IPartment
| iPartment | |
|---|---|
| Genre |
Sitcom Comedy Comedy-drama |
| Created by |
Wei Zheng Wang Yuan |
| Starring |
|
| Narrated by |
|
| Opening theme | "My Future Styles" by Amber Kuo(Guo Caijie) |
| Country of origin | China |
| Original language(s) |
Chinese Japanese English Korean |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 84 |
| Production | |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Running time | 45 minutes |
| Production company(s) | Shanghai Media Distribution |
| Release | |
| Original network |
Season 1: Jiangxi TV Season 2: Guangdong TV Dragon TV Shandong Education TV Ningxia TV Season 3: Anhui TV Hubei TV Shaanxi TV Dragon TV Season 4: Anhui TV Dragon TV Heilongjiang TV Hubei TV |
| Picture format |
576i 4:3 (SDTV) (Season 1) 1080i 16:9 (HDTV) (Season 2–4) |
| Audio format | Dolby Digital 5.1 |
| Original release | August 23, 2009 |
iPartment (Chinese: 爱情公寓; pinyin: Àiqíng Gōngyù), is a sitcom from Mainland China. It was produced by Shanghai Film Group Corporation and Shanghai Film Studio, aired by Jiangxi TV in August 2009, with 20 45-minute episodes.
The second season switched into a different style approach with episodes aired online, due to its online fan base and polls for upcoming episodes. The second season featured four of the same characters from the first season, with three new characters. The third season followed with the same cast.
The i in the English title is a reference to ài (爱), the Chinese term for "love".
Premise
The show details the lives of seven youths in their mid-to-late 20's who are neighbors in an apartment building. Each person has a profession of their own and often gets into unexpected escapades.
Although much of the show is filmed on location, iPartment also contains a laugh track. The series uses a cinematic-style of approach with fast-paced editing and transitions, much like the British comedy series Spaced. There are also frequent references to more recent events and culture in China.
iPartment tends to combine genres such as drama, mystery, thriller, slapstick and surrealism. The second season leans more to a cinematic feel, with uses of CGI, camera effects and action scenes.
Cast
- Jin Shijia portrays Lu Zhanbo,
- A graduate from MIT who recently returned to China. He works as a network engineer. Zhanbo is very intelligent, but also socially inept and clumsy dealing with girls, often described by others as a stereotypical nerd. He likes watching scientific shows, and is a huge fan of Transformers. He first met Wanyu on the bus trip from the airport to the apartment, and fell in love with her. He eventually confessed his love to her at the end of season 1, which she accepted. He later went on a vacation around the world with Wanyu, and was absent for the whole season 2. He proposed to Wanyu in season 3, but she declined to pursue her future in Milano, and they break up despite still being in love with each other. He returns in Season 4, but then receives a job offer to go around the world for his company. He accepts the offer, and is missing from the rest of the season.
- Zhao Ji portrays Lin Wanyu,
- The daughter of a billionaire banker. She ran away from home when her father forced her to marry against her will, and met Zhanbo on the bus. She found various work and eventually got a job as a writer for a fashion magazine. She is smart and charming, but often thinks and acts naively and unrealistically in everyday life due to being raised in a wealthy family. She is into fashion design and likes Tarot/star sign predictions. She becomes Zhanbo's best friend. In the finale of season 1, she accepts Zhanbo and they go on a vacation around the world together as a couple. Around everyday life though, they appear more like friends than a couple. She eventually decides to go study fashion design college in Milano, and sadly parts with Zhanbo in season 3.
- Chen He portrays Zeng Xiaoxian,
- A host for the late-night radio talk show: “Your Moon, My Heart.” He is kind, sensitive but wimpy, often being forced into situations that are out of his control. His signature catch phrase on the show is: "Good man is me, I am Zeng Xiaoxian." (Chinese: "好男人就是我，我就是曾小贤！") Despite jokingly claiming to be a famous celebrity, his talk show is very unpopular and he is often ridiculed by his boss, Lisa. He has a long-time crush for Yifei, but he never confessed his love to her due to his cowardice. In the end of season 2, he won ¥5,000,000 from a TV program called Who Wants to be a Millionaire, but lost the money due to one of his fans named Huang Baoqiang winning it all away. At the end of season 3, the new co-host of his radio show, Nuo Lan, falls in love with him, but Xiaoxian has a hard choice whether to accept her or continue trying on Yifei, but deep in his heart, he knows that he truly loves Yifei and not Nuolan. He gets together with Nuolan in the fourth season, but always feels that he still likes Yifei.
- Lou Yixiao portrays Hu Yifei,
- Zhanbo’s older stepsister. She is a PhD graduate who works as a lecturer at her university. She is tough, aggressive and very competitive, with many of her friends jokingly saying she has the strength worth two men. She often bullies her friends around (Xiaoxian most of the time) with her forceful personality, and expresses her sarcasm at their incompetence. She is constantly annoyed by Xiaoxian’s wimpy and bumbling personality. In various places, you can see that she likes him, but always denies this to the public. In the finale of each season, she gets a moment of love with Xiaoxian, but it always ends without much meaning with neither of the two confessing their feelings for each other. Up until season four, though, she begins to show that she likes him. In episode 8 of season 4, she gets drunk and shouts at Nuolan that she likes him, but only after she asked her many times. She feels envious and sour when she sees Xiaoxian with Nuolan. She kept her love in for 4 years already, but she's feeling really sour at this point, so it's beginning to burst. In the 21st episode, through several 'coincidental' incidences, she finally kisses Xiaoxian, and naturally he kisses back. The only slight problem is that Xiaoxian also happens to be dating Nuo Lan at the time.
