As 2023 draws to an end, we kick off the year-end lists with our editors' picks for the best Chinese dramas of the year!



Living
Living ain't easy. Produced by Ruby Lin and co-written by Ryan Tu, this Taiwan drama is often warm, familiar and funny as it captures the interactions and arguments of a normal family. The five-way bickering of the irritable Gao family members in a house barely big enough to hold them all could be straight out of a sitcom, but the drama is actually set in motion by eldest prodigal son Jia Yue (Wu Kang Ren) hitting rock bottom and pondering ending his life. He decides to return home to see his family a last time, only to find they're all going through troubles of their own. With his laid-back pot-stirring ways, Jia Yue's arrival both agitates and motivates his family members, including his disgruntled feuding parents (Hsi Hsiang, Yang Kuei Mei), crabby but considerate younger brothers (Joe Cheng, J.C. Lin), and thoughtful teenage nephew (Hsieh Chan Jung) who recently lost a friend to suicide. This series captures the realistic ups and downs of Living our daily lives filled with joys, pains and difficulties. Poignantly, it also reflects on the inner turmoil and journey of finding a reason to keep living when all seems lost.



The Long Season
The Long Season runs relatively short for a Chinese series at only 12 episodes but by its end, you'll have keenly felt the passing of two timelines and a lifetime of changes. Helmed by The Bad Kids director Xin Shuang, the riveting suspense drama is told in non-linear fashion with events unfolding in 1996, 1997 and 2016 to reveal the truth behind a murder mystery. In a tour de force performance, Fan Wei first appears as taxi driver Wang Xiang who is helping his brother-in-law (Qin Hao) track down a hit-and-run culprit. The aging men's efforts take on an almost farcical tone, but this new mystery harks back to an unsolved murder case two decades ago that shattered Wang Xiang's family. As the story swings back and forth in time, different people and problems gradually fall into place, only to leave everyone in pieces with heart-wrenching losses. It takes time to process the intertwining events of The Long Season that ultimately paint a portrait of everyday people up against the tides of life. Beyond the mystery, the series vividly depicts two different time periods in a small town. The earlier timeline is backdropped by the closing of the steel plant that employed Wang Xiang and other townspeople – a reference to the late 90s reform of state-owned enterprises that ended the "iron rice bowl" for a generation suddenly thrown adrift.



Lost You Forever
Yang Zi reclaims the TV queen throne with the first season of Lost You Forever based on Tong Hua's Chang Xiang Si novel series. The mystical costume fantasy follows Princess Xiao Yao who, believing that she's been abandoned by her family, gets lost in the mortal world and survives cruel trials. Taking male guise, she lives as a physician with no intentions of returning to the palace. However, Xiao Yao's destiny begins to change again with the appearance of Deng Wei as the sad puppy suitor who shakes her heart, Tan Jianci as the devilishly charming demon who is soft only for her, and Zhang Wanyi as her steadfast cousin who never stopped searching for her. Lost You Forever is quite the emotional roller coaster from the early episodes of Xiao Yao's small-town life and fateful encounters, to the life-threatening conflicts and succession struggles of the later episodes. Through it all, Xiao Yao remains our lionhearted heroine who chooses to live, love, leave and fight on her own terms. Lost You Forever is without a doubt the best Tong Hua adaptation since Scarlet Heart. We need Season 2 now!



Mysterious Lotus Casebook
Adventure through the martial arts world with an oddball trio of swordsmen who share one brain cell. And that one brain cell belongs to Li Lianhua (Cheng Yi), a glib, wandering doctor who left behind his former life and identity as a martial arts legend. Li's powers and days are numbered due to being poisoned ten years ago, but he gets pulled back into jianghu troubles after encountering idealistic young swordsman and aspiring detective Fang Duobing (Joseph Zeng). Li's nemesis Di Feisheng (Xiao Shunyao), the cold yet oblivious big boss of an evil-mongering sect, also returns from the dead, and all he wants is to duel Li again fair and square. Though Mysterious Lotus Casebook does suffer from rushed pacing in the later episodes when the overarching conspiracies come to a head, most of the buddy wuxia series based on Teng Ping's novel series is a joy to watch for its chivalrous action and hilarious banter. We could watch endless episodes of Li, Fang and Di drifting about in a horse-pulled house, and reluctantly sharing meals, trading barbs and debunking kooky mysteries together.



Nothing But You
From Linmon Media, the maker of Twenty Your Life On and Nothing But Thirty, comes this sports romance series that just hits the sweet spot. Zhou Yutong plays 32-year-old Liang Youan, an executive assistant who's hit a bottleneck because she's so competent that her boss won't let her advance. Leo Wu is 22-year-old Song Sanchuan, a badminton player who falls short during matches due to a psychological barrier. After being forced out of their jobs, the two make a new start in the same place. Youan becomes the manager of a struggling tennis club, and Sanchuan switches from badminton to tennis. Sparing audiences of unnecessary drama, Nothing But You is passionate about sports and down to earth about love. The likable leads take their time to understand each other, while supporting each other's professional growth every step of the way. Heart-fluttering and spirit-lifting in equal measures, Nothing But You nails relationship goals, career goals and squad goals for a positive and winsome urban romance.



