"Best Thief of the Year Award", "Stealing Brother and Sister"…
Who would have thought that after 6 months, the farce of the TV series "Storm Chaser" is still going on.
At the iQiyi Scream Night ceremony, directors Yao Xiaofeng, Li Qin and Wang Yang of the TV series "Storm Chaser" attended, but the starring Wang Yibo was missing.
In the end, "Storm Chaser" won the "iQiyi Audience Favorite Drama of the Year" award, and Li Qin and Wang Yang won the "Quality Actor of the Year" award respectively.
However, the comment section of the award-winning Weibo was flooded with negative comments.
This time, not only Wang Yang and the director of "The Storm Chaser" were scolded, but Li Qin also suffered the consequences.
Just because she played Wang Yang's sister, she was called the "stealing brother and sister"…
01
Everything goes back to May 30 this year, when the nomination list for the Magnolia Awards was announced.
Wang Yang was nominated for Best Actor for "The Storm Chaser", which caused dissatisfaction among Wang Yibo's fans.
Fans quickly flocked to Magnolia, and Wang Yang and "Wind Chaser" posted curses on Weibo.
iQIYI explained that "subject to the Magnolia Award submission details, each leading actor was nominated for the award." However, in the end, only Wang Yang was selected and Wang Yibo was not selected, but it still failed to satisfy fans.
The statement also stated that "the award application status has not been synchronized with the main creators and actors" and the actor himself did not know about the award application. But Wang Yibo's fans didn't believe it and still posted various personal attacks and curses on Wang Yang's Weibo.
Anyone who speaks out, even the well-known veteran screenwriter Zhao Dongling, will be forced to delete Weibo as long as they are not scolding Wang Yang.
Some fans approached iQiyi customer service and asked for a refund of their membership fees, trying to put pressure on the company.
Even months after Magnolia ended, the abuse from fans didn't stop.
"Wind Chaser" producer Chen Zhixi and director Yao Xiaofeng are often "greeted".
Some fans threatened to give it 1 star when the director's new work is released.
The insults that lasted for nearly half a year also changed the flavor of this "accountability":
From the fans' point of view, "Storm Chaser" is only Wang Yibo's drama. No other man or woman deserves to mention it, let alone accept the award.
Without the character of Wei Ruolai, "Storm Chaser" would be just an ordinary work.
Wei Ruolai = "The Wind Chaser".
Fans' strong "possessiveness" towards "Wind Chaser" not only seeks to place Wang Yibo's contribution above that of the entire crew, but also attempts to put Wang Yibo and everyone else on the "Storm Chaser" crew on the opposite side.
02
Fans' abuse can easily lead uninformed passers-by to think that "Storm Chaser" is a bad movie, but the truth is exactly the opposite.
"Storm Chaser" scored 7.8 on Douban, making it one of only three iQiyi dramas to break the 10,000 mark this year. (The other two are "Tang Dynasty Strange Stories 2" and "I Am a Detective")
The biggest feature of "Storm Chaser" is that it approaches the traditional spy war theme from a financial perspective and creates a sense of freshness and stamina.
The plot is logically rigorous, neither intellectual nor preachy. The characters are vivid and three-dimensional, and the group portraits are solidly portrayed. From the protagonist to the supporting roles, "everyone comes to the table" to visualize the psychological process of individual growth.
The beauty of the picture and the quality of the music are frequently out of the ordinary.
Magnolia's five nominations also represent the industry's recognition of this work.
However, an excellent work cannot be separated from the efforts of all the main creators.
Take the recent hit "Eternal Night Star" as an example. Ding Yuxi successfully "made it" because of the role of Mu Ziqi. This is of course inseparable from his years of study on acting skills.
But in 2024, Ding Yuxi broadcast 4 works. Why is it that only "Eternal Night Star" achieved the hit effect?
A large part of it is due to Mu Ziqi's character highlights, director Zhao Yilong's control of the camera, including the crew's makeup and hair design, the tacit understanding between the opponent actors and him, etc.
Characters cannot escape from the plot, otherwise they will not stand up. Therefore, Wei Ruolai's character creation is the result of the multi-faceted efforts of the screenwriter, director and actors.
No role can be attributed to an individual. After all, no actor can guarantee that one of his films will be a hit, all relying on his own influence.
In 2022, "Icy Rain and Fire", a collaboration between Wang Yibo and Chen Xiao, was still a popular mystery and criminal investigation theme at that time, but the response to the broadcast was mediocre.
