Hello, you're watching AvenueX,
Where a junkie on good storytelling shares her
thoughts, knowledge and occasional
weird ideas on stories and how they are told.
This is a first impression /halfway review
of a still on air chinese drama.
Di Xian, Draw the Line
The drama is 40 episodes long and it's been aired on satellite television.
Also web platforms,
iqiyi, Mango television online and Hunan television, satellite tv
the drama is directed by Liu Guotong, written by Fei Huijun, Li Xiaoliang
completely shot in the city Changsha and also
Hunan television has something to do with the production.
They often shoot dramas in their own province.
Also, iqiyi has taken part in producing this drama.
It is led by Jin Dong, Cai Wenjing, Cheng Yi, Wang Xiuzh
The drama only started the production at the very end of Feb this year.
In terms of turn-around.
This is one of the fastest dramas as it airs in september,
it's just about half year's time and it's 40 episodes.
This drama is focused on court system and
people who work in the legal system in china.
This drama on script level has been worked on in such
a unique way that really there hasn't been any other
chinese dramas that has gotten this kind of treatment.
This is an original script.
The script writers have gone to over 60 different level
of court to interview and getting raw materials.
They have interviewed over 200 people who work in a legal system.
Then when they did the case research,
there are over 500 cases for consideration,
then at the end of that,
the whole script has been advised
pretty much worked through line by line
by the supreme court of china.
So it ended up being the only drama that has gotten
all this treatment ever in chinese dramaland.
Let me briefly introduce you to the story.
And then we're gonna talk about a lot of things about this drama
Jin Dong playing a mid level to high level judge
within his level of court,
which isn't the highest level of the province he lives in,
although he is the main character.
It is, let's say 70% an ensemble drama,
you would also see a couple of other judges.
For example, play by wang xiu zhu.
There's a newcomer who comes from supreme court
and who comes to this local court, an intern,
and getting work experience played by Cai Wenjing
and a young legal worker who has just moved up
to being able to be a judge at any cases
played by Cheng Yi
So this is a having one definitive lead,
but the many many other very close to lead roles drama.
There are many cases featured in this drama almost nonstop.
And most of the time you have multiple cases going on at the same time
focused on what professional work is like for chinese court workers.
Based on the 24 episodes i've already watched of this 40 episode drama.
If I don't consider one thing,
i'll give it a really high rating at like 2.5 at this point.
There are many things this drama has done that
no drama has done previously in chinese dramaland.
But as it's been airing to this point,
it has also been embroiled in this controversy
that i'm gonna talk about later in this video.
So it's really hard to rate this drama,
because I cannot ignore that part.
And I think it is problematic.
so If I take that into consideration it makes the rating lower,
because I cannot ignore it,
but then if it's only on the storytelling and production level,
it really is a good drama.
Now, let me first talk about what is good
about the drama and then the big problem,
it really just has one essential big problem,
positive end, Number one,
Jin Dong finally finds a role that is so suitable for him
ever since The Disguiser and Nirvana in fire.
When he got notice and got famous,
he has taken on many projects that really just don't suit him
whether playing a lawyer
or playing one of those super rich 霸总 character.
It's just not his thing.
And then on internet because of a couple of
rather unfortunate missteps he's done,
he has becoming a laughing stock
every time people talk about actors pretending to be more or better educated
than they really are, they bring him up, talking about him,
ever mentioning there's a Nobel prize for mathematics
which doesn't exist.
So he hasn't been doing very well,
let's say in reputation and in people's impression of him
as a professional actor in recent years until this drama,
he is made for this role
this role is made for him.
He plays this Ti Zhi Nei 体制内 within china's civil servant type of system
You enter it and you're kind of safe for life
unless you eff it up big, playing the "干部”（officials)
who goes through ladders of levels in the bureaucracy of things,
hoping by the time they retire reach a high level
getting set for the rest of their life.
And in reality, he actually is
earlier this year,
yi yang qian xi got into the trouble of trying to get international theater
and then getting so boycotted and therefore giving up the position.
He he actually has a position in one of those nationally owned troupes
And he actually is a mid to high level management there.
The way he speaks,
the way he acts,
everything that just like leaks into his existence
in this drama is a perfect portrayal of
people who work in that environment
who are very experienced with dealing with people
know how to talk to get around things
to please everybody
to make sure the bosses the higher levels.
Think of you as a very promising future star
and then the lower people that you are in charge of
all appreciate you.
He's a master of playing that "Guan Xi" (relationship),
and in his drama,
he brings it to life.
He's so "with in the system"
This is his role.
And in this drama,
Ru Yu De Shui, as fish enters the water,
a role 100% fits Jin Dong
And when he's in that
beautiful performances
and in many ways,
this drama really isn't hinged upon very good
performances from the leading cast of the judges role.
It's really more to do with each cases and how they do it and
what the drama shows you of the nature
of legal work in china is like
and all the judges characters becomes a ,in a way, tool
to represent that, to bring the story to you.
And I think because of that
not really riding on any of the specific actor's
fame or popularity or fandom, definitely no
nature of this drama,
everyone can be more relaxed like the actors.
They play real characters who live in the real world.
They don't have superpowers.
for example, Cheng Yi, previously he was in a lot of Xian Xia
playing god level characters
who has the burden of existence on his shoulder.
And in this drama he's just aguy in a professional environment.
and somehow that just makes his acting feels
flowing so much better, like a real person.
And there's no beautifying,
there's no idealizing.
So I think that's overall a very positive thing.
