# The Youth Memories (梦中的那片海)
**The Youth Memories** (梦中的那片海) is a Chinese period drama television series set in 1970s Beijing that follows a group of young people, many from military-compound families, through nearly thirty years of growth, ambition, and upheaval from the eve of reform and opening up into the new millennium. It was produced by CCTV and Xixi Pictures, directed by Fu Ning (付宁), with Yang Xiaopei (杨晓培) as artistic director and chief producer, and led by [Xiao Zhan](https://www.edgepedia.org/xiao-zhan) as Xiao Chunsheng (肖春生) and Li Qin as Tong Xiaomei (佟晓梅). It premiered on June 1, 2023 in CCTV-8's prime-time slot and on [Tencent Video](https://www.edgepedia.org/tencent-video), ran 38 episodes, and drew a Douban score of 7.5.[1](https://ent.sina.cn/2026-10-22/detail-iniwarrp5951049.d.html) • [2](https://whlyj.sh.gov.cn/gbds/20230615/7b3b21c0d99444b398638162334213c2.html)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Premiere | June 1, 2023, CCTV-8 prime time (two episodes nightly) and Tencent Video exclusive streaming; 38 episodes[1](https://ent.sina.cn/2026-10-22/detail-iniwarrp5951049.d.html) |
| Setting | Beijing in the 1970s, centered on the Shichahai (什刹海) ice rink, the "sea" of the title; story spans nearly 30 years[3](https://fun.youth.cn/gnzx/202306/t20230612_14578370.htm) |
| Main cast | Xiao Zhan (Xiao Chunsheng), Li Qin (Tong Xiaomei), Liu Ruilin (Ye Guohua), Cao Feiran (He Hongling), Zhao Xin (Ye Fang), Cui Hang (Chen Hongjun)[2](https://whlyj.sh.gov.cn/gbds/20230615/7b3b21c0d99444b398638162334213c2.html) |
| Key crew | Director Fu Ning (deceased), artistic director and chief producer Yang Xiaopei, chief planner Ye Jing, screenwriters Xu Bing and Zhou Heyang[2](https://whlyj.sh.gov.cn/gbds/20230615/7b3b21c0d99444b398638162334213c2.html) |
| Opening ratings | 1.461% on premiere day by China Audio-Visual Big Data (CVB), first in the national time slot; Tencent heat value passed 27,000 within the first week[4](https://whb-oss.oss-cn-shanghai.aliyuncs.com/zhuzhan/yingshi/20230607/524836.html) |
| Later performance | Tencent heat value exceeded 30,000, the platform's only series to do so; Douban score 7.5[1](https://ent.sina.cn/2026-10-22/detail-iniwarrp5951049.d.html) |
| Genre | Youth-oriented period drama (年代剧) combining linear narrative with a coming-of-age, ensemble structure[5](https://www.oalib.com/research/6813383) |
## Spoilers
### Premise and characters
The story opens in Beijing in the mid-to-late 1970s, when reform and opening up was still gathering and a wave about to overturn many lives was approaching. Its central figures are a circle of young Beijingers: the chivalrous, idealistic Xiao Chunsheng; the gentle but strong-willed Tong Xiaomei, who refuses the stable job her parents arrange and starts from basic nursing work to become a doctor; Ye Guohua, from a privileged family; the violinist He Hongling; the clear-headed, decisive Ye Fang, who schemes to ruin her own reputation to escape an arranged engagement; and Chen Hongjun, from a poor family.[6](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_23406109) • [7](https://opinion.people.com.cn/BIG5/n1/2023/0609/c437948-40010249.html) • [8](https://wenhui.whb.cn/third/zaker/202306/14/525906.html)
The title's "sea" refers to Shichahai, the lake district in central Beijing whose ice rink anchors the opening episodes and serves as a shared memory space for several generations of Beijing residents.[4](https://whb-oss.oss-cn-shanghai.aliyuncs.com/zhuzhan/yingshi/20230607/524836.html)
### Story structure
A narrative analysis published in the journal *Journalism and Communications* divides the plot into three stages along a linear timeline. In the first, from the winter of 1975 to the autumn of 1978, Xiao Chunsheng is the most striking figure among his friends in the old city but cannot enlist because of a problem connected with his father. In the second, from autumn 1978 to spring 1979, he joins the army, makes friends there, and falls into conflict with Ye Guohua; stepping on a landmine in combat leaves him badly wounded, facing paralysis and discharge, He Hongling breaks up with him, and his father dies. In the third, from spring 1979 to 2003, Tong Xiaomei accompanies his rehabilitation and the two marry; he clashes with and breaks with the corrupt official Chen Hongjun, and after reform begins he goes into business and builds a medical-device company.[9](https://pdf.hanspub.org/jc20230400000_78652075.pdf)
