The first quarter of 2023 saw the release of several exceptional Chinese dramas with different themes, including science fiction, romance, and suspense. Among the remarkable additions were six must-watch series that stood out for their unique blend of genres.
From the breathtaking cinematography to the stunning costumes and gripping storylines, these dramas got viewers hooked from the very start. In this essay, we will explore the top six Chinese dramas of the first quarter, highlighting what makes them stand out and why they deserve your attention.
Three-Body
“Three-Body” is a sci-fi drama directed by Yang Lei and starring Zhang Luyi, Yu Hewei, Chen Jin, Wang Ziwen, Lin Yongjian, and Li Xiaoran. It was broadcast on January 15th, 2023. The show was adapted from the sci-fi novel with the same title, which was written by Liu Cixin.
It tells the story of the abnormal disturbance of basic scientific research on the earth, which caused panic and turmoil in the scientific community. The nano-physicist Wang Miao and the criminal police Shi Qiang jointly investigated and uncovered the mysterious veil of the “three-body” world of unknown civilizations outside the earth. Since that they have started a battle against the invading three-body aliens along with all humankind.
From a professional perspective, there are roughly two reasons why “Three-Body” is worthy of recommendation. On one hand, it has not compromised under great pressure. In the case of the film version being difficult to come out and the book fans having no faith in it, “Three-Body” has gone beyond the expectation as a Chinese sci-fi work. On the other hand, it has redefined the production level of domestic science fiction dramas and help the series open the door of hard-core sci-fi.
The core of the hot review on “Three-Body” mostly expressed the love for it from the book fans. It is worth noting that most of the keywords that only give an average review are also “respect the original work”. However, because of too much respect for the original work, it is difficult for the audience who has not read the original book to enter the story. In addition, parts of the cast, and the slow pace dragged by some plots have been the reasons for some average and low reviews.
Meet Yourself
“Meet Yourself” is a drama directed by Ding Ziguang and starring Liu Yifei, Li Xian. It was broadcast on January 3rd, 2023. The drama tells the story of Xu Hongdou who has quit her job and come to Yunnan for living shortly. During her stay, she met Xie Zhiyao, who came back to his hometown to start a business despite his well-paid job. After moving into the Wind Hotel, Xu Hongdou has met many tenants with different experiences and life stories.
When “Meet Yourself” was first on, the cast and crew were once worried about the slow pace and weak appeal would make a lot of audiences drop the drama. But with a lot of praise currently, we can infer that a considerable audience has long for a slow life to be shown in Chinese domestic dramas.
The drama has set the place in Dali, Yunnan, where has fresh and appealing rural scenery. With the farmland and vegetation in the Yun Miao village, Grandma Xie loves playing mahjong. Though the plots cannot escape from the neighborhood trifles, the relieving and soothing atmosphere revealed from the chit-chat has comforted the stressed nerves of every city person. It even once drove local tourism to increase.
Considering the keywords with high-frequency including “Dali” and “rural” in the reviews, folk customs and atmosphere are indeed important eye-catching elements in soothing life drama. Recently “Restart Life”, a Japanese drama of the same type has received great reviews because its protagonist has satisfied the audience's imagination and interest toward living in an exotic place. In this way, the higher the dialect concentration in “Meet Yourself”, the stronger the sense of been-there will be produced. The mandarin spoken by the elderly who live in the village forever in their life cannot convince the audience.
Another focus of good reviews around is the main actors Liu Yifei and Li Xian. Life dramas with relatively weak plots always need the characters to lead the audience in. Liu Yifei and Li Xian have a lot of fans themselves and have friendly temperaments, which means they are suitable for such characters. However, “Meet Yourself” is only the start of the slow pace life drama. As this type of drama becoming more mature, there will be lighter requests toward the actors and actresses.
The Knockout
“The Knockout” is directed by Xu Jizhou, and stars Zhang Yi, Zhang Songwen, Li Yitong, Zhang Zhijian, and Wu Gang. It is an anti-gangster detective drama, which premiered on January 14th, 2023. This drama tells the 20-year long live-or-die battle between the police force represented by An Xin, and the gangster. Through the group image narrative, the drama has demonstrated the contest between good and bad, and the complicated humanity hidden in it.
If there's only one drama to choose from all the shows in the first quarter, then it has to be “The Knockout”. Wide popularity means more attention and more criticism. It is undeniable that “The Knockout” has been criticized from its beginning to the end. The rather hasty finale has left many online audiences indignant. However, there are still 770,000 viewers who scored a high score of 8.5 on Douban, which indicates the success of “The Knockout”.
Unlike the previous shows of this genre which have focused on case presentations and solutions, this drama has an innovative perspective. With the help of showing the growth and the fate of two opposite protagonists, this drama has achieved innovation and breakthrough in the creation of criminal detective shows. “The Knockout” has also provided new ideas for the current detective show production in terms of narrative structure, characterization, and depth of conception.
With the theme of eradicating the gangsters, the show has not excluded itself in the intention of telling a thrilling contest between the good and the bad, but more deeply into the excavation of human nature and the reflection of reality.
Under the Microscope
“Under the Microscope” is an ancient historical suspense drama, directed by Pan Anzi, and starring Zhang Ruoyun, Wang Yang, and Qi Wei, with Wu Gang and Gao Yalin as special guest actors. It was broadcast on February 9th, 2023. The drama was adapted from the “Silk Case”, extracted from the historical novel “Da Ming Under the Microscope”, written by Ma Boyong.
