Friends who pay a little attention to Japanese TV dramas must have heard of the IP of "The Wonders of the World". This is a unit drama, and the host is comedy artist Tamoli. At the beginning of each episode, Tamori will introduce us to the story as an outsider. The story usually ends in a reversal, and the types include science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense, etc., and occasionally there are some heart-warming chicken soup stories. "The Wonders of the World" started broadcasting in 1990 and is almost 30 years old. The host Tamoli has also changed from uncle sunglasses to grandfather sunglasses, still repeating to us those people who accidentally stepped into the wonderful world.
However, "The Wonders of the World" is not the first fantasy story unit drama. There were similar works in the United States more than half a century ago, and "The Wonders of the World" imitated this drama. That is Rodthering's "The Twilight Zone".
"The Twilight Zone", the official Chinese translation is "yin and yang magic world". With all due respect, this translation does not reflect the essence of the original name, which is the word "Twilight". (For the convenience of expression below, I will still use the official translation name Yin Yang Demon World) Twilight, which means morning light or twilight, especially refers to the sun at dawn or dusk that is still below the horizon, and the faint sunlight has begun to shine on the earth, causing the world to fall into a kind of In a hazy state. This moment is known as a magical moment in the film industry, and it is the most fantasy time of the day.
The literal translation of Twilight Zone means Twilight Zone. At the beginning of the first episode, Rodthering said an opening remark:
There is a fifth dimension that transcends human cognition, which is as vast as the universe and eternal as infinite. It is in the middle ground between light and darkness, science and superstition. That is the dimension of fantasy, which we call the Twilight Zone. (There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man's fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call The Twilight Zone.)
We don’t know the reason why Rod Serling named the series "Twilight". Maybe it comes from his personal experience, or maybe it comes from the Christian tradition. Christianity regards dusk as the best time for vigil to pray. For example, Easter vigil is usually held in the evening of the previous day. It is not a US patent to treat twilight as the entrance to the fantasy world. There is also a saying in Japan that dusk is regarded as a magic moment. The so-called "three moments of sleep in the grass and trees", the unity time when the sky is getting late has always been regarded as the golden time for encounters.
Of course, the story of "Yin and Yang Devil" does not always happen at dusk or dawn. In fact, the story of "The Devil of Yin and Yang" is all-encompassing, even not confined to contemporary America. Like its predecessor, "The Wonders of the World", the story of "The Devil of Yin and Yang" includes many types, including science fiction, fantasy, horror, suspense, and horror. Divided by age, there are five parts of "The Devil of Yin and Yang". The first is the most recognized and classic one. It premiered in 1959 and has five seasons and 156 episodes. Maybe some of my friends will be discouraged because the film is all shot in black and white. But for some reason, black-and-white movies have a magical power to me, they make the story even more blurred like a filter. Now when mentioning "The Devil of Yin and Yang", people always attribute it all to Rod Serling. In fact, the screenwriter of this play is far more than Serlin alone. Rod Serlin did personally complete many episodes, but there are still many episodes written by others, such as Richard Mason and Charles Pomeranian. This is the case, the person who left the biggest mark on the entire work of "Yin and Yang Devil" is still Rod Serlin.
In 1943, Rodthering, who graduated from high school, joined the U.S. Air Force paratrooper company with his defeated Hitler in his arms. In 1944, he followed the troops to fight against Japan in the Pacific War. Because of this experience, you can often see stories related to airplane flight in "Yin-Yang Devil", as well as many stories related to tropical island military themes. Three years of experience in the military have shaped Rod Serlin's cold screenwriting style. There is no lack of cruel plots like film noir and more cruel plot reversals in "The Devil of Yin and Yang", and some are cold with black humor. For example, in the episode of "The Midnight Sun", the earth deviated from its orbit and is getting closer and closer to the sun, which caused the surface temperature to continue to rise. The heroine living in New York and the landlord are dependent on each other, suffering from almost dehydrated hunger and thirst every day. The story reveals anxiety and cruelty. The protagonist has to face not only the heat, but also the barbaric chaos after the loss of order in the metropolis. At the end of the story, with a burst of the thermometer, the heroine fainted from heat stroke. Then the stroke of the pen was turned, and the story was reversed 180 degrees, but this reversal can only make the audience's heart cooler.
