Minning Town (2021) Review: Poverty Relief as Human Drama

Is Minning Town worth watching?

Yes, with reservations. Minning Town is a surprisingly affecting drama about a poor rural community building a new life in the desert, grounded in lively performances and a strong sense of place. It turns a story about poverty-alleviation policy into something warm, funny and human, which is why it became one of the most admired Chinese series of its year. The reservation is its perspective: this is a state-backed drama, and its portrait of officials and policy is consistently idealised.

What is Minning Town about?

The series follows villagers from a drought-stricken, desperately poor mountain region of Ningxia in north-west China who are asked to leave their homes and resettle on barren land closer to the Yellow River. Supported by officials and experts sent from the coastal province of Fujian under a partnership programme, they have to turn desert scrub into farmland and a functioning town. The drama traces this effort over many years, through failures, bureaucratic friction, family arguments and small breakthroughs.

Huang Xuan leads the cast as a young local who becomes central to the resettlement effort, with Zhang Jiayi, Yan Ni and Huang Jue among the experienced actors playing officials, experts and villagers on both sides of the partnership.

Minning Town is a Chinese series in Mandarin, directed by Kong Sheng, and it won Best Television Series at the Magnolia Awards. This review covers the complete drama: one season of 23 episodes, broadcast in 2021, with a finished story.

Real people in a policy story

The drama’s greatest strength is that it never forgets its characters are people first. The villagers are stubborn, funny, suspicious of change and deeply attached to their land, and the early episodes, in which families resist leaving homes that cannot support them, are handled with sympathy rather than condescension. The show understands that poverty is not only about money but about isolation, education and pride.

Huang Xuan gives the series a warm, energetic centre, playing a young man caught between loyalty to his elders and hope for something better. The supporting cast, with its many local characters, gives the village a lived-in texture, and the dialogue, which was also released in a version using regional dialect, captures the humour and rhythm of rural life.

A landscape that becomes a character

Kong Sheng’s direction makes the land itself one of the main actors. Dust storms, sun-baked earth, fragile new crops and makeshift homes are filmed with a documentary-like realism, and the gradual transformation of the settlement gives the series a satisfying sense of progress. The production avoids glossy excess; costumes, sets and locations feel authentic, and the attention to detail is striking for a drama of this scale.

The storytelling is efficient for a Chinese series, at just 23 episodes, and the years move by with a steady sense of change.

An official story, optimistically told

The limitation is inherent in the project. Minning Town was made to celebrate a government policy, and it rarely questions it. Officials are almost always dedicated and selfless, conflicts tend to be resolved by hard work and good leadership, and the harsher costs of resettlement are acknowledged but softened. Viewers used to more critical social dramas may find the relentless optimism and message-driven structure hard to fully accept, even when the human stories are moving.

Who should watch Minning Town?

It suits viewers interested in rural China, social history and ensemble dramas about community and change, and anyone curious about the kind of prestige television China makes about its own recent past. At 23 episodes, it is a manageable commitment. There is little violence; its themes of poverty, hardship and family conflict are handled in a way suitable for most audiences.

If it resonates, try these:

• The Long Season, another acclaimed Chinese drama with a strong sense of place, told with a more elusive, literary structure.
• Blossoms Shanghai for a very different view of China’s transformation, set among ambitious traders in a booming 1990s city.

The verdict

Minning Town is a warm, well-crafted drama that makes a story of resettlement and development feel personal, thanks to vivid characters and a compelling landscape. Its official, optimistic lens keeps it from being fully complex, but it remains one of the most humane state-backed series of its era.

Rating: 4/5