Sunshine by My Side
骄阳伴我
A 36-episode CCTV-8 urban romance in which a newly divorced advertising director and a young designer meet while each is starting over at work, shot in Chongqing.
Save- Premiere
- Sep 1, 2023
- Episodes
- 36
- Where to watch
- CCTV, iQIYI, Tencent Video
- Also known as
- Jiao Yang Ban Wo · Sunshine With Me
About the drama
Sunshine by My Side (骄阳伴我) is an older-woman, younger-man romance in which the workplace does as much of the talking as the couple. What keeps the leads together is that each is at a different point of the same working life: she is finding her footing again, he is trying to find his first.
It is a 36-episode remake of a Taiwanese series, directed by Song Xiaofei (宋晓飞). It premiered on CCTV-8 on 1 September 2023, with iQiyi (爱奇艺) and Tencent Video (腾讯视频) carrying it online at the same time. Chinese urban drama regularly draws on jobs, family pressure and the cost of living in a big city, and this one asks how such a romance holds up when work, family and the city all push back.
China Daily says the creators did not use the attractive younger suitor as a hook for female viewers, and instead portray the real difficulties of women in midlife, among them gender bias at work and a failing marriage.
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Sheng Yang's (盛阳) dream has an origin. As a teenager he was once, without either of them intending it, encouraged by "Director Sister" Jian Bing (简冰), and that planted the idea of becoming a designer in advertising.
The story then brings them together as adults, on very unequal footing. Jian Bing, played by Bai Baihe (白百何), is an established advertising director, newly divorced after her husband's betrayal. Sheng Yang, played by Xiao Zhan (肖战), is a designer in his early twenties, new to the industry.
The drama was shot in Chongqing (重庆) from 27 September 2022 to 7 February 2023. China Daily names the Qiansimen Bridge, Nanbin Road and the Yangtze River Cableway among the places on screen. The city is also Xiao Zhan's hometown. Here the romance has to share space with an office, a family and a street.
It is adapted from My Dear Boy (我的男孩), a 20-episode Taiwanese drama starring Ruby Lin (林心如) as a television-commercial director and Derek Chang (张轩睿) as a design student, which aired from December 2017 to May 2018. The mainland version keeps the pairing of a commercial director and a young designer and moves it to Chongqing.
Xiao Zhan says Sheng Yang differs from his earlier roles because he is closer to everyday life, "like you and like me." He worked in the design industry before becoming an actor, which China Daily says adds to the character's credibility.
China Daily reports that the first day on CCTV-8 reached a Kuyun peak rating of 1.5977, the highest same-day premiere rating on the channel in five years. It credits the series with avoiding melodramatic twists and with treating the age gap as a relationship of equals.
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