你好1983 36 2024 3月17日 爱奇艺 周也、翟潇闻 年代 –
The first drama to discuss is Dream of Golden Years 你好1983. This is a 36 episode period drama starring Zhou Ye and Zhai Xiao Wen. It began airing on iQiYi on March 17.
Here’s the plot summary. Modern day female executive 夏晓兰 starring Zhou Ye is pushed to take the fall from her company’s downfall. In a desperate haze, she unexpectedly finds herself time traveling to an 18 year old village girl in the early 1980s. She has no money and no power, but she’s young, she has a mother, and a lot of gumption! Step by step, Xia Xiao Lan seizes on every opportunity to learn to change her fate. She finally gets accepted to her dream university and begins her entrepreneurial journey. Balancing her studies with her ventures, she also encounters a love story that is both sweet and bittersweet. In this new life, Xia Xiaolan sheds her former timidity and hesitation, choosing instead to actively embrace her destiny.
Here is another time travel drama back to the 80s or 90s but this isn’t a standard romance drama. Yes, there is a central romance, but the focus is on the growth and development of Xia Xiao Lan as an entrepreneur. The drama hasn’t done too well from a popularity perspective in that it hasn’t breached 7500 on iQiYi’s popularity index. However, I’ve heard decent things about the overall message of the drama and Zhou Ye’s performance in it with her costars. Hopefully this is a good bounce back for her from her 2025 drama Legend of the Female General 锦月如歌.
家事法庭 26 2023 3月25日 央视一套 龚俊、任敏 涉案 –
A Modern day court drama drama called Hold a Court Now featuring Gong Jun and Ren Min that was filmed back in 2023.
Wow, the description from Baidu is so underwhelming. Young judge Shen Xie Zhi 沈谢秩 ft Gong Jun partners with Lawyers and other legal professionals and enter the base level work that helps the public resolve conflicts regarding family, marriages, monetary issues etc. In each case, they aim to uphold the law while adding a flavor of humanity.
From various clips, this is a decently good fodder for a modern court drama. It’s not a thriller but goes into somewhat of the every day court cases that people have to deal with and are more relatable than some of the gruesome crimes of other shows. This drama is doign well on CCTV 1, currently sitting at the top of the television viewership ratings charts and breaching 3% which is not bad. Obviously, because it’s not a fantasy or idol drama, it doesn’t get as much of an online following or marketing. But, if you want to watch Gong Jun in something a little bit more grounded? This is a good choice.
白日提灯 40 2024 3月28日 腾讯视频 迪丽热巴、陈飞宇 古装
Love Beyond The Grave
The next drama to discuss is Love Beyond The Grave or 白日提灯. This 40 episode fantasy romance drama stars Dilraba Dilrmurat and Chen Fei Yu. The drama began airing on March 28th on Tencent.
Here’s the plot summary: 400 year old ruler of wandering spirits, He Si Mu starring Dilraba Dilmurat, was born a spirit without ever experiencing the 5 senses. She has an iron grip of her realm. She ventures to the human realm in the aftermath of a brutal battle while on sabbatical and is intrigued by the appearance of the 破妄剑 or the Sword of Breaking Illusions in the possession of a young human general. Duan Xu, starring Chen Fei Yu, is the new young general of the Tai Bai Army and has a bold ambition to expel northern invaders. He has a mysterious backstory, which further intrigues He Si Mu. She is determined to claim the sword, which belonged to her aunt, for herself. Their fates become intertwined. Through the human realm and spirit realm, He Si Mu and Duan Xu must decide if their powers and lives are worth what they have been given.
This drama is the adaptation of a popular book of the same name. In the book, He Si Mu is the ruler of the ghost realm or 鬼王. For the drama, they changed her character to become a spirit, however, she still plays the character very similar to a ghost. This is a different twist in the fantasy romance genre where the female lead is the all powerful being and the male lead is the mere mortal. I’ve started watching the drama and boy oh boy, please start watching! The drama moves along briskly with great performances from the leads. Dilraba delivers a fantastic performance as He Si Mu. He Si Mu enjoys wandering around the human realm but is never truly human as she doesn’t have the 5 senses. Dilraba captures this nuance wonderfully. As a spirit ruler, her demeanor completely changes to be one who is absolute command. Dilraba changes the pitch of her voice through each of her iterations and it’s again such a treat to listen to her change her acting and voice with the snap of a finger. The special effects are jaw droppingly good, one of the best in recent years.
The drama only just started airing and has breached 27000 on Tencent’s popularity index. Hopefully it’ll perform better but as of now the production quality, storyline, and acting have been top notch.
[Karen]
月鳞绮纪 29 2024 4月1日 优酷 鞠婧祎、曾舜晞、陈都灵、田嘉瑞 古装
Veil of Shadows
This fantasy costume drama started airing April 1 on Youku Starring Ju Jing Yi, Zeng Shun Xi, Chen Du Ling and Tian Jia Rui
Man – the start of this drama was absolutely CRAZY. Not even because of the drama content itself, but because of the main female lead. Apparently Ju Jing Yi had a feud with her management company Si Ba Media and they have it out for her. We all know that tax evasion in China is a big deal in the chinese entertainment industry. It can RUIN careers and absolutely have people blacklisted. So guess what this media agency did? Publicly post that Ju Jing Yi was committing tax fraud. Like WHAT THE HECK. proactively trying to ruin someone the DAY before her drama was supposed to air. That’s crazy!! The internet was all abuzz on what that meant and if Ju Jing YI was done for.
But, the speculation didn’t last long because shortly after, the Chinese equivalent to the IRS or the tax revenue agency in China posted that they have been auditing/investigating Ju Jing Yi following reports since last September and have found no tax wrongdoing. How satisfying is that?? Absolutely insane that this Si Ba media would go to such lengths to take down one of their former actresses but also good on her for being proactive to preempt this.
ANYWAYS, That was WAYY too much background. Here’s the actual plot.
Lu Wu Yi 露芜衣 ft Ju Jing Yi is the youngest nine tailed fox of a mysterious organization called Wu Xiang Yue. 无相月. She and her sister, Wu Wang Yan 雾妄言 ft Chen Du Ling are on a mission to look for a missing fox demon, Xiao Wei. Lu Wu Yi disguised herself in the Wei manor in the city of Luo An. At the same time, 武拾光（曾舜晞 饰）was also sneaking around in the Wei manor, with revenge as part of their plan. Together, they were looking for various truths and decide to work together. However, the different parties have different motives yet in numerous battles against the dragon god’s power, they are able to change the flow of destiny. In the end after many successes, they are able to successfully destroy the demon lord Jiu Ying 九婴