Wo De Ba Bi Lun Lian Ren, Dear Diary is a 24 episodes
web drama that's being aired on youku and iqiyi
the drama is led by Feng Xiaoyue, Bu Guanjin
Wang Ruichang, Zhu Yan Man Zi
Zhou You, Xu Weining
and it has quickly become my favorite drama of 2021 september.
Hi, you watching AvenueX
Where a junkie on good storytelling shares her thoughts,
knowledge and occasional weird ideas on stories,
and how they're told
exploring more angles and more different
lens and camera and whatever set up making my videos.
And i'm in a very nimble swivel chair.
So i'm just gonna be doing that.
Throughout this video,
Dear Diary was initially named Ai Zai Xi Yuan Qian
any of Zhou Jielun, Jay Chou's fans out there?
before the streaming culture and internet and social media.
This is an original script story that is focused on a female character.
called Chen Meiru.
She works at an internet platform who is specialized in deleting
inappropriate uploaded videos
on the day of her 24th birthday,
an unexpected guest came into her life unannounced
and quite simply turned it upside down,
this person later turned out to be her own fictional creation.
12 years ago when she was 12 years old
due to paying a visit to a Babylonian culture exhibition,
she became fascinated about that culture and wrote
using herself as the female lead character,
a very teenager.
angled all of story with a prince who is just so perfect and only loves her.
And in the most unimaginable and fantastical way,
the story she wrote with her own hands turn out to be true
when the clock strikes for her 24th birthday.
So that is the setup of this story
super nonsensical.
But it is one of the funniest drama i've seen this year
before I go into talk about good and bad and
all that of this drama.
First give you my rating on my seven level scale
it's gonna be a 2 gold mine at this point.
not saying it's not gonna get higher.
I seriously hope that would turn out to be true.
Now let me talk about a few things i've collected during my research,
finding out the interesting background story of this production.
This drama is produced by youku.
and Gong Fu Ying Ye,
GFYY the company has produced a couple of
really impressive dramas in the last couple of years,
such as Tientsin Mystic.
He Shen
also, Dong Wu Guan Li Ju
Bureau of transformers
2017 was the year that Tientsin Mustic came out
and It's kind of the first web drama that this company
has invested and successfully bring to fruition.
But Wo De Ba Bi Lun Lian ren, Dear Diary happened before that
that it's their real first web drama project.
It started development back in 2016,
much earlier than He Shen
it took the production company
2 years to develop this original script
by 2018,
they finished their script and start the production.
And once they filmed that,
it again took them over 2 years to edit and do post production.
The first round of editing.
They weren't happy with it.
It was the boss, Chen Guofu
who is very well known script writer, director, producer
and he took on and looked at the stuff and suggested
go back and totally re-edit the whole freaking thing again.
So they did 2 rounds of different editing and eventually
got a version that they think is good enough.
This drama, although being a small web production,
only 24 episodes,
they actually went to France.
They actually went to Morocco on set,
shooting the Babylonian parts of it.
The desert and stuff
the Paris part.
I haven't seen it yet, probably later in the plot.
I'm just like so curious to see what this drama
has in store for us in the future episodes.
So now let me do the thing I do with my video.
Talking about the good and the bad of the drama.
Honestly there's nothing really bad about it
First good thing
if you want a really good,
big laugh.
This is the drama to go.
If you have watched the drama The Day of Becoming You
Bian Cheng Ni de Na Yi Tian, and it's hilarious
This drama is on par with that one
and in a way it's even more crazier
because dramas such as Bian Cheng Ni de Na Yi Tian
plays the very traditional plot of
body swapping between a man and a woman,
which has happened in many different types of storytelling.
And then Dear Diary,
although books people coming true is nothing new to storytelling either
just the particular way things are set up is very specific.
and because of her design of those characters,
they have to be Babylonian people
who have kind of semi magic power,
but then they're also mixed blood and all that kind of weird.
just teenager's imagination thinking
it just makes it that much more whimsical,
crazy,
but funny
in places unexpected.
The second great thing about this drama is
you probably need to be around my age,
maybe slightly younger and also you know a lot about Asian entertainment
music for example,
then you'll have a lot of resonance with what the story contains,
because her female character.
When she was 12, she wrote the story based on
what is in her life at the time,
which is the babylonian museum exhibition,
but also what she's listening at the time,
the most popular singers,
the culture icons of the time, which is Zhou Jielun
So if you are a big Zhou Jielun fan
the character names, literally,
she made up the characters in her story's names based on
Zhou Jielun and Fang Wenshan
Fang wenshan is the lyricist for Zhou Jielun, who wrote
most of Zhou Jielun's famous songs,
lyrics,
and you'll see all that get reflected in this drama.