Oh No! Here Comes Trouble
Oh No! Here Comes Trouble achieves the rare distinction of being one of the funniest dramas of the year – and one of the most tear-jerking. The Taiwan fantasy dishes out eye-rolling, snort-out-loud dry humor with the warm bickering of leads Tseng Jing Hua, Payne Peng and Vivian Sung as two youths and a police officer who solve mysteries together. The curious mysteries they take on involve people's unresolved obsessions that manifest into supernatural beings who seek out brush-wielding hero Pu Yi Yong. Able to see and draw the obsessions, kind but grumpy Yi Yong sets out to understand the root of their pain and pathos. From a tattoo searching for a name to a mannequin made by a grieving mother, the fanciful stories are at times creepy, at times cute, and always anchored in a heartrending core of love and loss. Director Lin Kuan Hui does a magnificent job of blending fantasy, horror, crime, suspense and human drama into a charming original series. It also casually rolls out a long list of award-winning actors including Cheryl Yang as Yi Yong's spunky mother, and Jack Yao, Fandy Fan, Cheng Jen Shuo, Chung Hsin Ling and Nonkul Chanon in different episodes.



Ripe Town
During the Wanli era of the Ming Dynasty, a series of gruesome murders occur in Jiangnan County. The victims' bodies are arranged in bizarre poses, and a crytic line from the Analects is left at each crime scene. Constable Qu Sangeng (Bai Yufan), whose mentor is the first victim discovered, is determined to catch the killer who is far from finished. His investigation uncovers the dreadful secrets of seemingly unrelated people in town, including some close to him, as the murky mystery circles back to a devastating fire that happened 20 years ago. Tightly written and directed by Wang Zheng, Ripe Town excels as a dense yet compact period suspense drama with a gripping original story, fine acting performances and outstanding aesthetics that emanate the dark, somber mood of the series.



Three Body
Never mind living up to the source material – Netflix's upcoming adaptation of Liu Cixin's The Three-Body Problem has its work cut out just measuring up to the Chinese adaptation that arrived first this year. Staying true to the sci-fi novel, the Tencent series takes the slow, cerebral route as it begins with an impetuous detective (Yu Hewei) and a mild-mannered nanomaterials expert (Zhang Luyi) being enlisted to assist in a strange case concerning the deaths of physicists around the world. As more inexplicable phenomena occur, the ominous mystery that traces back to historical trauma will upturn everything we know about the present and future. The realization that "physics has never existed" is the harbinger to first contact and an existential threat at a level that humanity has never encountered. Visually, Three Body is crisp, clean and appealing. The Cultural Revolution-era scenes at the snowy Red Coast base are especially stark and striking, and a key climactic set piece is realized in stunningly horrific manner in Episode 29. While it's unclear if the production will be able to deliver the effects needed for the rest of Liu's trilogy, this faithful adaptation of the first book is intriguing, engrossing and appropriately understated while gradually building worlds and blowing minds.



Under the Microscope
Get ready to cheer for math in iQiyi's unconventional period mystery based on the first story in The Great Ming Under the Microscope by Ma Boyong who also served as screenwriter. Set in the Ming Dynasty, this engaging series revolves around eccentric, math-obsessed orphan Shuai Jiamo (Zhang Ruoyun) who comes across a discrepancy in the accounting books related to field measurements. With the single-minded desire of correcting the math error, Shuai Jiamo brings his findings to county officials and ends up getting rebuffed and punished, but that doesn't stop him from trying again and again with different government offices. While trying to prove his numbers are right, he digs up more errors and secrets that link to his tragic family past and set off regional tensions. Crime and corruption play a big part in the mystery, but notably Shuai Jiamo's greatest obstacle is bureaucracy. His arduous process of redress satirizes the shirking, stonewalling and strategizing of different authorities who, whether for self-serving or constituency-serving reasons, would prefer to continue rather than correct historical mistakes. Still no sign of Joy of Life 2 this year, but at least we get Zhang Ruoyun and Wu Gang fighting over how to measure fields!



Why Try To Change Me Now
Selected for the Berlinale Series competition of the 73rd Berlin Film Festival, this stunning six-episode exercise in slow-burning cinema is produced by Diao Yinan and directed by Zhang Dalei, the director of the Golden Horse-winning The Summer Is Gone and Silver Bear-winning Day Is Done. Set in an Inner Mongolia town from the 1980s to early 2000s, Why Try To Change Me Now is strongly steeped in time, place and mood. Adapted from Shuang Xuetao's Moses on the Plain, the mini-series is nominally a crime suspense – it's part of iQiyi's suspense-themed "Light On" imprint – but the mystery is secondary to the evocative images, sounds and moments presented on screen. The cinematography is meticulously crafted, with generous use of handsomely framed static medium and long shots. The first two episodes follow the family of an uncooperative boy and the surrounding environment and happenings of their community, including a murder on Christmas Eve in 1996. Dong Zijian later appears as the malcontent youth-turned-police who investigates the murder case that leads him to his childhood friend (Qiu Tian). The climactic scene of the protagonists' conversation on a lake in the final episode is as devastatingly poignant as it is artfully executed.


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Published December 13, 2023