Father and son explore family across changing decades

Spring Festival, which just concluded, remains China's most important season of reunion, when families travel long distances — sometimes across borders — simply to sit together at one table.

Yet, the holiday is also a moment when generational values meet, rub against one another, and occasionally clash.

During this period, CCTV-1 premiered a new prime-time drama, The Blossoming Years, co-directed by filmmakers from different generations: Liu Jiacheng and his son Liu Yang. The drama is also aired on the online video platform Mango TV.

Spanning 40 episodes, the series follows a blended family across three decades, tracing shifting relationships, ambitions and everyday struggles.

Released during the reunion season, it invites viewers of varying ages to watch together and discover emotional connections that resonate differently for each.

The story opens in 1978 with a sweeping view of a machinery factory complex in a northern Chinese city, its tall smokestacks rising against the sky.

The camera then zooms in on the factory's residential compound, a cluster of red-brick homes, and enters a modest room. There, Zhuang Xianjin, a skilled worker at the factory, played by actor Tian Yu, knits a sweater, while his eldest daughter Zhuang Haohao, portrayed by Chen Haoyu, snaps green beans beside him.