Hello, you're watching AvenueX and today let's talk about the just finished airing chinese drama.
Xia Hua, The forbidden flower.
This is a 24 episodes web drama that has recently finished airing on Tencent.
It is produced by tencent and the company Dao Cao Xiong (Straw Bear)
directed by Chen Zhoufei and Zhao Xiaolei, written also by zhao xiao lei,
based on an existing novel written by the author Tai Hou Gui Lai
And the title of the original book is Ta Zhan Zai Xia Hua Xuan Lan Li
He who stands among the blossoming summer flower,
The drama is led by Yan Chengxu, Xu Ruohan, Huang Yi, Ma Sichao, Yu Xiang
and it was shot from january to april last year in the southernmost island province,
Hainan in china.
I've watched all episodes, I will give this drama a one gold mine rating.
Some parts of this drama definitely qualifies for higher ratings.
But overall after you've watched the whole thing,
considering its performances, all departments average out,
I still put it on a one gold mine, and in this video,
let me introduce the story to you and then tell you what I think about
the strength and weakness of the drama
This is a romantic, contemporary drama with a pair of leads who are in many ways,
very old fashioned in the romantic storytelling land, particularly in Asian dramaland
You have a very young girl. In the book, she's just passing the adulthood age limit,
whereas in the drama she's 2 years older in her early early like just barely stepping on 20s
where the male lead character played by Yan Chegnxu is much older,
pretty much twice as old as she is.
So you have the classic setup of the super young girl and middle aged man
and then you have a second type of couple who is actually this girl's mother role
with a much younger man
before you even went into this drama, you probably would look it up and you'll see
those keywords showing up everywhere about this drama.
First is the age thing, second is the disease thing.
So doesn't count as spoiler really
Now let me talk about what are worth watching about this drama
things that definitely you can sell this drama on
and I think why parts of this drama can get rated really high
like two even three gold mine in certain departments.
Number one, It's gentle. It's pretty, it has the vacation energy.
It is shot in Hainan, which is the southern island of china.
And it's very beautiful all around the year
you have ocean, you have all the flowers, the summer like the title, summer flower.
And what's the particular type of camera language that this director
or these two directors went for, even adding more romantic energy
to the already rather pretty sceneries.
The second positive point and I think the strongest thing about this drama
and also what they did right, Which I worried they wouldn't do well, but they did.
is, making these two romantic couples convincing enough when they have such a huge age difference.
Our main lead couple Yan Chengxu and Xu Ruohan, he is in his 40s, the actor himself,
but also his role is and then Xu Ruohan, early 20s,
and she plays a barely 20 year old girl, with that kind of makeup.
You're very worried about, If they don't do it right, it's gonna feel very wrong
in any kind of ways, in many ways as you can imagine, don't need to point that out one by one.
And very fortunately, I think they picked the right actors.
It is kind of tailored particularly to Yan Chengxu
I did watch the special feature and interviews on actors.
He did mention to do this role, he worked out pretty intensely and
also was on an unbelievably difficult diet.
Basically water boiled vegetables the whole time during the shooting of the drama,
age wise he's in his mid 40s,
but he will look so not a typical Asian man of his mid 40s.
Physically, you can tell he's no longer 20s,
but then his body shape stays almost the same and even better.
And then the things behind his eyes, it's gone in the right direction
where you hope that people age, as they get older,
they become wiser to become more refined, detailed, and layered,
but they haven't become very cynical.
And that's how I would put Yan Chengxu's things behind his eyes.
He's no longer that 20 year old young man,
who is very blank when you look into his eyes.
Now you can tell like just by looking at him, one shot,
there's so much going on behind those eyes,
but it's not the version you don't want.
It's still maintaining that clarity, but becoming much more matured and layered,
at least that's how it reads to me and I enjoy that immensely.
And I honestly cannot imagine any other guy with the same kind of age
would be able to take on this role and just make sense
and making the romantic relationship between him and the very beautiful,
young, youthful energy, female lead, making that match work and making sense
on paper, if it's not convincing, when you see these two actors playing.
and it's like, oh okay, I see it,
I mean who can actually reject Jerry's attractiveness
does not matter if you're 18 or 28 or 38 you know and a straight female
drool ove him
And then for the other couple, the mother and the younger guy,
another very, socially, not acceptable type of romantic relationship,
even in today's society, particularly in Asia,
plus that they are actually superior and subordinate in a working environment.
And it just makes it much more complicated,
but actually it got sold too, Huang Yi,
Although you know we all know she's not that young anymore,
she looks glowingly beautiful.
Second male lead who in many ways look very much like Luo Jin,
I think he should play Luo Jin's brother in a drama and they will just pull it off naturally.
They look like 80% similar and this young actor is actually very, very good.
He also pulled this off very well and you totally believe
that why a woman who is actually living a very complicated, troubled,
personal private life, and in no ways is in the ideal state to having a carefree relationship
would fall or get attracted to this young guy who shows up in her life.
As one of the many people who works in her company,
Yu Xiang this a young actor really sells it.
You can buy into it and feel, okay yeah yeah if it's him, makes sense.
And that's the strongest thing of this drama.
And probably if you've watched through this drama
this is the thing that will pull you through it.
In that department, this drama did definitely 2 gold mine and you can
even score it a little bit beyond that
so In my opinion, this is the most important good thing and positive thing they've done well.
