The Long Season - The Best Chinese TV Show of 2023

Welcome to the 7th issue of my newsletter, in which I’ll talk about a Chinese crime drama series from 2023 that I’ve just finished watching, titled "The Long Season." It is one of the best Chinese TV series that I’ve watched, and I also consider it amongst the best TV series I’ve watched in the last few years, anywhere.

感谢你打开我的第7篇推文，今天我想聊一聊《漫长的季节》。这是2023年上映的一部生活悬疑剧，也是我最近几年看过的，最好看的中文电视剧之一。

This TV show takes place in two different timelines, in 1998 and 2016. Some other TV shows have trouble balancing between different timelines, as sometimes you could feel that one timeline is more interesting than the other and thus prefer to see less of one of the timelines. However, that’s not the case here. The writers managed to make both timelines equally exciting, and the switches between 1998 and 2016 are very well executed, moving the story forward and always revealing just enough to keep you guessing about the characters’ fate in the past and present. Furthermore, the 1998 timeline also jumps back and forth between before and after a murder took place. This murder in 1998 is the main catalyst for events that will change all the main characters’ lives in different ways.

整部剧有两条主要故事线，分别发生在1998年和2016年，恰到好处地交错叙事，推进剧情的同时又让观众对谜底的揭晓一步步着迷。故事围绕着谋杀案展开，讲述了这起案件对主要人物所带来的生活变化。

The setting is a fictional town, Hualin, in Dongbei, which consists of three provinces: Liaoning, Jilin, and Heilongjiang. In 1998, Hualin is basically run by one company, a steel factory, that is preparing to lay off many of its workers because of the company’s financial situation. This provides a realistic background to the TV show, as similar layoffs happened in China during the nineties, and this realism is also equally present in the 2016 timeline. The 2016 timeline isn’t overtly optimistic, and a sense of desperation also lingers in the air. Instead of portraying China as a place where magical change has happened everywhere in the last two decades, it shows that not everyone’s lives have been equally affected by economic miracles; quite the contrary.

谋杀案发生在一个虚拟的东北（东北包括辽宁，吉林和黑龙江三省）城市，桦林。1998年，桦林市钢铁总厂（简称桦钢）由于经营状况不佳，开始准备大量裁员。故事反映出真实地发生在九十年代的下岗潮，此后是中国经济蓬勃发展的20年。但桦林的经济似乎并没有因此得到改善，2016年大家都还在努力维持生计，这也从侧面证明经济的发展，并没有使每个阶层的生活质量得以提升。

While the background of the story and the main storyline is quite bleak, the vivid characters never lose their sense of humor, adding some much-needed lightness to counterbalance the gruesome events depicted in the show. The characters are so well-written, and the actors play their roles exceptionally; they made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions (one of the scenes also inspired me in creating one of my own short videos). The protagonists are all broken in different ways. They lie, cheat, and often are unkind to one another. But still, you can’t help but feel for them as the events unfold, thanks to the quality writing.

故事的整个基调是悲伤和阴暗的，但角色刻画得很生动又充满东北幽默，这使得整体观感没那么压抑。不仅编剧写得好，演员演得也很出色，有很多次都让我捧腹大笑（其中一个场景给了我短视频的灵感）。主角们都有自己生活的困境，也有人格不完美之处，他们会撒谎，出轨，甚至对待彼此也有刻薄的时候。但作为观众的我还是会和他们共情，这也正是编剧的厉害之处。

To talk much more about the story would do a disservice to this TV series, as I feel that the less you know, the more you will enjoy the ride. The murder mystery is just as important in the story as the character drama, and it will keep you guessing until the logical conclusion of the series. I feel that the best episodes are actually the ones where we finally see how and why the murder happened, and I really felt that the way they handled the revelations was more satisfying than any other murder mysteries I’ve watched in recent years.

悬疑剧中谜案的破解和主角人物的塑造一样重要，只有这样才会使观众对剧情的发展一直保持好奇，这点《漫长的季节》做得很成功，谋杀案真相揭晓的几集也是我觉得整部剧中最精彩的部分。

A few other things worth mentioning about the TV series

一些其他信息

• The main actors play themselves in both 1998 and 2016, and one of the actors was so committed to the role that he actually put on 10 kgs for the 2016 scenes.

  虽然故事横跨了近20年，但几位主角人物都没有换演员，其中一位演员为了角色曾经增重10公斤。

• The actors mostly speak with a Dongbei accent in the show, and it might be difficult to understand what they say sometimes. Again, don’t be discouraged by this; the more you listen to different accents, the easier it will be for you to understand Chinese.

  演员们在剧中说的是东北话，对于你来说可能很难听懂，但就像我上次说的，接触不同的方言对中文学习不是没有帮助的，而且东北话自带幽默感，别错过体验它的机会🤭

• In the version that I watched, the English subtitles were subpar. You can still use them, but also try to pay attention to what they say in Chinese, as many times the subtitles said something completely different from what the actors’ lines were.

  我看的过程中发现英文字幕有很多不准确的地方，所以可以参考字幕，但一定多留意剧中的音频。

• You can stream The Long Season on Prime Video and on Apple TV+.

  目前《漫长的季节》可以在 Prime Video 和 Apple TV+ 观看。

• If you enjoyed The Long Season, then you can check out the director’s previous TV show too, The Bad Kids, which also garnered quite good reviews. I’ve just started watching it, so make sure you check back for my upcoming newsletters, as I’ll certainly write at least a few words about it too!

  如果你觉得《漫长的季节》不错，也可以看看导演的，另一部口碑很好的作品，《隐秘的角落》。我现在还在看，关于它的故事和影评会在接下来的推文中呈现，敬请期待！

Thank you for reading,

感谢阅读，

Sandy

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