Hello, you're watching up AvenueX and we are now
right at the smack middle of December 2022.
Hope everything is going well,
hope you get a really good end of the year bonus.
This is my first end of the year
summary video on chinese dramaland of 2022.
And as you can see from the title,
it is gonna be my best drama moment of 2022
from chinese dramaland video.
Before I talk about specific specific ten moments
that i've picked for today's video,
there are a couple of things. I would take them out
of this consideration and put them on side,
because the nature of them are not actually
moments or sequences or scenes of a drama.
They're much more bigger.
So I can't really put them in this video
them being the entirety of the drama,
A lifelong journey, Ren Shi Jian,
which happened very early on in 2022.
It's a family saga story of multiple generations
because this drama has too many tear jerking,
heart wrenching, beautiful acting moments and writing moments
on itself, it probably can pick ten moments out of it
and have its own video
so that drama has its own position.
The next one is the episode 10 of the Lord of Losers drama
and that entire episode,
because it's focused on entertainment business, content creation,
focused on how you use social media to create traffic and then how
you stir up discussions and also fight on internet
to get what you want and all those dark things
that we see every day, a satirical comment on the whole thing
so that whole episode is worth this.
then this one actor who gave me the strongest impression over
the whole year of performance that I totally didn't see coming,
which is actor Wei Chen
In the short Mango drama, The Disappearing Child,
he's such an underrated and unexpected talent in acting.
So everything he does in that drama,
I put it on its own side.
And if he doesn't get awards for that,
I would be very disappointed.
Now, in no particular order or pretty much is in
the order of what I thought of the moments,
what comes to my mind.
So that may be an order in itself.
Let's talk about the ten best moments from chinese dramas in 2022.
Number one,
Cang Lan Jue
Fairy and Devil in episode 9
Male lead showing up with its black wings to save the female
lead from this tribunal of god who are just all hypocrites,
literally cooked the entire hall of gods and immortals
with his blue flame that really looks like gas fire.
And we have all imagined in our head when we
read a novel of such a character showing up,
that just blaze through
and for the drama itself,
I think that was the moment that a lot of people watching the drama
until that episodes gave it standing ovation.
and that's the most quoted moment of the early parts of the drama.
When the fans of this drama try to introduce the drama to other people.
They would show this sequence.
This drama has more good moments,
but I will pick this one because of its emotion and visual impact.
And at the particular point of the entire narrative,
adding all that together,
it definitely deserves a position on the list
of the best moment of C dramaland of 2022
number two.
The banquet of A Dream of Splendour from episode 33.
It is definitely a contemporary stage with its stage design that I doubt.
Any ancient people can actually pull off without electricity.
It is using contemporary technology to create that dream like stage space.
It provides you with such beauty,
visual splendour and the great thing of actually bringing real
historical chinese paintings that almost every chinese person knows.
And we grow up with, visualize that with actors, with costumes, with lighting,
with performance on stage,
you really haven't seen any of such a scene in any chinese
period drama up to that point when the drama did it in its way.
And and I can totally imagine had it really happened like that.
In ancient society, people would spend gold
incredible amount of money to just be able to see that.
So Meng Hua Lu, A dream of splendour episode 33, banquet scene
number three, Love like the Galaxy, Xing han Can Lan
episode 49.
When the male lead has massacred and killed all his enemies,
he comes out of that mansion and he is about to get arrested.
The female lead on horseback rides in slow mo.
And this time it's the woman saving the guy.
Visually, that scene is really nicely shot
the camera language and the emotional expectation at the point of the story,
then they go to the cliff and you have that cliff scene
although I am not a huge fan of this drama.
If you've watched my videos, you would know
I really think that scene worked so well.
The red dress, the blood, the night, the coldness, the horse, street, cliff,
everything just visually works so perfectly.
and for the drama itself, it's a pivotal moment,
and it's been done very well on camera.
So I put it on my list as one of the best moments of this year.
Number four, Under the Skin, Lie Zui Tu Jian, Episode 6
the male lead or one of the two maleids get into the taxi and realized, shit,
the guy driving the taxi is the murderer.
And he's about to kill me.
