Hello, you're watching our AvenueX and today let's talk about the recently finished period drama.
Xian Wei Jing Xia de Da Ming, Under the microscope
this is a 14 episode short period drama that has just finished airing on the web platform Iqiyi
it is directed by Pan Anzi, written by Ma Boyong, Zhou Rongyang,
Ma Boyong also been the original author, the book is called Xian Wei Jing Xia de Da Ming
and it's made up with six different cases that are all scoured and researched
by the author and dug out from historical record of different counties back in Ming dynasty.
This author is very well well known in china as many of his history based novels
have been adapted to screen, including Luo Yang, Chang'An, Long Xi
but Xian Wei Jing Xia de Da Ming is less of a fictional story.
More of real historical research, and this drama Under the Microscope is one of those many stories.
Focusing on one tax case that did take place during late Ming dynasty.
The drama is led by Zhang Ruoyun, Wang Yang, Qi Wei,
also including older and veteran actors, such as Wu Gang, Gao Yalin
It was shot from september to november back in 2021.
I have finished watching all 14 episodes, and i'll give it a 2 gold mine rating at the end.
As usual. I'll briefly introduce you to the story and talk about
what I think this drama has done very well and what it could improve on
the subtitle of this drama is Si Juan An, which is the title of the particular case
featured in this story, set in late Ming dynasty,
our main character played by Zhang Ruoyun is a poor orphan
living in a southern town in china, he is known in this town as the mathematician genius fool,
who cannot really do anything apart from math, in our current society.
He probably will be diagnosed as an autistic person.
He has great talent in one thing, but then has great difficulties relating to other people.
His parents died when he was very young in a big fire.
Because of some coincidence, he ended up finding out that this county he lives in
has been paying a tax for over 100 years that really they shouldn't be paying alone,
it should be divided among eight counties together that belongs to the same division.
But for some reason, their county is paying that.
And adding 100 years overpaid tax together is a pretty scary number
as a mathematician and a fool who really doesn't understand
all the intricacies of human relationship, he insisted that this needs to be corrected.
It is also tied into the past history of his family, the death of his parents
and a kind of lost memories of his childhood that he is trying to find out.
It started a wave and ripple after ripple affecting not only his own county,
but his neighboring counties, upper level government even to the central government's new policy
and the whole thing ended up being a huge snowball situation.
So on the positive end of this drama, what are great things that's worth watching?
Number one, very high quality of production of a period drama.
Iqiyi has been doing short almost for a while,
and all of them tend to have a really solid production quality to back it up.
This is no exception, this drama also has a very consistent, coherent style,
and many beautiful sceneries and great framing featured
provides you extra values of watching a beautiful period setting drama.
The second thing casting acting is very very very very good.
Number one, everybody uses their own voice, original voice,
and they're all very good at line delivery.
and because this drama involves a lot of court proceeding, a lot of bureaucracy,
a lot of very highly educated people talking in very eloquent way,
and talk about actually quite complicated things.
And it's a joy for people who love great acting through lines to watch this drama
that part of pleasure probably is more specific(ly) targeted to the domestic audiences of china.
But I believe even if you don't understand by ear, Chinese,
the emotion that comes through their utterance of their words is very easy to detect
couple of things I really enjoyed, Number one, Zhang Ruoyun being the lead.
He really did a good job playing this autistic math genius of a Ming dynasty setting.
Based on his previous works. I already have a very high expectation of his performance
and he pretty much met exactly my expectation.
And i'd say there are a couple of very emotionally intense scene that he really really did very well
as the main lead of the story definitely held the story together.
I also enjoy Wang Yang's performance a lot in this drama.
He plays a lawyer who has to earn his living by his clever words, his intelligence, his quick wit,
because of that,there's a level of performance that's involved in his even daily actions and words.
So he does have a little bit more theatricality in everything he does in this drama than other dramas,
but it's actually done for very good reason and for his particular role.
And I enjoyed his couple of also highlights scenes that are so great.
and his line delivery is also impeccable.
Then you have a group of older actors who are so well established
midfdle aged men when they sit down and do proper drama acting of the
"guan chang" story of the ancient officials, the bureaucracy, the politics,
the everything is said behind the line. and you have to read what is onsaid
The drama will really crank it up okay to maximum.
And every guy is just so good at timing and pacing their performance,
delivering you exactly what you want in those kind of exchange of clever words.
The third thing I really appreciate about this drama is
apart from the fact that this is just a one line, one direction story
that makes it a very easy watching experience.
You only have like one thing you need to care about and it's short, it's very compact.
You spend a day and you watch it, it's done.
But the other great thing is in the process you see a very
Jie Gu Feng JIn drama which means borrowing the ancient
but actually is satirically commenting on what's going on in the world now.
And it's actually very applicable, not just to china.
It's a very universal thing. It shows the contrast, the struggle and the war
between the angel and the devil in everyone's heart, in our human nature,
the selfless, the pure hearted intentions,
of as simple as righting a mathematical wrong versus the selfishness.
the although I know you're right, but for my own benefit,
I will never stand on your side type of thing going on
and how everyone is out for their own good.
And that causes all kinds of conflict and injustice in the world.
You see that get very well represented and reflected in the story
in a very funny, comical, ironical way.
It would also touch on a lot of things that has its contemporary version playing out all the time,
such as how the rich using their resources and connections and their conveniences,
keep hoarding more wealth and making the poor people suffer even more
they pay as little tax as you can imagine, and then all the heavy burden lands on the poor commoners.
