On September 2, 2010, the new version of A Dream of the Red Chamber, directed by the famous Li Shaohong, was officially broadcast in China. The TV series costs 118 million Yuan over four years. From the day it opened on screen, audiences and critics can’t stop talking about the production. From the casting and dress to the shooting and script adaptation, it has suffered controversy and questioning.

The large parts of voice-over, though “faithful” to the original book, don’t respect the characteristics of audio-visual arts. The audience criticized it as “novel broadcasting”. What’s more important, they broke the narrative of the novel and fragmented the story.

Secondly, the so called “aesthetic” pictures and shooting, the sudden quick motion, wired background music and scene, excessive saturated colors and unchanged dialogues took away the sense of reality and make the TV series an empty imitation.

In addition, the immaturity of the crowd of young actors rendered audiences speechless. Their performance is too superficial. Except lines recited mechanically, they have no communication and interaction with the characters that they were playing, let alone the interpretation and elaboration.