# The Long Season (2023) Review: A Rust-Belt Requiem > The Long Season is Xin Shuang's melancholic Chinese crime drama, a 12-episode puzzle across three timelines in a declining industrial city, led by a superb Fan Wei. Canonical: https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/the-long-season-review/ Published: 2026-07-22 Last updated: 2026-09-24 Author: Kaiser Khan — Founder & Editor Language: English Review basis: direct-viewing Spoilers: none Rating: 4.5/5 ## Verdict Yes. A patient, structurally daring and deeply moving crime drama for viewers who value character and atmosphere over fast-paced thrills. ## Is The Long Season worth watching? **Yes. The Long Season is one of the finest Chinese dramas of the streaming era, a crime story that becomes a moving elegy for a city and a generation left behind by economic change.** Fan Wei's performance as an ageing, stubborn amateur detective is funny, sad and entirely human, and the nonlinear structure pays off with real emotional force. The only reservation is its deliberate pace, which asks viewers to be patient before the pieces click into place. ## What is The Long Season about? In a declining industrial city in China's north, Wang Xiang (Fan Wei) is a former train driver whose past is marked by an unsolved case: a dismembered body found near the railway tracks decades earlier. When something from that old crime resurfaces, he becomes obsessed with finding the truth, dragging friends and former colleagues along with him. The story moves between three timelines, gradually revealing how the lives of ordinary workers, police officers and their families were reshaped by layoffs, betrayal and the quiet violence of a collapsing industrial world. [The Long Season](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/the-long-season/) is a Chinese series in Mandarin, directed by Xin Shuang, with Qin Hao, Chen Minghao and Li Gengxi in the principal supporting roles. This review covers the complete story: a single season of 12 episodes released in 2023, with nothing left hanging. ## Fan Wei's everyman detective Fan Wei, long known for comedy, gives a performance of remarkable range. Wang Xiang is talkative, stubborn and often absurd, a man who fills silences with jokes and schemes. But beneath the humour lies deep grief, and Fan lets it surface gradually, so that by the later episodes every small gesture carries enormous weight. His chemistry with Qin Hao, who plays a close companion in his investigation, gives the drama much of its warmth and bickering humour. The supporting cast is equally strong, with each actor handling different ages and timelines convincingly. The series is as much an ensemble portrait of a community as it is a mystery. ## Three timelines, one slow reveal Xin Shuang's direction is patient and precise. The show cuts between eras without always signposting the shift, trusting viewers to recognise the changes in faces, clothes and moods. That can be disorienting at first, but it allows the mystery to unfold in layers, with each timeline adding context to the others and small details early on gaining new meaning later. The structure is not a gimmick; it mirrors the way the characters themselves are haunted by the past. The visual style is equally considered. Autumn light, empty factories and rusting railway lines evoke a place in decline, and the recurring images of trains, fields and industrial ruins give the drama a poetic quality. The soundtrack adds to the melancholy without becoming sentimental. The series earned recognition at China's Magnolia Awards, and it is easy to see why. ## Where patience is required The Long Season is deliberately slow, especially in its opening episodes, which spend time on character and atmosphere before the central mystery takes hold. Viewers expecting a tightly plotted thriller may find the early going meandering, and the shifting timelines require close attention. The regional humour, much of it built on local dialect and banter, may also lose some of its flavour in subtitles. But those who stay with it are rewarded with one of the most satisfying final stretches in recent television. ## Who should watch The Long Season? It is ideal for fans of slow-burn crime drama, character studies and stories about memory and social change, as well as anyone curious about the best of contemporary Chinese television. Twelve episodes make it a compact commitment by Chinese drama standards. The series includes violence, a grisly crime and mature themes, but it is more melancholy than graphic. If it moves you, try these next from the [crime](https://celluloidscore.com/genres/crime/) shelf: - [The Knockout](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/the-knockout-review/) for another acclaimed 2023 Chinese crime saga spanning decades of a changing city. - [Three-Body](https://celluloidscore.com/reviews/three-body-review/) for a different kind of patient, puzzle-like storytelling from the same year. - Find more on the [Netflix hub](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/platform/netflix/). ## The verdict The Long Season is a beautifully crafted, emotionally devastating crime drama that uses a cold case to explore loss, memory and the human cost of economic upheaval. Its slow pace demands patience, but its performances and structure make it essential viewing. **Rating: 4.5/5** ## Related title - [The Long Season (2023)](https://celluloidscore.com/shows/the-long-season/) ## Editorial - [Editorial standards](https://celluloidscore.com/about/editorial-policy/) - [Report a correction](https://celluloidscore.com/about/corrections/)