Hello, you're watching AvenueX and today let's talk about a recently started airing
chinese web and satellite television drama, Zhui Guang De Ri Zi, Ray of Light
This is a 30 episode contemporary drama that's being aired on the platform Youku plus cctv one satellite television.
It is directed by Han Tian, Su Haoqi, written by Zhao Xiaying,
led by Ren Min, Guo Jingfei, Wang Yuan
It was filmed in Huizhou in Guangdong province from the end of 2021 to April 2022
just looking at the poster you know what the story is about
the worst doing class in a high school in their last year before they take the college exam,
how the underdogs in the last year of their struggle in school turn the game around type of story.
I have watched 9 episodes at the point of making this video, right now.
I'll give it a 1.5 gold mine. I do hope the score will go up later.
Although this drama does face a lot of challenges,
this is the last year of high school drama focused on mainly three characters.
A teacher played by Guo Jingfei who was a teacher of high school 3 years prior to our story starting s
omething happened to one of his student, making him losing his job type of situation and quit teaching.
But 3 years later, something happens again, he goes back to teaching.
He faces the challenges of getting rusty of teaching and not getting used to 3 years of development in teaching
also his past ghost also getting trust from the bad student of the class and their parents.
Then Ren Min plays a student who actually did pretty well in her college exam
had actually scored enough to get into a medical school,
but due to a stupid action of her father's, lost that opportunity,
she doesn't want to give up the dream of becoming a doctor.
So she decided to redo the last year of high school ended up in this high school.
That wasn't her previous high school and a new class and the burden of doing it for the second time.
Then the other main character Wang Yuan plays is also in this class.
He is similar to to Ren Min's role in terms of getting delayed 1 year,
but it was for a personal family tragedy reason that he stopped his study leave of absence for a year.
And now he needs to come back and do the college exam.
Then you're gonna see quite a few other high school students in this class
as the second tier important roles and their personal stories.
And i'm pretty sure they're gonna succeed pretty well at the end of the story
when they take that exam, right? Otherwise why you make this type of drama
It probably will remind you of another drama that Zhang Ruoyun led and probably will come out later this year
that has very similar structure, a teacher and a failed class and underdog winning type of story
synopsis aside, now let's talk about what is worth watching about this drama first
point number one, although it's a Youku drama,
it's actually a very acceptable production quality, contemporary drama that has zero romanticizing filter.
It doesn't have the typical color grading of Youku dramas or skin smoothing or idolizing and romanticizing.
It looks very realistic, slightly desaturated,a little bit dull
being very believable, because honestly,
if you look back in your life for most of the chinese people who have gone through
last year of high school and the exam, the memory will be very, very bleak
and gloomy and high pressured and probably nobody want to relive that.
So I actually really appreciate that this drama picked a not so pretty look
for this drama to represent that difficult year for everybody.
It is also a original voice drama doesn't get dubbed which makes it much more believable.
It has very realistic representation of what the school looks like,
what students wear, what their daily life is like
and nobody wears makeup as high school kids.
So overall it's a heavy on realism, a little bit more like Youku looking drama
Number two acting and casting so far i'm pretty happy with it.
The thing that attracted me to this drama most is Guo Jingfei,knowing that he is leading it as a teacher,
I just wanna see what his performance will look like.
And so far i'd say it pretty much fits exactly what I expect it will be
he and Ren MIn probably has the most amount of screen time than the other characters.
He plays that type of little people, little character, ordinary person.
So well
if you've watched his performance in, If There's No Tomorrow,
you know that he is a very capable actor, he can play almost any type of drama
serious, comedy, black comedy, period drama, contemporary drama,
whatever it is, just bring it on and he will do it.
And he's a very experienced actors that he knows how to use everything he has
his voice, his accent, his body, in this drama, he plays this teacher
that almost immediately you know that he is a good person
and you trust him and you want him to succeed
and he also shoulders 90% of the comedy and he does it very, very well.
So just to see his later performances and the development of his character
I"ll stick to the end of the drama,
I do believe later in not yet happening,
there will be a couple of quite explosive moments. If it doesn't happen,
it would not make sense for the scriptwriter to create this role, so,
waiting for that moment to happen.
Then Ren Min playing a high school student doing the last year for the second time for her university,
she really suits contemporary high school characters.
She once did a role earlier in her career that made her famous that's similar
who was also a high school middle school student.
And if you compare her performance in this drama to the other drama that is going on
at the same time on Tencent that she also leads
Yu Gu Yao, fantasy drama with Xiao Zhan, The Longest Promise.
You really can see that when a young actress is playing a character that is more in her comfort zone,
how much more at ease and how much more easy for audiences to engage with the character.
I'm watching those two dramas at the same time and one drama I totally couldn't get her character.
She gets dubbed in the fantasy drama.
She also has really bad styling and makeup and costume.
If you look at Qing Ping Yue she looks really good in a period drama,
but Yu Gu Yao..... that causes a problem for me to get into the story
and this one almost no makeup, typical high school student look
yet she looks so much more livelier, with energy, with that immediately
you can believe character quality.
