I don't have a lot of foundational knowledge…

I don't have a lot of foundational knowledge about the Chinese Communist party, which is one of the reasons I thought I would sit down and watch this series. This is very obvious and unsubtle as far as video material goes. There's not a lot of nuance here - there is literally a scene of a man crying as he sets a stack of books on fire. It's also not a great introductory resource for someone just trying to learn more about the Chinese Communist party in the sense that it's clear that the intended audience is someone who already knows that history. Our main character takes a second about halfway through the episode to announce, seemingly out of nowhere at a kitchen table that he is changing his name to "Wangdao" and then the camera pauses and holds, poignantly. I didn't know who Chen Wangdao was (looking him up, he seems fascinating in that he was a well-traveled polyglot who is the first man to translate the Communist Manifesto to Chinese) so this line delivery is very, very odd. Again though, I am not the intended audience. This has the gloss of "near historical" drama all over it, from the odd saturation to the vignetting. It's dry as a bone. I will still likely check out more from this anthology since each episode is only 30 minute episodes and it seems that they got some exceptionally talented actors to be involved.

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