[News] Kevin Cheng’s TV Drama “Red Dust” Mixes Love and Espionage.

[News] Kevin Cheng’s TV Drama “Red Dust” Mixes Love and Espionage.
Cr. - jaynestars

Mainland Chinese drama Red Dust <滾滾紅塵> recently began airing on television channels in Shanghai and Hunan. Starring Hong Kong actor Kevin Cheng (鄭嘉穎) and mainland Chinese actress Qin Lan (秦嵐), Red Dust has attracted much attention from viewers due to its intriguing mixture of love and espionage.

Although Red Dust shares the same name as the 1990 film starring Taiwanese actors Brigitte Lin (林青霞) and Qin Han (秦漢), the storylines are not quite related. The new TV drama is set during the Republic era, and its main focus is the history of the Second Sino-Japanese War. From there, it interweaves issues such as national crises, love and friendship, and the economy, thus creating a historical atmosphere with its multi-layered story.

In Red Dust, Kevin plays an underground Communist Party member for the first time. His character, Yu Lifan, is a handsome, quick-witted, and cool-headed revolutionary who is employed as a secret service agent for the Communist Party. While in Shanghai, he meets his first love Gu Haitang (Qin Lan), who was sold to a brothel several years ago after the death of her parents. Out of desperation, Haitang agrees to transport firearms for Lifan, but is arrested and later forced to leave the Shanghai French Concession. Soon, they find events spiraling out of their control, as Lifan is put on the wanted list for assassinating a key member of the Nationalist Party and Haitang braves death to help him escape.

Even though this was their first time working together, Kevin and Qin Lan had good chemistry together. Red Dust also marks the first espionage-themed drama that Kevin has participated in since entering the mainland Chinese television entertainment industry.

The drama’s director, Man Kit Poon (潘文杰), who was nominated for Best Director in the 1992 Hong Kong Film Awards, shared that the filming style for Red Dust was deliberately meant to resemble that of a film. “This drama’s camera language, editing techniques, and background music all adopted movie-like production methods,” he said. “I believe that after it airs, it will give viewers an impression of complete newness.”

“Red Dust” Trailer