This is like the sister in law relationship focused drama
depending on what kind of audiences you are
if you are a huge domestic conflict thing digger,
you probably will like this drama.
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.
Xin Ju, Life is A Long Quiet River
Is a 35 episode drama that's been aired on web
iqiyi and two different satellite televisions at the same time in china,
the drama is led by Hai Qing, Tong Yao, Zhang Songwen, Feng Shaofeng
it's directed by Teng Huatao, and written by Teng Xiaolan
who is both the writer of the original novel with the same
title that the drama is based on and the drama script itself.
This is a collaboration production of a lot of different production companies
also the platform iqiyi nd tencent,
it only airs on iqiyi so on the back end there probably
is some kind of deal that they decided to do.
The drama is fully set in the big metropolis city Shanghai
and it started shooting last year April wrapped in August.
At this point i've watched the first 12 episodes,
i'll give it a between one and two gold mine rating as of now.
and Now let me introduce you roughly to the story
and then as usual positive /negative points,
this is a domestic life drama set in current shanghai.
Like many other drama we've seen this year and also last year
Modern Marriage i've talked about recently A Little Mood for Love.
Earlier this year
even last year's couple of shanghai setting dramas,
it's very very similar.
The story itself focuses on two female lead characters
played by Hai Qing and Tong Yao, and they are sister-in-law
Tong Yao comes from the shanghai local family
who is as the story starts very successful higher management
of a venture capital company somehow you know
dramas cluster together and they all have the main roles
doing the same kind of job.
She does very well earns a lot of money, career woman.
And then she has a twin brother who is much less "useful"
And successful in career
And his wife is played by Hai Qing
Hai Qing is Tong Yao's sister in law and she comes from a less well
doing and smaller city
and their relationship as a story develops becomes.
the sort of core relationship of this drama
starting from a place where
they don't really have the best opinion of each other to later,
they collaborate and become each other's strong support
So this is like the sister in law relationship focused drama,
although it also touches on many many many
other supporting roles in their family,
such as the parents generation, even the grandmother's generation,
uncles and aunts, the cousins,
the younger generation, all the preferral people
who are related to them gets pulled into this narrative.
And then Zhang Songwen plays the successful investor
in property who got filthy rich due to his early life,
correct decision of buying properties,
his head over heel over Tong Yao's role
but then tong yao literally just doesn't
look at him in any of those romantic ways.
So the archetypical Tian Gou and Bei Tai
then Feng Shaofeng plays the guest star main role
who is Tong Yao's role's childhood sweetheart.
Later, their relationship between these four people are gonna get
really jumbled up and weird okay
judging from the trailer.
Now let's talk about what's great about this drama
and what's not so ideal
on the positive end.
Number one, like pretty much every contemporary drama i've seen this year,
very good standard of production quality.
So i'm not gonna stress on that anymore.
I pretty much say that for every contemporary drama,
i've review this year
and they're all proper professional real actors,
no traffic involved,
all real voice,
pretty much onset recording,
no skin smoothing,
no idealizing and over beautifying of things.
Point number two, the casting,
if you like Hai Qing, Zhang Songwen
Tong Yao and Feng Shaofeng
all of them or any of them,
this drama probably is gonna make you very happy,
even the supporting roles who plays the older generation
younger generation,
they're all very good.
I would further divide them into a tier one and tier two.
I would say Hai Qing and Zhang Songwen are the stronger actors.
so they're the tier one actor
and then Tong Yao and Feng Shaofeng are the tier two,
but they all do a good enough job.
When you watch the story,
it's very easy to just go with it and then Hai Qing really is a
master of playing this particular type of contemporary woman role.
She's the type of actress that you know whenever you hear her name,
you know it's gonna be a contemporary domestic life drama
and she's gonna be great.
However the script is written whatever the setup of the role,
it's like her niche and she's known for that.
And honestly, if it wasn't for her playing the leading female role,
it would not be the same drama.
Then the third positive thing is as a domestic drama
that focuses on very much relationship between family
members and conflicts that you come across living the life in shanghai.
Child's education, property buying
the dynamic between a family,
where the more successful child and a less successful child
and how they have power over each other,
you know how it works with the parents and grandparents
all that, you're gonna get it in this drama.
