A Lonely Hero's Journey
孤舟
A 36-episode wartime espionage drama set in Japanese-occupied Suzhou, about an architect from a prominent family who is branded a traitor and goes undercover among the collaborators.
Save- Premiere
- Aug 6, 2024
- Episodes
- 36
- Where to watch
- iQIYI, Youku
- Also known as
- Gu Zhou · 고주: 고독한 추격자 · Путешествие одинокого героя · Странствия одинокого героя
About the drama
Wartime spy dramas are a crowded genre, and A Lonely Hero's Journey (孤舟, Gu Zhou, "lone boat") stands out by its place. It is set in Suzhou, the canal city of gardens and storytelling halls. Jiangsu Broadcasting quoted several critics who said the series opens up a new geographic and cultural setting for the genre and shows a refined, scholarly side of Chinese character.
The other draw is the pairing at its center. Zeng Shunxi (曾舜晞) plays the lead, and Zhang Songwen (张颂文) shares many of his scenes. In an interview published by Guangming Online on August 21, 2024, Zeng said that he prepared by reading about Suzhou's history and about secret agents, and that the director had him write his own biography of the character. He also described Gu as someone who bounces back from the bottom.
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Gu Yizhong (顾易中) comes from a prominent Suzhou family and has just returned from studying architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. When war breaks out, he and his girlfriend Xiao Ruotong (肖若彤, Wang Yuwen, 王玉雯) join the Communist underground. A rescue mission fails and the Suzhou network's contacts are exposed. Collaborators frame him, and his own side comes to see him as the traitor.
Unable to clear his name, Gu chooses to infiltrate the collaborators instead. The series follows the sheltered young man's slow transformation into an agent working inside the occupation's Suzhou special operations station, where he faces its chief, Zhou Zhifei (周知非), and a Japanese adviser, Kondo Toshio (近藤利男).
The story is set in Suzhou in 1941, under the Japanese-backed Wang Jingwei government. Lin Lisheng (林黎胜) directed, with Jiang Wei (姜伟) supervising, and the series was made for broadcast and streaming at once. It runs 36 episodes.
It began on August 6, 2024, on iQIYI and Youku and simultaneously on three satellite channels: Jiangsu, Dragon and Beijing. Jiangsu Broadcasting, one of its producers, said the three channels took the top three places in the week's satellite ratings, and that as of August 12 the series averaged 2.08% in CSM's 71-city sample and 2.35% in its 35-city sample. Jiangsu Broadcasting published its report on August 14, 2024, eight days after the premiere.
Cast and crew
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