On the second day of the opening of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the state administration of radio, film and television's key guidance project and the key drama of the Winter Olympics, "The Name of Ice and Snow", premiered on Beijing Satellite TV, Zhejiang Satellite TV and Jiangsu Satellite TV, and was simultaneously broadcast on iQiyi, Tencent Video and Youku Video. With the theme of "Forty Years of China and the Winter Olympics", the drama tells the love affair between three generations of a family and ice and snow sports from the 1980s to the present, showing the spirit of the Winter Olympics for the harmonious development of man and nature, as well as the rapid development of China's reform and opening up for more than 40 years.
Liang Zhenhua, the chief screenwriter of the play, said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from the Beijing News that he hoped that "The Name of Ice and Snow" would not only make more audiences interested in ice and snow sports and promote national fitness; at the same time, it could also enhance everyone's sense of destiny connection with ice and snow sports, and write a life of self-improvement and continuous challenge.
Poster of "The Name of Ice and Snow".
From ice and snow sports, it shows China's development for more than 40 years
In September 2020, Liang Zhenhua received an invitation from Cultural Investment Holdings, the official cultural event service sponsor of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, to create a film and television work based on the Winter Olympics. Previously, he had used the big times as the background to create excellent works such as "Ideals Shine on China" and "Macao People's Homes" that reflected the changes of the times and the fate of ordinary people. The Winter Olympics is not only a stage for sports competition, but also represents the sonorous steps of China's pursuit of the Olympic spirit, witnessing the construction of China's sports power, and is also a microcosm of the era of China's rapid economic development. Therefore, Liang Zhenhua put forward creative requirements for himself: not to let "competition" become the motto of the Winter Olympics drama, not limited to competing for strong competition, winning gold medals, and winning honors for the country, but to elevate ice and snow sports to the sports-derived national fitness culture, emphasizing the extension of sports to human vitality, and showing the depth and thickness of the times.
Chen Ruoxuan and Peng Xiaoran play figure skating partners Yan Zhenhua and Li Binghe.
The first is the dialogue between man and nature. In Liang Zhenhua's view, the relationship between ice and snow sports and nature is far closer than other sports, and most projects need to be completed with the help of very specific physical and natural conditions. In this sense, the Winter Olympic Games also represent the harmonious coexistence and common development of man and nature. Therefore, Liang Zhenhua brought the story of "The Name of Ice and Snow" back to the black land of northeast China. In this natural environment that is closest to ice and snow, yang Yang, Wang Meng, Wu Dajing, Su Yiming, Ren Ziwei and many other famous ice and snow projects have been bred.
The second is the resonance of the winter Olympics with China's destiny. Today's China is no longer the era of twenty or thirty years ago, when it was urgently necessary to prove its national strength and prove the physical strength of the Chinese nation through gold medals. What the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics want to show is more of the Chinese nation's inclusive and open-minded attitude, as well as telling the Chinese story to the world and showing the "style of a big country". So "The Name of Ice and Snow" is divided into two chapters, "Ice and Snow Love" and "Winter Olympic Dream", covering the stories of three generations. The first part focuses on the 80s and 90s of the last century, the protagonist is a pair of young people who want to change their fate through short-track speed skating, so they persistently bid farewell to the snow town and went to Harbin to break out. Driven by a variety of forces, the two became ice pair skaters. They hovered on the ice, embraced, flew freely, and completed a youthful round dance with success and sentimentality. Ice and snow are not only a struggle for them, but also a symbol of their hometown.
Yan Zhenhua and Li Binghe trained hard.
Time has passed, and the next part comes to 2018, when the next generation departs from the big city in the northeast to Beijing, where the Winter Olympics are held, and strives to complete the dream of the Winter Olympics that the previous generation did not realize. Liang Zhenhua said that the young people who are currently engaged in ice and snow sports in a sense, more as their own love, as a release of personality. The attitude of the three generations to competition and the attitude to ice and snow echo the development of the times; under the impetus of ice and snow sports, the three generations have stepped out of their hometown, stepped into the city, embraced the modern era, and made ice and snow one of the carriers of China's development.
Ou Hao plays the speed skating teenager Yan Yang.
"The development trajectory of ice and snow sports seems to coincide with the historical trend of China's reform and opening up: step by step to bid farewell to closure, embark on enlightenment, and move towards modernization and international cities." Therefore, "The Name of Ice and Snow" actually takes the Winter Olympics as the 'spiritual background' and the competition as the plot clue, but more wants the audience to see the changes in society, the times and the country. Liang Zhenhua said.
