Chinese Dramas Airing in Oct 2024
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2024-10 Drama Update
山花烂漫时 2023 9月10日 央视一套 宋佳 乡土
She and Her Girls
Let’s start with a dark horse drama that has taken China by storm.
In 2008, middle aged teacher Zhang Gui Mei is determined to open a fully funded all girls school in the poor Hua Ping district of Yunnan province. She’s seen too many girls, forced by their parents and family, give up their futures to work or get married at a young age. She believes education is their ticket to more opportunities and strives to open a school for these young girls. She finally secures the initial funding to build and open her school, but that is just the beginning of this battle. She must persuade teachers to join her staff. She must persuade the young girls to attend her school. She must secure continued funding to run this school. She must ensure the students perform well during the critical Gao Kao exam. Zhang Gui Mei never gave up in her journey to give a home to these young girls and show them a path towards a brighter future.
This is my favorite drama of the year. I put up my review online after binge watching it in 3 days. This isn’t a despairing drama but one of hope, sass, and humor. It showcased a woman (middle-age to boot) who strove to do something because she absolutely believed in it. When we talk about “female empowerment”, Zhang Gui Mei is the shining example.
I was naive to discover that these events occurred as recently as 2008 but not shocked. Despite the outstanding strides China has made in the past century, old habits die hard and it was heartbreaking to watch the girls who were discarded. I really dislike it when the older women are the ones making the young girls suffer, but that’s the point of breaking the cycle.
Song Jia does an excellent job depicting Zhang Gui Mei and I hope she gets nominated for awards with this role. She absolutely captures this stubborn, sassy, yet warm teacher who fought tooth and nail for her students. She came from humble beginnings and wants to change the lives for these girls. We rarely get middle-aged women in juicy dramas like this for a woman to share such a positive message but we have this drama exactly because there’s a living historical figure still championing the same mission she’s had for her whole life.
Enough said – just go and watch it! I did cry like every other episode but in a good way, so just enjoy!
流水迢迢 9月14日 腾讯视频 任嘉伦、李兰迪、徐正溪
Love in Nirvana
This historical romance features Ren Jia Lun as the main male lead and Li Lan Di as the female lead with Xu Zheng Xi as the second male lead. Li Lan Di plays a young woman named Jiang Ci who grew up in a small village as an orphan, raised by her teacher. She dreams of exploring the world to eat the best foods and see the most beautiful views. So, she decides to, with permission from her teacher, leave home to head to the capital. She heads to one location in particular and steals their wine but accidentally gets caught up in an assassination attempt. She runs into Wei Zhao featuring Ren Jia Lun who is leading the assassination attempt. He tries to eliminate her to not leave any witnesses but doesn’t actually do it. Meanwhile, the Duke of Jian Ding, Pei Yan featuring Xu Zheng Xi arrives to protect the official Wei Zhao is trying to assassinate. The assassins flee when the attempt fails and Pei Yan finds Jiang Ci. He saves her and gets her much needed medical treatment as she is a key witness to the events that happened. She wakes up and is embroiled in a political battle and needs to stay alive as key chess pieces for both Pei Yan and Wei Zhao.
This drama I think solidifies that REn Jia Lun’s star power is on the downward trajectory. This drama has only breached 26000 on Tencent’s popularity index, which is really quite low. This is his second,you could say, flop of the year and I don’t know if people are willing to return as key fans for him. Interestingly, Ren Jia Lun has gone back to using a voice dub for this drama. Unclear if it’s because he has been utterly panned for using his real voice in other dramas but that’s certainly a different direction.
I have watched most of this drama primarily for Li Lan Di. There are plenty of problems with it. Primarily in the first 10 episodes, a common comment I see on it is whether or not the main female lead, Jiang Ci has stockholm syndrome because Wei Zhao literally tries to kill her multiple times and has her seriously injured but then she turns around and falls in love with him? And, for the first 10 episodes, I was seriously confused as to who was the main male lead because it seemed like Pei Yan was doing all the right things and was more important. I also was infuriated by the stifling and overbearing mother of Pei Yan who put immense pressure on her son. If she didnt, he probably would have turned out to be a better match for Jiang Ci. In any case, this drama is good background fodder if you like.