In 2023, "Unknown", starring Tony Leung and Zhou Xun, was released during the Spring Festival. It collided head-on with "Man Jiang Hong", and the box office was less than 1/4 of the other film.
The success of a work is subject to many factors such as subject matter, story, director, actors, publicity, financial investment, etc. It is not the merit or fault of any one person.
Even Wang Yibo himself recognizes this truth.
At the award ceremony of iQiyi Scream Night, when receiving the award, director Yao Xiaofeng of "Storm Chaser" decently thanked all the cast and crew: "Yibo, Li Qin, Wang Yang, Teacher Wang Xueqi, and our behind-the-scenes creative staff… have put in their hard work and efforts for this drama. It is because of our unity that the success of this drama was achieved."
Wang Yang also said at the end of his acceptance speech to Li Qin next to him, "Thank you to my sister Shen Jinzhen."
Although the brothers and sisters have different beliefs in the play, their intentions for the play are the same. It is precisely through the mutual support of actors that a successful work can be created.
Fans are eager to equate the success of "Storm Chaser" to Wang Yibo's performance alone. Even after nearly half a year of online violence, the entire crew still tried their best to maintain dignity and sincerity.
03
In October, when Wang Yibo was nominated for the Golden Rooster Award for Best Actor for the movie "Passion", some fans said: "If it weren't for the crew of "The Storm Chaser", Wang Yibo would have been nominated for both the Best Actor and Best Actor."
The implication is that the reason why Wang Yibo of Magnolia was not shortlisted is because Wang Yang's nomination hindered him.
In fact, according to the rules, Magnolia can be submitted by multiple people.
The crew of "Flowers" applied for the best actress for three actresses Tang Yan, Ma Yili and Xin Zhilei, and Tang Yan was finally selected.
Why were three female leads chosen?
The explanation given by the crew of "Flowers": "The good show "Flowers" is completed by everyone together, and every cast and crew is an indispensable part."
In order to win as many awards as possible, the crew strives for equal opportunities for every actor.
"South and North", which is also a "young and old pairing", also applied for Ding Yongdai and Bai Jingting, but Bai Jingting was ultimately unsuccessful.
Tang Yan, Ma Yili and Xin Zhilei were in different roles, but they were fine with each other when they applied for the leading roles.
Fans of Bai Jingting did not argue about the male lead and male supporting role, but directly congratulated the senior.
Ranking is not unimportant, but the consequence of the position-only theory is that fans believe that the villain cannot nominate the male lead because of the character who serves the four major families in Wang Yang's drama.
Come to the conclusion: to nominate him is to support the villain.
This rises to the issue of the stance and belief of the crew of "Storm Chaser".
This is actually a commonly used method of "tearing down" in the fan circle. First, you use your voice to suppress people, and at the same time, you abuse the show crew and relevant personnel to force them to submit;
On the one hand, they are "throwing dirty water", raising the banner, raising the value, writing one-stop reports, trying to occupy the high ground of public opinion, and kicking people out of the table.
Seize a line and judge it word by word. Even the first shot of the ending song is not about the male protagonist, but the villain, so it is suspected of having ulterior motives.
The introduction of this kind of fandom thinking is an attempt to suppress the will of fans in the Internet era towards professional standards in literature and art. Once this trend increases, the already tight creative environment will become more stringent and it will be more difficult to produce good works, which will indirectly destroy the jobs of many people.
In order to achieve the goal of "those who are not good for me will be punished", fans may not hesitate to destroy the work and label the work as "reactionary".
Fans think they are fighting a glorious battle, but they don't know that "the enemy is injured eight hundred, but oneself suffers a thousand losses." They personally "qualify" the work, and they are also ignoring the efforts of the idol himself. In the end, it is "Storm Chaser" itself that suffers.
Especially in the harsh current times, the winter of 2024 for the film and television industry has not yet passed. The box office revenue of the movie just exceeded 40 billion, and the number of crews for the film's launch has dropped sharply, including Wang Yibo himself, who has not joined the cast for more than 700 days.
Fans can of course comfort themselves that he has the confidence to choose a script and is waiting for a good script.
However, producers will also consider carefully when assessing risks. It is obvious that the industry is using silence to fight against this online violence. If the cooperation to the end results in a lot of feathers, "sucks" and endless online violence, then no matter how big the traffic bonus is, it is not worth the risk.
A good creative ecology needs to be maintained by artists, producers and platforms. What the audience wants to see are film and television actors with real talents and film and television works where a hundred flowers bloom. Win-win cooperation is the only way out.