The story tells the experience of a genius arithmetic Shuai Jiamo who has accidentally discovered from the county government tax book that the county bore the silk tax burden of the surrounding seven counties for more than a century, thus opening the journey of bringing order out of chaos from the bottom official to the higher government.
“Under the Microscope” is the best ancient drama in the first quarter. The historical novels of Ma Boyong have been a hit for onscreen adaptation. The recent works of “Wind in Longxi” and “Luoyang” have seen ups and downs in reviews.
“Under the Microscope” has had a common people friendly creation perspective. The audience's attachment to this drama has focused on:
- Firstly, classical aesthetics. The Hui style architecture in the drama as well as the clothing of the characters, and the daily utensils including bamboo baskets, and paper umbrellas have all drama the grace of classical aesthetics;
- Secondly, the right-on watching experience. The “Silk Case” is a tax dispute in historical nuances. The stubborn Shuai Jiamo has pleaded for the ordinary in a sinister environment, added to the right-on feeling of the good will eventually overcome the evil;
- Thirdly, the story has successfully broken the gap between ancient and modern times and aroused the empathy of punishing evil and promoting good from the audience.
Why Try to Change Me Now
“Why Try to Change Me Now” is a suspense drama directed by Zhang Dalei, and stars Dong Zijian, along with Hai Qing as a guest actress. It was broadcast on January 16 th, 2023. The drama is adapted from the novel “Moses on the Plain” written by Shuang Xuetao, which tells the story of the criminal police Zhuangshu in the pursuit of a taxi homicide case accidentally found that his old friend Li Fei was also involved.
“Why Try to Change Me Now” is a six-episode short series of drama, but each episode has a 70-minute length. The nostalgic atmosphere, extremely realistic art style, soothing rhythm, a large number of non-professional actors' performances, all these have shared common characteristics with artistic films, which made “Why Try to Change Me Now” distinctive from other detective dramas on the market.
Such distinction has brought challenges to the audience and aroused controversy on its reputation. The audience who gave a high remark mostly would list the similarities in texture between this drama and the movies of Hou Xiaoxian, Jia Zhangke, Diao Yinan, and Wang Xiaoshuai. These audience enjoyed the slow and flowing pace of the drama. But those who gave an average and even low remark have expressed that they could not accept a detective drama to be this mundane and slow-paced.
The whole drama didn't have any obvious narrative conflict. There was massive use of long shots, slow pace, and scarce use of lines. Lots of audience who hasn't read the original work has made their speculations at the beginning of the drama: whether there will be an accident happening to the characters, which character is the murderer.
However, these conventional experiences of watching dramas have gone useless when watching this drama. The first few episodes were just to give some background information on the growing environment of Zhuang Shu. Though they have had some connections to the later crime, they have not had too many evidence buried. The slow pace of story-telling has extended to the end of the drama.
Even though the plot itself has been narrated on the base of the murder, the drama has not applied the standardized expression of detective drama to push the plot. It has used images to produce a sense of atmosphere instead and weakened the detection's function. In the drama, there was more mutual influence between people and time, which made a more like a memoir of youth filled with a sense of age.
The Starry Love
“The Starry Love”, a mythical drama set in ancient time, is directed by Zhu Ruibin, and stars Chen Xingxu, Li Landi, Chen Muchi, and He Xuanlin. It aired on February 16th, 2023. The drama was adapted from Yidu Junhua's novel of the same title. It told the story of a couple of identical twin sisters who had distinctive personalities and had married the wrong one because of a misunderstanding. Not only a lot of jokes were made, but also two romantic love stories of myths.
As the finale of the “The Honey Trilogy”, “The Starry Love” has had good reviews just like the first two. Though this drama had the same behind-the-curtain production team, the incident of changing characters caused a relatively mundane response at the beginning. With innovative characterizations, high density of comedy and overall passable acting performances, the drama has gained its popularity after being on for several episodes.
“The Starry Love” has a similar structure of the previous mythical dramas but has made subtle changes on the characterizations and specific plots. Xuanshang Master was still divine to save the world. Under the oppression of patriarchal authority, he sacrificed his life to strengthen his power in order to save the world. Only after his soul went disappeared because of fixing the Guixu, Xuanshang did not go to the earthly world to suffer for a second life. His soul has been transformed into three pieces of “Divine Consciousness”, that is to say, three people. The plot was about to make these three “Divine Consciousness” to fall in love with Ye Tan respectively to put Xuanshang's soul back to the original place and make him a Divine again. After his rebirth, he continued to maintain the harmony of the world and unveil the mystery of Ye Tan' life story.
As for the plots and characterizations, Ye Tan was still a minor fairy who was naughty and naïve, just like in other dramas. She has become more mature through the tragic love between the higher divine. Xuanshang was still a patterned character who was cold, emotionless and willing to sacrifice his love to save the world. The heroine was for comedy effect while the hero was for pushing the plots to develop. These two characters were put together for comedy effect. The drama is asl a large-scale mythical drama. Its costume, cast and performance were all remarkable. However, the balance between comedy elements and the innovation of plots has not been quite good.
In conclusion, the first quarter of 2023 delivered a range of outstanding Chinese dramas that catered to various audiences' interests. These six dramas offered something for everyone. Each series was crafted with care and attention to detail, bringing to life their respective themes through exceptional storytelling, dazzling visuals, and powerful performances.
Whether you are a fan of history, action, suspense, or romance, these must-watch dramas stand out for their unique blend of genres and exceptional execution. The first quarter may have ended, but these six dramas will keep viewers coming back for longer after the credits roll.
