In domestic dramas where growing protagonists are upgrading all the way to fight monsters, there is finally a story line where the protagonist "does not take the growth line, but takes the curve"-

Cui Ye, an honest Go teacher, is inspired by the hardships of reality and the long-suppressed desires in his heart, and goes astray step by step and becomes a story of a criminal planner.

This is the new broadcast of "Chess Warrior" on Tencent Video X Theater, in which Wang Baoqiang plays a very new male lead.

He is not a common messenger of justice or a villain in crime dramas, but an ordinary person who walks and walks crookedly with the burden of life on his shoulders.

Take one step, look at three steps, the bottom line is entangled with reality, conscience and evil courage fight each other;

In a life where winning or losing is never certain, trying to take charge of the game has changed from a chess player to a chess piece.

Atypical outlaw fanatics

Cui Ye, an atypical actor in the absolute sense.

A Buddhist Go genius with an extremely smart brain and clever means, he originally wanted to rely on his talent to win success;

But Geng is as straightforward as him, because he doesn't know how to bribe the coach to lose the selection competition, miss the opportunity, and then start an ordinary life with no talents, a little bit of pockets, and a little Qinggao.

I didn't want to accompany the leader and boss to drink and socialize when I went to work, and when I became a father, I didn't know that the chicken baby was making up for the results, and I just wanted to get into the chessboard to escape the frustrated life, but because my son had a broken bone and couldn't afford to import good steel nails, he was thrown into the real problem of lack of money.

佛系普通人，不愛錢，但沒錢又寸步難行。

He had to raise money for his son's surgery and could only start selling it for value with his only chess trick.

In order to make extra money, Cui Ye had to put down the chess player Qinggao and accompany the big-money boss Wang Hongyu (played by Li Naiwen) to play chess, and make the boss happy to earn some "tuition";

But he didn't just win money by losing, the habit of Go players made him subconsciously study human nature with chess games, and he had an insight into the opponent's lack of greed and the character traits of his eyes above the top in a game of chess, laying the groundwork for him to "counter-kill" Wang Hongyu later-

"If someone sells him a flaw, he will bite the hook and kill them all."

In fact, in order to make money and play bad chess, Cui Ye was originally extremely resistant, because it seemed that his control of the chess game, his obsession with winning and losing, and the self-esteem of chess players over the years had been torn into outdated jokes.

But no matter how Buddhist genius is, he also has complex emotions and six desires, and the reason why he was forced to "return to the world" was not only for his son, but also for his own self-esteem, to regain his lost right to speak.

Cui Ye's psychological dilemma is also a common problem for many people: hatred and dependence on the original family.

He hated his brother as the captain of the criminal police, who was loved by everyone, had a decent job, and had a happy family, but he had to accept his brother's care in life. He secretly refused to accept it in his heart, so no matter how short of money, he would never talk to his brother.

It's the same with his wife, who is ashamed to love, ashamed to express, and finally messes up the marriage; In the eyes of his wife, he does not seek to be motivated, his vision is narrow-minded to the size of a chessboard, and there is no hope for the future.

Marriage, career, original family, everything is a last resort, like many people in reality, Cui Ye ushered in his midlife crisis.

But unlike ordinary people, he has an extremely smart brain. So he began to lay out, trying to be a chess player in his life-

If you want to earn money, you want to grab custody of your son, and you have to prove to your family that you are not a wreck.

Then step by step he went out of control, he thought he was a chess player, but he turned out to be a pawn of fate.

The audience is not a spectator, but a thinker

Not only does "Chessman" have an atypical male protagonist, but "Chess Warrior" also has a "curve" type of main line, which is also an atypical narrative in crime dramas.

The series does not simply and rudely stuff the story line in front of the audience, but allows the audience to follow the perspective of the protagonist, experience his life together, feel his predicament, and think about his transformation -

Cui Ye, from an honest Go teacher to a clever criminal strategist, this process is not achieved overnight, but is interlocking and step-by-step.

At the beginning, Cui Ye was an unlucky guy who was played by fate.

First, he went to withdraw money, ran into a person who robbed the credit union, and was held hostage by the robbers and became an accomplice, he used the trick of playing chess, took the robbers with money, and set up a bureau to rush out of the police encirclement.

crossed the legal boundary in such a daze, participated in the robbers' spoils, kidnapping, accidental murder, and was forced to have a criminal record.