And if you compare her performance in both dramas,
I would also say this is definitely much more in her comfort zone
playing a contemporary character that she probably has something to anchor to
She knows what it feels like and the character also the type of stubborn,
sometimes low pressure, not very happ, always frown, but very strong.
young girl, suits her so much better, anyway I enjoyed her performance in ray of light
much more than Yu Gu Yao, as for Wang Yuan
although he's a main character, so far actually he doesn't have that much screen time
and his main plot doesn't get unfolded until pretty much right now.
Episode eight and nine we see for the first time what really is the thing
with his family that made him stop for a whole year of studying.
And what is the thing that's holding him back
We only just found out, probably next 20 episodes,
we're gonna see more of his screen time and it will be easier to gauge his performance
so far he fis in the story pretty well. He acts in a very relaxed and natural way,
but there hasn't been any really important moment to bring out the character yet.
Then I also super enjoyed the presence of Dong Qing
She plays the psychiatrist in school for the kids and also for teachers.
I've liked her since day one of her of discovering her,
I think in With You that was like 2015,
she never plays super important lead roles in big dramas,
but every characters plays as a supporting role in every drama i've watched.
leaves a strong impression on me,
there's this quality that you can easily connect with her when she smiles on screen,
although she doesn't have that much screen time when she shows up
the screen lights up.
Then the third point, I think the most important thing is as a realism,
high school drama focusing on the last year,
I think so far to the middle of 2023,
this would be the most realistic, grounded drama in this category.
The other one Youku has urged the light hearted flying towards you is
a very romanticized story that doesn't really focus that much on
the actual study part of being in high school.
It's more on the youth, the 青春, the happiness,the group of friends, the love,
whereas this one is really about everybody fighting against their demons
and trying to win this battle called Gao Kao.
And it hardly has any romantic element.
At least so far, if you're looking for a high school romance,
you probably are not gonna find much in this drama.
The drama definitely gives each main and supporting character,
a personal hardship and difficulty that they need to overcome.
And it becomes everybody's joint effort through this exam preparation period to
level themselves up.
That's more important than anything else, the rainbow and unicorn.
And I really like that type of storytelling angle.
Also, there's one thing I really appreciate about this drama.
As a focused on gao kao drama, it finds a really good balance point,
not preaching, not sensationalizing,
not sadfishing and not over encouraging.
I have a feeling just by looking at trailer,
the other drama that may come later this year,
Zhang Ruoyun led similar to this high school one teacher leading a whole class drama
will definitely go towards the more dramatized.
Almost manga like style, that may be very exciting,
but you will know it is a dramatized version of reality,
whereas this drama is just very realistic.
And it walks the very fine line of not overdoing any type of things.
So these are all the positive points. I can see from this drama
and why i'm watching it daily as it updates.
Now let's talk about what's not so perfect about this drama.
And and I could see that this drama probably is not gonna get very popular
point number one because of its real realism.
It doesn't really dramatize anything too much, as a drama.
If you totally disregard how close it is to reality,
it does sometimes feels lacks that little bit extra punch of being a drama,
the type of hooking you in and make you wanna check out next episode after next episode
it does lack a little bit of that energy.
This is not the super exciting and having a lot of let's say
selling point, promoting point, marketing point drama
number two, this drama receives zero promotion from pretty much anywhere.
Youku really doesn't promote it at all.
It's definitely not the money making type that you can tell
CCCTV well it just airs on satellite tv, depending on if people tune in
And if they're interested in that,
since most of the high school students have just finished their college exam,
so maybe even the young audiences wouldn't really be checking out this drama.
They probably will go play video games and travel with friends and binge on web novels
instead of watching a drama, that reminds me of the year that they've just gone through.
Also for the other unfortunate thing about this drama is it's gonna run head into
summer slot, and we have that starting now
we have a Mango television drama starting pretty much today and then next week Youku
is gonna throw out and An Le Zhuan more than likely.
And after Yu Gu Yao, Longest Promise from tencent they're gonna pull
pretty much Chang Xiang Si (lost you forever) on
I'm thinking there isn't another candidate that will be even more suitable.
We are heading into the big bloody battle of summer holiday slot of chinese dramaland
and always during this time it's gonna be the high traffic actors,
high romance, fantasy period dramas, this type of thing
that gets most view and highest possibility of exploding
Has worked out for the last couple of years, always like this.
So I don't see this year being any different.
In terms of competition, this drama is no comparison.
It's casting, its theme, the type of drama it is
it's just not gonna compete with a big ip and idol and romantic and all that stuff.
You only have that much time. so this drama of its unfortunate outlook,
it probably is not gonna get any bigger than what it is now,
but it's actually not a bad drama and 各花入各眼
you know， different flowers looks like different things to different people.
You may like this more than other types and
if this is the type of drama that you happen to be interested in.
Then it's worth checking out for a bit,
at least on the day July 5th 2023,with all the dramas ongoing
that I managed to take a look at.
This is one of the better ones
that should conclude this first impression video of the drama Ray of Light, Zhui Guang de Ri Zi
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.