Isn't that familiar? It's going on everywhere.
Like if you live in north america these days,
you know those big companies right, don't pay tax and then you and me
working class of people have to actually shoulder all the taxes in the world.
well, you'll see the extreme version of that, which is actually true.
During late Ming dynasty in china playing out in this drama
and get really well represented to its detail, and it's very satirical like the way it's written and getting picked apart,
although it has a version of justice that will get served, because you know it's a drama.
You want the main character to succeed, but it's not done in the
over the top idealistic way that it gets something solved.
But then you still see this whole world is full of that kind of problem.
At the late ming dynasty, it became a really rampant problem.
One of the essential reasons that the whole dynasty collapsed and got replaced by the next one.
So this drama has very enjoyable plot, very watchable, short,
even though it is a set in china, ancient time, late 16, early 17th century time story,
it still has a lot of relevance to our contemporary life.
Is that good thing or bad thing?
Pretty much It just tells you that human nature never really changes
no matter where it is and when it is,
the one last thing I want to add I really appreciate about this drama is
it has such a cute cat.
and I love how this drama deals with the pet of the main character.
They don't forget about it; A lot of dramas will give a cute pet to the main characters
and forget about them later.
I am so happy the cat gets such a fair representation on screen and it's so adorable
and it's actually very well used as a storytelling device as well.
Now let's talk about what is not so perfect about this drama in my opinion, okay
first is as a drama after i've watched 14 episodes,
I haven't yet grown to love any of those characters significantly enough
to the point that I'd remember them a long time after
I think i'll very soon forget most of them and I definitely wouldn't be thinking about them.
Let's say next year now
I don't think this is the dramas intention to have it fully driven on
Your love and care of one main character.
It really is presenting the world in many different facades
and showing you the particular thing that's going on and how
it reflects the good and bad of human nature.
The other thing I didn't like about this drama is on one hand,
I highly appreciate there are some very extensive research they managed to do
for the late Ming dynasty costume, which is what I have,
but then it's like they stop at like 90% and just does not want to do the full thing correct.
during Ming dynasty the men all wear this net on their hair to keep the hair tidy.
You also see that in korean dramas during the li (Yee) dynasty because Ming dynasty emperor,
Zhu Yuanzhang is a person who advocates using that net and because of his insistence
that becomes something that everybody all the men in Ming dynasty china have to do
whether you are from the lower class of being a farmer or the higher class.
You all wear this net, it's a very peculiar Ming dynasty thing
in this drama. You'll see it getting represented very extensively which is cool.
But one thing they did wrong is they should have all the men, all the adult men wearing it.
Not just high class, even if you're a servant, you'd be wearing it or a farmer working in the farmland.
But you don't see that in this drama,
you just see the higher class scholars do that.
The next thing they did wrong is often you have the guys only wearing the net,
but not anything, a hairpin and no hat,
which is very wrong unless you are in private space like in your bedroom.
At night, you know chilling drinking wine you know yourself, that's fine.
As long as you're present with other people.
If you don't wear a hat, you don't respect the other person.
And it's almost equal to you're running naked.
And in this drama, you see all those guys walking on the street broad daylight,
all those officials, they don't wear a hat.
They just wear the net which is unbelievable, unthinkable back in Ming dynasty.
They even would not be wearing a hat during a banquet, which is like,
no, no, that's not possible!
even in late Ming dynasty when technically speaking a lot of rules start to loosen,
it's unthinkable for a guy to not where a hat.
It's not so hard to research that and it's like a common sense thing,
but somehow they just didn't do it.
Also, the women's costume is so not researched.I don't know,
like they spent all the money and time on the guys and just didn't bother.
And since they only have Qi Wei and that girl as the main females,
let's just save money and don't do anything?Maybe it's the budget?
Their costume has nothing to do with Ming dynasty.
Late ming dynasty, where does it come from?
It doesn't look like Song doesn't look like Tang,
it doesn't look like any specific time that you can think of.
And the guys have very well researched Ming costumes and the the women.
Did you just time travel from like what, novel land?
that honestly just makes the Hanfu enthusiast in me not that happy.
I would understand if other people don't care, but unfortunately,I do
the other thing I would remind my audiences.
I wouldn't say necessarily it's a negative thing.
It's just that this drama, the couple of episodes of the beginning and the last three episodes at the end,
are very good and exciting.
The middle chunk although it's very short, will be slower and not so exciting.
So in my opinion, if you want to enjoy this drama and not missing the last 3 episodes of court proceeding,
that is just wave after wave and peak after peak.
Watch this in one go, don't stop,like don't watch one episode, stop for the next day.
You're gonna forget about it and you may be just like lose the steam and don't wanna go through it
Since it's so short, watch it in one go, binge it, 7/8 hours. and it's done.
I don't think you will be disappointed at the end,
because it does deliver some very epic emotionally highly charged and then releasing satisfying dramatic moment
towards the later part and all the buildup in the earlier parts will serve that to the end.
So watch it in one go! Highly suggested
that should conclude my final review on the drama Uunder The Microscope,
Xian Wei Jing Xia de Da Ming
This drama is unlikely to have itself a following season because the story is concluded and also in the book.
It's just one of the multiple cases it got featured
whether iqiyi is gonna make further dramas that are also taken from this book of other individual cases.
We don't know yet they haven't said anything
totally depends on whether they think it's a worthwhile investment.
Hope this video is useful for you to decide whether you should venture into
the microscopic staring at Ming dynasty drama.
Thank you for watching AvenueX, i'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.