My Favourite Chinese Dramas of 2020

This drama has just ended timely for the year for me to pick as my favorite C Drama of 2020. Everything I love in a drama is here; touching human situations, unforgettable music score (a sucker for that), interesting story developments, great looking casts and stunningly beautiful prop and cinematography. The story and filming location is based in Dali, Yunnan which is my favorite province in China (I'm a Chinese Malaysian). You may notice the high quality setting and gorgeous interior design which I treasure a lot in the drama.

The first few episodes may be a bit slow for some people especially with the dreamy location of Dali's lake district and laid back, vacation vibe of Erhai lakeside town. I was soon drawn into the series when I noticed the dual perspectives, that go on until episode 14., have been cleverly done . The whole drama wins me over with its non-predictable plots and three dimensional characters; there is no totally evil main villain here.

The two male leads are very handsome and act brilliantly while the female lead is beautiful in a mature and graceful way. All the supporting casts also give excellent performance. Zhan Yu's character is empathetic and you will be happy to rewatch his scenes in the finale. This is one drama you will not think 40 episodes are too long because many characters are given enough screen time to make an impression including the adorable interaction of Zhao Ting Hui's (2nd Male Lead) subordinate cop in the last few episodes.

I hope other Chinese directors take note of this drama by not showing spoilers in the intro song and use original voice which make the watching experience so much better. In one of the climatic scenes involving a bomb, you could hear the music score changes from poignant to heart throbbing to heroic. The brilliant music scores move me many times to tears throughout the series and the few songs featured are also very melodic.

The last 15 minutes of the finale could have been rearranged to please more people but since this drama has been quite different from others, I guess the director wants it this way.

Thank you director for the fantastic series! I will remember the leads fondly and look out for Li Qing's (Zhan Yu in the character) future work. I was pleasantly surprised to see extra scenes of him!

PS: This has been a strange year for C Drama where my favorites are all modern dramas; this drama, Ordinary Glory, Hikaru No Go and 安家 as I gave up many period dramas with childish leads and ridiculous cross dressing FL.

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