I’ve been waiting for this one ever since I saw the glowing first thoughts video from Avenue X (see below). The evening’s more exciting Olympic moments were over and I found myself ready to watch something completely different so I started watching. Wow! I don’t know how this drama will sustain the visual style established in the first episode, but I was captivated by the color, the “world” they have created, and the costumes!

What is especially fun is picking out the various sets and landmarks around Shanghai Film Park; right at the very opening I recognized the iron bridge recreated from a famous one in Shanghai, and the monument park by the church (where Hu Ge was so annoying in his flirtation with the incredibly annoying nurse character in The Disguisers).

I’m really looking forward to seeing how this unfolds.

Synopsis: “Frequent flooding and drowning were common occurrences in Tianjin (Tientsin) in the early 1900s. But when a local shipping magnate was found drowned to death chained to a statue on the bottom of riverbed, police department’s underwater recovery team captain Guo De You was their primary suspect, since he was the only one in the city who could stay underwater long enough to complete the deed. The businessman son’s Ding Mao tried to prove Guo’s guilt, but his own forensic discovery and another bizarre drowning in the same vicinity challenged his initial impression. Together with spirit medium Gu Ying and news reporter Xiao Lan Lan, they peeled away the mystery and found the clues pointed to an incident occurred over 20 years ago when an evil cult was ravaging the city. Now, the cult was once again causing havoc. To stop their resurgence, the team must investigate the unexplained, mind-bending cases that plagued their city.”

#li-xian, #tientsin-mystic, #zhang-ming-en