C-Drama Starter Pack

5 Chinese Drama classics to get you started

Expat in UK
3 min readNov 11, 2022
Photo by zhang kaiyv on Unsplash

If you haven’t started watching Chinese dramas, you my friend are missing out. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea. But if you haven’t at least tried, you never know.

Of course, there are 100s of titles to watch and I haven’t watched everything. At the same time, I have watched at least 50 or more. So I have a decent idea of what is coming your way. Without further adieu, let’s get started.

Eternal Love (a.k.a. Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms)

The iconic love story of deities Ye Hua and Bai Qian is not one to miss. Love, hatred, betrayal, resentment, loyalty, deception, or whatever emotion you want you can get it in here. When I first read the story outline, I was not interested. But I have vastly underestimated the storyline. This 2017 drama is the one I recommend starting with. But do me a favor and keep your common sense at the door if you want to enjoy it to the fullest. That is actually true for most of the C-Dramas.

Eternal Love of Dream (a. k. a. Three Lives, Three Worlds, The Pillow Book)

This is a sequel to the first one and I personally love this one more than the first. The love story of Emperor Dong Hua and Bai Feng Jiu is the first C-Drama I watched and got me addicted to C-Dramas in the first place. You don’t have to watch Eternal Love to understand the storyline. But after I watched Eternal Love after this I definitely wished I started with Eternal Love.

Rebel Princess

This is a very high-cost production and the quality speaks for itself. After watching this, all the other historical dramas had a bar that they couldn’t even come close to. I absolutely love both the leads of the story, maybe a teensy bit more for the male lead. Do I think the name matches the story? Absolutely not. But still, this is such a beautiful arranged marriage love story. Apart from the lead couple, I liked how the drama portrayed the grey characters rather than limiting them to extreme black or white characters.

Nirvana in Fire

If you are not a fan of chick-flicky romance, then this is the story for you. I almost hated the writer for giving romance a back seat in the story. But the story is incredible and you won’t regret it.

Dream of Splendour

This is a relatively new slow-paced love story that almost makes perfect sense. Not that it has its fair share of stupid, but how can that make sense scenes? But believe me, they are way less. The story revolves around three friends who always get the short end of the stick most of the time because them being female. One of the big differences in the female lead here is that she fixes stuff without the male lead. A lot of other stories portray strong female leads who attract trouble but need male leads' help, but not this.

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Expat in UK
Expat in UK

Written by Expat in UK

Sri Lankan expat living in the UK writing on everything ranging from expat experience, book and travel tips, personal finance and working culture.

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