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shares her thoughts, knowledge and occasional,
weird ideas on stories and how they're told
Da Kao, The Examination for Everyone.
Sounds very scary, is a 22 episodes drama that has aired on
both satellite televisions and internet streaming platforms.
It is directed by Shen Yan and Ben Fang
written by four credited scriptwriters,
among which the first credited writer Nie Chengshuai,
is the writer who wrote Tian Cai Ji Ben Fa
it is led by a very seriously weighted cast,
including Chen Baoguo, Wang QIanyuan
the King level actors of chinese drama and filmland,
also featuring other famous people such as Guo Tao, Yan Bingyan
Wang Xiao, Lan yingying
And for the students, younger kids roles
you have Li gengxi, Hu Xianxu, Rong Zishan, Zheng Wei, Xu Yihang
and as the tile suggests
It's focused on all kinds of tests
For people who took part in the 2020 chinese
national college entrance examination,
the very unusual year of the outbreak of covid
This is a drama that's veryl specifically focused on
a group of people living in a fictional town,
located in the southeastern china.
It is one of those spearheaded by NRTA,
National Radio Television Administration's projects
that got lump sum together and termed as
"wo men de xin shi dai", Our New Era dramas,
including quite a few dramas that are ongoing right now.
And we'll come out later,
I have watched all 22 episodes and i'll give it a 1.5 gold mine drama
I mean if you inflate it
it's not like it doesn't deserve a 2 gold mine.
But for certain reasons,
okay I just rate it a little bit tight and just put it in between one and two.
And I think as a drama,
there are certain things about it that are very well done.
And I would recommend it based on those things.
If you're curious about those parts,
you should go and watch it type of thing
as I talk about it. You'll see.
So now let's talk about the good thing and bad thing
about this drama
on the positive number one.
Since it is a very proper drama,
that's literally kind of booked and designed by the nrta
features very proper actors and actresses
who come in and do a proper job.
There's no fandom, star, celebrity culture in any way hijacking this project.
So you're not gonna see any specific celebrities,
famous people whose fame or whose whatever
tramples over the storytelling quality.
The story comes first,
the characters come first,
everybody just stay back.
One of the things that comes with that is
an overall realistic lens on people.
You don't see almost any makeup on anybody in this drama,
every character in this drama you're gonna come across
live in a very realistic world where
they are not beautified in anyway, idealized in anyway
very rare to see that in a contemporary chinese drama.
The second thing about it that I think is worth watching is
if you are somebody who is curious to see
what is the life of high schoolers like
the last year of high school
And particularly in the year 2020,
because so many unusual things happened in that year,
they did the thing that's very clever,
which is picked out very representative individuals.
The five students in the last year of their high school featured
at the core and surrounding them are their family environment,
all very distinctive and different,
their aspiration,
what kind of student they are,
what they want to achieve.
And then what is the challenge they have each
quickly counting them, Hu Xianxu plays the "xue ba" (学霸）
the very good student
performing exceeding well at academic studies
and hoping for the best tiers of universities
Li Gengxi's character, this girl who pretty much has been neglected by her parents,
because ever since she was little,
the parents went out to a different city to do business,
leaving her alone in her hometown.
And she's literally brought up by the grandmother
and she's not the most talented.
She probably can get to a mid level university with all her might and trying.
Then Rong Zishan plays this high schooler
who has a better family financial background.
The father is a policeman,
although most of the time he sits in office
and not really going out in the field,
then the mother is a management level person in the hotel.
He wants to be an art student.
Goes to fine art institution is his goal,
but the parents are like,
no, we hope you go and get like a job in finance or law or doctor,
whatever the "proper" professions.
You also have Zheng Wei, broken family.
Only father is in the picture,
father is rich in a different country
gonna go to an overseas university.
So don't worry about Gao Kao (NCEE)
You don't need to take part in it.
He's very neglected, but he's rich.
And then he doesn't have any pressure of performing in school,
but then that causes other problems.
Then you have the character played by XU Yihang,
onlu grandfather is still alive and he has very tight bond with his grandfather.
They come from a very small village, very remote, very poor.
And then the story will feature all of their stories
plus school teachers plus different levels of educator.
In the system.
It's actually a very dramatic story,
has so much different plot points going on.
And in the space of 22 episodes,
they actually got the story pretty well depicted and played out.
And during every specific person's story,
there are pressure points, emotional points,
things that probably will,
at least for a few times get to the point where
you feel as strongly emotionally as those characters.
So it's a pretty solidly written script.
Third positive point,
I have to point out it as one specific thing.
If not for anything,
you should go and watch this drama just to check out.
One particular student
Hu Xianxu's role
his parents played by Wang Xiao and Yan bingyan
wow
This is such an unusual on page middle aged couple of contemporary china
of their specific circumstances and their weird,
dynamic and relationship.
This three person's family has this unusual dynamic.