So if you are of similar age as I am
that extra layer of oh my god this comes from that OMG
it just jokes so much old memory
plus because of the diary turning into reality kind of setting.
It also jogs my personal memory of things I've done
and I think a lot of people probably have done
during their middle school or high school years
writing their own fan fiction.
It was for me high school and I wrote
A lot
fan fiction with pen and ink,
Harry Potter, fan fiction
including me
at the time in high school,
we have those what we call Wan Zi Xi
which is there's no class,
but you have to stay at school until 8 o'clock.
And then you can go home.
I would not be working on homework
but writing fan fictions.
And I make up characters for all my friends.
And it's so embarrassing that the way that I
would write those stories somehow is like,
at times similar to how the character Chen Meiru would write her story.
And I start to imagine,
if what I wrote in those stories turn out to be true,
just internally so embarrassed that you can
in chinese internet term
dig out a house with your toes.
Then the third important thing about this drama is perfect casting,
perfect.
Somehow I just say it in that kind of british
snobbish accent
because it's too perfect.
It's just like you can't imagine any other people playing those roles.
Feng Xiaoyue (Rhydian Vaugh)
he hasn't really been in a drama like this,
ever really.
but this role is made for him because you have to
find a guy who is super handsome who looks mixed race,
who has to be fluent in chinese, narrow that down.
There are only probably a couple of people who can take up this role
In this world,
the producer in an interview said for this role,
the only person and the first person we can
think of is this guy and we went to get him.
I absolutely loved his performance in this drama and
I so appreciate actually
all of the major cast being just so
sincere and so believe in their story,
when they're uttering utter nonsense lines
seriously as adults in front of the camera,
I was like doing that all the time for those actors.
wow! These actors you guys,
are just
you're so diligent at your work.
Bu Guanjin, my long time audiences know
I love her since sunddenly this summer
She's great
maybe not in the traditional sense
being stunningly beautiful, but
ohShe's just good at acting and I always feel she
probably is not the perfect person for very cheap,
sweet love,
spoil that type of drama.
She really is good at playing characters and stories that have layers
and depth and things that are more complicated and then meet the eye.
I think she's also the perfect casting choice being an actress who
is able to take on this really rather complicated role
at the same time having the appearance of
like Chen Meiru's role in the story,
a very normal looking girl who never gets very much appreciated
and always have a lot of insecurity
then the actor Wang Ruichang
He's being really active this year.
He has quite a few things coming out
when he was casted.
He was only 18 or 19 when he played this role.
And they were worried that he was too young for it.
But when it was done
it's like, perfect.
Not really showing that at all
cause he's playing this
ridiculous rich guy who just has money coming out of nowhere,
and he just is supposedly to be the richest guy ever.
So he can do anything solving any problems with
the money magic
Zhuyan Manzi playing Bu Guanjin's
closest friend and also the kind of female (2nd)
because this drama who is
female second or
you can't tell because there are three major couples
playing our female lead's best friend
what a great best friend
type of ideal female female friendship that you can hope for.
You see that in this drama,
this actress is really talented
She's a good dancer.
And she plays a Sichuan opera singer in this drama
and she did get a bit training for that.
I've seen her in, I think,
an acting competition, variety show,
and I was very impressed by how good she is in that one
So i'm happy with her.
Then the third couple is made up with Zhou You
Anyone still remembered Feng Quan Shao Nian de Tian Kong?
And Xu Weining
from Taiwan
She's cloase to 40
She's exactly like when she was 20 or something,
magic
Maybe she is Jiu Tian Long Nv (Nigh Heaven's Dragon Lady)
maybe, she has magic, I don't know,
but she has the perfect face for this role too,
because she is a good actress also looking
suitable for a role who is coming from
imagined,
not necessarily accurately Babylonian look
but because she is mixed race too.
So she has that very suitable matching quality
with Feng Xiaoyue's character
and Then Zhou You
yeah, he played Liu Wenqin in (Run For Young)
great actor.
The producer said Zhou You is one of those just naturally talented actor
who knows exactly what to do in front of a camera.
He would send in those audition tapes and he didn't need any anything else,
just one audition tape do a take.
And they were like yeah he's the perfect one
without this drama.
I actually individually like all these actors and actresses.
I have no idea.
They worked together 3 years ago making this thing
cause I heard no news about it.
It's like a gift,
just dropping in your lap and you're like
wow
or like a dinner that you never expected,
somebody would cook for you and you walk home.
and everything that's on the table is something you like
adding in a tiny thing
about why this drama is good is it's filmed in Chongqing.
mainly obviously it has France and Moroco
but mainly in chongqing.
