Put your expectation of his acting at the very
level and then you will be fine.
This is what crime dramas should be.
It just keeps getting more interesting.
Hello, 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
Chong Sheng Zhi Men
Be Reborn is a drama that's being aired on the platform.
Youku.
The drama is directed by Yang Dong
who is the same director who's directed a very similar title drama,
Chong Sheng, Reborn, a couple of years ago.
That drama was also led by Zhang Yi
also produced by the same company and very similar team makeup.
Don't get confused.
It's kind of made by the same company, same team,
but really irrelevant stories.
Chong Sheng Zhi Meng, in chinese literally meaning
the gate of rebirth.
Now, we have a younger actor joining the mainly team
that will be Wang Junkai
TF Boys, the chinese homegrown boy band,
and not arguably, definitively the most successful one ever
and made up with three people.
And he is one of them.
This one was started shooting last year.
March in the city Wu Xi, and wrapped in July
from day one it went live,
it hasn't stopped airing and i've been following this drama.
From day one to now,
as i'm making this video,
i've just finished watching episode 9
By the time this video goes out,
it should be around 11 that they've just finished airing
Good place talk about first impression and projection for the future.
Let me first roughly introduce you to the story
and then my rating and then as usual,
what I like so far and not so like so far.
So to put it very simply about what this drama is.
It is a crime drama involving a criminal cases investigation
team leader of a police station played by Zhang YI
Think of he is the Du Cheng
basically Under the Skin, pretty much exactly same
position and same function in the storytelling.
And he because of a case at the beginning of this drama
started to collaborate with a university student
who majored in law played by Wang Junkai
But this is not your simple average university student.
He's a very clever guy.
Otherwise, you know why would he be collaborating with the police?
But he also has a very complicated family background.
His father was a famous thief who's been known to have
stolen some very important and expensive things and
disappeared in a car crash into the river
and never was heard from then on.
So he had a very complicated childhood.
And also his grandfather was also a very well known thief.
So he basically came from a thieves inheritage family
right at the beginning of the story he gets involved In this case,
therefore he encounters Zhang Yi's character
and then they start to form this
collaborating but also trying to
smart each other out type of relationship.
That is the basic setup of this drama.
If it's been a very generous rating, i'll give it 2 Gold mine,
if i'm being very strict, probably push it down to about 1.7 or 8,
but it's really close to a two gold mine.
I think the next couple of episodes,
if it keeps performing really well and meet my expectation
this at least is gonna end up being a two gold mine,
given it doesn't crash.
At the end.
Now, you know what is coming up, Right?
Things In more specific details,
there aren't that many significant shortcomings of this drama in my opinion
so I'm gonna mention them first,
and then i'm gonna talk about whyI think this drama is
a surprisingly happy and satisfying watch.
So the few things that are not ideal for me.
Number one is Wang Junkai's acting.
And if you've been a Wang Junkai fan,
okay or if you don't have any hostility towards him,
just being realistic,
probably everybody would agree on that,
i've seen a lot of real WJK's fans were like
yeah yeah he's acting is not good in this drama.
So put your expectation of his acting at a very
~~~~ level,
and then you'll be fine,
because honestly,
when you get into the story,
you'll realize he's more like a functioning person.
Obviously, the story, all circles around him,
but it doesn't really depends too much on how good an actor he is
as long as he fulfilled the narrative purpose.
It actually doesn't affect your experience of it much.
Also he did get dubbed and he's the only actor who got dubbed.
so, point number one is the quality of WJK's acting.
You need to have the correct expectation of it.
Then the second point is because this is a case heavy, very quick,
paced a lot of high intelligence involved,
crime stuff going on.
Then with this kind of script writing,
if they're not significantly more cleverer than
the average clever people in this world,
then you can always pick out a couple of things
uh~That doesn't quite make sense.
you know If I were the bad guy I would do it that way,
it would be better.
So there are things like that in this drama,
but they're not for significantly impacting the logic of the story.
And then I guess if you're not just looking at it with a magnifying glass,
you will be fine.
Although it does have a couple of characters that are just
way too stupid to be in their position and doing their job.
Apart from that, I really don't see significant problems of this drama
It's a very enjoyable watch.
So now let's talk about what is great about this drama.
First point number one, as I said,
this is a crime drama,
so the plot is important.
9 episodes so far.
I'm very happy with the plot
in episode one, you may not actually get the full picture
because there's a lot of twists and turns and the layer upon layer and
upon layer of people's scheme involved and
episode one doesn't really explain everything.
So when you watch episode 1 to 2,
you may still not get a full feeling of what you're looking at,
what is going on.
Give it a little bit time.
You'll see the full picture and it starts to get really interesting.
and I don't want to spoil that experience for you to explore that yourself.
So I cannot really tell you what happens.
Basically should know it starts with a painting going
missing from a museum that's within a university
and the student Wang Junkai plays is the person who discovered that
so he also becomes a suspect and
that's just the entry point of this story.
