Street Dance of China: Season 3 (2020)

The best of all seasons so far

Skip season 1 & 2 and go right to season 3. The captains made watching this very enjoyable, unlike the previous seasons which were a lot 'colder'. Jackson, Yibo, Yixing, and Wallace all showed great respect to the dancers which the dancers also return to them. And the dancers themselves show great sportsmanship. No dirty editing (or at least none that I could make out). Heck, even the commercials are fun to watch.
The moments I always go back to include the captains' battles and cypher in episodes 1&2, Tao & Cici's emotional couple dance, the whole water stage episode, and Chun Li's first battle.
The only disappointing part for me is the bias towards certain teams/people. There were certainly many performances that I thought should have won over others (coming from a dancer's perspective myself).

Overall, this show is good for both people with or without dance knowledge.

Edit: I've returned from watching a few episodes of HBDC and I must say that SDC is way better.

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Should be called "Scripted Street Dance of China"

I originally came only to watch Yibo as I'm a big fan but I fell in love with many of the dancers and am now following them on Weibo. And the bond that they all formed, be it the four captains or all four dance teams. They really supported each other through the highs and lows of each episode. Sadly a lot of the battles and picks and rules changed on the fly over each week so people who threw towels each week could barely keep up. The last episode especially had a cruel moment where they pinned Bouboo against Yan Kai and used Yibo's song "Wugan". It was beyond disrespectful and everyone knew what the show was doing. They had more then enough dancers from the other teams to split it fairly. No other team had to dance against one another. But the sweet moment came when Yan Kai still won the entire competition. No matter who the winner was, I wish the show had not played fans and dancers as well as captains for fools. They still had high ratings because of the captains. The dancers knowing something would happen in the finale, many opted out of the resurrection towel dance even though we fans voted for them. I am glad however that friendships and bonds were forged among everyone that will last a lifetime. I just wish that part hadn't left such a sour taste in my mouth and I watched nearly all 7.5 hours of it live.

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Its started great and at the end I dont want to watch this ever again

I decided to enter this show blindly from season 3. Main reason Yibo (Im not a fan but Im curious) and Jackson Wang I could say Im partly a fan and surprisingly he didnt become my favorite in this show. My main stars in this drama are the dancers and like I said I had no ideas how this show made its rules and who would win. I thought it was a win on teams and not one person which for me is where everything crumbles down(Ill explain why later) lets starts with the pros:

Two judges that standed out for me was Wallace and Lay. Both made a family with their team and their team respected them unfortunetly for me most of my favorite dancers belong in those teams and this two teams really crumbled.

The dancers for me robbed my heart from their respect to the judges , to the love of their dancing , the explanation to their dance performance and their tears of joy ,sadness and loss is what made me cry every episode. I find it dissapointing that people only compliment the judges but for me the true stars in this shows are the dancers I have a more clear image of my favorites than any judge.

the choreos , the different styles of dancing the performances and mainly how original and how the crew helps the teams when they need light , effects , props and more to make the perfect dance and thats why the excesive ads where not annoying to me because this show is clearly EXPENSIVE.

CONS:

Wallace is weird sometimes specially when female judge guests appeared, his image for me kind of changed after that and hes no kid he is in his 30-40s he should know what to say.

Yi bo lack of connection to his team is what made me not bother to watch last two episodes once I found out his team won I just fast foward to confirm . Why? I blame editing, lack of connection with team , lack of editing for his team , lack of stories , lack of sense of we are a family but more like youre my chess pieces and Im the one moving them to win. I couldnt connect with him or his team. Not even one dancer of that team. Actually the only dancer I liked was the married guy and thats because he was the only one that had a story in the beginning but then he just stopped appearing less and less that I forgot about him also Chick but thats because he was amazing and very fun and even he stopped appearing less and less.


Lack of female dancers
Every single time their was an elimination female dancers where the choice to eliminate and what bothered me the most was the mindset of a bunch of guys and only one girl and to me that felt like a "Stand there and look pretty" why not more female dancers? why a female prop instead of being multiple woman leading a team? Wang Yi bo only one girl , Jackson one girl , Wallace only one girl , Lay had three girls and eliminate one and then in the last round eliminated the last two with a all male group in the last episodes. In the semi final ONLY TWO GIRLS in both in different teams. TWO GIRLS. Both of them eliminated before the final but battle elimination. Specially more dissaponting to see is not all girls did difficult dances. why not?
I would love to see that.Only KK could stay and that means only ONE girl out of all those guys in finals.

Voting system is VERY FLAWED
who thought that putting normal public was a good idea? Wang Yi bo dances in the team? He won, Jackson wang dances, He won, Lay dances? He won. See where Im getting and you woudl think it would be a close win NOPE. Jackson team vs Lay (Jackson dance) 72 votes over 10 votes then Lay dance with his team and Jackson didnt 72 votes over 10 votes Lay won.Dont get me started when Yi Bo dances. The voting system was awful of course its filled with fans. Fans would vote for his bias regardless if he was bad or good in the dance floor. Who pays the prices? THE DANCERS because they get eliminiated. HORRIBLE. I understand having famouse people as judges brings views and I dont blame the judges I blame whoever thought of the voting system.


