Village people

New drama brings poverty alleviation stories to life, Xing Wen reports. 

The recently released TV series, A Land So Rich in Beauty, aims to vividly portray real, representative and diverse characters involved in the country's poverty alleviation campaign.

Premiering on Hunan Satellite TV and the video-streaming platform, Mango TV, on Jan 10, the 31-episode drama series tells the story of how Pu Quansheng and Sha Ou, two 30-something resident cadres working toward poverty alleviation, help to change the fortunes of Wanmixi, a backward but picturesque－fictional－village deep in the mountains.

It follows the trials, tribulations and victories of the pair as they strive to improve the education of "left-behind" children, help develop local agriculture, lead the establishment of e-commerce sales channels, as well as facilitating the improvement of the basic infrastructure of the village. Most importantly, though, it's about how they win the hearts and minds of the villagers in their charge.

The cast, including actor Luo Jin, actress Yuan Shanshan and host-turned-actress Shen Mengchen, were required to immerse themselves in rural life to learn farm work and the local customs in Hunan's Xiangxi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture before they started to play the roles. Luo says he was keen to get closer to the people to show how they live to the wider public.

The scriptwriter Wang Chenggang once spent three months traveling across Hunan province's mountainous areas to interview more than 100 cadres working on poverty alleviation and observe the lives of the rural residents to gather materials and inspiration for the show's storyline. The interviewees' stories were recorded and edited into short, 3-minute-long videos that appear at the end of each episode.