漠风吟 9月29日 腾讯视频 哈妮克孜、方逸伦
Love in the Desert
This drama is based off a book and tells of the tale of the most beautiful woman from the desert, the princess 皇北霜. She is the keeper of a powerful scroll and is on her way to be married to the prince of another kingdom. However, during her journey, she encounters another woman with a similar fate. They decided to swap identities in hopes of finding better fortunes. During their journeys they are captured by bandits, rescue handsome strangers, and must navigate the politics of the desert.
Finally we have a drama featuring a beauty from the western parts of China set IN the desert. 哈妮克孜 is another Uyghur actress who has made a name for herself with her excellent dancing skills but her acting hasn’t been that great. And…well, she’s still not great here BUT at least she’s gorgeous to look at. It helps that the costumes really do fit her. As for Fang Yi Lun – yay! HE’s finally a lead. He seems stuck on having roles where he’s protecting a princess on a route somewhere. That was the case for the Long Ballad and A Journey to Love. His acting is much better than 哈妮克孜 but they make for a handsome couple. I watched two episodes and uh what can I say. Don’t watch it for the plot, watch for the beautiful princess. I heard it gets better as the drama moves on so I might just watch passively in the background.
七夜雪 2023 10月9日 爱奇艺 李沁、曾舜晞、王弘毅、曾可妮、陈昊森
Snowy Night: Timeless Love
This is billed as a rare Wu Xia drama and is based off of a book of the same name. I binged the book after hearing it was announced and it’s actually a quick read. It might even be translated in English, someone may have to do some digging since it’s an older book and honestly not that long of a read. This drama is billed as a tragedy so be prepared for that.
In this wuxia costume drama, Li Qin plays Xue Zi Ye, a renowned doctor with the reputation to cure the most difficult ailments. People and warriors from all over the land come to seek her aid. But she has a tragic past where her adoptive village and the man she loves most were killed while her younger brother was also taken away. She is met by a young swordsman,, Huo Zhan Bai, who has the token required for her to admit medical care and requests that she save his friend’s infant child. This “friend” is the woman he loved before she married someone else. Xue Zi Ye agrees to try to save the child and is surprised by his persistence in the face of many dangers to try to save the infant as it mirrors her own in trying to revive the man she loves. Their time together, though brings them close together but the appearance of a mysterious young man from her past changes everything.
This drama was filmed partly on location in XinJiang and, as you can tell, snow is a heavy theme in the drama and Xin Jiang winters were perfect as a backdrop. From promotional videos, the scenery of the Xin Jiang snow fields are stunning and with this drama having many more Wu Xia components, it does seem to be at least a palette cleanser. I’m excited as I said for this drama but gosh darn the drama around top billing and second billing has been rather annoying to read online. And I say this as a Fan of Li QIn. I just want to watch it, probably with a bunch of tissues prepared for any tears and call it a day.
锦绣安宁 2023 10月10日 湖南卫视(22:00) 张晚意、任敏、此沙、张瑶
The Rise of Ning
This is a historical romance drama where Zhang Wan Yi and Ren Min lead the cast. This drama was actually filmed before Are You The One but is airing after it with
In the Luo family, daughter Luo YiNing never liked all the traditions and prejudices of society growing up and routinely helped her 3rd brother Luo Shen Yuan who was bullied often. But she slowly realized that Luo Shen Yuan actually is quite the talented and skilled young man. After a heartbreak, Luo Yi Ning decides to become an entrepreneur and open up a store. Meanwhile, Luo Shen Yan has been seeking the truth of his teacher’s tragic death. He does help Luo Yi Ning in setting up her business and the two grow closer. She becomes a successful business woman while he succeeds in the imperial examinations and also finds the truth about his teacher’s death.
Unsurprisingly, this drama is based off of a book called 首辅养成手册 which I have not read. Set photos for this drama are, in my view, quite nice. Zhang Wan Yi looks handsome enough and Ren Min’s hair and makeup in this drama are quite beautiful. Both of them are trying to build on their careers and while people know of who they are, they need to prove whether or not they are commercially viable. Zhang Wan Yi is ramping up on the “idol” track I would say. He was just in Paris I believe and was present for the Valentino Show with his co-star Yang Zi and there were spotted grabbing hot pot in Paris after the show.