I see a very small chance of any chinese damas coming out
in the next 11 months that can top this dramas rating
It's like oscar winning level
it probably only happens once
Every couple of years
Hello
you're watching our AvenueX where a junkie on good storytelling
shares her thoughts knowledge and occasional weird ideas on stories and how they're told
Shan Hai Qing
Min Ning Town is a 23 episodes drama
that has just finished airing in china crossing
five different satellite televisions and three platforms online
This is a Daylight Entertainment
Zheng Wu Yang Guang production
focusing on the stories of a group of villagers
living in the very remote northwest china during the 90s
leading up to the early 2000 and then finally into the 2010s
On my seven level scale after watching the entire thing
I will very happily confidently and proudly give it three gold mine rating
my first three gold mine rating drama of 2021
I would even go a step further to say I see a very small chance
of any chinese dramas coming out in the next 11 months
that can top this drama's rating
If that did happen
most likely it's another drama
Coming from the same production company
only ZWYG can beat ZWYG
So first let me introduce you to the background information about this drama
This drama started shooting at the very end of July last year and they wrapped on set
At the very end of October
they literally only had 2 months time of post production
This drama is really a task drama
Ren Wu Ju
The reason for making it is not commercial is not to make money
but to commemorate the decades of effort
In china to alleviate poverty
It's a mainstream production in the political sense
This is a totally original script
not based on any existing material
and it's written by a group of writers seven of them
When you hear there are multiple writers of a drama
The red flag in your head just goes up
because we've recently just seen the drama has like 10
12 script writers that totally screw up the whole thing
In a way it's very ironic that Shan Hai Qing is the polar opposite
Also having many different writers
many different cooks in the kitchen
yet they created something that is so delicious
produced by Zheng Wu Yang Guang Daylight Entertainment and directed
by its best director Kong Sheng
plus another director Sun Molong who is also very good
and then led by a group of actors and actresses
Everyone is a famous face
Most of them have long term collaboration relationship with daylight entertainment
Although when you watch this drama
you will see in the middle of the poster
Huang Xuan and also he's the kind of leading actor name that's leading the drama
He really doesn't have the dominant screen time
Much more than anyone else
This is really at the core an ensemble drama
It focuses on the story of four or five main roles
Huang Xuan being one of them and then their story ripples out
and touch other characters that have very tight relationships with them
such as their older generation parents or their children
Then the story ripples further out into the village
into all the other characters that are involved
in this big poverty alleviation plan to bring
the people from this tiny village in northwest china
stuck in absolute barren land and dirt poor out of that kind of life
You'd think this would be probably a very boring story
and filled with singing songs to praise the achievement of the higher-ups
but' it's not, it's not at all
This story is really covered in dirt
Literally in the sense that every role is covered in dust in that place
because they went to the real place to shoot the incredible landscape
Then in the metaphorical sense
it's covered in dirt
It is so grounded and so real
that you don't see any of the actors who are very famous in this drama anymore
you only see their characters
So after watching the 23 episodes
really the only bad thing about the drama that I can pick out is
it's too short
This is the first time ever since I started this channel
which is almost 4 years ago that I said this
I hope this drama could be twice as long
I'm just actually so happy that I, one day, right
I can't imagine that I get to say this on my channel
that I wish a chinese drama is longer
Now let's talk about all the good things in its categories
first production quality
It's a really high production quality drama
It's not in the sense that it's super expensive
because this story is talking about characters who suffer abject poverty
So there is no technical way to make the sets, the prop beautiful or expensive
But here when I say production quality is really high
I'm saying as a visual storytelling
it's very mature production
the landscape
the people
the colors
the vibrance
you only need to watch the first episode
And you can absolutely tell it's done by a team that is very professional
very mature
a very well oiled crew
who knows exactly how to use visual languages
how to make a dramatic story on camera exciting
There's a huge amount of effort that went into making a story as believable and as realistic
As it can be
there's no makeup on those characters skins
because realistically they wouldn't be able to wear any makeup
and they all have those 2 red cheeks that happens really in that place
If you live for a long time due to the exposure to uv
the dry air and very sandy storms that you are living in
All the time
the costumes of the people and the conditions of those clothing
washed out colors
Their baggy, no shape look
and always covered in dirt gives the story and its characters so much believability
the details of people drinking hot water out of a glass
canned food
chuck the lid way and then use that glass as their mug
But then because it's very hot for you to hold onto it
they have to knit a cover to hold it
And i've seen that when I was a little living through 90s
and then they change those things as time moves on as places getting more developed
people starting to get more money and get better life
And they never tell you these things
They don't point out in the lines of the characters speaking
they just put it on camera and you realize
previously people were using this type of thing to drink water
Now
it's silently changed into a different type of things
because financially they have progressed from a place to another
This type of details are literally littered in this drama
And it helps create such a convincing background
for all those characters and their story to take place
And this drama also has something that is unique to it
It has two versions
the original soundtrack
the local dialect version
versus the dubbed perfect mandarin version
when this room was shot
The characters all spoke dialect
there's only a couple of characters who speak perfect chinese mandarin
because of their character where they come from and who they are
And the 99% of everyone you see speaks local dialect
apart from a couple of people probably because they really cannot speak dialect
so they get dubbed with dialect
I think it was like right before the drama goes on air very close to its airing date
they were told probably by a censorship
because it has to go on so many different satellite televisions
