The City Maker 造城者 is Zhao Liying and Huang Xiaoming’s newest collab which wrapped filming yesterday, the first of May. Adapted from Zhu Xiaojun’s novel Zhong Guo Nong Min Cheng (中国农民城) which, when literally translated means Chinese Farmers City, The City Maker tells the story of how two extraordinary individuals – Li Qiuping (Zhao Liying) and Zheng Decheng (Huang Xiaoming), led a group of ordinary farmers in laying the groundwork for the eventual rise of a city in the course of 40 years.
In recent years, 37-year-old Zhao Liying seems to be favouring more serious roles for both her dramas and even her movies. From her characters in The Story of Xingfu and Wild Bloom to her most recent family drama slash suspense film The Unseen Sister where she portrayed a famous albeit troubled movie star whose elder sister suddenly makes a reappearance in her life after years of separation, the roles she’d been going for seem to display a certain sense of maturity. This latest project, a rural drama all about reform with Huang Xiaoming, seems to go along a similar vein.
Cast wise, the series also features a couple of notables such as Chen Minghao, Zhu Yuanyuan, Qin Junjie, Geng Le, Yu Ailei, Zhang Guoqiang, Wu Yanshu, Chen Farong, Fang Zibin and Song Ningfeng. Qin Junjie in particular you might remember as having previously worked on Legend of Chusen 青云志 back in 2016, a drama both his ex Yang Zi and Zhao Liying have also worked on so this is a reunion of sorts for the two actors.
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