That's how he meets the policeman play by Zhang Yi
And then you find this is not just a simple missing,
Somebody steals a painting.
There's more layers of sort of conspiracy behind it
and more people involving in it and have bigger.
Sort of goals at doing other things.
This is like the step one of their master plan type of thing.
so I told you, but I didn't tell you what
the great thing about this drama is
it cuts right into the main deal of the drama,
the case and the case leading up to next case.
The next case, there's not even one second that's wasted.
It just keeps getting more interesting,
new characters coming in and more surprises.
And oh~ this is more complicated than that
And along the way,
you meet Wang Junkai and Zhang Yi's roles
who are both.
I'm so happy to see
super clever people.
I'm just so happy that whether it's the
definitely standing on the right thing side,
the white and the light,
the good represented by the police or the criminals represented by criminals,
or Wang Junkai's role who is always standing.
Right at the middle is like stepping here there here.
not quite sure about what his motive and why he involves himself in this.
And because of his family background,
no matter which side you're on,
whatever character you are,
95% of the characters in this dr come across
are very clever people.
This is normal.
This is what crime dramas should be.
If you want to have an impressively clever scheme
that some crazy people mastermind have pulled off,
then they have to be clever and then the police
who are able to capture them would be also clever.
You have to be on the same level of intelligence
to be be able to do that.
And thank heavens, Wang Junkai, Zhang Yi
a couple of policemen,
not all of them okay, in the police station
and definitely all the bad guys on the bad guys team
from the minions to the master
everybody is very
alert, clever, logical,
super sensitive,
their brain all run supervised.
and It's just exciting to see that
because we've seen too many this type of dramas
in chinese dramaland where
all the clever comes only from the talks
that guy is cleverest guy,
you know, coolest guy,
most good looking guy,
and the camera pans to that person.
You're like WHAT ?
this is what you mean, by most good looking and clever?
This drama doesn't have it.
Everybody is clever.
Yes!
You would not be disappointed, ok？
And if you like this kind of
famous painting disappeared in 15 seconds type of story,
and then how did it happen?
Who did it?
Now we figure out who did it,
but why did they do it?
oh，They actually have another plan behind it，
and behind them behind it.
You like that kind of story,
you're gonna like this drama.
Second great thing is
it's led by Zhang Yi
That's a reason on itself you know is enough
for anybody to venture into any drama.
I mean it may not turn out to be your thing,
but it's worth a bit time on your end.
And i've watched chong sheng as well,
not the full thing parts of it.
I've made a video on that drama,
and I wasn't very happy about the drama,
but it's not about zhang yi's acting.
He's always so good.
It's just the story wasn't interesting,
wasn't engaging to me.
and A lot of things don't make sense.
This drama, made by the same team, same company, same producer,
and even named in the same style,
Chong Sheng Zhi Meng,
is so much better,
doesn't linger on the ptsd of the main character
doesn't linger on all those psychological darkness
that actually doesn't push any story forward.
This is a story story.
It's really just the story that's that important
everything else every character is serving the story.
And then in the middle of the whole thing,
you see Zhang Yi's acting.
He's just such a joy and there are a lot of really
interesting details that he is able to bring to the character
makes him feel very
specific.
Like this is a specific person,
not just the average general idea of a clever policeman.
It's a clever policeman who is specifically
policeman Luo, in this drama.
And now my hope,
as a drama watcher is one day soon,
hopefully I get to watch a drama whatever it is.
What time setting it it
It would have significant amount of screen time of these two actors
fight off you know wow Wang Xiao and Zhang Yi
This is like my hope for the, for their age range.
Male actors
obviously better to be a great script.
Otherwise it's a waste of their talent.
But if that can happen,
oh my god
I'd be like get up at the midnight to watch it.
If it's necessary, I would do that.
So the main two things about CSZM
that is really good and worth watching.
Let me re emphasize the story itself.
It's a pretty good crime drama.
Intense, every episode it ends up on a cliffhanger type of thing.
You cannot wait to see what happens next.
Second is really Zhang Yi's acting.
And Pan Yueming is a guest star.
In case you're wondering.
If you look at the list,
you see Pan Yueming's name
he just shows up very very occasionally in Wang Junkai's memory,
because he plays the father who went missing
final thing to wrap up this first impression is
obviously we do not know what happens to the next 17 episodes.
You really don't know what happens
because this is an original script.
You have nothing to go off on
if you've prayed for under the skin,
while you were watching it for it do not crash,
just pray for this rama, too.
I pray.
It wouldn't suddenly lose its intelligence, logic.
It wouldn't suddenly crash you know in terms of character consistency
and whatever
just maintain what it looks like now.
Till the end it's gonna be a really good watch and I really
love chasing this type of drama that doesn't feel you're
wasting your time and also you don't know what's gonna happen.
And because of the nature of case solving and crime,
there's always the extra exciting element in it.
So thank you for watching AvenueX
First impression video on the drama
Chong Sheng Zhi Men, Be Reborn.
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile live long and happy drama watches.