The last episode and why is it one winner?

What bothers me with this is , they bring different styles to the competition , contemporary , jazz , hip hop , urban all of them very very different and bring themm all to one group. RIGHT THERE the idea is amazing to me once I found out the end of this serie is a battle 1 vs 1 . Everything died for me. Why? Let make an example of Ballet does a completition and invites all different kind of dance styles but the theme is ballet no matter what. who will win 1 VS 1 ? ballet. Contemporary dancers dont stand a chance in this competition , not jazz or any different kind of style that didnt outstand the main styel of the competition. So why add them? again as props. They use this dancers as props to the main dancers that do make battle win. Thats horrible. Nobody in that show goes to lose , they go to win and I do think the one dancer that understand how this show was done was Gai Gai in episode 9 she just knew she was never going to win. why? the show wouldnt win with a contemporary dancer and even learning new styles she is indeed far back than those that did the main dance the show wants to win in. If this show was a group win I would understand why they mix so many styles because it makes a bunch of people learn more , work team and to learm and build a perfect team. Not use other different dancers to make the main theme stand out and win. Lets make the hexample of episode 11 Su Lian Ya is an amazing dancer and everybody knew this , she would stand out in group battles and always played her part once her time to battle came. she wouldve never won. why? her style is differen and thats why she was so embarrased in the end. Thats why in episode 10 Wallace eliminated the choreogapher, he didnt need him anymore. The groups would be divided and he clearly wasnt the strongest dancer. wallace used him and discarded him. This are people , all of them once eliminated felt sad , depressed and mostly cried of course. Even one guy left his baby to be in the competition but at the end they make a battle on styles that are too different , some of them will never stand a chance. Playing with their feeling breaks my heart specially when you see them on screen and how passionate they talk of what they love , the stories they bring to the dance floor on how they feel. Breaks my heart. The dancers for me made this show amazing and only for them .

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Found Through YouTube Algorithm, Now I've Gotten Everyone Else Into It

I found this show, and this specific season, through YouTube's algorithm putting together that I am both deeply interested in dance videos and also the idol Wang Yibo.

Good news, they were right on the money.

At this juncture, having finally finished the show, I have successfully convinced about 10 people to watch this show and having finished it, I have no regrets. This show is fantastic. I love competition reality shows, and this manages to combine things I love - competition! dancing! - with things I didn't know I needed - a fierce camaraderie, friendship, and a certain kindness that I find lacking in a lot of competition reality shows.

I love the captains - from Wallace's kind uncle energy to Lay's commitment to Chinoiserie - and this show gave me a greater appreciation for the judges I was previously unaware of. To be honest, the only person I knew on this show before I started was Yibo and by the end I'm now a fan of the other captains and am honestly really excited for Season 4.

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battles are fun to watch, but the fans are so biased.

this show was really fun to watch, but the fans were so biased.

the parts i enjoyed the most was the interaction between the leaders/captains. whether it was their stages, battles, or just them talking with each other. it always made me laugh, and especially the parts where they would use chinese idioms to explain how they felt about the stage/dance.

SPOILERS IN THE REVIEW!!

now for the review..

there were so many stages where wang yibo's team got first, but one of the other teams were more interesting and skilled.
dont get me wrong, wang yibo and his team are super super skilled and talented, but there were many stages where they did not deserve first.

i really wanted huang xiao to get in the finals, but he lost against yang kai in the freestyle battle. i know yang kai is a super super talented b-boy, but i was getting so tired of his repetitive skills. when huang xiao finally brought something different to the freestyle battle, i was so happy. sadly, he didn't make it into the finals.

i'm kind of glad they put bouboo against yang kai in the freestyle battle, because i did not want the final 2 in the whole competition to both be from wang yibo's group. i kind of wished bouboo won tho, because i was so tired of seeing yang kai's breakdancing. bouboo's musicality and his moves are so interesting to watch. he doesn't use like "insane skills" everytime, but that's why i like watching him dance.

other people just use skills to wow the audience, and it works most of the time, which is really annoying. but as a dancer of 11 years myself, having skills does not equal being good at dance. skills are only a little part of dance. musicality, coordination, choreography, sharpness or softness, movement flow or isolation depending on the music, facial expressions.. those are the most important aspects of dance. a skill looks the same every time. you can only wow people so many times.

bouboo continues to wow people every single time he freestyles, no matter what type of music is being played. he pays attention to the music, listens to the beat, finds space in the song to add freeze movements, or areas where the song is flowy to add flowy movements, etc. no wonder why he is a world champion. his body naturally just responds to any beat, any song. also, i felt like wang yibo wanted bouboo to win more rather than yang kai.