The second thing that is very unique about this drama
definitely on the positive end,
because it's the one and only one you have when it depicts
the legal system in china to absolute detailed level,
exactly like how it happens in reality,
this drama has been already reacted by a couple of
very well known content creators on china's platforms
who are lawyers, who have been around for quite a while
and they've gone through the drama.
At certain episodes,
and then share their opinions
overall for all the already working in a legal system people
and then for students of law in china.
When they watch this drama,
they would pretty much all unanimously say
the representation of the proceedings
and of all the details of legal work is so accurate
that if you actually work in this system
watching this drama makes you feel like you're working overtime.
They got to the point where there's one episode early on in the drama
when it actually shows you the entire process of one case,
getting done in court,
starting from people entering the court,
sitting down, judges coming in, secretaries, coming in
lawyers, defendant and prosecution.
And then the judge starts to say
my name is this this this, this person.
this this this,
that person on my side,
this this this
we three together are gonna be the judges of today.
Then our secretary is named this,
that person is named this.
On this side.
We have lawyer thism and that side of prosecution that
And then he will read all the have to be read
but boring ass part of every court proceeding
in china that needs to be read out
showing you every word that would happen in court.
You never ever ever see that happening in any chinese dramas ever.
I haven't seen that
starting from day one of existence of chinese dramas I think
it's dramatically not that interesting to watch,
but because it has never been presented on screen
and many people whether you're chinese or not,
you have no idea actually of how cases got done and dramas
often present that in all the dramatized and wrong way.
and this is the only one that has ever been done in this way.
So in that sense, it has its value.
And I think at least having one drama doing that is a good thing.
If you're in any way curious about how the legal system work in china,
how cases gets filed and all the procedures and you
know what's the difference between, for example,
us court or uk court to chinese court?
This drama is gonna give you that
in the most detailed way possible.
It has shocked a lot of legal workers in china because they never
believe they could be represented to this level of detail.
This accurately, in a chinese drama. which are known to be
very inaccurate when it comes to professional things.
The third thing is a positive and a negative thing of this drama.
And that's where the controversy comes in.
so this is in a way good,
in a way very problematic
on the good end of that whole point,
which is they've based most of the big cases in this drama
on real cases that has really happened in china
over the last couple of years.
And all of them are highly highly well known in china.
Pretty much every chinese person who is connected to internet
has been aware of it or have at least heard parts of it.
Some of the cases are still ongoing in a way.
Therefore, it gets very very highly debated about
how the drama decides to depict those cases.
They take that from reality and they would change certain details.
The thing with that is it's so sensitive in so many ways
that however you change it
There will always be people who have huge problems with it,
because if it's not exact as the reality,
then there's the argument that the drama is trying
to manipulate public's opinion on these cases.
but then if it is exact like that,
then it gets to the part where whether the production will get into trouble.
Because people would think you are using that exact.
And i'm gonna sue you for whatever defamation and stuff.
So it gets really complicated.
As the drama has air to the 20s episode,
it has just represented a case that unfortunately the person,
the real person who ended up being the defendant of this case in reality,
has just posted something on internet in china
accusing the production of not depicting it accurately
and in a way is a defamation.
and He wants to sue the drama. I think
it just happened like yesterday or the day before
so on internet right now this drama is being highly highly argued.
And if you haven't heard of any of those and really
chinese domestic legal cases is not your concern, right?
If you're not in any way related to it,
you can just look at it from afar as a drama,
but it does raise the question
Of how far a drama can go.
It is really to do with the ethics of content creation based on reality.
And where do you draw the line
you know in a way.
It's very ironic that the drama is called Draw the Line,
this drama.I don't know how much further
they're gonna go with those cases,
how many more cases they're gonna cover?
Is it gonna have even more controversial things?
showing up and then causing a huge uproar on internet
and whether that's gonna do anything to the drama itself,
because of its nature of production.
It's by satellite television,
it's by the big television station in china, big platforms.
It's literally being advised by supreme court in china,
whether that is strong enough in a way
that no matter how many reports it receive
it's still not gonna have any problem.
Or is it still gonna get affected because cancel culture is so rampant?
These days everywhere, we do not know.
So now this drama is in a very muddy water and complicated situation,
completely because of the cases they picked and the
way they depicted and manipulated and change details,
I find it's very hard to form a simple opinion on it
and saying it's definitely black, definitely white.
Because if I only look at it as a visual,
medium storytelling thing,
it has a lot of things that's very well done.
and It is really is a story focused,
not being affected by, let's say,
fandom culture in any way. Drama
I have never seen a chinese drama that depicts court in this way,
and I got educated about a lot of things.
That i wasn't previously aware about the legal system in china.
In that sense it has a lot of value,
but it gets argued because of these things
we shall wait and see
right now it's chinese national holiday 7 days break,
people have time to watch dramas and vent on internet,
so this may not be so good for this drama.
If further episodes of this dramas contain more
problematic content
and this drama before I went into it,
I had no idea it had all this.
Now i've watched 24 episodes.
I would say this is one of the most unique dramas this year
that I totally didn't see coming
and for international audiences
You don't need to get yourself very involved in this at all.
You can just watch it from afar.
And then it's 2022.
you know,We're all used to all kinds of
ridiculous things anyway happening all the time.
We're much stronger than this.
We can deal with it.
so for whatever purpose.
If it may be useful to you or interesting to you,
you can go and check out this drama.
I have shared all I can think of about this drama
that may be worth knowing to you.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.