Down on Mainland dramas?

[WangYuHong]

I was going to add this to that thread on comtemporary dramas, but didn't want to side-track that conversation. My apologies if this was discussed previously.

My wife (Chinese) loves watching dramas. We mostly see the Mainland ones, but also the occasional dubbed (Korean) one as well...

For the most part, I enjoy watching them. They help me practice my Chinese and I can kinda follow the plot. But they always seem to revolve around tragedy. That's not so bad by itself, but for the most part, they always end the series on a negative note. Someone important dies, or the family is in ruins... No one ever triumphs and overcomes adversity. Now, that may be more realistic, but it leaves me feeling awfully depressed afterwards. After watching a couple series with her, I decided I can't follow any more (even though I'll watch the occasional episode here in there).

Anyone else experience this same thing? I'd list some shows as examples, but I generally don't like posting spoilers, and I don't remember their titles anyway (I always seem to remember them by the song they play during the closing credits).

[skylee]

I agree with you. When I was younger I loved watching / reading tragedy. Now I think that there are already too many tragedies in real life that I don't really want to watch / read about them. This is exactly what our beloved poet 辛棄疾 said a thousand years ago -

少年不識愁滋味，愛上層樓。愛上層樓，為賦新詞強說愁。

而今識盡愁滋味，欲說還休。欲說還休，卻道天涼好箇秋！

I've recently watched some Taiwan dramas. They are a bit silly but at least nobody dies and the actors are young and good looking and life is good in the stories. Try 惡作劇之吻 or 薔薇之戀 or 流行花園.

Or just watch sit-com.

[crow610]

There are many commedy Korean dramas available that I enjoy watching, one in particular called 浪漫满屋(Full House). I won't go into the plot but after watching it I could see myself watching it another time through. Another Korean drama I recently watched (tragedy) is called 悲伤恋歌(Sad Love Story) which like all Korean tragedys someone dies at the end, but I would say this ending is more like a Forest Gump type ending where you feel sad yet warm inside.

[taryn]

I noticed that too in the few Chinese films I've seen: Happy Times, Beijing Bicycle, Shower.

Granted, they're not as depressing as Sofia Coppola's stuff, but they're right up there with giving me a bad day. There's a really heavy sense of isolation and helplessness that comes through in the films. And I thought it was just me.

That said, I'm very open to recommendations for fun, entertaining stuff in Mandarin. I've watched a few K-dramas I really like (My Lovely Sam Soon is a fave) but it would be a better use of my time to watch somthing in Chinese!

[character]

That said, I'm very open to recommendations for fun, entertaining stuff in Mandarin.

Hong Kong films (and probably TV dramas) are generally lighter and the VCDs/DVDs tend to have Mandarin soundtracks in addition to Cantonese. http://www.brns.com/pages/comedrev2.html

I've been watching a lot of the Shaw Brothers rereleases. They were originally a Mandarin studio in HK.

[skylee]

Some of the Mainland period / wuxia dramas are good, like 雍正王朝, 康熙帝國, 天龍八部, 射鵰英雄傳, 神鵰俠侶, and 走向共和. People die and fail in these stories, but they are not really sad. And the plot and acting are usually very good in such dramas.

[wenhailin]

I have recently been enjoying watching 在悉尼等我. It is about a shanghai student who comes to study in Sydney. It was pretty popular when CCTV was screening it about 3 months ago. Hard to find at DVD stores though.