奋斗 - young life, love and work

Just watched the first episode of this on recommendation from a friend - fairly good stuff, I thought. Bearing in mind I've only watched one episode, it looks like it's going to follow a small group of friends who've just graduated and are grappling with life, love and work in the real world.

Production values are pretty good, script is quality, got a few laughs out of it and while some of the tragic bits (won't give away any plot details, as you'll guess them in five minutes anyway) are a bit overwrought they could have been a lot worse. I'll probably watch a few more episodes of it and see how it pans out.

Sina's page on it has some info in Chinese, Emule links for those of you who want them.

Anyone else seen any of this?

I've watched the entire series before.

The acting was pretty awful at first but does get slightly better over time as the actors get into their characters. One thing that struck me as unbearably melodramatic (however poetic) and unrealistic were the series of alternating monologues or professions of love and interest between (especially two) characters. Dear lord, I wanted to shoot them.

The girls are pretty fly.

Xiao Nan is cool too, just because he has such a dorky character.

Oh, and they get a bitchin' pad later on too!

The acting didn't really bother me, but I think I might have become immune to bad acting. Didn't enjoy the next couple of episodes as much as I did the first though, and I'm not too keen on the way the plot is going - a decent drama about a bunch of young graduates making their way would have been fine, but already we have the long lost dad turning up who . . . oh! happens to be a property tycoon . . . and . . . . oh again! can't have children. . . . and my oh my! is setting up a company just as his son is looking for work.

Also it looks like it's just going to focus around the main guy and his family / girlfriend - I'd like to see more of the other younger characters.

Will probably give it a few more episodes, but at this point I might be inclined to ditch it and try something else.

Incidentally, there's a 奋斗2 also available, with the guy who played 刘东北 in 中国式离婚 - might be worth a look if you managed to watch all of the first.

The girls are pretty fly.

The girls all need a decent meal. And if that annoying daughter of his dad's business partner turns up again I'll be frisbeeing the DVDs off the balcony.

While I'd say that the series probably gives his story arc a bit more time than some of the other characters, the other kids do get their stories told. I personally found him to rather unbearable as his story comes to a climax but I liked his dad, as I thought the dad was a better actor than the rest combined.

By annoying daughter, are you referring to the main guy's first girlfriend? The one he cheated on?

I still maintain that the girls are pretty fly, but maybe we just have different tastes. The "healthiest" one is his girlfriend, with the short hair (I've forgotten most of the names by now) and she's fly too (originally from Shanghai and copping a pseudo northern accent for the show too). I have a thing for girls with short hair.