Winter Begonia (鬓边不是海棠红)

Winter Begonia (鬓边不是海棠红, Bin Bian Bu Shi Hai Tang Hong) is a 2020 Chinese Republican-era television drama about a Peking opera master and a patriotic businessman who work to preserve their art form in 1930s Beiping as war with Japan approaches. It was adapted from the online novel of the same name by Shui Ru Tian Er (水如天儿), produced by Yu Zheng (于正), and starred Huang Xiaoming, Yin Zheng, and Charmaine Sheh.^{1 • 2}

Adaptation from the novel

The source novel was written by the web novelist Shui Ru Tian Er. Yu Zheng bought the rights, served as producer, and invited the original author to join the screenwriting team alongside Yu Zhou and Jiu Ren (久任).^{1 • 3} An academic study of the series notes that, unlike the original novel and other danmei-adapted series (adaptations of boys' love fiction), the series presents its male leads' masculinities as conventional and rejecting of gender fluidity, and that this adjustment helped it move closer to the mainstream and become the first danmei-adapted series that aired on TV.⁴

Production

Filming ran from December 13, 2018 to April 29, 2019, a little over four months, at Hengdian World Studios in Zhejiang province, China's largest film and television production base.^{1 • 9 • 6} Director Hui Kaidong, best known for the 2018 hit Story of Yanxi Palace, said few recent films and television series had featured the Peking opera theme, which made the project appealing to him.⁶

Opera training. During eight months of preparation, the production invited Peking opera stars, including the prestigious artist Bi Guyun and the rising performer Yin Jun, to coach the cast in the history, culture, and performance skills of the art form; Bi Guyun served as the drama's opera consultant.^{6 • 10} Yin Zheng, who had no Peking opera background, attended classes at an opera school weekly before shooting, studied under the opera actor Mou Yuandi, and received on-set coaching from Mou, Yin Jun, and Bi Guyun. He wore heavy head accessories for over 10 hours a day during training, and each opera-styled makeup session took at least two and a half hours.^{6 • 3}

Costumes and sets. The production built sets covering over 20,000 square meters and prepared around 200 Peking opera costumes, each of which took about three months to make. The most luxurious, for the title role of The Drunken Concubine, is adorned with over 40 ribbons and has sleeves interwoven with seven-color silk threads. More than half of the over 200 costumes were custom-made, and two theaters in the series were one-to-one replicas of the Jingguang and Huguang guild halls.^{6 • 11} Some costumes were made by Suzhou embroidery masters who began work half a year before shooting, and the borrowed headdress for the Yang Guifei role was valued at several hundred thousand yuan.³

In the series, Yin performs in more than 20 Peking opera shows from at least eight schools, including classics such as The Drunken Concubine and The Battle of Wan City.⁶

Reception

The series ran on iQiyi from March 20, 2020, during the early COVID-19 pandemic period when Chinese cinemas were closed, and was listed as the platform's most popular content shortly after it started streaming.⁶ Hashtags about the series on Sina Weibo received 480 million clicks and generated nearly 1.2 million reviews, and a scene of Yin's character performing went viral on Chinese social media, drawing young viewers' attention to Peking opera.⁶ A Guangming Daily commentary reported a Douban score of 7.6 in April 2020 and placed the series in a line of television works built on Chinese opera, such as Xun Huisheng (2007) and Qiu Haitang (2007).⁷

Awards. The series was named one of the Top Ten Quality Web Series of the Year at the 2020 Golden Bud, The Fifth Network Film and Television Festival, and one of the Top Ten Television Series at the 2020 9th iQiyi All-Star Carnival. At the 2020 7th Hengdian Film and TV Festival of China (Wenrong Awards), the screenwriters Yu Zhou, Shui Ru Tian Er, and Jiu Ren won Best Screenwriter and Luan He Xin won Best Art Director. The 9th China Student Television Festival named it Most Recommended Television Series.¹

Place in the opera-drama genre

The series depicts Peking opera performers during the Republic of China period and contains many references to Chen Kaige's 1993 film Farewell My Concubine in plot and characters. Both stories are set in the same era, but Winter Begonia's story stops at the Anti-Japanese War period (1937–1945), and, similar to the ending of the original Farewell My Concubine novel, Cheng Fengtai flees to Hong Kong with his family while Shang Xirui remains in Beiping.⁴ A People's Daily Overseas Edition commentary grouped Shang Xirui with the devoted "opera fanatic" protagonists of Farewell My Concubine, Forever Enthralled, and Enter the Forbidden City, and noted that the drama stages many famous opera pieces, including Wujiapo, The Drunken Concubine, and Yutangchun.¹²

References

1. Winter Begonia, DramaWiki
2. Charmaine Sheh Snags Lead Female Role in Yu Zheng's "Winter Begonia", JayneStars
3. 尹正：戏里戏外皆戏痴, 人民政协网 (羊城晚报)
4. HKBU thesis on masculinity and danmei adaptation in Winter Begonia
5. Winter Begonia, Rakuten Viki
6. Streaming tale of ties, China Daily HK
7. 《鬓边不是海棠红》：激活非遗大IP, 光明网
8. Winter Begonia, Tan Jian Ci Brasil
9. "Winter Begonia" Wraps Up Filming, JayneStars
10. 一出好戏，离不开人生百态, 中国新闻网
11. 《鬓边不是海棠红》：展现戏曲魅力 讲述处世之道, 人民网
12. 京剧的锦灰堆, 人民日报海外版

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 › East Asian web and streaming serials › Titles Sp to Z

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 21, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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