Hello, you're watching AvenueX
where a junkie ongood storytelling, shares her thoughts,
knowledge and occasional weird ideas on stories and how they're told.
Chi Dao, Falling into You, is a 26 episode web drama
that's been aired on the platform YouKu
It is led by Jin Chen and Wang Anyu, directed by Yi Zheng
the same director who gave us Young Blood a couple of years ago
and this year Cang Lan Jue, Love between Fairy and Devil.
It is adapted from a jin jiang website novel
written by an author who named herself "29" and
then crashed the two english word into a word that
nobody can actually correctly pronounce, including herself
In China her nickname is T大（da)
which means big "T" and this is a rather popular
well received, a lot of people liked contemporary novel
talking about a pairing of an older lady and a younger guy.
She is an assistant coach in a university of the track and field team.
The guy is a very promising in the novel version,
eventually becoming a very good,
big ten track and field athlete.
And then the drama version pretty much copies the novel.
This drama was produced by Alibaba as it owns youku
and it was filmed from the very end of last year
around christmas time to april this year,
it's less than half a year between the last shot getting into the camera.
To the moment that this drama airs.
That is the advantage of making a contemporary drama
you can make the post production time short,
youku has been airing this drama from day one continuously,
right until today that it has finished air in the first 15 episodes,
then the last 11 episodes will be aired at a slower schedule.
This first impression video is based on those 15 episodes i've watched.
Now, let's talk about the good and bad
and what type of drama this is
and how that maybe suitable for you to watch
on the positive end number one.
This is another very light tone, happy, relaxed,
nothing significantly painful or torturing happening drama
the style, tone of this drama is that. I like it.
I don't wanna watch very painful and torturing things.
The second positive thing after watching a
couple of this particular director's dramas.
In recent years, those dramas are very different.
It's a period drama.
It's a period fantasy drama. it's a contemporary drama that he's done,
but you can see almost that line through,
which is he's really good at figuring out what is the
juicy part of the relationships of the characters
How do you tell the story of the main characters on screen
to make your drama attractive and keep the audience there
continuously in this drama you can see
it is a really nothing special setting drama of the main characters.
Yet every turn of the plot,
everything that happens really pushes the characters' relationship development.
Moving forward, you see them as individual characters, their arc
You also see how the relationship that they build up,
change who they are and also moving the plot forward.
Basically, i'm very thankful that this is the director who took
control of the narrative
in a very hard to quantify and specify way.
I would call him one of those people
who knows how to tell a visual story
that is interesting and how to make best use of the things on hands,
whether it's the particular actors, their style, what they're good at,
even like just props and sets and everybody who's in shot, right?
Moving things around, he just knows it.
I look forward to every project he's gonna do in the future.
And if a project announces he is attached to it,
i'll feel a little bit more assured than usual
in terms of the outcome of that project.
The third positive thing is the performance and casting choices.
They really did find,
very suitable actors and actresses for each role
whether it's the particular type of sports they do.
They really find the right type of actors and actresses to play those roles.
And then in terms of the main relationship
that's of our main couple Jin Chen and Wang Anyu
they found and the right people that would make you believe
if it's in reality of a 20 year old young guy and a 28,
close to 28 woman who are in that situation in that university,
in the track and field athlete team, in that relationship.
It could happen.
There's nothing that makes you feel.
It is a situation of "because the writer said so"
therefore they got together,
they do a really good job and they come together very nicely,
very eye-candy on screen
their chemistry is nice
their interaction feels very natural,
although I wouldn't call them either of them like the greatest actor
of their similar age range bunch
that's currently working in china,
but they just both suit the roles so well
plus both of them, I like there looks
my longtime viewer knows
and with this director's particularly observant way
of capturing human interactions
and the little things happening and keep that on camera
elicit that out of the actors,
the overall Nian Xia (年下） love story just works very well
in this drama and I enjoyed every moment of that.
Last positive thing that I have to emphasize is
if you've watched fairy and devil,
you probably really hated that character.
I don't see anybody who wouldn't hate that character and in turn
You hate the actor a little bit or you don't like him
or he he brings a very uncomfortable vibe
well He's in this drama as well.
And the thing is he's such a good actor.
and he's a totally different type of role in this drama
contemporary real person.
Middle age, relaxed, a little bit kind of failure of his career
and overall a really nice, actually good guy
and this act to captures that perfectly,
so you wouldn't even notice it's the same actor
if you're not familiar with him
when you first come across.
