Hello, you're watching AvenueX and this is the video on four chinese dramas
at the beginning of the second quarter of 2023 that are either still
ongoing or just finished airing in AvenueX's opinion
You'd better not invest your time watching.
This is my video made to save your precious attention, time and life.
Among the four dramas, i'm gonna talk about today, 2 I have already made a first impression video of sorts.
so this would be my cap on them since they both finished airing.
Then there are two dramas I haven't yet talked about,
and i'll tell you why you shouldn't be going into it
in no particular order, let's start start with the drama, Royal Rumors.
I've recently made a first impression and i've mentioned at the end of that that I will chase it till the end,
but i'm pretty sure it's just gonna end the way I expected it would end
and it did, in between that time and the finishing episode of episode 24,
you have a little bit more torture plot happening to the main leads, but it all ended very well.
And they did end this drama with the last shot, the two leads were in horse drawn cart
and pretty pretending to be traveling, and then they say a line about well it's a wrap,
and then they literally walk out of the car and you see it's a set
about 40, 50 people working there.
And they all say ah~ it's a wrap, showing you that you shouldn't be expecting too much from them,
but they had a good time making it. That's it.
I would maintain my first impression video opinion,
which is unless you really have a couple of actors in this drama featured that you really, really like
and you wouldn't really mind whatever the story is, you just wanna look at them specifically
then this drama is worth going into for you, other than that reason,
I just can't see why anybody would need to watch this drama
kind of in between goldmine/landmine and one goldmine, that would be the final rating of this drama for me.
Then the second drama is Ren Sheng Zhi Lu, Miles to Go
It is a set in 1980s drama led by Chen Xiao and Li Qin
I watched 12 episodes and that's my limit.
My recommendation for you is, don't go watch it,
particularly if you actually really like Chen Xiao and Li Qin, not saying they're doing a really bad job,
but this production overall is very problematic.
It really doesn't make their image as actor and actress and any better than
what you already have based on their previous works.
This drama is a little bit special because it's based on an existing novel
written by a very famous author in china called Lu Yao, back in 1982
called Ren Sheng, and it's one of the highest claimed novels focusing on that particular time
when china had this big shift in everything, happening at the end of 70s and early 80s
sets up the next 40 years of economy policy shift
that novel was very well received when it first got published, 2 years after that
there was already a film, so Miles To Go drama is after 40 years
of the this books first publishing, another screen adaptation.
And the unfortunate thing is you have that 1984 film in comparison,
40 years have gone by and the quality of story storytelling with a camera
unfortunately hasn't improved, but actually ....
the original novel is actually a rather deep analysis of the not so pretty side of human nature,
particularly with the huge, societal volatile changes as the background
how it tests the good and bad of a person.
And the drama totally didn't do justice to that big theme.
Then on the very superficial level, this drama is trying to present you an imagined 1980s.
In a village of northwest china, they use very superficial techniques
such as making everybody looks like they're constantly covered in dust.
They have no personal hygiene, darkened with really dark foundation,
like five colors darker than their natural color to over emphasize
the fact that they are in villages, they are farmers, peasants,they work under the sun,
and they cannot possibly look pretty.
The irony is, if you look at the 1984 film productions,nobody is intentionally made looking untidy, dusty, and super dark.
And you can see every actor tried so hard to pretend they are the 1980s villager people
yet they so are not.
There's this weird plot of the female character, Li Qin,
who is a peasant girl in love with Chen Xiao's role, on the day of him
taking part in the national college entrance exam.
She goes to the top of this hill overlooking the big river.
She writes her hope and wishes for the guy
ties that to a red balloon and sent it off.
okay so If that happens in 2020s,
I would understand. because that kind of action and behavior and the fact that you
can do that with a balloon and as a way of praying is okay for the 2020s,
people we get it, but 1980s,
a peasant girl in a remote village, they didn't even know what birthday cake is like
that's like, actually in the drama itself,
people who live in those villages would never even thought of tying something to a balloon.
And where do you get a helium blue in the village? Where do you even get the air,
the gas to make that balloon?
I was totally baffled and bewildered by the choices of things that happens on screen for the drama,
for international audiences who are really not that familiar with that part of history
and this drama visually wouldn't have them much of a point of interest.
I would highly recommend you not to check out this drama.
Then let's move on to the third drama on my list that I would highly recommend
you never to even click it open,
which is the Chun Ri Nuan Yang, New Vanity Fair led by Huang Zitao, Wu Gang, Sun Yi
about an idol guy wanna go back to theater to perform a play on stage.
I talked about this drama in my weekly video when it got scheduled.
and I clearly said I don't have any hope for HZT's performance
and as the drama turned out, he is exactly like what I expected: Huang Zitao, not his role,
but that's not even the problem with this drama because that's completely within expectation.
If you look at the other supposedly well established actors in the drama Wu Gang, Liu Bei
They deliver their worst performances in my memory.
There's such a high level of overacting of these supposedly professional.
Having been in the industry for decades actor that it actually made Huang Zitao look okay
Then if you look at the story,
I don't know who got the genius idea of writing the script and what kind of research they've done.
And what are the ideas do they want to communicate with their audiences
It looks like a collection of allthe tropey
anecdotal stories we've heard about chinese entertainment since 2015,
such as there are very irresponsible, young popular actress
who would not remember what their lines are and just speak in numbers
122345, while they're filming and leave it or to dubbing actress.
