Resilient spirit carries prisoner to prosperity

When director Zhang Ting was shooting the opening scene of Legend of the Magnate, a popular costume drama set in the turbulent 19th century, he thought of Andy Dufresne, the wrongly convicted protagonist of the Oscar-nominated classic The Shawshank Redemption.

The scene takes place in Ningguta, located in Mudanjiang, in Northeast China's Heilongjiang province, a notorious destination for the banishment of over 1.5 million people, the majority of whom were officials and intellectuals, during the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Situated over 1,400 kilometers from Beijing, many of those exiled did not survive the long, arduous journey, shackled in cangues. Those who did make it faced forced labor and enslavement by locally stationed troops in what was then a remote, impoverished military town.

Much like Dufresne in The Shawshank Redemption, the protagonist, Gu Pingyuan, in Legend of the Magnate, also written by Zhang, is wrongly convicted and exiled to Ningguta for 15 years. After nearly losing his eyesight to a severe illness during years of forced labor, Gu not only survives but also gradually wins the trust of a military officer, eventually being tasked with handling various situations. Through his intellect and reputation, he also earns the respect of his fellow prisoners.

Because of the region's extremely harsh natural environment, where winter temperatures can plummet below — 40 C, the prisoners are not held in a walled prison. Instead, they reside together and are assigned mandatory labor.

True to the famous line from the American film, "some birds aren't meant to be caged; their feathers are just too bright", Gu painstakingly plans his escape and succeeds.

Starring A-list actor Chen Xiao as Gu, the 40-episode Chinese drama has been airing on China Central Television's CCTV-8 and streamed on iQiyi since Nov 25, generating over 620 million views as of Dec 12, according to industry tracker Maoyan Pro.