The series uses a multi-thread, multi-perspective structure in which each thread is indexed to a character and advances with time, and it deliberately avoids stock melodrama devices: after a blow to the head Xiao Chunsheng does not lose his memory, and when He Hongling's hand is cut, the violinist recovers within a day rather than losing her career.[10](https://www.ctdsb.net/c1664_202307/1826356.html)
## Period detail and production
**Historical texture.** The production worked to reproduce the plainness of the era, from costumes and sets to regional speech such as "颠儿了" and "局气," and recreated period locations and objects including Shichahai, the hutongs, and the "28-bar" bicycles of the day.[9](https://pdf.hanspub.org/JC20230400000_78652075.pdf) Plot choices track dated events: the characters' eagerness to enlist matches the 1977 context in which urban youths competed to join the army, and Chen Hongjun sits the 1977 college entrance examination, which was held in winter, wearing a padded coat.[3](https://fun.youth.cn/gnzx/202306/t20230612_14578370.htm) Small roles are grounded in reality: the skate-sharpening master in the opening is played by an heir of the real "Beijing Ice Blade King," and the cardiac surgeon Professor Su mentioned in episode six refers to Su Hongxi (苏鸿熙), a pioneer of Chinese cardiac surgery.[3](https://fun.youth.cn/gnzx/202306/t20230612_14578370.htm)
Director Fu Ning, who grew up in a Beijing hutong and had previously directed the realist dramas *Hutong* and *Quanjiafu*, oversaw the story's core and period atmosphere; he described the era as one of soaring spirits, liberated thought, and hot-blooded youth.[11](https://www.ctdsb.net/c1742_202306/1776574.html) [Cinematography](https://www.edgepedia.org/cinematography) director Gao Qi said the team settled on a warm color palette after studying the script and comparable period works, to convey the characters' upward spirit and a flourishing society.[12](https://ep.shxwcb.com/2023/06/07/img/050607.pdf)
## Reception
The series premiered strongly. On its first day it drew a 1.461% rating by CVB, first in the national time slot, and its Tencent heat value passed 27,000 within a week, leading the platform's drama chart; third-party trackers such as Kuyun and Maoyan placed it at the top of daily heat rankings for days after launch.[4](https://whb-oss.oss-cn-shanghai.aliyuncs.com/zhuzhan/yingshi/20230607/524836.html) Kuyun's national live-viewing attention peaked above 1.8350%, first in its time slot, and the show averaged more than 150 hot-search entries per day across platforms in its opening period.[3](https://fun.youth.cn/gnzx/202306/t20230612_14578370.htm) Eastern Satellite TV joined with a 1.5-run rebroadcast from June 2023.[4](https://whb-oss.oss-cn-shanghai.aliyuncs.com/zhuzhan/yingshi/20230607/524836.html) In later circulation the series became Tencent Video's only drama whose in-platform heat value exceeded 30,000, and it was rerun repeatedly on CCTV channels, with one report counting 200 satellite broadcasts within three years of premiere.[1](https://ent.sina.cn/2026-10-22/detail-iniwarrp5951049.d.html) • [13](https://ent.sina.cn/2026-09-24/detail-iniswezm5664172.d.html?wm=3049_0015)
