At first I had high hopes for Zhou Ye's "Hello 1983".
Judging from past experience, most of the dramas that dare to be named directly after the era have two brushes, and they often have both humanities and epics.
But when I saw that this drama was adapted from "Rebirth xxxxx", my eyes darkened. Why is it still going this way? My high hopes for it turned into low hopes.
After watching several episodes, my brows became more and more furrowed, and I couldn't even get rid of them.
This "Hello 1983", which I had high hopes for, was not just about the same, it was completely different. It was so bad that it was a mess.
We can’t even talk about the actors. From the director to the screenwriter, this show is fundamentally flawed.
Talking about the perception, objectively speaking, the director made the short play as a long play.
In the first three minutes, after a few chicken soup narrations that my mother found too corny to repost, the heroine travels through time.
If you don't count these few sentences, the heroine's time travel may have happened less than a minute after the beginning of the story.
On New Year's Day, 2026, the heroine fell asleep on the sofa, dropped the alarm clock, and arrived in 1983.
There is no foreshadowing, no emotion, no transition, just wear it as soon as it comes up. This is too short a play. But the problem is that this drama is not short, it is 36 episodes long. The pace of the opening chapter is so fast, it's hard for me not to wonder how much water will be poured into it later.
After watching eight episodes, the overall impression is even worse.
The advancement of the story is completely based on the copy mode.
First fight a boss who is a bad gangster, and then fight a boss who is a bad relative. The connection part in the middle is just confusing, the integrity is very poor, and the look and feel is quite stiff.
Let’s talk about the stinky gangster first.
The repeated gangster trouble scenes in the show are so awkward to watch.
The roots lie in the year of the work, 1983.
Crack down hard. There will be no cap on the progress, and it will be done in a serious and fast manner. How cruel? Severe crackdowns began in August, and in September Zhu De's grandson was sentenced to death. It is so powerful and shocking that you can see a leopard in the pipe.
Judging from the scenery in the first episode, the golden rice waiting to be harvested, the continuous shallow mountains and hills, the deep green forest, and the spicy spicy soup for breakfast, it is easy to infer that the story should take place in southern Henan, Xinyang and Nanyang. The rice areas in southern Henan are all single-season japonica rice. Judging from the state of the rice, the period in the drama should be around September.
In other words, the story takes place at the beginning of the crackdown, when the wind is the strongest and the shock is strongest, and committing crimes against the wind is the peak period of maximum sentencing.
But what about in the show? The plot of gangster trouble is so dense that it is unreasonable.
There are people in mountain villages who stop people from teasing them, people in county towns who cause trouble in public, people who kidnap women on the train, they are besieged by gangsters as soon as they leave the train station, gangsters who open a women's clothing store block the door and molest women customers in the street…
Not to mention that after the launch of the crackdown, such gangsters who humiliated women in public were the number one target. Once caught, they were basically dealt with sternly and quickly. The overwhelming publicity about public sentencing and arrests in the streets at that time were enough to make people with evil intentions dare not show their faces. It is absolutely impossible for such absurd scenes of crimes to be committed everywhere.
I have nothing against bad guys in the show, there is crime in any age.
But from a creative perspective, what is the core plot of this drama? Personal struggle under the tide of the times.
You're not into a crime genre that focuses on hard-hitting, right? Why do we repeatedly use this kind of gangster plot that does not conform to historical points to create conflicts?
Firstly, it adds nothing to the main narrative, and secondly, wouldn’t this kind of bloody plot that forcibly subdues intelligence in order to create conflict greatly affect the viewing experience?
I have a lot of flaws and love to pay attention to details, so this is just my fault. But the further you read, the more flaws "Hello 1983" has.
Among them, the most core, most prominent, and most intolerable shortcoming is the characterization.
That's called flat, that's called typical. Good people are flawlessly good, and bad people are completely bad. There is no trace of human complexity.
Let me leave it at that, a long drama with characters of this level is simply smearing the entire industry.
Look at these people in the show. Do they look like real people?
Aunt, uncle, third aunt, third uncle, grandma, cousin, cousin, these gangs of relatives and villains, are they any different from each other in bad ways?
Especially that cousin, if you want me to say that since you are here, why not give her some decent roles? Based on what has been revealed so far, this girl looks like a child with an intellectual disability. Is this kind of character really necessary?
Bad people are like this, good people are the same.
Uncles, aunts, younger brothers, including the principal who speaks up for the heroine, and neighbors, are these good people any different? Everyone is like a living Bodhisattva, a good and good old man.
The supporting roles are like this, but the protagonist remains the same.
The heroine Xia Xiaolan, played by Zhou Ye, is the most robotic character in the show.
This character has no mood swings from beginning to end. He is always calm, always rational, and always at ease.
After traveling through time, I am not surprised, I am not flustered when I face gangsters, I am not polite when I face green tea, even if my college entrance examination is tomorrow but my hand is broken by a bone fracture today, I am still there.
The most direct impact of such a creation is that when such a "god"-like character announces that he wants to fall in love with the male protagonist, the sense of disobedience and weirdness immediately hits his nose.
It gives the impression that you also have emotions and desires? The male protagonist doesn't act like an equal lover in front of her, he doesn't even act like an equal. It's like she petted a cute puppy out of kindness.
How can people believe that this is love?
So far in the whole drama, the only character with a bit of a human touch is Liu Fen, the mother of the heroine played by Dong Xuan. From being submissive at the beginning, to gradually becoming brave and confident, and finally daring to stand up in public and saying that he wanted a divorce, he is the only character in the show who has a complete growth arc.
But this is the only character that can be seen, and the design also has flaws.
When her daughter got first place in the exam, the principal invited her to speak on stage. This was the first time that the mother stood in front of others as a "winner", and her daughter continued to encourage her to be confident in the audience.
I thought that this character's highlight moment would come, but it turned out that the director directly shot everything, and when it was over, he only relied on a sideline line from someone else, "Not only is your daughter amazing, but your mother is also amazing. I was moved by what you said."
The audience doesn't deserve to see the highlight, but they deserve to hear others say "She has the highlight", right?
The character creation is a mess, and the logic of plot advancement is even worse.
I only want to mention one thing, about the heroine wanting to go back to modern times.
The series has been interspersed with foreshadowing. The heroine's modern life is purely a history of suffering.
Her parents died in a car accident when she was a child, and she had to live with others and suffered a lot of grievances. She finally made it to adulthood and entered the workplace. People said that she had done something unfair when she made great achievements. Before she traveled through time, her boss gave her a huge blame, waiting for her to take the blame.
With such a terrible life, why did she have the obsession "I must go back" after traveling through time?
Throughout the whole process, the heroine is not given any reason that is enough to support her return to modern times. There is no family member who cannot let go, no obsession that must be completed, no bright future worth running for, and not even a tiny concern.
Not to mention that there was no legitimate reason, even if it was a nonsensical excuse for her to arrange a gas stove with bacon trotters stewed on it and not turn off the heat, the screenwriter must have used her brain, right?
You are so focused on "I have to go back", why do you have to go back, I mean, girl?
I'm confused.
The character motivations are not mentioned, the historical logic is not, and the emotional ups and downs are not.
The heroine cheats all the way, all the staff are tools, gangsters are everywhere, and the plot is all based on improvisation.
This is "Hello 1983".
A strict crackdown is not scary, gangsters are not afraid of death, everyone is on the same page, and the protagonist has no emotions, just looking forward to returning to hell to suffer in 1983.
So cool.
