1
Heartwarming as expected, but some stories felt unfinished
Based on the description for this show, you’d already know you’re getting a heartwarming story of an incredible (real) woman who overcame obstacles to give young women a path out of poverty. So there’s really no need for me to go on and on about that. I cried a lot, the good kind of tears.
Clearly the show has a great story to work with, and it generally tells it well. But I still thought they could have done some things better with the narrative focus.
The show follows Zhang Guimei as she struggles to set up the school (funding, recruiting teachers and students, etc), then it follows the first class of students, and then it follows a second class of students some years later. So aside from Zhang Guimei herself, there are other characters whose stories you end up getting emotionally invested in.
I don’t know how much is dramatized and/or fictionalized, ie how many of these other characters are real. But I did end up caring a lot about them. In general this is a good thing, because it’s what makes this an interesting drama and not just a documentary.
I just wished they saw these stories through more and gave us more closure on each of them. It felt like a lot of them were just abruptly dropped and forgotten. I felt this way about the teachers and both batches of students. I wanted to continue their stories and find out what happens to them; but after their story arcs end, we might see them around but we don’t really know how they’re doing.
If the show wanted to tell several sets of stories with different characters, I think it would have been better to just move on fully each time. Seeing familiar faces around makes you want their stories to continue, and that is denied. Would it be that hard to give us a few scenes showing how the teachers have adjusted to their lives after several years? And I was happy to see Gu Yu return for the second set of students, but her story there also feels incomplete and unfinished as we are abruptly pulled away to follow Zhang Guimei’s declining health.
It’s not that Zhang Guimei herself isn’t interesting. She is, and I like that the show presents her not just as some sort of saint. Actually she’s shown to be very stubborn and sometimes difficult. I think some of her actions were actually quite questionable- like leaving a student to live outside in the cold and rain for weeks, thank goodness nothing happened to the girl (somehow it all gets painted as “good” for the girl... hrm). Either way, I sometimes found myself a little frustrated at Zhang Guimei, but I still like this realistic portrayal. You don’t usually get a legend without some difficult traits.
The acting is quite good, too. And the settings are pretty. It was filmed in Yunnan for some beautiful mountain scenery. There is a lot of speech in local dialect, making subtitles especially important.
Overall I’d say it’s a good show, but I came in expecting that based on the description. I think it would have been better if they followed some of the side characters’ stories more completely. Of course we don’t want to take away too much focus from Zhang Guimei, but if you make me invested in a side character’s story then I will be invested, that’s just how that works.
BTW, the CCP are heroes in this show and Zhang Guimei at some point uses CCP propaganda to motivate her students. That really did happen, so regardless of how you feel about the communist party, they are good guys in this show and be prepared for some loud CCP propaganda.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
Zhang Guimei is still alive right now, so although the show’s final arc shows her struggling to continue despite declining health, nothing really big happens. Right before that, the story arc for the second set of students ends rather abruptly and left me wondering what happens to everyone- at least with the first set, we kind of knew- so actually I was a little disappointed with this ending. It felt incomplete. But I suppose the main hero is Zhang Guimei so it makes sense for the show to bring the focus back to her.
Clearly the show has a great story to work with, and it generally tells it well. But I still thought they could have done some things better with the narrative focus.
The show follows Zhang Guimei as she struggles to set up the school (funding, recruiting teachers and students, etc), then it follows the first class of students, and then it follows a second class of students some years later. So aside from Zhang Guimei herself, there are other characters whose stories you end up getting emotionally invested in.
I don’t know how much is dramatized and/or fictionalized, ie how many of these other characters are real. But I did end up caring a lot about them. In general this is a good thing, because it’s what makes this an interesting drama and not just a documentary.
I just wished they saw these stories through more and gave us more closure on each of them. It felt like a lot of them were just abruptly dropped and forgotten. I felt this way about the teachers and both batches of students. I wanted to continue their stories and find out what happens to them; but after their story arcs end, we might see them around but we don’t really know how they’re doing.
If the show wanted to tell several sets of stories with different characters, I think it would have been better to just move on fully each time. Seeing familiar faces around makes you want their stories to continue, and that is denied. Would it be that hard to give us a few scenes showing how the teachers have adjusted to their lives after several years? And I was happy to see Gu Yu return for the second set of students, but her story there also feels incomplete and unfinished as we are abruptly pulled away to follow Zhang Guimei’s declining health.
It’s not that Zhang Guimei herself isn’t interesting. She is, and I like that the show presents her not just as some sort of saint. Actually she’s shown to be very stubborn and sometimes difficult. I think some of her actions were actually quite questionable- like leaving a student to live outside in the cold and rain for weeks, thank goodness nothing happened to the girl (somehow it all gets painted as “good” for the girl... hrm). Either way, I sometimes found myself a little frustrated at Zhang Guimei, but I still like this realistic portrayal. You don’t usually get a legend without some difficult traits.
The acting is quite good, too. And the settings are pretty. It was filmed in Yunnan for some beautiful mountain scenery. There is a lot of speech in local dialect, making subtitles especially important.
Overall I’d say it’s a good show, but I came in expecting that based on the description. I think it would have been better if they followed some of the side characters’ stories more completely. Of course we don’t want to take away too much focus from Zhang Guimei, but if you make me invested in a side character’s story then I will be invested, that’s just how that works.
BTW, the CCP are heroes in this show and Zhang Guimei at some point uses CCP propaganda to motivate her students. That really did happen, so regardless of how you feel about the communist party, they are good guys in this show and be prepared for some loud CCP propaganda.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
Zhang Guimei is still alive right now, so although the show’s final arc shows her struggling to continue despite declining health, nothing really big happens. Right before that, the story arc for the second set of students ends rather abruptly and left me wondering what happens to everyone- at least with the first set, we kind of knew- so actually I was a little disappointed with this ending. It felt incomplete. But I suppose the main hero is Zhang Guimei so it makes sense for the show to bring the focus back to her.
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