any good TV series recently?

[StChris]

I just watched the first two episodes of 《狂飙》. It's similar to 《人民的名义》in that it deals with corruption in politics. A few of the actors even return from that series, which can get a little confusing! It's good from what I've seen so far, but I'm not into it enough to buy the channel membership.

 

It think I'll give 《去有风的地方》 and《三体》a try next.

[happy_hyaena]

Looking forward to reading what you think of it. Actually just like how Youtube shorts keep spamming me with Peaky Blinders, Sopranos, Boardwalk Empire etc my WeChat keeps spamming me with scenes from《狂飙》. Definitely on my list. Still on the romcom drama wagon though so I'll watch 向风而行 (Flight to You) next with 王凯 and 谭松韵. The former I really liked from 狼牙棒, the latter played the young daughter really well in 以家人之名 (despite being 30+ years old).

[Tomsima]

I'm halfway through 狂飆, it's great, much better than 人民的名义, the propaganda stuff goes away almost entirely after a few episodes and it turns into a great show, stick with it!

[phills]

On 1/30/2023 at 12:22 AM, Woodford said:

And as someone whose first language is not Chinese, I’m reminded how terribly difficult it is to understand movie/TV dialog (even more so than other kinds of audio). I resort to subtitles at times.

 

I watched a bit more of the 3 body problem, and I'm getting more used to the dialog volume. 

 

I wonder if part of the problem is Christopher Nolan influence / naturalistic performance style, which has affected English language movies & tv shows for the last 10ish years:

 

https://www.slashfilm.com/673162/heres-why-movie-dialogue-has-gotten-more-difficult-to-understand-and-three-ways-to-fix-it/

 

 

Millenials and Gen-Zers now prefer to watch English media with subtitles.  Even movie theaters are "open-captioning" regular movies.

 

I don't watch enough Chinese language movies & tv shows to know if there's the same trend in Chinese shows.  Maybe Tencent's three body problem is filmed in a  Hollywood-y style, with 汪淼 giving a naturalistic performance. 

 

Curious as to whether others think watching a Chinese movie/show without subtitles is becoming a harder standard to meet over time.

[rongminshan]

In my opinion 《去有风的地方》is good if you like soothing dramas. It's pretty slow tho.

[MadmaxxxMaSiDe]

欢乐颂（三季）：I watched the first season, which was quite good, second season became rather boring. I still was looking forward to the third season, which was released with a delay of two or three years ...

Watching the first episode of the third season I realized that they had changed the entire cast!! So I was on the brink of not continuing to watch (usually I´m that person that finishes any book or tv-show once I´ve started it). For some reason I kept watching the first episode, and I´m really glad, the whole season was really entertaining. Definitely  recommend it.

 

Next I watched 致我们暖暖的小时光. Could have been just another college love story, well in fact it was, but I found it to be a lighthearted show and way funnier than expected.

 

Right now I´m watching a K-Drama dubbed in Chinese on Netflix. On Netflix there are only very few American and Korean TV shows dubbed in Chinese. Does anyone know, if there is a website, where I can stream more non-chinese movies and dramas dubbed in Chinese?

 

[Woodford]

On 3/10/2023 at 4:36 AM, phills said:

I wonder if part of the problem is Christopher Nolan influence / naturalistic performance style, which has affected English language movies & tv shows for the last 10ish years:

That was a really fascinating video! As a complete outsider, it's so easy to be oblivious to all the work that goes into producing a film.

It's all part of an interesting dynamic--as a language learner, my goal is to acquire really good comprehension of the Chinese language. So often, I encounter barriers that are frustrating to overcome. And some of that, indeed, comes from the fact that I'm not a native Chinese speaker. At the same time, I have to keep in mind how difficult it can be to comprehend one's own native language. "What did that person say? What do you mean by that? How does this statement logically cohere with the previous one?" Etc. You can see examples, all day long, of people failing to understand each other properly. If my English comprehension continues to face those challenges, it's unrealistic for me to expect to (completely) overcome those same challenges in Chinese.

It reminds me of when I tried to listen to old recordings of Mao Zedong speeches. Couldn't understand a thing. Frustrating. Then I scrolled down to the comments below the video, where I saw a lot of Chinese people complaining that they, also, couldn't understand anything without the subtitles. So sometimes my failure to understand is because of my general need to improve my skills. Other times, it's not that straightforward.

[realmayo]

I agree, if large numbers of native speakers find it hard to understand certain movies etc without subtitles, then we should be relaxed about using subtitles too, and rely on radio and podcasts to improve/benchmark our listening.

 

One feature not mentioned in that link appears to be: filmmakers have come to believe that “if you want your movie to feel ‘cinematic,’ you have to have wall-to-wall bombastic, loud sound.” Yet a soundtrack can be cranked up only so high, an explosion of the same loudness as a human voice won’t sound like an explosion at all: “you need that contrast in volume in order to give your ear a sense of scale.” ... and on a TV or computer that means dialogue has to come out quieter, in order for everything else can sound louder.