How am I gonna survive this
that whole sequence of him sending out the message
And then Du Cheng getting the message and comes to rescue
the whole sequence, this is one of the classic moments
of this type of crime drama that we are all looking forward to.
If we go into a drama like this with 2 clear main roles and
you know they're gonna go through a lot of quite exciting.
And at times life is threatening moments of the drama.
You wish you're gonna get one of those moments cause
it serves all kinds of purposes of the narrative.
It serves plot wise the case specific purpose.
It also serves as the two main characters relationship development.
It's a milestone.
Before that moment, they are at this stage
after that moment,
their friendship just shoot up a whole level,
and you want this type of scene to be beautifully executed on camera.
And it's dramatically exciting, high pressure, intense emotion.
It's been done really well.
And i've re-watched that scene so many times while I was editing,
but also just while I was re-watching this drama,
I really, really enjoy that moment.
The drama actually has multiple moments like this,
but because it's the first intense moment of this drama at episode six,
i'll use this one to represent the other great things that
Under the Skin has
number five from the drama Wo de Mi Mi Shi You, Love in Time
around episode 23,
specifically the second half of episode 23
and first half of episode 24,
it's hard to call it a best moment because it has a
lot to do with editing and sequence of things happening.
At that point of the story.
We have the final big thing of basically the
male lead character become a two in one person.
You have visually that iconic imagery you've also seen in Goblin.
When the silhouette of the guy in slow motion comes out of steam,
come to think of that.
This actor has two of such moments in two dramas he's done this year, weird.
Anyway, the him from future and him from now
coming together and becoming one person
that is visually a very strong moment,
but I wouldn't say that moment in itself is that special
It is how it situates in the whole story.
And at the final stage of the story,
how it wraps up the fate of this character,
sequencing different moments, editing them together,
and giving you the right punctuation at right moment
of delivering information, but also holding the tension of the storytelling.
If I were the editor of that story,
I would have edited it that way.
So a lot of that comes from my editing brain.
that when I see they do it that way, i'm like,
I would have done it exactly that way.
oh yes, Here is the moment you put this scene where the character says this line,
and then you cut into flashback of last night and you come back,
and I would do it that way.
Okay, so basically i'm just liking people who do things that I like.
It's my thing. Maybe other people don't get it,
but anyway it's my video, so i'm just gonna put it there.
Number six, coming from drama that is still on air as i'm making this video,
Feng Chui Ban Xia, Wild Bloom episode 12.
When our female lead character played by Zhao Liying, Xu Banxia
has been trapping herself in her apartment for days
because she's at the very low of her career and on the
brink of bankruptcy and losing everything she has.
and she hears this guy shouting from downstairs,
turn on the news and she turns on the news and she sees the
price of steel go up in china and she's like makeup free,
she looks like shit.
Okay, she's in pajamas and she runs out of her apartment
and hug the guy and they were so happy because they finally got saved.
Let's say dramatically not so unusual a scene
it happens in every drama probably.
But I really like in the story at that point,
in time 12 episode that it happens that way,
I like Zhao Liying's performance in that moment,
I think it's very genuine and very convincing
because in the moment is her weakest moment,
she's not pretty she's not dressed up, she's made up.
She looks like crap,
but that facial expression when she sees the news
and she knows, finally, her savior is here.
I think if you've watched the drama till that point,
you would also be moved so much.
So that earns a place on my list of the best moment this year.
Number seven from a drama probably not that many people have watched,
but i've made a video about and I really liked
which is Rock It Mom, Yao Gun Kuang Hua
It happened in episode 4 when our female lead character
Yao Chen accidentally chucked away her ex husband's ashes
that was stored in the milk powder.
It's so ridiculous.
can, daughter realized, shit,
you did that and they went to salvage from all the garbages
But when they finally got it out and thought,
okay finally we found it,
accidentally, she had the can upside down
and ~~ her ex husband ends up on the pavement
and get blown away by the wind.
It's so well represented overall very sort of black comedy,
vibe of that drama and the over the top plot and character setup of the drama,
which is a very rare thing these days in dramaland.
From china, the drama in itself is not perfect.
And you can say that it does those extremely crazy plot
for the sake of audiences attention that may not be.