But he didn't directly blacken into an extralegal maniac on the spot, Cui Ye still tried to get his life back on track-

He wanted to ask Wang Hongyu to cooperate, and the two of them held a Go master class together, teaching the bosses chess skills to the business scriptures and principles, and making clean and legal money, but he was teased and lost an unknown smuggled mobile phone to send him. Cui Ye investigated and found out that Wang Hongyu did make ill-gotten gains through smuggling, and almost lost his life because of it.

The crisis at home continues to increase, on the one hand, my son has been diagnosed with ALS and needs to prepare huge medical expenses; On the other side, his wife began to urge him to go through the divorce procedures and wanted to take his son to live abroad.

At this point, the urgent pressure from his wife and children, and the fat in front of him are all there;

He finally played a move that could not be turned back - taking the initiative to attack and engage Wang Hongyu.

Cui Ye had already anticipated Wang Hongyu's psychology, accurately grasped seven inches, and extorted three million from him with the dirty money evidence in his hand. And the amount of three million is also calculated according to the market price of Wang Hongyu's smuggling machine in a warehouse based on his previous investigation.

The fate of the majority of people does not change drastically at a certain moment, but is caused by the contradictions that have accumulated for a long time, the pull of various reasons, and the deviation from the established track little by little.

Cui Ye's "crooked" story is the same, gradually unfolding like a big game of chess;

The audience is not a spectator of a one-way linear narrative, but a thinker facing a chess game.

Life is much more open than a chessboard

Although this drama is about the tragic fate of a Go genius who has fallen into life and gradually rises, but "goes crooked";

But instead of crudely blaming the tragedy simply by personal choice, he could have done otherwise.

Cui Ye is a person who has not caught up with the bus of the times, he desperately chased after it, but he chose the wrong way at all, and the reason behind this is that he was forced to be helpless:

In order to raise money for his son's treatment, in order to fight for custody, and in order not to let his wife leave abroad......

In general, there is still a lack of money and a need for money.

And the reality of the situation is that he only knows that he is holding the chessboard, he is always missing and losing, and he has no way to replace his talent with material from the right path.

These realistic external factors are squeezing his living space and pushing him down the wrong path.

But Cui Ye is also a complex character, and he makes crazy moves for his own psychological dilemma:

He wants to prove himself to those who ridicule him, he wants to regain a sense of control over his life, and he wants to regain the self-esteem of a talented chess player.

As a result, the desire is getting bigger and bigger, and life is getting more and more out of control.

讓人唏噓的是，曾經意外捲入信用社搶劫案的他，面對一行李袋鈔票也只想拿回本屬於自己的那一萬五；

But then he got into extortion, and when he opened his mouth, he was three million in cash.

The more he tried to apply the methodology in the chess game to life, to criminal adventures, the farther and farther away from the life he was chasing;

But these dark secrets of sin will snowball bigger and bigger, more and more crazy.

Fate is too fond of making black humorous jokes, Cui Ye once witnessed that group of robbers take their lives in exchange for a cart of waste paper practice money, and why not himself?

Predictably, the money, affection, and dignity he pursued...... It will also come to naught on this misguided path;

Even the only skills he has left, those tricks will always show their feet and lose the battle.

Life often doesn't collapse in an instant, Cui Ye thinks carefully and effortfully every step of the way, but irrevocably steps into the wrong river.

Chess players believe that "life is like chess, there is no regret when you fall, and if you are not careful, you will lose all the games";

A genius chess player has turned his life into a game of chess, which is the most tragic and exciting.

There is a clear distinction between black and white in Go, and there will always be a clear distinction between winning and losing.

But life is much more open than a chessboard, and the ups and downs of the fate of every ordinary person are ever-changing;

There are too many colors in addition to black and white, and there is no need to follow any tricks and methods, and the single judging standard wins.

When watching this drama, I always felt that Cui Ye was really a pity, he could have not gone this way, but he had a desperate thought.

"Chess Warrior" has been giving this signal -

In fact, his problems can be solved, as long as he jumps out of the shackles of traditional machismo, no longer obsesses with proving his talents, asks for help, and expresses his emotions, he will not be forced into a blind corner by life.