Chi Jia playing another coach on that team
who has always been interested in Jin Chen's role
but never managed to bring that relationship a step further,
I think for this particular actor in Fairy and Devil
it's a very limited two dimensional,
the most two dimensional role he's gotten in that drama
that he really had no space to show you
what kind of actor he is
in this drama. you're gonna see that.
And if you have any hard feeling about that character,
therefore about this actor,
it's gonna get demolished and destroyed when you watch this one.
just proves to you again that this is
a very experienced and a very good actor.
I really appreciate that the drama picked him to play one of the major
supporting role and he did a great job.
I hope in the future he would collaborate with the director more.
These are the overall positive things about this drama.
If we have to add a little bit on that is
it's a sports centered drama,
everything you can think of the a drama that focuses on this topic
challenges, getting injuries,
fighting through the bottleneck of your performances,
facing the fact that you may not be that talented as you think t
here are people who are much more talented than you are
and what do you do
Where do you find your position
that whole story of struggle against physical limits
and sports and hot blood young,
inspiring things that happens with sports stuff,
all of that this drama would have it in its particular ways.
If you like that type of things,
you're gonna find that as well.
Now let's move on to talk about things that are no ideal.
The first thing,
aesthetic thing that I don't like and most of the people watching his
drama complain about
and it got complained about so much that the
director jumped out on his social media and apologized
sincerely to the audiences
it's all on me.
It's my fault that I decided to go with this Look,
I see now this is a big problem.
I know I know
he's rather adorable in terms of like writing that post.
They really make it very light and bright screen which is fine,
because that's the energy of the story.
I can accept that, but they overdid the whole glowing effect thing
They really put a little bit,
too much of a Lut and glow filter.
So there are many shots.
When it's tight close up.
people are glowing.
Edge of their face starts to melt.
and they literally are glowing with light,
and it reduces contrast so much that everybody is blurred out.
I don't think I have seen another drama
that has done this to this level.
Sometimes you see over romanticized color
or super skin smooth,
but this is like glowing, people are light bulbs in this drama
and hinestly because it happens in post direction,
if they really want, they can reduce it.
I'm just guessing because it's too much work.
They have to go through the 26 episodes and change every shot's filter.
So they haven't done it yet,
but if you're watching it on chinese Youku app,
you have a choice of not watching it in high definition, which is 1080
You can go for another so called 4k version,
which actually change it to 60 frames per second.
And in that version,
the lighting glowing gets much much more suppressed,
and you get more contrast, stronger color.
So visually, it's not as offensive with the lighting glowing thing,
but then it's 60 frame.
Personally. I don't like 60 frame.
I never have managed to like high frame rate.
I just got used to 24 and 24 looks like film.
To me, once you up the frame rate,
it just looks like video,
no matter how good it looks
it looks wrong, haven't been able to compute that.
So personally, it's a struggle for me.
If I don't wanna suffer the light,
I have to go to the 60 frame,
then I have to suffer the video-ish look to my braine
that maybe something that will turn you away
if you are either hating the bright light and glowing effect,
or do not ike 60 frame like me
I hope this director learn from this and
stop doing that to his future projects.
And both actors are really good looking
They have almost close to perfection skin.
You don't need that glowing effect to make them look better.
They're already like almost perfect , they're young and beautiful.
why why Why?
The second thing about this drama.
I don't see it as a significant problem.
The the conflict and most of the problems that happens in
the story are nothing too painful
resulting in a story,
not being super, let's say, plot wise, page turner, exciting, hooking,
drug like addictive.
No you're not gonna get there.
It's the type of I go in relax, feel happy,
look at good looking people and a pretty watchable story
and I get out, I forget about it.
Type of story
to some people that's okay, to some people that is just too lighthearted.
I still want some heavy pressure on certain
parts of my emotional body to squeeze that.
If that's the case for you,
this drama may not look that attractive.
And also if the two leads just happen to
not be your cup of tea in anyway,
then the drama may not be that attractive to you.
But if you watch it, it wouldn't offend you.
It doesn't have stupid things that you
see happening in a lot of chinese dramas,
whether it's in a narrative,
in the technical aspects apart from the lighting again.
okay
So this is a very enjoyable.
I definitely will follow to the end drama,
but that's totally because I have preference as
it happens to have somebody I really like, okay,
and they may not be the case for you.
So that should conclude my first impression on the drama falling to you,
chi dao
and then whatever your lifestyle is.
At the end of this, because of the theme of the drama,
I would encourage everybody to exercise regularly
just for your own mental and physical health.
At this time and age,
you know it's important to to be as healthy as possible
and have your immune system working as properly as possible.
Thank you for AvenueX,
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.