Choose between short track speed skating and double figure skating
Throughout the Film and Television Works of the Winter Olympics, ice sports are the absolute protagonists, among which the short track speed skating project, which has developed in China for more than 30 years, is loved by the audience. It is reported that of the 13 Winter Olympic gold medals won by the Chinese team in the past Winter Olympics, 10 of them came from short track speed skating. As of February 9, at the ongoing 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, China has also won two golds and one silver in short-track speed skating.
"The Name of Ice and Snow" also portrays short track speed skating, as well as another Chinese team's dominant event, ice two-person figure skating. Liang Zhenhua believes that the two projects are more familiar to Chinese audiences and have more obvious competitive relationships and judging standards, which reduces the difficulty of shaping the relationship between the characters. "In contrast, snow projects are relatively unfamiliar to ordinary audiences, and in the story, there is less room for dramatic narratives around snow performance projects." But "The Name of Ice and Snow" also shows a breakthrough ski jumping project. Although the project started late in China, it has also qualified for a number of Winter Olympic events in 2022, and has many young blood, which is one of the potential projects in the future. "'Ice' and 'snow' are not only movements in our plays, but also the embodiment of natural spirits, so they are indispensable."
After selecting the project, Liang Zhenhua and the main creative team traveled to Beijing, Changchun, Jilin, Harbin, Heihe and other cities with ice and snow, spent about three months to investigate and interview many of the first generation of mainland Winter Olympic athletes, world champions, as well as national team coaches, in-service athletes, etc., and transformed their true stories into dramatic elements. For example, Yan Yang, the protagonist of the chapter "Winter Olympic Dream", was selected from a local club to the short track speed skating national Olympic training camp, from the sparring of female players all the way to the official team members. It is reported that after Being selected for the national team in 2010, China's short track speed skater Wu Dajing started from the women's team sparring, and then became a regular member of the team and won the Olympic championship. "The male athletes themselves as the sparring partner of the women's team are very dramatic, and at the same time, they are real situations, which is very much in line with the needs of our drama."
However, "The Name of Ice and Snow" is not limited to shaping athletes, and the audience can also see many stories of epochal significance such as the preparation of the Winter Olympic Games, the construction of venues, the relocation of Shougang, etc., as well as the figures of many behind-the-scenes heroes who worked hard for the Beijing Winter Olympics, such as members of the Olympic Organizing Committee and Winter Olympic volunteers. For example, Yan Yang's uncle Yan Forest in the play is actively engaged in the renovation of the Winter Olympic stadium; former speed skater Tang Jian, after retiring, threw himself into the ice and snow sports industry and founded an ice shoe factory. "The protagonist of the Winter Olympics is not only the athletes, but an ecology. These group portraits of characters will enrich the whole story, which is also relatively rare in similar works. ”
Liang Jie plays jin ying, a short track speed skater.
Balance competition with life, and connect ice and snow with destiny
During his visits to the Winter Olympic athletes, Liang Zhenhua's deepest feeling was "authenticity". These athletes who fought hard for the motherland, with many honors and gold medals, never thought that their experience was legendary, on the contrary, most people were not willing to tell their lives. In their view, the life of an athlete is very boring, that is, day after day, year after year, constantly training hard, breaking through the self again and again, and producing the most direct power beyond the self in the mechanical repetition.
"Their Olympic spirit of forging ahead and never giving up is so worthy of our admiration." But if we write a competitive theme, we are talking about the arena, about winning or losing, it is bound to become very thin. In Liang Zhenhua's view, the wonderful competitive moments in the real arena, the audience has felt too much, and it is far more shocking than the drama. So what really appeals is the story before the game. For example, how did Ye Qiaobo achieve a 'zero' breakthrough in medals for the Winter Olympics for China? How did Shen Xue and Zhao Hongbo become a combination and win the championship?
This is also why "The Name of Ice and Snow" created the "pair skating combination" Yan Zhenhua and Li Binghe because of figure skating, fell in love, the two worked together to meet in the Winter Olympics, but experienced various twists and turns such as family obstruction, and finally parted ways, Yan Zhenhua turned to short track speed skating alone to continue to struggle. "Competition is a part of life, if you create an athlete, there is only sports, and life and emotions are all cut off, ignoring their demand for happiness, which is not in line with the world's current understanding of the development of Chinese civilization."
But Liang Zhenhua said that "The Name of Ice and Snow" will not be made into an idol drama that only talks about love under the guise of competition and the Winter Olympics, "The theme of the Winter Olympics cannot be suspended." These athletes are young people, in the era of youth, there is naturally an expression of love, especially around the project of pair skating, writing love is inevitable; but it is also very important to write about family, friendship, teacher-student affection, hometown feelings, and patriotic feelings. "The Name of Ice and Snow" will try its best to restore the ecology of ice and snow competition from many angles, rather than just packaging ice and snow coats. ”
Zhang He, a senior reporter of the Beijing News
Senior Editor Tong Na Proofreading Chen Diyan