Guo Jing Fei and Esther Wang’s new family-themed drama Uncle premiered on December 15th and, five days later, has reached 26,000 on the Tencent Video heat index so far.
The milestone was announced by Tencent earlier today with a cool looking ‘family photo poster’ starring uncle Cui Guo Ming and the rest of his family.
The C-drama itself features a cast that includes leads Guo Jing Fei (Drifting Away) and Esther Wang (Supersensory Maze), along with supporting cast members Patrick Zhang (This Thriving Land), Chen Hao Lan (Twelve Letters), Gavin Gao (Legacy of the Storm), Annabel Yao (Good Will Society), and Li Shi Peng (Coroner’s Diary).
Sadly, as the C-drama is beautifully directed by Kong Er Gou (Big Mouth) and features superb performances from its excellent cast, Uncle is not earning a huge amount of traction in western markets.
At least so far.
After all, western viewers of C-dramas are often much more interested in wuxia or historical romance dramas than they are in family-themed series set in small Chinese towns decades ago.
Even if those wuxia/historical romance dramas offer nothing new.
So, a drama that takes place in a rapidly changing China in the 1990s, and centers around a low-income family man who has many fascinating ideas but no way of implementing them, may not grab their attention.
A pity if that ends up being the case as, sure, I am only four episodes into the Chinese drama so far, but Uncle is proving to be wonderfully cast and exceptionally good.
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