Chinese Drama: Xiao Ri Zi 小日子 - official announce, begins production - write up

#XiaoRiZi #小日子 #TongYao #童瑶 #ChenXiao #陈晓

There were rumours floating around Weibo that Tong Yao and Chen Xiao will be starring in a series called Xiao Ri Zi for some time. Now it's official.  The official Weibo account for this series announced that the series has gone into production a few days ago. The series is based on a novel of the same title by Yi Bei who also wrote the novel Xiao Min Jia 小敏家 which the relatively well-received series A Little Mood for Love (2021) was based on. There is no official English title for Xiao Ri Zi yet so I'll continue to use the pinyin of the Chinese title when I refer to it in English for now.

 

Aside from Tong Yao and Chen Xiao, the rest of the cast look like they are quite experienced.  It goes without saying that I like Tong Yao but I also quite like Chen Xiao.  I've had a good impression of him since Nothing Gold can Stay and I'm actually currently watching Thirteen Years of Dust which I am also enjoying at the moment.  I'm pleased that the leading cast is strong.  I also quite like two of the supporting cast. Sa Ri Na was in Auntie Duohe which was a series that I really enjoyed and I really loved her performance in that series. I also really like Yu Haoming who I watched in Nothing Gold can Stay. I thought that he was exceptionally good there.

 

Xiao Ri Zi is a contemporary family drama set in the city of Shanghai. I have not read the novel and I usually will not attempt to read it before I watch a live-action adaptation because I don't like to have my reaction to any film or TV series coloured by my opinions of the novel. The title can literally be translated as "little days" which makes it seem like it might be a slice-of-life type of story about the little events that make up our everyday life. However, I did look for information on the novel online and I read the overview of the novel. It seems like this story is not your ordinary contemporary family drama. It's more like a mixed-genre story with elements of suspense thrown in.  The suspense comes from a series of anonymously sent short text messages which will create suspicions and test relationships.  The novel is told from a female perspective but I don't expect that the adaptation will lean too far toward either side since both leads are relatively well-known names. 

Tong Yao plays Gu Moli who is the only daughter of a couple from Jiangsu, Zhejiang. (aside: yes, Tong Yao seems to play a lot of characters named Gu. 🤣) Against her family's wishes, Moli moves to Shanghai and marries Zhu Jingcao (played by Chen Xiao) whose family's circumstances aren't as good as hers.  She initially thought that her home can be a haven from the bustling and noisy world outside.  She used to live a carefree life until one day, after the birth of her daughter, Jingcao receives a text message accusing Moli of infidelity.  This disrupts their peaceful life.  The in-laws also come visiting one after the other making Moli's "little days" increasingly unbearable. The unknown person who sent the message continues to create conflict and it seems like there may actually be more than one person behind the increasing chaos in her life.  Moli has to make many of her life's choices without being able to see the whole picture.  Will Moli's and Jingcao's relationship be able to withstand this onslaught?

According to a review of the novel, the novel cleverly mixes suspense with the trivialities of daily life.  On the surface, the novel may seem to be about the complex relationship between men and women but underneath the story is about the selfishness and greed of human nature.  In an article with the author of the novel, Yi Bei said that he wanted to tell a story about the changes in rural and urban China, the relationships between children and their parents as they move into the cities and the immense pressure that children from the era of the "single child policy" faced.      

This raises my hopes somewhat.  The official Weibo gave very little information on the drama so I initially thought that this was going to be one of those typical slice-of-life contemporary family dramas which don't sound too appealing to me.  The addition of the elements of suspense makes me a little hopeful that this would be a good watch. 

However, I have one more reservation regarding this series and unfortunately, it's a pretty important one.  The director for this series is An Jian (安建) and I've actually watched two series that he's directed.  I thought both series suffered from pacing problems and had issues with the narrative, characterization, and plot.  The more recent of these two series is I Will Buy You a Better Home.  I actually didn't like that series very much at all and thought that after a relatively interesting start, the lack of conflict, too many similar supporting characters, and somewhat repetitious situations made this a dull watch.  Although it starred one of my favourite Mainland actresses, I couldn't finish the series at all.  I managed to finish the other series, Simple Dish, though mostly because Tong Yao put in such a compelling performance that I just had to finish to see what happens to her character.  

One positive takeaway from An Jian's work in Simple Dish though is that he has shown that he is capable of allowing his female characters to be strong, complex, and not always likeable. But unfortunately, one of my biggest problems with the series was also how it tended to portray the male protagonist as some kind of long-suffering saint that it seemed quite idiotically unrealistic to me.  Both series were also way too long for their good and Simple Dish had a really muddled ending where characters seem to change personalities at will.  It pretty much messed up my Tong Yao's He Wenyuan's character progression too which I found quite unforgivable because she was the series most fascinating character.

Well, let's hope that this time, with this cast and more experience under his belt that An Jian doesn't make the same mistakes again.  Also, this is a much shorter series than both I Will Buy You a Better Home and Simple Dish so that might help with pacing issues.  Whatever the case, since Tong Yao stars in this, I will definitely give this a try. 😊

If you wish to check out my Tong Yao guide, please click me.

amend 10th May 2023 (a few hours later) - fixed some grammar, punctuation and translation issues.