Of course, the story of "Yin Yang Demon World" is not blindly cruel. For the United States, which is based on religion, the simple dualism of good and evil will always have its market. In addition to the stories depicting ruthless destiny and the insignificance of human beings, Rod Serlin also wrote many heart-warming chicken soup suspense with his brilliant pen. For example, in the episode of "Kick the Can", the protagonist Charles is an old man living in a nursing home. He wants to move out of the nursing home and live with his son's family. After being rejected by his son many times, he told other old people in the nursing home that it was because he was too old. And the reason why he is so old is because he lives like an old man. As long as they no longer live like an old man, then these old people will also become younger. So one night, under the leadership of Charles, the elderly used various methods to avoid the dean’s eyes and ears, and ran outside the nursing home to play the game of kicking the jar they played as a child... Japanese reasoning writer Yiichi often wrote about polarization. The works, the healing chicken soup and the cruel horror. Therefore, readers often use "Black Yiyi" and "Bai Yiyi" to describe some of his works. I think Rod Serlin consciously divides the positive and negative energies evenly in the TV series. It is difficult to say whether he prefers the former or the latter. According to my observation of this drama, I am afraid he is more inclined to the latter, that is, the human nature under the cruel proposition. There are many episodes in "Yin Yang Devil" that seem absurd at first glance, but they are thought-provoking, and can remind the audience of certain social issues in an instant. For example, in the episode of "It's a Good Life" in the second season, Rodthering described a super-powered child, Anthony, who can handle everything with his mind alone. In the face of such terrifying superpowers, Anthony's parents, relatives and friends lived tremblingly, and could only serve Anthony in a low posture that was ten thousand times more compliant than doting, and obeyed.
Here we have to make people suspect that Rod Thurling is deliberately satirizing the growing problem of child doting in the American society that has been flat after World War II. More straightforward metaphors also appear in the second season of "Eye of the Beholder" (the standard of beauty). In this episode, the heroine is a rare ugly woman undergoing cosmetic surgery, and her face is wrapped in bandages three-quarters of the time. In addition to the excellent reversal of the script, the excellent composition and mirroring of this episode made the hospital look sore. The scene was cut into a yin and a yang by many ulterior tactics, which set off the medical staff very strangely. This allows the audience to remain curious about how ugly this woman who has failed plastic surgery will be. Rod Serling can’t just write a simple story. What he wants to discuss is not the right or wrong of plastic surgery, but whether there is absolute beauty and ugliness in the world?
"The Devil of Yin and Yang" ended in 1964, and Rod Serlin sadly died of a heart attack in 1974, but this IP did not die with his death. Rod Serlin sold the copyright of "Yin and Yang Devildom" to CBS TV before his death. According to Serlin’s wife, this is because Rod Serlin believes that he himself will never be able to raise enough funds to continue filming this IP. As early as when filming the original series, his scripts were often criticized for cost overruns, which made Serlin feel that many of his ideas were not well realized.
In 1983, Warner shot the movie version of "Yin and Yang Devil", which contains five short films, all adapted from the original series, including the aforementioned "Life Is Beautiful" and "Kick the Jar". (The director of the "Kick the Jar" part was Spielberg, who was already well-known at the time.) The last story is adapted from the critically acclaimed suspense story "Nightmare at 25,000 Feet" in the original series. Passengers with fear of flying thought they saw a monster on the wing outside the window. The starring actor of that story was William Shatner, who later became famous for playing the protagonist of "Star Trek", Captain Kirk.
This is not the only time Shatner has participated in "The Devil of Yin and Yang". In the episode of "The Mouth of Truth", which I personally like, he played the newly married husband. In the episode "The Mouth of Truth", a couple walked into a restaurant at will because their car broke down in a small town. They found a coin-operated guessing machine decorated with demons on the dining table. They threw a coin with curiosity and asked some irrelevant questions. Unexpectedly, the guessing machine could give accurate answers every time. The couple got stuck deeper and deeper, and they even began to fear that they would never be able to leave the town.
This year, CBS resurrected the show again and created "New Yin Yang Demon World". Since I haven't read it yet and don't know how the quality will be after restarting, I won't guess here. If you like fantasy reversal unit dramas such as "The Wonders of the World" and "The Nine Secrets". Then why don't you justify the source? Go back to the original starting point and look at what people imagined in the future half a century ago, and what the Americans were afraid of half a century ago. As Rod Serlin said, Next stop, the twilight zone!
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