Another hometown drama
I know where that place is.
Come to think of that
the actor Zhou You must have some weird
astrology
because so far he's been in so many dramas that were shot in
chongqing
Feng Quan Shao Nian De Tian Kong
Mi Wu Zhui Zong
Last year the police drama
and this one
that was back in 2018.
Maybe chongqing is a place that is supposed to be his
feng shui bao di.
When he is there, he gets work done, makes him famous,
FATE
Then the final thing that is good about this drama
and I think it's a lot of people didn't expect thing
in the first couple of episodes.
You don't see it yet,
but after episode three or four,
you start to see there's something more of this story than just being a simply
nonsensical,
whimsical
comedy,
ridiculous fantasy,
a lot to do with the female lead character.
Because of that diary she wrote,
she accidentally handed it into their teacher as homework.
Imagine that your diary gets read by your chinese teacher.
How embarrassing that is.
and the teacher was very unhappy about all those
love romantic stories.
She forced her to read it out loud in the class.
Afterwards.
She's known in the class in the school.
and even in that tiny town she lives
as a 12 year old girl who writes pornography stories,
but her story has hardly any porn in it.
Like she just uses chinese classic euphemism like
* see notes on screen
I would not spoil it for you,
but it's one of the funniest thing in this drama about that
two lines
how it gets actualized
if you've watched my
previous videos
on chinese poetry and drama related
poetry such as on Joy of Life
or I think
Word of Honor
I've mentioned a couple of times about what wu shan is
in chinese literature and stuff
because of this really brute treatment she got from the teacher.
She started to close herself off.
She started to no believe that she deserves love.
She believes emotional attachment, love should be controlled,
forbidden and kept under wrap,
which is why she's doing a job at an internet company
deleting problematic content.
And also she has strong social anxiety.
She doesn't wanna get close to any other humans.
She doesn't want to to have anything to do with other people.
She just want to live a closed life or nobody touches her
this is such a realistic and
resonating thing that happens to a lot of people.
And when a couple of scenes take place in this drama
where she kind of explodes with her speech about
just what she suffered in the last 12 years.
Due to that one diary,
you can see in the live comments,
so many viewers of his drama are like.
Wow
First is the actress did such a good job,
but then also is like
what she's saying is so
like me.
So I think for a drama when you can do that when you can make the audiences
and quite a number of them
resonate with the message that's in your story,
that much
your job is done
overall.
I am just more than happy after i've watched the first e 10 pisodes
and I can't wait to see what happens next
because Gong Fu Ying Ye has done quite a few really really impressive.
Good ip
i do have confidence that this is gonna turn how to be fine,
so please go and watch this drama
it's really worth your time.
You're not gonna get disappointed.
There are moments of this drama that are just
so unexpectedly well done.
And to add a little bit extra thing,
just my own ranting at the end of this video,
which is
Youku as a platform doesn't have
any idea about what it has in store
it has done this.
So many times,
it no longer can be seen as coincidental.
It just shows whoever is working at this platform,
deciding what kind of dramas they do or you know sell
have no idea about what good drama is,
what are potential stuff that can be sold and get a lot of attraction guardian.
Guardian
They got it off Le Shi (LeTv)
because LeTv went brankrupt
and they didn't hope for any good thing from this dramadidn't
didn't bother to do any promotion
and it exploded and changed.
Chinese dramasland scape
due to the BL genre's injection into the whole game,
they had
Rattan
and then they decided this drama is not gonna do well.
So they didn't put that much effort into it and it exploded too
Word of Honor
they didn't expect it's gonna do well,
didn't bother to promote it.
umDear diary,
they have it as exclusive drama and what did they do?
They sold the rights to iqiyi
so it becomes a "fen Xiao" (分销）drama,
so they no longer are the exclusive platform.
It's on Iqiyi and on Youku.
In that way youku can earn a little bit money because
they do not trust this drama is gonna do well.
And they just believe sharing the rights to another platform
will make them more money.
How many times has this platform failed at
predicting the performance level of their exclusive content?
I'm just saying whoever is making that decision in Youku
if there's one person or a group of person,
they either need to get fired
or you should go and
investigate if these people are doing corruptions.
you know lie Insider dealings that they are doing,
because it no longer makes sense.
You cannot just miss it every time, but they do it.
So YouKu,
you are really stupid.
That should conclude my first impression video on
the drama Wo De Ba Bi Lun Lian Ren, Dear Diary
go and go and watch it.
You won't be disappointed.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you in my next video me.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.