What is special about Legacy?
Not really anything
he can make every pretty woman look 10 times uglier
Hi, 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
Chuan Jia, Legacy, is a 45 episodes,
min guo, Republic of China setting drama
that's been aired on the platform Youku
and it's made by the same directors and same script writer
who made the recently aired period drama
that's also produced by the same company.
Shang Shi, Royal Feast
and this drama was actually shot earlier than Royal Feast.
It started production back in 2019 around October,
and they finished shooting 2020 April.
The drama is led by Qin Lan, Wu Jinyan, Zhang Nan
Nie Yuan, Han Geng
at this point I'm making this video, it should have aired around 20 episodes
and I've actually watched 18 of them,
i'll give it a 0.7 gold mine.
If i'm being very specific,
if I round it up,
it will be a one gold mine,
but it will be a low one gold mine on my seven level scale.
As usual,
let me introduce the story to you first and
then we're gonna talk about the good and bad.
This is a republic of china selling drama.
More specifically around the 1920s in the city Shanghai
and it's like a family saga story.
That is about a business family led by this guy,
played by actor Liu Jun
He owns a very big department store.
He married a woman who gave him a lot of
resources that allowed him to start a big business,
which would be his second officially married wife
who is also the biological mother of Wu Jinyan's character.
And this drama is mainly the story about this family.
More specifically, the three daughters of this family
eldest played by Qin Lan
middle one played by Wu Jinyan,
youngest one played by Zhang Nan
And the thing is the three of them come from three different mothers
and then this drama also includes the three daughters'
either already married husband or their prospective husband.
It's put into the 1920s shanghai,
so it will have war lords,
it will have japanese,
it will have a lot of foreigner powers,
all that imaginable things happening.
with the story set up.
Now, let me get into details.
First on the positive end, number one,
this is maintaining the relatively okay production quality
that look of the couple of other projects that this company
has put out in recent years.
If that's your thing you're gonna like it.
It's not made on the cheap end,
but it's probably made on a very clever end
with this company's style and consistency and reusing things they've used before.
and because Yu Zheng as a businessman has worked out a lot of
the, let's say process of getting things done,
factories everything.
So it's almost like within their own chain of supply,
they can make this drama at the easiest best way of controlling budget.
You really can sense it.
If you've watched a couple of dramas coming from the same company,
same group of actors consistently, you can see that.
and to remind you again,
this is actually one of the earlier ones they've done
compared to couple of dramas that have already aired.
Also, this drama is mostly recorded onset
because it has a lot of unclean environmental sound
that's not perfect recording,
but it shows it's not post production dubbed
second thing.
As this is a family saga,
includes a lot of characters,
a lot of conflict,
domestic stories,
plus a little bit business side of things.
The plot is so far watchable,
not significantly offensive in any way in terms of having
super tropy stupid plot.
That is kind of insulting the audience's intelligence
doesn't really have that.
But then if you want to scrutinize and say,
if it's well written,
if every line is a punchline,
if every turn is interesting,
it's not
basically don't hope for any of those Countess Violet's
way of speaking in Downtown Abbey in this drama,
you're not gonna get any of that,
but the plot is watchable.
It's not fully stupid
such as it doesn't have the type of plot
that happens in other Min Guo dramas,
such as the burning opium with fire.
Like that's a clever idea to destroy it,
and standing next to it while it's burning
to make it easier for you to reference.
I think among the couple of other dramas,
this company has produced in recent years.
It is not as bland and boring as Royal Feast.
It definitely doesn't have that strong vibe of
I copy everything from Hong Lou Meng (红楼梦）
Dreams of Red Mansion or The Story of the Stone as you can feel.
If you are familiar with that classic chinese novel and its characters,
as you're watching the drama Song of Youth
and as far as I can see in the first 18 episodes,
no significant harm has come to any animals.
If you worry about that.
And if you don't know what i'm talking about, it's fine.
Don't worry about it.
Basically.
The second positive point i'm saying is it's watchable.
It's not super offensive in anyway.
And if you are a person who is just a fan
of 1920s or the Min Guo look of things,
this is a drama that you can watch.
The third thing is there are a couple of characters due
to the actors being pretty good at doing their role.
I am curious to see what happens to them.
Towards the end of the drama
for the male characters.
I'm curious to see what happens to Nie Yuan's character.
Who is the husband of Qin Lan's
They continue their story from Yanxi palace.
Now they're married again.
Let's see if this marriage can get worked out.
The other one is the character played by Han Geng
By far.
They are my sort of two favorite roles and also
feeling they're the most interesting people.
Nie Yuan really proves he is a great actor wherever you
plop him in, whether it's this drama or the recent
Feng Qi Long Xi, that has just happened
his line delivery,
his way of convincing of his genuine emotion
as his character, really embodies his role.
In this one, he plays an uneducated war lord person
who resolved to brutality most of the time to solve problems
and doesn't know any of the posh things.
Those rich people care about.
He basically fell in love with Qin Lan's character,
just because of a photo.
So it's one of those classic setting male characters in chinese dramanland.
And also they are the archetypical ma rry first falling love later.
Type of couple
overall, the most interesting male role and he plays it so well.
And also I had no expectation of what Han Geng would look like in this drama.
And so far I really like his portrayl of his role.
At least it's an interesting person I wanna know more about later.
Then for the female roles
it doesn't happen to be the three main sisters.
