Hello, you're watching AvenueX where a junkie on good storytelling,
shares her thoughts, knowledge and occasional
weird ideas on stories and how they're told.
This is a combination final review video of two
chinese dramas and as you can see i'm dressed up.
So they are both period dramas.
The other things they have in common are
first both of them are super short dramas.
Second, they got really popular while they were on air
mango television,
super short drama, Nian Nian Wu Ming
The killer is also romantic
and the short video platform Kuai Shou aired drama,
Zhang Gong Zhu Zai Shang, Her Royal Highness
I'm putting these two together,
because both of them are really short and they have something
in common representing a new trend of storytelling that
you're seeing happening in chinese dramaland.
Although neither of them really is the first
of its kind in terms of being super short,
but 2022 really is the year where such drama
starts to get more and more attention.
I wouldn't really use my usual seven level scale to score these
two dramas just because it wouldn't be really hundred percent fair
to compare them to proper big standard drama productions.
I'll first talk about Nian Nian Wu Ming, The killer is (also) romantic,
just finished airing on mango television.
It is really a film length story that got broken down into 18 different pieces.
I haven't done this,
but i'm actually curious to see if anybody downloaded
the whole thing and then they take out the title,
any ending song of each episode and join them together just
physically like that
and then watch it from minute one to the last
what it will feel like
whether it will feel like.
Any other "Wang Da" which is the chinese word for internet movies
that a lot of platforms have been doing for years.
Usually these are the films that are super cheaply produced and then they
literally sell the movies on those platforms
and you pay 5/6 rmb to watch one.
So the classic rule of that is to make the first 5 minutes really good.
If I ever get that done
i'll let people know what I feel.
This super short drama is directed by Zeng Qingjie
who is a self made creator who has already
made a lot of short internet films, little things.
This is yet another of his work.
Then this drama features,
the two leading actors, Hu Dandan and Yang Ze
I've never heard of them,
but they've done a very good job as for the story.
It's a really simple story set in a fictional period time,
two people who have falling love and about to get married and got married,
but then they both actually have a secret identity.
So it's like the Mr and Mrs Smith
in chinese traditional time
as they're both actually secretly assassins.
So the couple of things that this production did really well
and made it rather successful.
And I think as an investment probably got them a really good return.
First, it has written a very clear structure,
get to the point moment, one,
sing one, first second,
you see these characters for the audiences to immediately just on our own,
fill up all the empty space and holes that the story is not telling you,
but just because of how familiar we are with this type of genre, character,
andwhere the story we can anticipate is going,
they really make that very clear.
The second thing is, although this,
you can tell it's a cheap production,
but with what they're given,
they used every trick and every classic techniques and
every expectations of people would have with this type of
thing and just did the best they can with it.
so I think the director definitely is one of those super
experienced people who knows exactly for a particular trope
For a particular scene
We will pick the utmost classic way of using the camera, using the framing,
pacing, the editing,
who says what how they act within the frame
just do it.
In the most expected,
but comfortable and have been worked and tested over time will work way.
We're gonna just film that scene
with this type of knowledge
audiences If you've watched a lot of film and television
you would already know.
I wanna see this kind of shot that kind of shot,
how they're gonna pace it,
what they're gonna do
and this drama will deliver you exactly that.
And they do it actually really well with their limited resources they have
right on spot, right on spot, step after step after step.
When you finish watching the whole thing,
there hasn't really been any moment in
this super tiny drama that made you feel.
It has disappointed you.
And then moving to the third point is the two leads.
I wouldn't say they are the greatest actor and actress out there,
but they did such a good job and they're very well casted for their roles
at certain point of this narrative
where it needs to be just for 5 seconds,
highly highly emotional,
they can manage to pull that 5 seconds out and make it work.
And that's good enough.
Then for the rest of doesn't need to be too ~~ well acted moments.
They still do a good enough job,
although I wouldn't say I am in any way super in love with any
of the characters or super impressed by the plot or any of that either
i'm satisfied and i'm happy enough and don't have problems with it.
And because i've only invested so little time,
I wouldn't feel I have been cheated,
I have been wasting my time doing it.
And it's overall a very pleasant experience.
So after watching The killer is also romantic,
I think the thing that actually makes me super excited is
not the drama itself
but the whole process and whole structure of
how this type of drama can happen.
You have this kind of small crew making a very kind of independent,
tiny thing that costs very little,
doesn't feature any big major star,
but they figure out what would be the thing
that can basically get their cash back most.
And then they just put their emphasis on making
those particular aspects of this project.
Good enough.
I think they did something that has successfully
got through the test of the market
that it's actually viable to make this type of story.
And I really hope this could have encouraged
other people who have similar abilities,
resources on their hands.
Now they see oh this is actually a route that
we can go down and explore possibilities,
the grassroot stuff that start to show up due to
technological advancement
and how easily people can get hold of good enough stuff
to make good enough stuff
in the new day and age and age of aquarius.
That's what we're looking at for the next 200 years of human world.
Never say never
maybe one day I can go and make something like that.
Myself
definitely a possibility current audiences.
You're gonna be my old old fans
who see the whole process of it happening.