So let's say, tasteful, a tactic of writing scripts,
but I laughed so much.
I remember when I watched that scene for the first time,
oh god I was rolling on the floor, I mean not literally,
but spiritually
you don't see that in chinese dramas usually.
So I think a moment of such nature deserves a place on my list.
When I talk about the summarizing things of 1 year's performance from dramaland
Number eight coming from the drama Chi Dao, Falling into You
led by Jin Chen and Wang Anyu
I've also made a video on that drama itself.
I pick the episode twenty.
Basically sexy scene in this drama because
we almost don't have that in chinese dramaland anymore
for whatever reason people kiss and cut.
and It's next morning, I mean this drama is also like that,
but at least before they cut,
they gave us more shots.
of these two people there's close up.
There's like very atmospherical shots
sets up the mood really well.
The camera gives you what you want for this type of intimate moment.
Although it hasn't really pushed the boundaries and envelopes.
And I mean if it did,
it would not have been aired anyway.
Still, this is, as far as they can go,
I think from chinese dramaland
this is hitting on the very limit
one step further you're gonna get.
This director is really good at filming that intimate moments.
The actors did a really great job.
Number nine close to the end of the list.
Now we are going back to the beginning of the year
and this is one of the very early on aired drama,
Chao yue, Beyond the speed short track skating drama
that was overall a very matured and good production.
This particular moment comes from the episode ten by the
actor Zhu jiaqi who plays an athlete called Jiang Hong
He got injury on his leg that's so severe that he
could no longer be a short track athlete anymore.
He's in wheelchair,
he gets pushed to the ice rink for the last time.
And when people are not looking,
he just came down on the ice and kissing on the ice and crying.
I just got so moved by that scene.
It's the single most heartbreaking scene I think of
that entire drama for me and the actor did it so well.
And and this is the same actor who also played a
role in Under the skin as one of the policemen.
And this guy is a really good actor
because he doesn't have such a strong male lead vibe
who may have the big potential of have a widest
range possible, the chameleon actor who can be anybody
plus at the moment how they decide to set up the scene,
the direction, the camera language, music, everything
in this year's sports theme dramas,
Chao Yue should come to the top.
And then this moment will stay in my brain for a long time to come
the last the 10th moment on my list and
definitely not the least
beginning of this year again. Kai Duan, Reset
given how popular this drama and how successful
this drama at the beginning of this year,
it just cannot be not on this list.
And it's really hard to pick that one moment of this drama to
put on the list because there are so good moments in that drama.
The nature of the drama is a time loop drama.
So every turn every moment they discover something new is something exciting,
but i'll focus it down to episode 8
Because in that episode many things happened,
many extremely pivotal and turning point Of
our characters' adventure and journey happened.
And then more specifically,
the moment when our 2 leads realized,
it's most likely it's the high pressure cooker
that has the freaking bomb in it,
and at the stop that they can get off and not get killed.
The guy quietly whispered to the girls ear and say,
run away and he runs back to the bus and
then try to grab that high pressure cooker.
And there's this moment of slow mo
camera purches in onto this middle aged lady
and the male lead, those two shots of their eyes connecting.
And that's the moment when they realized you found
out about my secret and I am about to kill you.
And then the guy also is like, shit, this is real
It happens.
And later in that episode,
you will also have the female lead's first death
that didn't get caused by the bomb, but by the knife.
And then the guy saying the people on the bus do not deserve us saving them.
So it's the most important turning point of the storytelling,
all things considered.
I picked that moment.
But this drama has so many more moments that are golden.
If you haven't watched the drama, what are you waiting for?
If there are a couple of dramas you do not wanna miss
from Chinese dramaland, this definitely will be on the list
first five or even first three, I would say.
So those are my picked best drama moments from all the dramas i've seen in 2022.
Chinese dramaland, I'm pretty sure some of that will overlap with yours.
If you've watched enough Chinese dramas this year,
if you have other candidates,
if you have other moments that are your favorite
share that in the comment section with other people
have fun
with that I'll end this video and I sincerely hope that 2023
is going to bring us more great dramas to enjoy.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
i'll see you my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.