TV gaokao drama earns high marks

Theme matters

Time and again, good themes have proven to yield big dividends for any TV and film productions, as they speak directly to the profound and shared elements of the human experience. A Little Reunion is one such drama, epitomizing this quality with a great theme.

Focused on the gaokao, a watershed moment in the lives of most Chinese, the drama can easily trigger floods of bittersweet memories related to the exam.

"Although the series has run for only a month, it seems I have been brought back to 2014, the year when I sat gaokao," reads one popular comment on Weibo, China's Twitter equivalent.

"Once again I dreamt of racking my brain to answer questions during a mock exam in the senior year of high school. It made me so nervous and I was still in a daze after waking up. I should've not watched the finale of A little Reunion, which is so like reality," reads a Weibo post.

Such posts and comments have been common since the series premiered a month ago. Gaokao, deemed the most likely means of upward social mobility — especially for those from rural families and low-income households — is inarguably the biggest challenge to the mettle of candidates and their parents, resulting in stronger familial bonds as children and parents share anxiety, tears and joy together.

Therefore, tapping gaokao — the reservoir of national memories — the show with stories unfolding in three households has struck a chord with millions of audience members by enabling them to see themselves in the characters and recall their own stories.