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.
Tang Chao Gui Shi Lu
Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty is a 36 episodes web drama
that has recently finished airing on the platform iqiyi
it is directed by Bai Shan, Xin Peng
written by Wei Fenghua and led by Yang Zhigang Yang Xuwen
The drama went through a rather long shooting period,
starting in november 2020 and wrapped last year May.
Since it is a Tang Dynasty story, I have
done my best to dress and make up as closely
as I can get to the Tang dynasty period style.
Apart from the glasses,
the story is set at a very specific time of Tang dynasty,
710 (AD)
the short reign of the emperor Li Dan before he dies.
And his son comes in against his own aunt for the power,
then becoming one of the major and well known emperor of Tang dynasty.
This drama really is led by two guys,
a younger guy and an older guy,
younger guy played by Yang Xuwen
older guy played by Yang Zhigang
One of them is "Wen",
One of them is "Wu"
"Wen", He is the brain.
He's the Sherlock of the story,
whereas the "Wu" is the younger guy and not really Watson,
but he is the fighter.
He's the person who protects you and save you
when you are about to get murdered.
The younger guy and older guy make up this
unwilling group at the beginning of the story,
because they both kind of get kicked out of.
The capital city Chang'An for something they've done.
They have to go to a more remote county to work
along the way of their travel
They encounter all kinds of cases and they
get moved around from location to location,
eventually leading the way back to capital city Chang'An
I have watched all 36 episodes of this drama
I'll give it a 1.5 gold mine rating.
I will go into details about why I give it such a rating.
First I wanna mention a couple of things.
Number one among the two credited production companies of this drama.
one is iqiyi, Its airing platform
the other is Chang Xin
This is a company that is kind of a family business
of the owner of it
whose name is Guo Jingyu
He has been working in dramaland for a long time
mostly making dramas that features his youngest brother
as the male lead actor, Yang Zhigang
who is also so one of the two main leads of this drama.
They mostly do dramas that are set in middle of
last century around min guo, or a bit later and
often gets criticized for its very repetitive
themes and the male lead actor who always acts very
repetitively in his very recognizable, iconic ways.
Most of my parents' age.
Tv watchers of chinese dramaland know him
among younger audiences.
He doesn't have the best reception and reputation.
I would confess I am one of those people in the later
group of demographics that I can never stand this actor's acting
and there have been a couple of dramas.
This company has produced,
this team has produced
that were very controversial in the last couple of years.
So that's one reason that stopped me from initially going into this drama.
Second thing is the other male lead actor Yang Xuwen
He is kind of entangled in a case that happened quite a few years ago.
And he came out of it clean, legally criminally.
He's not charged with anything,
but because the nature of the case,
it's not the best thing that can happen to a person.
He still has a very controversial, let's say,
public reputation,
at least from what I observe,
almost every major big account content creators from china
just avoid talking about his work completely,
which is why this drama,
although it's doing pretty well on iqiyi's platform.
And for people who've watched it
mostly given giving it very positive reviews,
you don't see almost any major reviewers talk about it
aside from one person that I at least called has talked about it.
Everybody else just shuts up about it.
I think they're just trying to avoid trolls that would come in
if they talk about this drama in their live comment section
it's gonna look very ugly.
And then I told myself,
let me just look at this drama for its first shot of the first episode.
If it's a sign for me to watch it,
I will
I turn it on after the title song,
the first shot of this rdrama, go and check it.
Is a night shot of a roof.
That's a silhouette.
You have a bright moon behind it,
you have the tree branches,
the shadows.
It's on the rooftop and there's a cat.
I'm like shit.
Because moon branches,
that's my logo and cat.
If you've been watching my channel long enough
you know cat , AvenueX
So that's a sign.
I guess I just have to watch it.
Now. Let's start talk about specifically about this drama.
What I think is good about it and what I think
it could do better on the positive end.
Number one, this is an overall very acceptable quality production
that doesn't feature major acting stars,
super well known celebrities.
If you put it in line with other Tang dynasty setting,
period dramas, its production quality and budget is above Imperial Coroner.
It has managed to achieve a quality that's closing enough
to Luo Yang's production standard and looks and things.
They also didn't use skin smoothing
weird color grading, super bright, low contrast look
that a lot of period idol dramas would have
that looks absolutely horrendous.
It went for the more cinematic, more realistic,
well it but, not over lit and textured look,
you can also tell,
although this drama is not master class of cinematography
and how you use lens and camera and framing to tell a story.
Occasionally you see certain shots and certain sequences
designed and you can tell it came from people who really
sat down and and think through what they wanna make,
didn't make it on the fly and had plan and
had purpose of why we use it this way.
So overall this drama as a web drama that doesn't go on
satellite television, that doesn't really promote itself at all.
And doesn't feature super well known stars.
The level of dedication that this drama
presents you is already beyond my expectation.
Number two, this is a very "kou ti" drama
which means it has a title and the drama is really about its title,
the type of folklore, superstitious, supernatural power
that sets the atmosphere of all those cases.
But eventually, when you solve all the problems,
it's a human made crime that just dressed up to look scary.
If you've watched the film quite a few years ago, now
Legend of the Demon Cat from Chen Kaige
it has that similar atmosphere.
That's the easiest and quickest way for you to visualize
what this drama looks like.
and I like this overall style of mystifying
something and then solve it with human efforts.
It's a very entertaining genre and type of way of telling.
Detective stories.
The third positive thing.
And the most surprising thing to me is
I totally didn't expect
I'd sit through 36 episodes of Yang Zhigang's performance
and not feel weirdedout or couldn't stand it
as compared to his other dramas,
like I already said earlier in this video.
Because he almost exclusively only works in
the productions that's done by his brother.