That's a very old story that has been around close to a decade,
maybe like 5/7 years at least, they put that old old thing in this drama.
They literally let an actress do that.
It's so written for the purpose of when we air,
we can make this go on trending hash tag because wow you see,
we are a drama that's standing on the right side,
criticizing on all the wrong things that the popular idol actors who do not know what they're doing are doing.
And we have the moral high ground that we so blatantly
and directly and having two people literally mouth and speak every word out,
expose the wrong things of the industry and thinking that it's gonna have a lot
of people discuss about drama or make the drama a hot topic,
which is just so stupid, and if you look at the story,
it's about this popular idol who wants to go back to theater and do a play.
To prove that he is an actor and he wants to go back to real acting.
And by the time episode eight or something, at least that's where I stopped I think
That play still hasn't started.
I don't know what happened later in the story,
I definitely wouldn't want to waste my life watching
the only person that actually comes across very relaxed and naturally is Sun Yi
Her role is the most normal person and she does a pretty really good job and she doesn't look weird at all
everybody else is the unbearable to watch.
And you know sometimes even for those famous old actors, they crash.
It really proves the acting is such a finicky career.
You can never be sure even if you are already widely recognized
as the "good: actors that the next project you pick in the next role you play
is not gonna be a complete failure
Then, Let's move on to the uh crash drama has just finished airing
as i'm sitting down making the video today.
24 episodes finished airing Ta Shi Shui, Who is He on Youku,
the Zhang Yi led crime investigation drama.
I've made a first impression video on that, at that time,
I said it's a 2 goldmine, because at that time it was still okay.
And then ~~ by the point I made that video, I mentioned a little bit,
which is I don't like the love line, the romantic line
and I think that is potentially a land mine and I was right,
it exploded spectacularly in your face
if you still haven't checked out this drama.
And for whatever reason you're curious about Zhang Yi led crime drama
after you've seen Knockout or other works of his.
You want to test it out. DON'T! DON'T!
It's a waste of your llife, you will completely disappoint yourself
and feel the 24 episodes watch time is an insult to your precious life time that you can't get back.
The love line is one of the biggest problems of this story,
particularly towards 17/18 episode when a major plot of
well I'm gonna spoil that now because you're not gonna watch it, right?
After you watch this video so let me just spoil it for you.
She is gonna get abducted by the bad guy and then our male lead Zhang Yi is gonna go try to find her.
well She kind of like, is first drove a car in the river,
and then they got the car out, but couldn't find the body.
So he thought she's dead, got washed away in the river.
And he tries to find her, that whole episode, there was what
One whole episode that's dedicated to the psychological breakdown of our male lead
when he thought the female lead is dead
and goes on searching for her along the river.
It's like suddenly you have a super mellow early 2000s Korean drama
jammed into this 2020s crime drama from china. It's just all wrong.
And there are so many moments dedicated to the funny office work thing
that goes on between all the policemen.
Although you know at the point, when it happens, it's kind of funny.
But when you have too many of those scenes and they really don't lead anywhere,
you start to lose patience, to add insult to injury,
while the whole searching for the female lead character plot is going on
the other policewoman that they've set up earlier in the drama as a very very good policewoman,
very professional.I really like her character.
And then towards the end, she starts to act in all kinds of weird ways.
And there's literally open fight that she has in office with other policeman.
That is so just about love and romantic relationship and she stands for the guy that she likes.
And it's just... it's wow, is this the same drama?
as you've seen in the first, let's say, 8 episodes?
Because it does not make sense. If you look at how it starts,
the vibes it has in the way it's set up. It's so intended to be that... Korean one.
If you watch that, it's so that vibe, and even the structure is the same.
And you feel like it's gonna be that type of deep story about crime, about human nature,
about one person's pursuit cross a long time,
and then it starts to become a totally different breed.
The head and the tail of this story is two different species.
So you cannot help wondering what has actually happened to this production
between the time when the first draft of the script is written and finished
to when it actually gets filmed, even during filming
who had a hand in manipulating the plot
because any sane writers would not be writing a story like this,
at the beginning like one thing and at the end, it's completely not the same thing anymore.
Maybe one person may be a group of person definitely did something to the script to mess it up.
I have no proof, but I have brain and that is just what I see.
When you watch through this 24 episodes drama,
if you have that much time in your life to waste,
you can go in and test that and see if you agree with me,
but you're gonna suffer a lot.
and You definitely would not feel that your time has been well spent at the end of it.
So for your sake, I would highly recommend you not even jump into the drama.
So to conclude Hua Liu Li Yi Wen, Royal Rumor is a drama
unless you like the 2 leads, don't need to watch it, you are not missing anything
Ren Sheng Zhi Lu, Miles to Go, if you like Chen Xiao and Li Qin, don't watch it
Chun Ri Nuan Yang, New Vanity Fair,
completely not worth spending even 1 second of your life watching
then Ta Shi Shui, Who is He
If you like the earlier parts you're gonna be very disappointed about later parts.
So my suggestion is don't even start.
So that's the end of this video made early april 2023.
We do have quite a few new dramas coming in, fingers crossed.
There's at least one drama that's worth watching.
And there are definitely a couple of interesting projects already ongoing.
I will talk about them in my future videos for very soon.
Thank you for watching AvenueX, I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile live long and happy drama watching.