[StChris]

On 3/10/2023 at 4:11 PM, MadmaxxxMaSiDe said:

Right now I´m watching a K-Drama dubbed in Chinese on Netflix. On Netflix there are only very few American and Korean TV shows dubbed in Chinese. Does anyone know, if there is a website, where I can stream more non-chinese movies and dramas dubbed in Chinese?

 

The Naked Director (a Japanese show) has a good Chinese dub. I've been watching a lot of Korean stuff too, but unfortunately they rarely come with Chiense dubs.

[MadmaxxxMaSiDe]

The other day I was looking for info on Baidu about dubbed korean dramas. Someone mentioned, that there simply wouldn´t be the need for dubbing such series, as everyone prefers the original versions with subtitles.
What I did find though, were those two or three minute snippets of american tv shows dubbed in Chinese on Bilibili, so some of them must exist somewhere.

 

And thanks for the recommendation, will be the next on my list.

[sekkar]

Finished 漫长的季节, which seems to be very "hot" right now. Same director as 隐秘的角落, so if you've seen that one then you sorta know what you are getting.

 

It's a suspense crime drama: you follow a couple of characters as they investigate the case, both in the past when it happened and in the present after a 20 year time-skip.

The crime part is pretty standard (although well done), but what elevates it is:

* Interesting setting, in a fictive Dongbei industrial town, giving of the kind of declining rust-belt town feeling you get from a lot of dongbei places.

* Great actors all-around, and tons of local dialect!

* Zero filler (my pet-peeve with Chinese shows...)

* Pretty damn dark to be honest, something you dont really see much in Chinese media I feel. Fits very well with the rust-belt setting.

 

I think this one might be one of the highest quality Chinese tv-shows I've seen. It is not my personal favourite, although I still really liked it, but I can't think of any other shows I would be able to recommend with any buts or asterisks, just a good quality TV-show.

 

Oh and it is available on youtube as well!

 

[Jan Finster]

On 5/15/2023 at 1:48 AM, sekkar said:

Finished 漫长的季节, which seems to be very "hot" right now.

Looks great. Where did you watch it (stream it from)?

[sekkar]

On 5/15/2023 at 4:12 PM, Jan Finster said:

Looks great. Where did you watch it (stream it from)?

I'm not sure about this site's policy for linking to copyrighted material, so I wont link the site I used.

 

Almost all episodes are also available on youtube though (official account), I assume the last few will also air there soon.

[Lu_于云颐]

Hey! There's "Take My Brother Away" (Netflix)

"My Strange Friend" (WeTV)

and others on Netflix. They also have Chinese anime

[StChris]

I few Taiwanese Netflix series I've watched over the past few weeks (they are all short at 10 episodes or less):

 

她和她的她 Shards of Her - I can't say too much without giving away any spoilers, but it's basically the story of a woman trying to put her reality back together after memory loss resulting from a trauma (think alternate universe stuff). Not bad, but I thought I was in for a 想见你 style mystery, but the plot didn't really develop in a satisfying way. It's got a good rating on 豆瓣 though (8.6), so maybe others will enjoy it more.

 

模仿犯 Copycat Killer - the cops try to find a sadistic serial killer. I thought it was good for the first 4/5 episodes, but then a lot of the mystery of the killer was lost and things got a bit silly. Worth a try.

 

人选之人：造浪者 Wave Makers - this one is about a group of spin-doctors/a PR team trying to win an election for their political party. It might be interesting to anyone with an interest ion political shows, but unfortunately that's not me and I ended up doing other stuff while it played in the background.

 

For mainland Chinese stuff, I have been 去有风的地方 as my watch while on the treadmill at the gym series and it's been good for that purpose (no intricate plot to keep focussed on and the language is all simple, everyday stuff), so thanks for that recommendation. The main actress might have the sweetest/softest speaking voice/tone I've ever heard! It always sounds like she's speaking to children, even when she's speaking to adults.

 

I'm going to watch the Korean drama The Glory. Not good for improving my Chinese, but I heard it's really good (it was super popular in China, apparently). An older Korean drama to check out if you missed it is My Name. I think it was overshadowed by Squid Game at the time, but it's a really great cop/gangster show. Although the actress is very petite, the action scenes were really good and they managed to show her kicking all kinds of ass without it looking too unrealistic.

 

While I like watching mainland and Taiwanese shows, I have to say that I don't think either are quite up to the quality of Korean dramas at the moment. I don't know what it is about their culture, but they have been putting out some really good stuff these past few years!

[markhavemann]

Watched 《伍六七》 aka. Scissor Seven a little while ago. It's a Chinese "anime" type thing with three seasons so far. I think it's available on Netflix.

 

It's a little all over the place (especially the story telling) and flips between being a pretty crazy but fun little cartoon and a slightly cringe-worthy Chinese style anime. Luckily it mostly leans mostly toward the fun cartoon side, and spends enough time being ridiculous and not taking itself too seriously to be worth watching.