It actually is the mother.
She used to be a governess and then she married as the third wife
and she is in a very awkward position because she's not a concubine,
but then she's kind of viewed as intruder.
And lesser of a person from Wu Jinyan
The second daughter's point of view and she kind of is always trying to
make it work in a household and trying to make the kids get along well,
but it doesn't quite work.
and she is in a very tough position as a woman in this story,
but Miao Pu plays her very, very well.
You really can tell an older,
more experienced actress who kind of comes
from an old school acting training background,
what she is capable of
how accurate her understanding of her character is
and how accurate she can deliver that portrayal of that person in detail.
She's much more interesting than the younger generation of women in this drama.
So these are the positive things I can see in this drama.
Now let's talk about things that are no ideal and why
I just don't really have very high rating for it.
Number one is there are way too many min guo setting dramas,
whether it's about big family saga or whether it's romantic drama,
whether it's espionage,
which is another huge thing in this time sitting
there are just way too many.
Other Min Guo dramas and if you want to think about
what is the Kan Dian in chinese,
which is the point of interest of this drama that's different from others.
Not really that much,
maybe they have very posh looking department stores
that is beautifully dressed up and people have beautiful
Qi Pao and costumes, the 1920s' look, that could be one thing,
but really apart from that, what else
is special about this drama?
think about Winter Begonia
It is about JIng Ju, Beijing Opera.
That's one huge thing that is different from pretty much every other
Min Guo dramas that was going on at the time or in recent couple of years,
what is special about Legacy?
Not really anything.
And if you wanna think about if it has really in depth analysis
of whatever human nature or the politics or the history of
anything of that time,
not really,
it is still focused on domestic stuff about the conflicts among sisters,
among sisters and their father generation,
all the petty things that goes on in a rich family,
where everybody is trying to, in some way,
grab their share of money and power and whatever.
Then there's a point kind of sub point coming with that is
really it depends on whether you like its aesthetics,
I hated
this way of color grading.
And i've said it many times.
Yu Zheng has decided he's just gonna do it to the end of time,
I guess ever since Yan Xi Palace's huge success,
he just grades everything to look like that
where I think the real color
of his sets and his stuff will be prettier if it just got a normal,
well white balance checked camera, just shoot it properly,
use the right LUT and rightcolor profile to process
whatever you did with it ,with the Log file you have shot.
It will look beautiful.
I feel like why waste so much money and time
making it pretty set if you're gonna grade it.
To look like aged photo that just doesn't have vibrancy
Then the second thing I don't like about this drama and I just don't
understand why is
Yu Zheng just doesn't know how to make women look good.
This week i've talked about Li Muge knows exactly how to make
actresses look stunning
and Yu Zheng is the polar opposite.
He can make every pretty woman look 10 times, uglier
just think about all those recent years dramas that his company
produces that has that look and color palette
and then how they style the women.
ah ah
eye sore
in this drama today,
I intentionally did the eyebrow,
but it's not as thin.
Because I can't
I have to shave myself if I have to get that thin an eyebrow.
But you know what it means like that arch and then the tip
of the eyebrow goes almost like lower than your temple.
Like what the heck is that look?
I mean finger wave is fine because it's the popular thing then
I try my best,
but like eyebrow.
What happened?
Women don't look good in this drama oh and
also Qin Lan's wig
Does Yu Zheng hate her?
I just don't understand why you have to slap that helmet hair.
On her.
You have no idea how much I ranted in front of my ipad
while I was watching this drama
just because how bad people look
the last thing on the negative end,
I just don't think Wu Jinyan's acting is up to the task.
It's very hard to say who is exactly the absolute
main lead of this drama because it has many characters.
And as it's focused on the three sisters,
they do have
The majority of screen time,
but who exactly is the most important person
well from a traditional storytelling perspective.
It would be Wu jinyan's role because she is the trouble maker.
She's the person who left the family for a long time
at the beginning of the drama,
she came back with a revenge or intention to revenge,
and it's because of her injection into the family.
It starts to have a lot of ripple effects.
So if you have to pick who is the narrative center of this story,
it would be Wu Jinyan's role, the second daughter, Yi Zhongyu
I wouldn't say her acting is strong enough,
detailed enough,
layered enough,
complicated enough,
accurate enough,
and interesting enough.
To hold that center.
Honestly speaking in terms of relationship,
i'm more curious about what's gonna happen between Qin Lan and Nie Yuan
As new dramas come in
it probably is gonna be very hard for me to stick through
the entirely of 45 episode
better actually to just watch every time a new episodeof updates.
The preview of the next episode,
it probably will contain the most important
parts of the episode like a shooting happens,
somebody get hurt or somebody got dragged into prison,
the japanese has come, invasion, explosion.
people go on battlefield
Do they die?
Or they lost contact?
Like you're probably just like better off watch the preview
of future episodes and just locate
that episode may be interesting.
Let's go and see what happens
that should conclude my first impression.
On the Min Guo setting drama Legacy, Chuan Jia
If you haven't watched it yet,
I hope this is useful for you to decide whether you
should go into this drama
and to think about the amount
of time I spent trying to just make this hair happen,
i'm just so thankful that i'm not born 100 years ago,
but now where nobody cares,
what you look like when you walk onto the street,
as long as you're not running naked,
you don't have to do your hair like that,
crazy level of waves and whatever.
Thank you watching AvenueX
i'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.