If Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider count among your favorite film franchises, give the new Chinese adventure series Lost in the Kunlun Mountains a go when it premieres on July 27. The program will air simultaneously on iQiyi and Tencent Video, two of China’s biggest streaming platforms, and stars Chinese actor and model Xu Kai.
Based on Tianxia Bachang’s namesake novel from 2008, Lost in the Kunlun Mountains is set during the Republic of China (1912-1949), an increasingly popular backdrop for C-dramas.
The TV series follows protagonist Ding Yunqi (played by Xu Kai), who has just returned to Shanghai after studying abroad. Events unfold in such a way that only Ding knows the actual location of a hidden treasure in the Kunlun Mountains.
Naturally, he attracts the attention of several evil forces, from government officials to powerful warlords, as soon as he steps on Chinese soil.
A hashtag for the TV series on the Chinese microblogging platform Weibo had gained more than 47.2 million views at the time of writing. The social media site is full of comments, mostly from fans of Xu, who have liked the 27-year-old’s Weibo post about the series over 211,000 times.
A fan-made GIF of Xu Kai in the trailer for Lost in the Kunlun Mountains. Graphic via Weibo
History has repeatedly proven that having a ‘little fresh meat’ lead is usually enough for topical C-dramas to secure moderate success and a spot on Weibo’s trending topics chart.
However, whether Lost in the Kunlun Mountains will impress audiences remains to be seen. After all, the first half of 2022 was already saturated with well-performing TV shows, such as Liu Yifei’s costume drama A Dream of Splendor, Yang Yang’s wuxia series Who Rules the World, and everyone’s favorite time-loop drama Reset.
Cover image via Weibo
