Finally, a totally PG drama that is meant to be watched with children!
- Age: 7+, elementary school and up
- Romance: none except super side character
- Genre: youth, supernatural, contemporary
- Episodes: 36x45min (26 episodes)
- Actors: 胡先煦(Hu Xianxu), 張超 (Zhang Chao), 郝富申 (Hao Fushen)
- Wiki: Chinese, English
- Released: October 2020
- Where to Watch: iQiyi
TLDR for Friends
If you’re looking to watch an age appropriate Chinese drama with kids, this is probably it. It’s adapted from a Japanese manga series about playing Go 圍棋（weiqi). It was overall, just a well written, (pretty) well acted drama.
Plot and Quick Review
In third grade, 胡先煦(Hu Xianxu), meets 張超 (Zhang Chao), a 1000+ year old ghost who loves Go but committed suicide after he was framed for cheating while playing in front of the emperor. 張超‘s (Zhang Chao) LOVE (yes big caps) is Go and his goal in life (death?) is to experience 神之一手, aka the Divine Move, whereas 胡先煦(Hu Xianxu) could take it or leave it.
張超 (Zhang Chao), the spirit, convinces 胡先煦 (Hu Xianxu) to play Go with various people. But after a few games, 胡先煦(Hu Xianxu) gets super mad because he realizes he is just a robot taking instructions and playing for a ghost. They have a big fight and he tells 張超 (Zhang Chao) to go away. He does.
Six years later, through a series of events, they meet again. This time, 胡先煦(Hu Xianxu) picks up Go of his own accord and realizes he likes it. He supposedly has a knack for it (considering he only picked up the sport during 9th grade.) The rest of the drama is about how he works toward qualifying for various levels of Go, in pursuit of that Divine Move.
I liked this photo especially because it shows all the players that the male lead encountered in his pursuit of Go.
While I didn’t love the drama in the beginning, eventually both Thumper and I got into it and we broke our rule of 1 episode a night and binged watched 3-4 episodes some nights. I had a lot of fun trying to guess what is going to happen.
The main character, whether or not it was the young child actor or the older child actor, were both very good at bringing the character of 時光 alive. 時光 is mischievous, doesn’t like to study, and always gets into trouble.
The acting and directing is very well done. The ending was a bit…..anti climatic, but understandable.
I really don’t have too too much to say about the drama. Not because I didn’t like it, but it’s just I have nothing to complain about. If you have read Japanese mangas, you kind of know how this sorts of weiqi, basketball, or even cooking themed mangas go.
What Parents Need to Know
The drama, in general, is a rated G drama I think. But of course if you want to talk about bad behaviors or what not….
There is the suicide by the 張超 (Zhang Chao) when he was framed and couldn’t play Go anymore 1000+ years ago.
There is some underage drinking in the drama by the main characters as part of celebration. One of the main second characters smokes.
Sadly, there weren’t that many female Go players in the drama.
Chinese Aspect or Things to Talk to Kids About?
The first episode takes place on the day of Hong Kong’s handover back to China. It was interesting to watch the handover news playing in that first episode (something along the lines of 回到祖國的懷抱), compared with my memory of how it was portrayed on US TV. Now, this is just drama, but still interesting I think, for a kid to see these two vastly different views.
Otherwise, it’s all about weiqi. It was kind of nice that my kids learned for a few months last year so they were able to understand some of the explanations in the beginning of the drama on how to play Go.