I really can't think of an equivalent in any other chinese dramas recently
Wang Xiao and Yan Bingyan
these two actors actress played it so well so masterfully
that I think just for these two specific roles they play,
they should get awards.
These two are what I call proper actors
think of recently Yan bingyan, for example,
she's played a national security agent in Dui Shou, In that drama
where she is always trying to catch Guo Jingfei and Tan Zhuo's characters
and she's so convincing as a middle aged national security agent.
Then in this drama,
totally differenttotally, small business owner
cooks in the kitchen in the back end and serves people on the front end
both are 100% realistic, you can touch her almost
the texture of her performance is~
and then Wang Xiaoo as well.
He plays this middle age father who is so rare a role that you see
in chinese dramaland hardly ever really
and he makes it 100%, 110% believable.
I laughed, cried and I felt so entertained by this drama
for this specific family and all the screen time they've had
I literally stare at the screen
and I just marvel at their performances
and also it's a very well written particular family dynamic.
I said so much.
Basically i'm telling you if not for anything
go and check out this drama for the performance of Yan Bingyan and Wang Xiao
Being the parents of Hu Xianxu' role
So these are the good things about this drama.
Now let's talk about what may not be ideal about this drama.
Now the thing is with this specifically themed drama,
if you're not a interested in it to start with,
this is not gonna be a drama you wanna check out
and I can see why this is not the entertainment value heavy drama.
Let's be honest,
so probably not that many people are gonna go watch it anyway,
this drama may be originally written longer than
what it looks like now and certain places does feel
they have a very hasty pace
and they cut things too quickly or some things just
didn't get fully explained and moves on
not a huge problem.
But you may see it.
The second thing, basically,
the reason why I didn't rate it even higher,
the one major thing that I know they probably
cannot really do it the way I want it,
but I still want it.
So this drama is set in 2020 Covide
January, the 1st, people are talking about going back home
spring festival, chinese new year,
and then shit happened
from january to, let's say,
March and April around that time of the story setting,
really because Covid touched everybody and changed everybody's way of living.
It has overall too easy an attitude.
And nobody really is too worried,
too anxious.
When you watch this drama, you'll find
everybody pretty much is treating it very calmly and normally
almost with the ability to predict
it's all gonna turn out to be fine in a couple of months' time,
at least in china like it got under control.
And it kind of was like like that all the way until now,
which is ~
not how I remembered it,
although I wasn't in china,
I so clearly remember the days,
particularly end of January when it first started to let's say,
early March that crossing a month and half time where
wow it was just so much panic and pain,
and not a nice time to remember
decorate the history up a little bit.
Everybody does that, let's be honest,
all dramas tend to do that.
All countries have their own versions of decorated history.
And honestly, if this drama actually depicts exactly how most of the
time people were just going nuts
around the time everywhere in china,
it's not gonna ~~~~~ go through?
I guess,
since this is nrta spearheaded project, probably from day one,
they already kind of decided what the tone is gonna be.
We're gonna feature this feature this,
but then we're gonna play down this, play down that
the drama is still watchable and they definitely didn't rewrite history
in terms of just like making things that didn't happen happen.
It happened.
And a lot of things in the drama regarding the particular exam.
For example, certain exams got postpone for certain reason, it all happened.
So that part is real.
But just like psychologically,
how people dealt with it in the early days of covid in china,
it just makes it look so easy.
And I know it's not easy.
So it's the prettier version of things that you wish.
It happened that way in reality, but
not on this timeline.
It didn't happen like that.
So I didn't rate it.
If you take that part out,
this is overall in other things,
a pretty good drama.
And for the younger actors like Hu Xianxu, Rong Zishan, Li Gengxi
they did a really good job.
I would say these are all very hopeful young actors.
They may not be, let's say yet,
all rounded soldiers who can do everything and
everybody has their range, but in this drama,
when they play the high school students of this particular setup,
that particular setup,
they all did a very, very good job
and I have definitely enjoyed watching it.
My mother even watched it back in china and we 've actually
Discussed about this drama online.
And my mother also is very,
very happy about the Wang Xiao and Yan Bingyan couple and their performance.
And she actually pointed out is the father actually
is the person who has a psychological problem,
but in the drama and never clearly gets explained or pointed out that it's the case,
but he went through this process of getting it,
treated by life, figures out a way to get out of it and
trying to move on to another type of better hopeful life.
And when she said that, i'm like, yeah yeah yeah,
obviously he's like that.
It's just the drama never points it out.
One thing i'm really funny about my mom is she's not a psychology major,
but when she was in medical school,
they did have certain terms that they have to do courses
that's related to psychology, mental health, and all that.
and She was the highest scoring student of that
exam paper in that medical school's history.
One thing she brags about of her life until now,
she's the person who managed to hit the full mark of that paper.
nobody has ever done,
but then she turned out to be a cardiologist.
So life is interesting in that way
just adding some random information at the end of this video.
Now you have a reference point to the decide
whether you should go and check out this drama.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
i'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.