and the star of Record of Strange Things is the story itself.
Intelligent people write intelligence script that actually makes sense.
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.
Yi Wu ZHi, The Record of Strange Things
is a 36 episodes web drama that has recently finished airing
on the platform Tencent.
If no weirder things occur for the rest of 2022,
this is likely to be the most unique chinese drama.
And here are the reasons.
First, this is an old old drama.
It has been put on shelf,
refrigerated for over 6 years.
It was actually made back in 2016.
That was before this channel.
I started it back in 2017.
Second unique thing
it is made by the team that has a very weird,
almost cult like following in dramaland
who has created a very interesting ip back in the 2010s
called Mao Pian, Moral Peanuts,
a drama that's focused on the bottom of the society,
ordinary people who are con artist,
masters of fraud.
And there's so many twists and turns and super clever scheming
and that series of dramas that happened back in
2010, 2012, 2015
is one of the most unique chinese dramas ever existed
in chinese dramaland and this drama was made
After that, the director did send out this weibo.
After this whole thing finished airing
talking about they encountered a lot of difficulties
of putting this work out,
but not being specific.
So they'll just keep it to themselves and never let public know what
really happened to cause this drama to be delayed for six entire years.
And then when you look at the drama itself,
it is also unique cause you don't see any other drama of this type of story.
Now
essentially the idea of Heroes like the American television series
of people having unusual super powers
but this drama's version
The only difference is that they aren't born with it.
They happen to come across strange things,
objects that give them power.
I guess if they naturally have the power,
it wouldn't pass censorship.
all in all, this is so unique that I don't think
you're gonna see another one like this.
This year or even in the next couple of years
at the beginning, you'll see a very short clip of something happens a year
or two ago before the meantime line of this story,
a tragedy that happens to our male lead character,
not gonna spoil it for you,
go and watch it yourself
that propelled him to do things and search for things.
And that leads to the current timeline.
He knows there are a lot of strange objects.
and they all were created back in min guo time
republic of china setting time.
These things look like ordinary daily objects,
such as a ring, a watch, pair of glasses, random things.
But each of those objects has special powers such as controlling time,
jumping through space,
change your appearance.
He's convinced that the tragedy that happened to him
is due to somebody used a special object of this kind,
but exactly what it is,
he doesn't know
who who did it.
He doesn't know.
And his life is on the search.
As it goes on, he comes across different people who joins the team.
Eventually you form a 4 to 5 main character core team.
They'll come across two main organizations who
are also trying to collect all those objects.
Seemingly they're gonna have a big conspiracy
behind the scene and that type of story.
And then eventually you find out there's actually more about it
in a way, the 36 episodes of this drama
is like the trailer of a much bigger story
that you feel the creators are cooking up,
but as the first season already got delayed 6 years and it just
doesn't seem to be very likely they're gonna have a second season
audiences are joking if you wanna make it
make it NOW
Otherwise the actors are all gonna get too old.
I've watched a little thing.
I ran through it for 3 days nonstop
and I almost didn't really fast forward it.
And this is probably one of the hardest dramas for me to rate ever
because there are certain things this drama did
so much better and so well than 99% of other chinese dramas
that it deserves a lot of
but then, like the director himself said
this is too old a drama
when it was made. they were so restricted with resources
that the expression of the great idea is
very lacking in pretty much every aspect.
So if you look at that side of the production quality side,
it just press down the rating so much.
I'll put it at one gold mine.
It's definitely on the positive end.
I'm gonna talk, first about the good things
and actually in the order of the most important thing
why I think this drama has just such special quality and then
lesser and lesser important points but still making this drama interesting.
so the most unique thing about this drama is
it is created by this team that is known to be able to write really old school
well written, paced plot, twists, characters,
exciting page turner stories
they carry on that quality of that
to this drama where although the whole premise of
the story is definitely fantastical
about superpower objects that can create all kinds of drama,
spectacular things on screen for the audience.
They set up a rule for their story and they follow it through.
Everything that happens in this drama.
What people can do, cannot do,
how people take advantage of certain objects'ability and limitation
to coax other people, to set up traps,
to get themselves out of trouble,
and to have those steps and steps of chess play of all kinds of
clever people fighting against each other
with the rules they set up.
It all works out.
The logic is tight and some of the logic and twists are very clever.
and you cannot say that for 99% of chinese dramas these days,
preschool level mistakes that you see in every kind of dramas, period,
contemporary, fantasy, whatever.
Now you look at all the crap.
That's prettier, well packaged and shot and produced of 2022
you're just like ah
you just so miss the old days where
intelligent people write intelligence script that actually makes sense.
We're not asking for rocket science.
We're just asking for things that actually works out.
If you want a worked out drama that has a lot of fantastical element,
you're not gonna get a better one this year probably
second let's be honest.
You don't have superpower contemporary dramas these
days in chinese dramalan
okay for one reason or another.
That's not a genre that exists anymore.
This is the only one you're gonna get.
The third thing that's really good about this drama
particularly because of it's old, when you watch it.
you kind of like go into a time tunnel and you realize 2022
chinese dramas are actually really different from 2016 dramas,
which is in this drama, the importance of tell a good story,
overridesthe importance of
making actors look good,
which unfortunately has become less and
less common in chinese drama these days,
whether it's a serious production,
whether it's a not so serious production,
whether it's highly claimed or just crap drama,
they are hoping to promote dramas based on the popularity of their leads,
whether it's like the idol ones,
or even the veteran actor ones,
reputable ones who've been working in the industry for decades.