And if you dig it,
it's pretty satisfying
it doesn't drag,
it really get down to businesses.
And for the first couple of episodes,
certain things happen really fast,
faster than I expected.
And it very quickly cut into the main theme
and the main relationship we're gonna see.
Getting unfolded in the 35 episodes.
It's the type of drama for a typical chinese family
that's possible and highly likely to be turned on on television
around 8 pm at night to 9 where you have the younger generation,
the parents' generation, even the grandparents generation,
sitting in the same living room and being able to all watch
it and not feel that they need to jump to another program.
So very typically the golden-time-slot-television-drama drama
and then only not so ideal side of things.
Number one is very personally,
okay if you are a fan of hers,
I apologize in advance
which is I don't quite buy into Tong Yao's performance.
I'm not saying she's a bad actress
compared to a lot of,
let's say traffic idol actresses,
she's a proper actors.
The baseline of her performance is better than a lot of
I wouldn't call qualified as proper actress actress,
but then when you want to compare her with other really professional,
proper and well established actresses,
she immediately falls short.
In this drama whenever there's a strong conflict
showdown level of sceme between her and Hai Qing's role
wow,
immediately she gets flattened and trampled by the other side's,
strong acting.
So that difference and gap only comes through comparison.
And if she's not compared to a much stronger actress,
then she's watchable
in recent years.
I've noticed she tends to just do the same kind of acting
for every drama she's in
It is very hard for you to tell if her different
characters has different designs and different vibes.
Also I notice she tends to cover her face
whenever it's a super emotional scene
where she's supposed to cry,
she just does this,
she did it in Rebel,
she did it in this drama in a couple of very emotional scenes
And maybe it's her bad habit,
or maybe it's just that she doesn't have enough tears and she just,
hides it in that way
I can't tell
i'd rather see her face instead of covering it up all the time.
And it's just a couple of things i've noticed
of her acting that i'm not big fan of,
but it doesn't affect too much of my enjoyment of this drama.
I basically just fast forward through some of her acting parts.
There's very little details of her acting.
So even when you speed it up,
you really don't miss anything.
Also maybe just because personally I just don't feel it's fair
that for the recent very heavyweight chinese television award,
the white mongolia,
it's not Re Yi Zha who got the best actress but her
and I don't think it's fair and i'll always stand for what I say
for that is I think for last year's dramas it should be Re Yi Zha
okay? not her
so maybe maybe I just have that and and I have a
little bit prejudice against Tong yao okay in that respect.
Then the second thing about this drama is depending on what kind
of audiences you are
if you are a huge domestic conflict thing digger,
you probably will like this drama
if you are more conflict avoiding
and do not wanna raise your blood pressure over this type of things.
Like me,
this drama may be the type of drama where once you turn on one episode,
you can pretty safely watch till the end and not really feel the need to quit.
But then once you shut it down,
next day, when new episodes come,
whether you have enough urge or sort of mental readiness to click,
open another episode,
knowing you're gonna head into another conflict,
heavy domestic difficulty rising plot,
whether you'd rather have something else.
So for me, while watching this drama,
if I already had it on,
I can enjoy it pretty much.
But then it's the convincing that I have to
do on myself to actually open a new episode.
So for me,
there's a difficulty of watching this drama is I need that convincing.
I need to take that leap and kind of force myself to do things.
I don't quite wanna do so that I can watch the new updates.
I'm not sure even with really good acting from ZSW and HQ
i'd be able to sit through this entire thing.
I wouldn't give up along the way one day was like
yeah I don't need my blood pressure to go up over these things today
and then I drop it.
And then once you drop it, you don't wanna go back to it.
If you are like me who for some reason,
just don't quite wanna watch that much domestic conflict thing,
then this drama may not be the best choice for you.
So that's pretty much my first impression on this drama,
Xin Ju, life is a long quiet river
where really this drama
is not very long and then it's definitely not quiet.
You're gonna see a lot of pretty melo plot happening,
although not to the point where it gets ridiculous like that drama.
That should be the end of this video.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you my next video.
Meanwhile live long and happy drama watching.