during the last stage of the 25 rounds of freestyle battle, i felt so bad for xiao chao. the fans were obviously going to vote for yang kai because of his b-boy skills. xiao chao did extremely well in the battle even knowing the fact that he was losing and he knew his stamina was not as good as yang kai because he is a hip hop dancer and yang kai is a b-boy. i will admit, yang kai is very good and he held up so well in the battle. i was really proud of xiao chao for holding up too, he gave the competition his all. it's really a shame that xiao chao didn't win, i really wanted him to.

i'm gonna be honest, i didn't even smile when yang kai won. i mean.. good for him and wang yibo i guess-

i started this show wanting wang yibo to win, but i realized how biased the fans were. my favoritism started to shift throughout the show from yibo to zhang yi xing. his dances are so good and every time i finish watching him dance i just wished i was there to like scream or something.

my favorite stages this season were:
- huang xiao and qiao zhi's duet
- ak dong's hip hop routine in the semi finals
- literally all of xiao chao's stages
- zhang yi xing's chinese style stages
- wang jia er's stage where he was in a virtual world

overall:
my favorite trainees were xiao chao and huang xiao. i'm glad they made it far in the competition, and many many people got to see their skills. it's a shame huang xiao didn't make it into the finals, i know his stage would've been so good.

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Wow I really appreciate all the effort that was put into this show. Huge thank you to our four captains, they were all amazing!! Round of applause to all of the contestants that participated!

I would like to start off by saying that I came into this with a mind full of stereotypes and full of expectations. It’s not the right mindset to bring with me to something that is new, but I didn’t know a single thing about the realm of street dance before watching this show, so I could only go off of what I thought street dance was. Twelve episodes later I have learned so so many things that broke my stereotypical depiction of what street dance was/is and I learned so much new terminology! My prior knowledge of street dance was limited to only a few styles—now with my newfound knowledge—I can identify as sort of like swag/jazz/urban/hiphop. In other words, Jackson’s style is what I typically thought of as street dance. Locking, waacking, breaking, house, etc…what’s that?! Lol I never heard of those before watching! Not to mention the entire dictionary of terminology that I learned about battles! More on battles later…

I was initially pumped for this show because of Wang Yibo, so initially I automatically rooted for his team. But after a couple episodes, I was so caught up with a ton of other contestants across all teams that I really didn’t have a team I was rooting for anymore. I mean in the end, this is mainly a competition for the contestants and not the captains anyway. Jackson, Yixing, and Wallace all were superb and their interactions with each other were so f hilarious and genuine. It was just like watching a bunch of good bros rave about their love for dance. All the captains did amazing jobs handling their teams, and I loved the obvious respect that each and every single captain and dancer had for one another. Sportsmanship was huge and I liked that every person respected that. Friendship first, competition second. Each person had such different personalities onstage and offstage, and they did not let the competitiveness interfere with their friendship. “Love and Peace” y’know?

Aggressive, is the word that I used to describe what I thought street dance was all about. Aggressive language, aggressive behavior, aggressive attitude, etc. But I learned after watching this that the most important factor was aggressive passion. It’s always a joy to watch other people perform the things they love, especially in artistic forms like dance. Each person on this show showcased their passion for dance and it’s something like this that really captivated me as an audience. I think this passion can really be seen in the battle rounds, and oh boy, they were liiiiiit. It always amazed me how they are able to choreograph complete routines in just mere minutes, and even more impressive when they have to come up with moves in mere seconds during 1v1 battles. All the battles were intense for sure, and it’s not something I can describe in words. You’ll just have to watch for yourself. P.s. I also love the MC for the battles :D

The type of art showcased in this show can be appreciated by anyone, and I really encourage people to watch this show. As Jackson always liked to say, “this is art!” Indeed. Even if you can’t understand Chinese and skip all the commentary, you can still enjoy if you only watch the performances. Although I do know that there are English subbed versions out there, so there’s no excuse not watch this! I really appreciate following along with this show over this summer, and it was definitely the highlight of summer 2020 for me. The goal of the show is to let more people appreciate and learn about the culture of street dance, and they definitely reached that goal.

Edit: can't wait for SDC2021! Heard the OG captains will band together again ;).
P.s. the slogan on the winning scarf is "Peace and Love" ._.

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The Interesting Street Dance of China

It so sad that I only discovered this show only this year. But still I'm so happy that I've gotten a chance to watch it. I watched this show because I got curious about Wang Yi Bo's white and blue hair highlights LOL. I just watched a random cut clipped and later on find out that I'm already watching the whole episode. I got facinated how beautiful their filming site. The street designs and the cinematography. Their awesome stage. I really commend the artistic side of China. And I also find out that there's so many good Chinese dancers. It gave me mixed emotions every episode. There's one time that I'm so happy and excited every battle and cried a lot with their cruel elimination. LOL. You will also find the 4 captains enjoys each other company. You will notice a major character development of every dancers in the succeeding episodes. You'll definitely deeply in love with Wang Yi Bo, Lay Zhang, Jackson Wang and Wallace Chung after watching the show.

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