Still you have this almost like the entire industry has lost its compass.
What's the thing that can bring people into watching the drama?
oh It features this star,
whereas this drama, there's no star in this drama
and honestly a lot of actors are so amateur.
Their acting sometimes just needs a big whip
and you just wanna jumping and say come on,
get an acting coach and sort out this scene
because you're just making it like crap.
So actors their own fame and like is almost invisible in the drama.
And the star of Record of Strange Things is the story itself
and somehow that is almost impossible to have now in 2022.
and it's so sad and unfortunate
in a way, when you watch this drama,
you just feel i'm so happy to be able to see a drama
like this where even in the live comments,
you wouldn't see fandom, watered down comments
with ten copied same line of
oh this idol is so good looking.
oh my god this is so
his acting is so great
you're not gonna see that
everybody's just talking about the plot.
Nobody's talking about the actors.
Thank heavens
and it just makes me like this drama that much more,
because it doesn't have all the shit that's attached to.
One person's fame decides everything
and the justice of everything.
Then I just pick out the personal point is
I was so happy to see Zhang Tao (章涛） showing up.
You're not gonna see this character and this actor until much later.
And I went into this drama blind.
I had no idea who are in it.
So when he showed up, i'm like,
YOU?
and he plays the most theatrical,
most
playful,
most interesting role of this drama probably
he's the most professionally trained actor,
everything considered
his posture,
his performance,
his line delivery,
his ability to literally changes his vocal quality
to suit his particular interesting role.
Previously i've watched a lot of dramas with him as supporting roles,
usually as the bad guy,
that's why a lot of people when they first saw his role in under the skin,
they thought he is the bad guy,
because he just has the bad guy vibe
in this drama he kind of comes out as a bad guy too,
but he's much more interesting than that
And i'm just so happy to be able to see.
I didn't expect this actor in it
and I just liked his role so much.
Those are the great things about this drama
super unique good points.
Then let's talk about the bad things because it's not perfect.
The director himself,
the producer himself like everybody who worked on this drama
themselves agree in 2022
looking back at 2016 produced drama,
so many things can be improved.
The very obvious thing is production quality is lacking
everything considered
special effects, sets, budget.
And you can tell they tried their best,
but they were still far away from being a very well oiled,
finely tuned, matured,
industrial standard production.
And often you're gonna have to just basically convince yourself, it's like,
yeah let's keep watch just focus on the story.
forget about how embarrassingly unprofessional
it looks at this point,
get yourself prepared.
Second thing, it does give you the very strong vibe of most of the actors are.
So unprofessional that you forgive them,
basically sometimes their acting is just so not like they've been
trained that it takes you out of the illusion of a visual story.
Unless you are a Moral Peanuts fan,
some people show up and you're gonna get like that nostalgia thing.
i'm so happy to see him or heard that you ignore just
how unprofessional their acting can be at times.
I guess even if when you don't understand mandarin
chinese and you can only read subtitles,
you watch this drama,
you're gonna get like very very
~~~~~ at times
that acting that timing like
the sense of timing when two people are talking,
and how they should act at certain points is still off the beat,
you're like come on.
Can we just reshoot that scene?
Because it looks so bad.
So these are the two major major drawback of this story.
And obviously, if you fall in love with the story,
then the third thing is,
who knows if they're ever gonna make the second season
and a lot of the things they've set up,
the clues they've buried and twists and turns that you
see at the end of the story may never get explained.
Overall, the record of strange things is a drama that actually
had a really good base of story, characters, exciting plots,
and twists and turns
ideas that's probably out of ten.
You'd say the idea of the story.
And its bones is worth eight.
But then when it got executed and realized
three out of ten,
four out of ten maximum.
So it is a good base that just limited by so many things that at the end,
the performance and expression of it is lacking.
And a pity.
And the director even said, basically,
now it's 6 years later,
and we believe most of the 2022 drama audiences will not
care for this kind of production quality anymore.
And I agree for most of the audiences who do not have any emotional
attachment to this crew to this creative team
to their moral peanuts days
and to any of the background stories.
Knowing nothing,
if you don't know it's a 2016 drama,
you just clicked open and watch it.
And for one episode you're gonna go
who made this?
did somebody just randomly grabbed some people on the street
and went shooting outside of their apartment on the street
to make this drama
like it looks just so bad in so many ways
but somehow I actually managed to stick through.
It's really unusual.
So I don't think there's gonna be another drama like this in 2022
and probably in the next 5 years also
unless the team itself go and make another drama,
it really can only be made by this team.
And these people
I wouldn't recommend if you're not really that
much of a lover of chinese dramas to go explore this one.
And if you don't have that much free time,
there are many,
many more dramas that probably is more suitable for
2022 audiences to watch
whether it's a chinese drama or other countries' productions.
But for everyone who is very,
let's say seasoned watchers of chinese dramas and
you're curious about this really unusual project,
it's still worth your time exploring it a bit.
Some parts of the plot will make you very happy, but know.
You would also have to grab your fist and just bear
through some of the embarrassingly bad moments.
So that's AvenueX's review on the drama Yi Wu Zhi
The Record of Strange Things,
make up your own mind about whether you should
test this one out.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
i'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.