Treasure at Dawn is one of two Li Hong Yi-led dramas premiering this month
I don’t know about you, but with so many 40-episode Chinese dramas out there, I get all excited when one drops that has fewer episodes, but that still stars major actors.
Dramas like the just-premiered-today 30-episode mystery thriller Treasure at Dawn, starring Li Hong Yi, Su Xiao Tong and Yu Cheng En.
A C-drama that, frankly, didn’t get much promotion internationally and then seemingly just popped up out of nowhere.
YOUKU has begun to promote it today, the day of its premiere, though, with a poster featuring the three leads and supporting actress Wang Zi Xuan dropping, along with a message about its plot:
The detective team is successfully assembled! The bizarre case is loading.
It’s also one of two dramas premiering in November that star Li Hong Yi (the other being Flying Up Without Disturb on WeTV).
Considering he has only had one main lead role in one series (Wulin Heroes) since his starring role in the now-almost-cult-classic hit The Blood of Youth back in 2022, I would say it’s been a good month. For him. And for us.
Is Treasure at Dawn worth watching?
I can only give you some quick thoughts after watching the first episode, but it does have an interesting premise, as it follows wanna-be physician Hua Fu Sheng (played by Li Hong Yi) who is obsessed with medicine but whose own father, who is also a doctor, won’t let him practice due to his strange techniques.
One of them being he cuts open cadavers to see how they died.
Things change, however, when Hua Fu Sheng returns to his father’s clinic to discover a meeting of all of the city’s physicians. The problem is, every one of them is dead. Including his own father.
Luckily for Fu Sheng, he has just had a short encounter with Wen Jue, the daughter of Liangzhou’s City Lord.
So, when a corrupt local official tries to pin the murder of the doctors on Fu Sheng, Wen Jue is able to step in and defend his innocence.
Local know-it-all Greedy Gu (played by Yu Cheng En) also wants to prove Fu Sheng’s innocence, as he has been hired by a dodgy guy to find a jade plate that he knows Fu Sheng had in his possession hours before.
Soon the strange partners are working together to find out who is the real murderer, and why.
The first episode of Treasure at Dawn is fast-paced, the cinematography is pretty (there’s a beautifully filmed caesarian-section scene I watched twice), and the plot is a little more unusual.
Performances too aren’t bad, if you ignore a couple of the supporting actors who have a tendency to be a little hammy.
All three main actors are also dubbing their own roles, so we don’t have any out-of-place voice acting to contend with.
For an interesting and quite fun (so far) mystery thriller featuring a decent main cast, and that moves along at a fair clip then, I would say give Treasure at Dawn a try.
I liked it enough to be planning on watching Episodes 2 and 3 later tonight.
The first three episodes of Treasure at Dawn are streaming internationally on YOUKU now.
You can also watch Episode 4 if you’re willing to pay for their TVOD service (I am not as I’m cheap, and I dislike corporate greed), or wait for a couple more episodes to drop tomorrow.
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