Ding Yu Xi and Zhang Xin Cheng new C-drama drops without warning
After seeing nothing more than a couple of posters and a few Weibo posts about Archives: The Nanyang Mystery a few days ago, I woke up this morning to the shock of my life, and the news that iQIYI had decided to drop the historical mystery drama’s first six episodes.
Out of the blue. With no prior warning. And without any fanfare. Even when Episodes 1 through 6 of the 33-episode series suddenly appeared on the Chinese streaming platform.
Even more strange, Archives: The Nanyang Mystery stars Ding Yu Xi, Zhang Xin Cheng, Jiang Pei Yao and Fu Da Long, so it’s not like we are dealing with a minor drama starring C-list actors hardly anyone has ever heard of.
But, here we are, the first six episodes of Archives: The Nanyang Mystery are now streaming on iQIYI, with the company trying to make up for their lack of premiere date announcement, or much promo before it, by dropping a few character stills and some posters today.
All I could think when they did was, man, I’ll bet the actors are pissed.
After all, imagine working that hard on a drama, only to have so much of the typical lead-up to a drama’s premiere, which usually bolsters both reservations for it and interest in it, be completely ignored like this.
Then again, with the weird way the Republican era drama arrived, it does seem to have created quite a buzz already. Both with C-drama fans in China, and internationally.
So maybe that was iQIYI’s goal all along, eh?
The plot of Archives: The Nanyang Mystery
Now, I had been keeping an eye on this one before it suddenly arrived because, as mystery plots go, it’s right up my alley.
Baidu describes it like this:
A series of strange events occurred in the Nanyang region in the early years of the Republic of China.
The story is about two secret agents from the Southern Archives, Zhang Hai Yan (played by Zhang Xin Cheng) and Zhang Hai Xia (played by Ding Yu Xi). They investigate a mysterious case and discover that, behind the case, is a conspiracy by warlords to spread the highly poisonous plant “Twilight Grass”.
During the investigation, Zhang Hai Yan and Zhang Hai Xia experience life and death tests, and Zhang Hai Xia is even paralyzed as a result. As the clues gradually become clear, Zhang Hai Yan finds that all the clues point to a large ship – the Nan’an.
First impressions of Archives: The Nanyang Mystery
I am currently only one episode in to the drama as, like I said, nobody was expecting this one to premiere so soon, and I have other things on my schedule.
But, as first episodes of mystery thrillers with an adventure theme go, Archives: The Nanyang Mystery is one of those that immediately grabs you.
Its first case ‘The Evil God’ follows the two main leads as they head into a creepy treasure dig in search of an answer to what happened after a statue of a god appeared at a local wedding, which then lead members of the groom’s family to start digging in nearby salt marshes for underground treasure.
After every family member is subsequently found in the salt marshes, dead, and others who follow them in search of riches also die, it’s up to Zhang Hai Yan and Zhang Hai Xia to figure out why.
Episode 1 is fast-paced, the camaraderie between the two male leads is laid-back and fun, the humor lands perfectly, the CGI is very well-done in the action scenes, and the plot is creepy enough that it even gave me, the most-jaded one, a couple of minor jump scares.
While not every one will agree, Zhang Xin Cheng and Ding Yu Xi are also very pretty boys to me, so there’s that.
In other words, while Archives: The Nanyang Mystery may have ended up with one of the weirdest premieres this year, I enjoyed the Chinese drama’s first episode so much, I can’t say I have too many complaints.
As I said before, its first six episodes are streaming on iQIYI, with more dropping tomorrow.
iQIYI’s YouTube channel is also streaming the drama’s first four episodes, with the first two free-to-watch and Episodes 3 and 4 available for subscribers. Currently.
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