I make no pretense of knowing how this series plays in its own country other than through additional critical sources appearing on You Tube, where I found it with English subtitles. Nor do I think it likely ever to reach a large audience outside places where Mandarin Chinese is a native language. That is a pity, because it holds universal appeal in both story and visual authenticity.
That is not to say it is without faults. I had to watch it twice to make sure I got all the dramatic nuances and cultural elements just right. For example, the title in English is "Addicted (Heroin)" a very confusing construction that does not become transparent until late in the game when a casual conversation reveals that the Chinese equivalent of "heroin" can result from combining two literal configurations of the names of the two main fictional characters, thus establishing the premise that they have become "addicted" to each other. A bilingual viewer would presumably know that immediately.
Briefly, the plot centers on two high school students in Beijing falling gradually in love with each other over a period of several winter months. An element of suspense is created by having one of the students resistant at first to the advances of the other, then gradually finding that both are able to slough off earlier love affairs and interruptions in their daily lives to come together in the end. A partly original, partly borrowed musical score accentuates the story.
So much for that. What makes this series unique, however, is the critical and political firestorm it created. Originally conceived from a popular novel, a planned eighteen-part drama was cut short by official censors who presumably found its sexual content objectionable (though by Western standards no more than a likely PG rating). Nevertheless, the fifteen episodes that made it through to the internet have found an appreciative audience in the tens of millions across much of East Asia and into places where films from mainland China normally consist of flashy acrobatics and graphic violence.
As noted, viewers depending on English subtitles may have to juggle their controls a bit to jump smoothly from one episode to the next, but I think the result will justify the effort. This is a heart-warming narrative that, in my judgment , goes far in humanizing ordinary life in China, which makes it all the more ironic that the Chinese government so determined to present a favorable face to the world would have chosen to ignore its virtues.
Incidentally, if the two main characters seem a bit old to be high school students, at least one speaks of having completed his military obligation.
I will leave it to others to ferret out bits of trivia.