**Critical response.** Commentators credited the drama with linking generations: it evoked the memories of viewers who lived through the era and aroused younger viewers' curiosity, and its theme of tying personal striving to a wider world resonated with contemporary audiences.[14](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2023-07/21/content_36712367.htm) • [4](https://whb-oss.oss-cn-shanghai.aliyuncs.com/zhuzhan/yingshi/20230607/524836.html) Critics also singled out its female characters, Tong Xiaomei's professional resolve, Ye Fang's rationality, and He Hongling's persistence with the violin, as a new kind of independent woman on screen.[9](https://pdf.hanspub.org/JC20230400000_78652075.pdf)
Not all commentary was favorable. A Wenhui Daily review argued that the drama casts a nostalgic filter over youth and idealizes its characters, particularly the protagonist Xiao Chunsheng, making the series less a record than an imaginative compensation for a generation's memories; the same review noted that Tong Xiaomei has too little screen time early on.[15](https://wenhui.whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20230614/525908.html) Jiemian News reported that Douban displayed an abnormality notice in the drama's short-comment section, showing only a few dozen of more than 50,000 comments, mostly five-star, a measure the outlet described as routine for top-star dramas with sharply polarized ratings; it also judged the first four episodes solid but conventional within the Beijing-compound genre, recalling earlier works such as *Blood Romantic* and *Days Related to Youth*.[16](https://www.jiemian.com/article/9516868.html)
## Place in the genre
The series belongs to the recent wave of Chinese period dramas that tell national change through youth narratives, alongside *Like a Flowing River* and *Minning Town*, and it follows a lineage of Beijing nostalgia works set around military-compound youth, including *In the Heat of the Sun* and *[Mr. Six](https://www.edgepedia.org/mr-six)*. Reviewers noted that it avoids the heavily typified plot elements of the genre, weaving romantic sensibility into its narrative instead, and that its use of symbolic geography, the ice rink, hutongs, the Great Wall, and the mountains beyond the city, extends the Beijing-story tradition beyond folkloric city interiors.[17](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2023-06/02/content_36606287.htm) • [8](https://wenhui.whb.cn/third/zaker/202306/14/525906.html) • [15](https://wenhui.whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20230614/525908.html)
## References
1. [肖战热度破3万的电视剧《梦中的那片海》主要讲了什么？新浪娱乐](https://ent.sina.cn/2026-10-22/detail-iniwarrp5951049.d.html)
2. [记录一代人的青春与成长 《梦中的那片海》东方卫视播出，上观新闻/上海市文化和旅游局](https://whlyj.sh.gov.cn/gbds/20230615/7b3b21c0d99444b398638162334213c2.html)
3. [《梦中的那片海》展现动人演技 构筑鲜活形象，中国青年网](https://fun.youth.cn/gnzx/202306/t20230612_14578370.htm)
4. [《梦中的那片海》多平台热播，老北京青年的故事何以跨越地域与代际？文汇网](https://whb-oss.oss-cn-shanghai.aliyuncs.com/zhuzhan/yingshi/20230607/524836.html)
5. [年代剧《梦中的那片海》叙事艺术分析（杨曼），OALib / Journalism and Communications](https://www.oalib.com/research/6813383)
6. [《梦中的那片海》：七十年代下的青春群像，澎湃新闻](https://www.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_23406109)
7. [人民藝起評：《夢中的那片海》，以奮斗群像見我之青春，人民網](https://opinion.people.com.cn/BIG5/n1/2023/0609/c437948-40010249.html)
8. [文艺评论｜《梦中的那片海》：年代故事里的时代精神，文汇网](https://wenhui.whb.cn/third/zaker/202306/14/525906.html)
9. [年代剧《梦中的那片海》叙事艺术分析（杨曼），新闻传播科学 PDF](https://pdf.hanspub.org/jc20230400000_78652075.pdf)
10. [艺评丨杨金：在千面人生的抒写中体味梦想，极目新闻/湖南文联](https://www.ctdsb.net/c1664_202307/1826356.html)
11. [《梦中的那片海》开播，中国青年报客户端/极目新闻](https://www.ctdsb.net/c1742_202306/1776574.html)
12. [新闻晨报（2023年6月7日）PDF](https://ep.shxwcb.com/2023/06/07/img/050607.pdf)
13. [肖战的新剧《梦中的那片海》什么时候播出？新浪娱乐](https://ent.sina.cn/2026-09-24/detail-iniswezm5664172.d.html?wm=3049_0015)
14. [致敬青春年华 绘就时代景观，光明网文艺评论频道](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2023-07/21/content_36712367.htm)
15. [文艺评论｜《梦中的那片海》：怀旧式的迷恋与想象性的补偿，文汇网](https://wenhui.whb.cn/zhuzhan/xinwen/20230614/525908.html)
16. [肖战《梦中的那片海》首播刷瘫酷云，界面新闻](https://www.jiemian.com/article/9516868.html)
17. [“青春年代剧”的叙事策略与价值追寻，光明网文艺评论频道](https://wenyi.neamco.com/2023-06/02/content_36606287.htm)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › International serial drama and telenovelas › East Asian drama series › Chinese modern and contemporary drama › Premiered 1998 to 2023*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license