will also buy her a new school uniform to comfort her daughter. And with the warmth from my partner and my father, Xiaxiaoju will soon self-clean.

At present, the protagonist has graduated and entered the university. As the story goes on, they will face the changes of the Millennium and more complicated life choices: breaking up in love, going abroad for postgraduate study, and starting a business … It is conceivable that the discussion space for the audience will be wider.

　

What is the eternal charm of youth theme? Perhaps it is that we keep looking back, with joy and gain, regret and sadness, but in the end we believe that everything is the best arrangement, with clear water upstream and surging downstream.