And the final thing I think this drama did very well is
it is very good at doing intimate scenes and moments and human desires.
And it's very rare these days actually in chinese drama to see
cameras being very frank and daring at capture raw human desire.
This drama has shot more scenes and more things that are even more hot and steamy
that got cut out, but they did put it out on social media in short clips
for you to just take a look at. you know, we did this, but hey,
it didn't pass censorship.
The directors, the camera people, they are very daring,
and they're kind of pushing the absolute limit of how far you can go
with very erotic camera language, in chinese dramaland, this is like the limit's limit.
I really haven't seen anything in recent years to have gone past this point.
and I do appreciate their daring spirit of being forthcoming with that
to recognize the human raw desire where a lot of dramas will just shy away from it
or not even talk about it.
We are in 2020s, but in many ways,
the society overall is actually more conventional than say 20 years ago
in 90s china, you would actually be able to buy magazines that on its cover
that has like huge titles of like what is being homosexual.
It was that open back then. but now you never gonna see that
with the overall becoming more conventional and closed attitude on many things.
This drama is just so blunt,
beautiful people and their sexual desire.
just put it on camera, let's see how far we can go before we get cut.
So these are the positive points and very special things of this drama
and some of it does deserve very high rating,
but then let's talk about why this drama overall still doesn't score very high.
number one, it is a very old fashioned story and I feel it's too outdated for 2020s.
I have seen this type of story too many times, many years ago,
particularly when Korean drama was first entering China and getting super popular,
so many of them have similar elements of leukemia, whatever,
like the forbidden socially forbidden type of love,
whether it's because you two are actually sisters and brothers or you know like.
It's just very, very old fashioned.I feel stories have cycles too.
Things have their time of being popular andt hen going down the valley and climbing up again.
Right now, I still feel this type of story is not the right time.
Everything that's possible to dig out of this type of setup
has already been played many times by different language,
different countries' production, different cultures,
and different styles of even telling stories that
it's over exploited and it needs to have its hibernating periods before it comes back.
Every time I watch it, I feel like i'm going back in time and watching 20 years old drama
that just happens to be right now in 4K
The second thing I feel is in terms of the storytelling itself,
it feels like the scriptwriter puts 99% of the energy into writing intimate moments,
the romantic entanglement between the woman and the man.
And whenever it's the highly intense, emotional scenes they are well written
and all the push and pull and all the attraction all the play, the subtlety or the the passion,
those parts are very good, but everything else in this drama,
whether it's linking the plot together, whether it's writing the other type of plot
that needs to be there to make the story work gets very ignored.
All the connective tissues of this drama basically are.
~~
You just remember all those intimate moments, the beautiful camera work, the lighting,
the sexual energy.
And then you you kind of like what else is going on in this drama?
And it's just a vague pictures completely covered by mist and you can't even recall
and many those beautiful moments are shot in very MV music video style
where it gives you the maximum visual and in emotional impact,
but they do not consider actually logic.
And for this type of story, honestly, if it was a film,
it would be perfect
like an indian movie, like an art house movie,
a movie that's just about that beautiful, highlighted, heightened, emotional,
whatever erotic moments,
because it's a movie is 1 hour and half.
You don't even have to think too much about all the connective tissues.
Now you have a 24 episodes drama.
It's too much other things that doesn't actually contribute to the story.
Then a smaller thing, not that important.
I can't stand this role.
It's on paper written very boringly as the quotation mark "male second"
who cannot get female lead because he's definitely just the friendzoned person
Zhu Ma Da Bu Guo Tian Jiang, right?
The person who grows up with you who knows you best cannot compete to
the suddenly turn around the corner and you met the destined love person,
but he's written as such a typical character of this nature that there's nothing new at all
you've seen this role in all other romantic dramas pretty much.
And this is just another one. And then the actor Ma Sichao, sorry
his performance just doesn't sell it either.
I cringe at his moments in his drama and and often I just speed through
every scene with him and female lead.
It's not funny when they try to be funny, you know that she doesn't like him
and it's never gonna work, but he constantly tries, and it just makes the story drags on.
Everybody is like, come on, cut to the next scene.
We just want to see the female lead and male lead.
Can you just disappear?
The final thing that I wanna notify everybody, if you haven't ventured into this drama,
is it used many different osts from different things
Definitely, they got the copyright,
but because they use so many musics from other things,
it may cause very weird experiences for you.
For example the ending song that also got played many times through the drama is
the exact same song from the Korean drama While You were Sleeping, Lucid Dream.
problem with that is, I really like While you were sleeping and that drama,
i've watched multiple times in the past couple of years
and I really like Lucid Dream.
So the moment that music showed up in this drama, I was like What? Ah?
Everything I can remember from the Korean drama just jumps into my head,
and it started to conflict with this one. I'm not saying you can't do it.
If you pay money, you definitely can do it.
You can do like this is a different version. It's not the korean version.
It's a different version. But still, it's very weird.
Every time when that music shows up,
I almost have to fast forward or skip, really didn't sit very comfortably with me
throughout the whole thing even till the last episode,
just want to warn people if you happen to be similar to me and you've
watched the Korean drama as well and you know that song very well.
This is gonna be very weird.
That would be the end of this video.
My review on the drama Xia Hua, The Forbidden Flower
hope that's useful for you to decide whether you should venture into this drama.
Thank you for watching AvenueX, i'll see you in my next video,
meanwhile live long and happy drama watching.