Liu Wei is an actor out of this world

I am writing from Bucharest, Romania, a country which was communist until 1989. To my thus trained eyes, this movie is obviously answering to a PCC request to portray the policies aiming at the transformation of the countryside to the point of "errasing the differences from citylife".
However, in spite of that, the Chinese director and scriptwriter really knew how to deliver ...
It was sheer joy to watch such an intellectually rewarding script, with ample character development and plot turns, which provides a stark view into a vry brutal Chinese contemporary society.
The title role is played by Zhao Li Ying, who also had the female lead in “The Story of Minglan”.
She is good, outstanding are the supporting cast, but out of this world is Liu Wei, the 65 year old actor playing the local PCC leader.
I put Liu Wei in a chategory of his own, as stays Anthony Quinn, for instance.

The series starts with a bang, when at a wedding party in a village, the bride saves her sister from being raped with bashing the asailants head. The would be rapist was the son of the local PCC leader.
From there on, to the very end, it unfolds the uphill battle of the female protagonist with the family she married into, with the villagers, with the PCC local leaders. For a long time she is the underdog, and stays the underdog.
The last 30 minutes in the last episode rushes in the positive and politically acceptable outcome, but this fact cannot erase the rest of the episodes of sheer brutal realism.
Cudos for getting past the censorship such a movie!

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An absolute masterpiece

Perfection is the word for all the actors envolved, but I need to name here Duan Yi Hong for his portrayal of chancellor Lu Buwei. He is so, so subtle in his rendition of the multifaceted personality that Lu Buwei was ... It was a joy to watch. I was annoyed by the choice the casting directors had for the character of the first emperor: while the scripted words and the historical records said he was a teenager, the actor's age was obviously 40. Good actor. However, it was easier on the viewer to let go of this blatant discrepancy, only when the script dropped the constant reference to the character's age. Other than that, of course, there is the issue of translation into English. While I commend anyone's effort for providing it, still, that should be handled with much more care. I read a lot of comments from bilingual people, those who understood both Chinese and English, who were unhappy with it. I for one, have no hint of what I really missed from Chinese, but I got an idea that something was amiss from the English lines. So, when translating for us, the international viewers, do not work harder, but better. Thank you.

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So well done, that it pains to watch

This drama it is so well done on all levels, the performance of all professionals it is so outstanding, that the end result for me was that I could take it in only in small doses. No binge watching for me. This is something to be savoured. But also something to be weary of: the subject matter is dark and its rendering touches one deeply. It reminded me my first watching of Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of "The Shining", with Jack Nicholson in the leading role. I was literally hiding behind the door frame and looked at the TV with one eye only, ready to take refuge behind the wall. I am a grown up now, no hiding behind walls for me. Just pretending to have chores to do, so that I can take in, in small doses, this beautifully crafted Chinese series. Also, among the great cast all around, it was great for me to recognize actress Liu Lin whom I first spotted in a support role in "The Story of Minglan" series, of 2018. There, she and many other so called support role actors, delivered to the hilt, to the point that there were more "main role" performances than the casting presumed to be.

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Too painful to watch

As always, I commend the great acting of all Chinese actors. No matter what I watch they never fail to deliver.
But this is the end of my praise.
I picked this title because of the director. I had watched his 2018 direction of "The Story of Minglan", and I was in awe: what a story, what great development of story line and characters, what drama upon drama and next to another drama. It was rich, rounded, shocking, enchanting and most of all entertaining, with actors that delivered to the tilt, turning even support roles in rich characters to remember. I re watched that series two times more, and it never failed to enchant me, though I knew or even more so since I knew the story.
And here I am at episode 9 of this "Serenade to Joy" and ready to quit it.
I have no words for how underwhelming this work is.
It took eight episodes to solve a so called conflict, which was not even fully developed or exploited as a conflict, between son, birth mother and foster mother. The dialogue was lame, the action was lame. No drive whatsoever.
And while I cherish the fact that people bother to provide us, outsiders, with English subtitles, I have to stand by one Chinese reviewer who protested for having the English subtitles covering the Chinese characters. It was a first for me too. All other Chinese dramas I watched had the two languages clearly visible separately.
I believe that our convenience, of being able to read in English, should not be won at the expense of the Chinese not being able to read in Chinese.
Regarding translation, I also have to point out that it was cumbersome, too pedanting in willing to transfer to English all of the subtleties of the Chinese dialogues. Translating for movies is different than translating for a book: one has to drop complexity of language and meaning to facilitate understanding. Soooo many times I had to stop the video and go back a few frames in order to read the many lines, in a not so fluent English. Sometimes even that action did not further my understanding of the translation.
Too bad. A lot of good people put a lot of good work into all of this, and yet the result is heartbreaking.

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The strangest tale was that the love interest was dropped out down the line

I am at episode 13 and seriously considering to stop watching it. The first thing which draw my attention for being quite off was the fact that the love interest presented in the first five or six episodes was completely forgotten by writers, actors and directors in the next five episodes. Two young people, who were presumably in love with each other while events and people kept them appart, are as stiff as wood when events bring them together, sharing meals, rooms, adventures. No emotion, no furtive glanses, no pauses full of yearning. Nothing. It did not have to be lines, or hugs or kisses. But it had to be something there, that the actors and director could have put into it, if the writers completely forgot what they wrote in the beginning. Well, it was not. The only thing going for the series was the detective stories. And the fun the actor playing the older detective put into his character. Otherwise, no character development, overall, and the series walks the thin line which lies between skematic and bare naked and lacking.

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