So he's very limited with his range of characters.
And he has a very peculiar way of speaking,
his rhythm is very his,
you either really like it,
accept it or you just feel it's very theatrical and very fake.
And nobody really talks like that in real life type of situation.
I just could never sit through his performance and not feel...
That's my reaction,
but somehow that habit of acting or that style of acting he's built up
actually fits a period drama.
and this particular character.
If you talk in a more theatrical way,
you act in a more highly designed and presentable way,
we all accept that because it has that whole tradition
with working with traditional theater, opera singing,
and our expectation of ancient people
just being a little bit different.
That's how people perceive these things.
His way of being theatrical and talking fits the time setting
so much better that it doesn't jump out as weird anymore.
Also, this particular character he plays is a very theatrical person by nature,
a very clever experienced and shrewd little official
who understands how the whole system works.
He's always acting when he's dealing with every other person
and that kind of personality and character
with his type of acting
work so well together.
And if it's nothing else,
at least in the clarity of delivery
being an actor and deliver lines properly,
he's much better than a lot of younger actors
who can't even speak mandarin properly.
So his performance which I was worried about before I went into this drama,
didn't give me any problem.
Now let's move on to talk about things that I think are problematic,
although i've watched through 36 episodes hardly fast forwarding,
I would still say you may need fast forwarding at certain places
of this drama, or even constantly watching it at 1.5 time speed.
Wouldn't really bother you at all
as a detective drama that's made up with eight cases.
I wouldn't say the cases are very impressively well written,
and even they have twists and have certain cases unresolved.
and you come back to visit it later.
They have all those structures
in terms of the twists' quality,
the surprise element,
when the truth gets revealed
not even one really impressed me.
In any significant way.
The second thing on the negative end,
I would say to me, again,very personal is
I still don't have as much feeling of involvement of this story
after i've watched the 36 episodes
as say after i've watched Imperial Coroner.
Because I think for that drama it has successfully delivered me a couple
of characters I really like and care
I care about their relationships,
their romantic stories,
but also their career development
as individuals and their aspirations
and all that
not so much for this drama
after i've watched it for Yang Zhigang's character Su Wu Ming
for Yang Xuwen's character Lu Lingfeng, for the girl
the two female characters who are paired up with our 2 male leads,
I couldn't feel attached to any of them emotionally
or just in a way being curious about their future development.
so I think at least to me,
the characterization, the personality, creating successful,
luring, attractive characters
that really makes you care about them and want to find out
what happens to them
that task of this drama hasn't been so well achieved.
As compared to a couple of other dramas, I can think of
in an ideal world that would be the part of the script,
in my opinion that this drama can improve on
the third not so ideal thing about this drama
in the early parts of this drama.
I think they've done it too intentionally and
it's a little bit uncomfortable for me to watch.
And later it got better.
Basically they try to smash the two males together right from the beginning
to make them a CP
not a BL CP obviously not like never getting there.
This is not that type of drama
and making little jokes, making little funny moments,
making those ~~~~ things that that try to coax
the audiences into shipping them
before the events, the logic of the two characters,
getting to know each other,
even got to that place where it's logical and reasonable
for two people to develop a bond with each other.
So it kind of tried to push it in that direction a little bit,
too intentionally and too hard.
and~~~~ a little bit of putting at places
overall though ,it's not too too big a problem,
particularly later in the story,
when they've already gone through quite a few life and death situations and
challenges and got to know each other really well
and start to like each other.
And then it just becomes very acceptable and normal.
Last point about this drama
it's not really a negative thing,
but it's totally Avenuex thing
because i've watched too many dramas.
There's one thing that really bothered me a lot in this drama.
There are so many sets shift.
The characters are traveling all the time they're moving from
places to place and they come across all kinds of different sets.
I have to give this to the drama that they made,
a lot of original sets built, far exceeding my expectation,
but it still includes a lot of street views,
a lot of like restaurants, lot of people's residents
and that type of places that are
so familiar.
So I was a little bit distracted because it's so recognizable
that street from Word of Honor
that corner from Eternal Love.
oh, This is that bamboo forest a little thing that happens in
every freaking period dramas in china
cause it's all filmed in that one place
go up the stairs into the mountain place.
It's in at least five dramas you can think of
oh that's the residence we've just seen this year from another drama
called A Dream of of Splendor.
So to me it happens way too many times to the point that
often I lose track of what the actors are speaking
during the scene because i'm thinking about
the other drama or the drama-s
that this scene has been used and I wonder off
and I have to come back and
drag the play head back to see what's going on.
At the end of this video.
I would say this is a rather watchable,
definitely worked better than I expected.
Period detective drama.
And i'm very thankful to the people who urged me
whether it's on discord or on weibo or other places,
nudging me go and watch it go and watch it.
I know you probably worry about this and that,
but go and watch it.
I ran through the 36 episodes.
And i'd say, I don't feel my life is wasted by doing that.
It may not be the best drama of this genre
but I don't think it's gonna offend you in any significant way
as an entertainment piece of work.
Really, it's pretty lovely to look at.
I just remembered there are a couple of actresses
whether there are very small roles or more major roles in this drama.
They have way too much plastic surgery,
particularly injections in their face.
you know At times it becomes a problem as well
because it's a period setting drama
and it just looks so 21st century,
it's only by using certain technology and ways of doing~~~that.
You can look like that on camera.
So at times when those character show up
I'm like, maybe I just like look away from the shot
just listen to them,
speak as a radio play, because their face
is just too out of time of the setting.
Why do people do that to their faces?
You really don't need to.
It looks so weird.
Sorry about that.
I start ranting again.
That should conclude my final review on the drama,
Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty, Tang Chao Gui Shi Lu
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, Live long and Happy Drama watching.