Review: Riverside Code at QingMing Festival (2024)
Set in the Northern Song dynasty, lowly scribe Zhao Bu You (ft Zhang Song Wen) and his wife Wen Yue (Bai Bai He) live in a quaint alley in the Capital. Originally living a peaceful life, their lives are upended as they become embroiled in a mysterious disappearance case of a large boat. From then on, multiple intriguing cases occur that uncover different mysteries from Zhao Bu You’s family’s past.
Total Episodes: 26
Airing date: Dec 16, 2024
Platform: CCTV 8 and Youku
Final Rating: 7/10: A digestable 26 episode drama with history and crime solving. This drama’s set design and production is top tier in recreating a living and breathing Song Dynasty capital. Entertaining for history enthusiasts but some cases are more intriguing than others. The main CP also falters.
Zhao Bu You 赵不尤 (Zhang Song Wen 张颂文)
Scribe in the Ministry of Justice
Wen Yue 温悦 (Bai Bai He 白百合)
Wife of Zhao Bu You, with a mysterious past
Gu Zhen 顾震 (Zhou Yi Wei 周一围)
Head Investigator at Kai Feng Fu. Sees talent in Zhao Bu You and family
Zhao Mo’Er 赵墨儿 (Zhang Yao 张耀)
Younger brother of Zhao Bu You. Introverted but skilled in chemistry
Zhao Ban’er 赵瓣儿 (Xiao Meng 夏梦)
Younger sister of Zhao Bu You. Originally wanted to be a doctor
Wan Fu 万福 (Lin Jia Chuan 林家川)
Investigator working for Gu Zhen
Overall thoughts
This was Youku’s last drama to breach 10,000 on its popularity index in 2024. This drama did not boast a young idol focused cast, but rather, features Zhang Song Wen and Bai Bai He as the main male and female leads. Both of whom are “older” actors.
Zhang Song Wen, of course, was a breakout star from his role in The Knockout in 2023 and has become quite popular with decent output. He is nearing 50. Bai Bai He is well known in movies with great box office success and is now over 40. I actually enjoyed the palette cleanser of a historical detective thriller with a more seasoned cast.
This short 26 episode drama started off rather intriguing but couldn’t keep the momentum going into the end. Still, it was an entertaining watch. It has a 6.5 on Douban which I’m assuming is related to the second half of the drama. I still thought it was highly entertaining for those who like history.
What Were Its Strengths
The History! The drama is set in the Northern Dynasty and the events of this show help inspire the painting of THE famous Qing Ming Shang He Tu or the “Along the River During the Qingming Festival” Painting by Zhang Ze Duan. That painting is equivalent to a Monet in terms of renown in Chinese culture. As such, the drama tried to recreate many scenes from the painting to give us a living, breathing Song dynasty. We could see the various types of businesses, individuals, events happening all around the capital of Bian Jing and enjoy the type of marvel it was back in the 1100s. I loved how alive the show seemed.
The costumes for each individual, the types of food people ate, the shows they watched, the music that was played. the boats that were used. It was evident there was incredible emphasis on attention to detail.
At the end of each episode, there was a small snippet where a cast member would highlight key historical items featured in one of the episodes. Literally a small “baike” or “wiki” on the drama. I particularly enjoyed watching those to learn a bit more about Song dynasty culture.
Focusing on the common folk: In contrast to many idol dramas, this show focused squarely on Zhao Xiao You’s family. He is a lowly scribe while his wife Wen Yue runs a bamboo umbrella business. He has 2 young siblings, Zhao Mo’er and Zhao Ban’er, plus a senile father. But each person has their strengths. The drama focuses on various gruesome murders that the Zhao family become involved in and help solve but each person uses his or her unique skill that are crucial to helping the case. Yet, for the most part, they are normal every day person. These common folk throughout the drama were the ones to really surprise us with their bravery and intellect.
One of the key takeaways from this show for me was that the every day person can make a huge impact and fight back. Courage is not reserved for the wealthy and powerful. Doing what’s right is always hard and even those with political power could cower and those with even more power and connections. In this drama, we saw how much bravery it took to try to change a corrupt system for those without power and connections.
Entertaining supporting characters/cameos: There were so many familiar faces in the drama that they almost stole the thunder from the main cast. While this drama can be rather gruesome, I died laughing in some scenes. One scene in particular was when Wen Yue’s old acquaintance/bandit who had to pretend to use a Sichuan accent and yell pronouncements of love to Wen Yue to get out of a bind. Another was when Gu Zhen, lead investigator of Kai Feng Fu, and Zhao Bu You go meet a eunuch, the eunuch’s amorous gazes on these men plus their reactions afterwards were so much fun. The actors for these 2 cameos/side characters are well known for Chinese audiences and though only had a brief moment on screen, were highly effective.
Zhang Xing Yu’s Madam Zhang was beautiful but oh so cruel. She is played this devilish character who cared naught for human lives so well that I wished we saw more of her.
What Suffered
Main couple CP Despite quite liketing the characters of Zhao Bu You and Wen Yue separately, the chemistry between Zhang Song Wen and Bai Bai He was rather lacking, especially on Bai Bai He’s part. I enjoyed the flashback scenes of young Zhao Bu You and Wen Yue more vs the current day scenes. They were quite effective in their respective roles when trying to solve cases, but their interactions as a couple seemed rather wooden. Gu Zhen’s CP Wang Yun Chang was more effective
Cases needed time to breathe: For once, I thought a drama needed to slow down in between cases to digest what happened. The cases are solved relatively quickly but the deaths are not only quite brutal and covers quite a bit of social commentary. The plot is very focused on tying the different cases and threads together that the cases later on seem less important despite not being so. Especially the one with the missing women. We met a Chi Liao Liao for a very brief moment and because the antagonist was tied more closely to Wen Yue’s family, we didn’t hear much more back story of this Chi Liao Liao. There were many exceptionally interesting characters in this world that should have had more screen time.
Plot holes to the cases in the end game: I won’t spoil too much but the first several cases that seemed more independent of each other also seemed more well thought out. Not all cases are going to be airtight in these dramas but the ones into the finale cannot allow for deep thought. Hence why perhaps the drama went through them at breakneck speed. If we allowed those cases to marinate, maybe screenwriters would have seen some of the issues with the plot and rounded out the story in a better manner. There were quite a few unanswered questions left in this story.
Misc Thoughts
The drama heavily focuses on what happens when despairing individuals are pushed to the breaking limit. They fight back in the most brutal and violent way since their is no option against their oppressor(s) who are wealthy and powerful. I couldn’t help but think to the major incident that happened in NYC with regards to a health insurance CEO when watching this drama…
Let me know what you think!