And because the dialect is so strong
some people may find it's too too hard to understand this drama
So they were told you have to dub a perfect mandarin version
got all the actors back
put them in studio recorded their own voice
but with perfect mandarin
but because that process was super rushed
Therefore the quality it's not so good
So the funny thing is for everyone
i've talked to who's watched this drama
They are all like we love the dialect version
We don't like the mandarin dubbed version
The dialect version is golden and it's true
It's so well done
And because local dialect has their slangs
has their particular vocabulary that are usually extremely descriptive
has a lot of life in it and very funny
Then the second thing about this drama that is good is the acting the casting is so good
every character is so beautifully written
so well acted, they are all very three dimensional very real people
no one is perfect in this drama
makes you really wanna grab their collar and slap across their face at times
but then at times you're like, I love them so much
If I have to pick one actor out of this whole package
and say who gave me the strongest impression and pretty much made me jaw drop
It is Re Yi Zha
the actress who was in The Longest Day in Chang'an
was also in even older drama Empress in Palace
She is breathtaking
If previously you've only thought of her as a really beautiful actress
This time it will change your opinion about her
First it's such a beautiful role so well written
Her life story is so filled with sadness and tragic things
but she's such a strong character like this is the type of strong women
real strong women
not the Mary Sue
not the big female lead role drama
a fake dynasty, a fake whatever... never existed people
imaginary land... big female role
such a tiny normal village person who has no privilege
who has no super powers who has got no man to help her
her path of life is just one obstacle after another
one big hole after another
and she never gives up and Re Yi Zha's performance of this role
It's like oscar winning level
all the best awards there are in this world for any actresses to take
She can take that with this role
and she doesn't even have that much screen time which is another thing
Proving to you with good story
good characters written
you don't need super big chunk of screen time to establish and make them memorable
The look in her eyes
her smile
I'm out of words
I am gonna say it here in this year and probably next year in the next couple of years
She's gonna get a lot of awards and big ones for her role
I don't see how it doesn't happen
So if you ask me
if I don't go watch this drama
what would I lose
What's the biggest loss
From audience's perspective
I would say missing Re Yi Zha's performance
you will cry for her
You will laugh for her
you will laugh and cry for her
Then the third thing
the final thing which is definitely I always think
99% of the time is the most important thing is the story itself
This is very unusual drama
It is like a task dropping from nowhere
telling them go and make it
We need one of those poverty alleviation themed drama
And so you can see a huge crew of script writers come together to work
But the great thing about that is these people are real script writers
They've had track record of writing really good work
Some of them have already written dramas for daylight entertainment
some of them not
but then they have written other really good stuff
An incredible thing about this drama is from the tiny
little things
life details
to big plot
big character development and stuff
Most of the raw material of the story are real
They went to northwest china
Ning Xia area to collect local
anecdotal stories about real people
And what has happened from the 90s to now
throughout the progress of the entire poverty alleviation program
they've even had quite a couple of characters you see in this drama who are based on real people
For Zheng Wu Yang Guang's production team
they are so hard core, Gobi desert kind of places and pick the site to
literally built a village because the drama is talking about
people moving out of those mountains going to the open land
that has nothing and build a new village there to get a better life
that type of thing
that development actually is like a real development
first stage, second stage as they build more and more
the story also moves in time
in the dramas there's also plot about teaching the villagers to grow mushrooms
so that they can increase their income
and the drama crew grew mushrooms for real and then
When they harvested those mushrooms
they actually ate them as a part of the crew's diet
This is such hard core drama making and so impressive
so well done
I feel like if they make a special feature actually showing
the process of making this drama it will be on itself
a really interesting thing to watch
It is quite incredible that for a 23 episode size drama
which is considered very short in chinese dramaland
it gave you so many big and samll exciting plot twists
It gave you so many interesting characters
so many laughable moments
so many tear jerking moments
and you kind of really want to ask for more at the end of it
I somehow wish they could have done another 23 episodes
Maybe just of those villagers bantering and saying those absolutely funny dialects
grow grapes
grow goji berries
grow mushrooms
whatever
I'm pretty sure with Zheng Wu's ability
they can even make a daily life drama of those villagers super funny and interesting
And i'd be happy to sit there and just laugh
It's proven again
no matter what the theme of the story is
what genre of the story is at the core of it
you have to be able to tell a good story
creating good characters to put all your heart and passion into your project
and obviously be good at it
be professional have the abilities and skills to do it well
This type of drama is so far away from what I usually review
And most of my audience, what you usually watch from chinese dramaland
go into the drama one episode you're gonna get into
you're gonna be pulled into this narrative
Does not matter
It's actually talking about some poor village somewhere in north west china
of people speaking a dialect that even if you speak really good mandarin
may not be able to understand
none of that matters
The characters are so good
and the acting is so good
story is so good
This is what good drama looks like
when the drama aired
It was 9.1 on Douban rating
as it finishes
it grew up to 9.4
This rare thing of high opening and even higher ending happened to this drama
It probably only happens once every couple of years and we're all lucky
that we got to see it at the very beginning of 2021
and kind of at the very end of Chinese lunar calendar 2020
I'm very worried for every other drama is gonna come after
This one in 2021
you have an incredibly high bar
Already set there for you to challenge
Thank you for watching AvenueX
and a big Thank You to all my supporters
Go and watch Shan Hai Qing, Min Ning Town
you will not be disappointed
I'll see you in my next video
Meanwhile live long and happy drama watching