So these things that got me thinking are
more exciting than the dramas themselves.
Then for the even more web-ish
short video platform-ish, less professional,
but almost like more interesting,
Zhang Gong Zhu Zai Shang, Her Royal Highness
reason I say it's even more interesting is compared to NNWM
The killer is also romantic,
which still has the more like the traditional drama production,
makeup of the team, of how it's done, how it's put out,
what platform puts it out.
Her royal highness is really a very,
very individual content creator stuff,
and it features what we call Wang Hong actors,
which is internet celebrity.
The director is one of those people.
She's been making her own very short videos
for a long time now and mostly period.
Drama looking,
actors and actresses,
but those people are also internet celebrities,
internet influencers
And she made a lot of those small movies, 2 minutes,
4 minutes with the bgm almost like a music video.
and This is her official first time sort of collaboration with the
short video platform Kuai Shou
which you don't have an international version,
but it's like another ticktok.
So TikTok in china and Kuai Shou are in fierce competition
Kuai Shou in february,
put out this series of drama stuff is made up with 26 episodes.
Each episode is 2 minutes long.
So you put it together,
it's less than an hour long story,
as you can tell from the royal highness title
It's talking about a princess.
And more specifically,
this princess is in charge of the politics of that kingdom,
because the young emperor is too young,
and she comes across a bodyguard who gets sort of introduced to
her world and who actually came in with a hidden motivation,
but it's 50 minutes.
So you will very soon gonna find out what that is
and how they're gonna develop their relationship.
And for this story,
because it's only 2 minutes per episode,
a lot of people take it as the poop drama,
the loo drama
and just spend 2 minutes watching it everyday drama.
And as you can imagine with this kind of setup
of its structure and how it gets aired,
it really has only the highlight points of a story.
It's the bare bone of a structure of a story without any flesh.
But they use everything they can use,
like I said for the killer is also romantic,
the camera language, the movement,
the music when the slow-mo comes in.
And when they know you know this is the time when
audience wanna watch two people stare at each other,
super close and about to kiss and all that.
So they push all those.
Heightened moments to the absolute limit of how far it could go
finding 2 good enough dubbers to dubb the two leads.
So to make it sounds more professional and dramatic,
and then just let it run
every good thing that people discover about it.
That's slightly better than their expectation
becomes a much better experience because
nobody expects great things from it,
therefore it actually become much better.
And they did a couple of things really well,
such as finding the really good looking enough people
to play these roles and play them well enough
so that they almost sometimes are better than those really crappy,
proper period dramas led by crappy,
idol actors who have a huge fandom and
complains constantly about everything.
If you're interested,
i'll leave the link to the creator of her royal highness' official account
on Bilibili where she has about 1 million followers.
And she's made a lot of super tiny, short videos.
One of the most well known ones before this drama was a video.
I think a lot of international people,
even you've watched it,
which is a short music video of two ladies
橘势大好（GL) story of a lady and a bunny,
like a white bunny that turn into a girl.
If you have any vague impression of that, yeah it's done by her,
I wouldn't consider dramas,
such as her royal highness is really a proper,
traditional visual narrative story telling thing,
but i'm very open to all kinds of new stuff that can be done
these days because of the available resources to everyone.
I like the outsider challengers who come in and stir the water up,
get it muddy and say, yeah,
we know we're not making classic works and our stuff is by no means great,
but there are people who like it
and we do it with our passion because of its 2022,
because we live in this age of internet and social media everything,
now it's possible,
at least we can throw our stuff out there and
see how many people like it, want more of it.
And i'm actually really happy to see people
have overall very positive response to them.
Don't think they're gonna change the big picture just by themselves,
but I cannot wait for the future.
In terms of more and more creators,
different organizations,
different individuals,
start to put their work out
in ways we previously haven't imagined possible.
It's always the person who is outside of the established traditions,
structure,
bringing something that you don't see before
and challenges it and becomes a wave of trend.
And then that thing gets established and becomes old and stale.
And then the new thing comes in and it keeps just changing and changing.
Cool.
it just feels much more exciting than having so called big productions
that cost hundreds of millions made by supposedly professional people.
and then ended up being just expensive piece of shit and crap.
you know I'd rather have diverse things from all kinds of people.
They're made by people who actually love what they do.
They have their own passion.
it comes from a different energy source.
We have a very weird future we're heading towards
or it's heading towards us.
Quickly mention something here,
not related to uh this video, which is,
if you've watched my tuesday video,
you know i've launched something new
the new part of my shop that
has a different entry from the usual entry point due to
not ideal, let's say,
back end functions of squarespace websites
where they cannot do a lot of things.
I apologize for the effort that you're gonna have to go
through looking at all the instructions in terms of shipping.
Wait time, details if you wanna customization how you contact me,
just because that's the best way after i've try to figure out
for half a year that I can think of with my logical analysis brain
about how it can work
right now. This is the best I can do.
And if you have any questions about these products that I forgot to mention,
or haven't explained it clearly enough for you just
use that form at the end of every product page.
And i'll get an email and i'll contact you.
Thank you for watching AvenueX,
I will see you In my next video, meanwhile,
live long and happy drama watching.