- Sun Yizhou portrays Lv Ziqiao,
- A young man who moved into the apartment next-door at the beginning of the series. He is a freelancer, though often thinks of smart ideas to make money or trick his friends into doing his bidding (though also occasionally fail and lead him to trouble). He is cunning, irresponsible but very charismatic, and likes to use his charms to flirt with various girls. Not only is he flirty, but he often gives his friends advice on girls. He uses the fake name “Lv Xiaobu” (named after Lv Bu) when dating other girls. He has a constant love-hate relationship with Meijia, but nearing the end of season 3, while searching for the perfect woman, he realised the person he loved the most is still Meijia.
- Li Jinming portrays Chen Meijia,
- Ziqiao’s ex-girlfriend, who moved into the apartment with him to take advantage of a discounted rent deal. She initially worked as Guangu’s assistant, later as Yifei’s teaching assistant (though loses the job due to a clumsy mistake), and later in a pet shop. She is childish, cheerful and ditzy, and gets easily attracted to cute things. She has a love-hate relationship with Ziqiao, and often gets angry at his laziness or flirting with other girls, and she also had a crush on Guangu for a short time when he first moved in. In season 2, she left the apartment and moved to another city, but returns in season 3 after failing her work there. In the end of season 3, she realizes that she still loves Ziqiao, and is hinted to be pregnant with his baby, but in season 4, she is revealed to be not pregnant.
- Wang Chuanjun portrays Sekitani Kamiya ,
- A Japanese young man who moved into the apartment. He was a manga artist from Yokohama, but left for China to pursue his career. He is charming and very serious, but when angered, he becomes extremely stubborn and (comically) violent, often taking out a katana and scaring his friends by claiming he will commit seppuku. He is still learning Chinese, and often misuses Chinese phrases. During season 1 he accidentally got a girlfriend but soon broke up. In the beginning of season 2, he falls in love with Youyou and eventually the two of them become a couple. Although he loves Youyou very much, he is often too overprotective, which annoys her. In the season 3 finale, he mistakenly thinking Youyou is pregnant and proposes to her, which she accepts.
- Deng Jiajia portrays Tang Youyou,
- Ziqiao’s little aunt (the youngest sister of his mother). She works as an actress, though her movie character always dies without any character development, much to her frustration. Even outside of the movie set, she likes to act overly dramatic; in one instance she spent a few hours fabricating and acting out a (fictional) story to explain to a stranger about how she and Sekiya met. She is also very bad at keeping secrets, but she always claims that she won't let them out. She meets Sekiya at the start of season 2, and they eventually become a couple. In the season 3 finale, she accepts Sekiya’s proposal, but reveals that she is not pregnant.
- Li Jiahang portrays Zhang Wei,
- A friend of Ziqiao that he met at the bar. He is a trainee lawyer. In season 1 he was a minor character that Ziqiao found to set up a date with Yifei, but he became a main character in season 2. He moved into the apartment after Ziqiao’s party caused him to miss his own wedding, indirectly causing his fiancée to run away with another man. He is kind-hearted and always keen to help others, but very unlucky and also quite stingy, often claiming he is saving money to buy his own house. He is allergic to seafood and ink stamps, and got hospitalized several times when he mistakenly eats lobster and crayfish, and also when he received an entrance stamp when the boys invited him to a nightclub. Throughout the series he has dated several girls, but his friends always end up unwittingly ruining it for him. In season 3 he leaves the apartment and found work as a lawyer in another city, though he has never won a single case for his client.
- Zhao Wenqi portrays Qin Yumo,
A high-school friend of Yifei who first appeared in season 2. She works as an office lady. She is a stereotypical white-collar worker: serious, level-headed but sensitive and easily depressed. She initially moved to the apartment to hide from her boyfriend, Richard. However, she found texts on Richard's phone of a different girl named Tina and broke up with him. Later, she found out that Richard was already married to Tina. Subsequently she had had a crush on two men but both to no avail. In season 3 she moved to another city, but still occasionally calls everyone to see how things are going.
- Rong Rong portrays Lisa Rong,
Zeng Xiaoxian's female boss and another ex-girlfriend of Ziqiao, she often makes Zeng Xiaoxian feel embarrassed. She often gives Zeng some difficult tasks and wants to fire him. But sometimes she will be sure of his efforts in heart.
- Kenichi Miura portrays Kenjiro Sekiya,
Appeared in Episode 7, Season 4. The father of Guangu. He always expects Guangu to be a chef of Japanese cuisine instead of manga artist. So he is very strict with his son.
Episodes
Season 1
Episode 1: Wedding Battle
Episode 2: The Super "Big" Scandal
Episode 3: March of Depression
Episode 4: The Revenge of Romance
Episode 5: Love Antidote
Episode 6: Fame In A Snap
Episode 7: Heterosexual Attractiveness
Episode 8: Mysterious Present
Episode 9: The Traffic Jam
Episode 10: Gambling King
Episode 11: It's A Small World
Episode 12: Life and Death
Episode 13: Memory Fragments
Episode 14: The Boring Weekend
Episode 15: The Halloween Fright
Episode 16: Gossip King
Episode 17: The Teller
Episode 18: You are Evil
Episode 19: Valentine (Two-Part Finale): The Valentine Prelude
Episode 20: Valentine (Two-Part Finale): The Last Valentine (Season Finale)
Season 2
Episode 21: I can Predict the Beginning, but I can't Predict the Ending
Episode 22: Drama Queen
Episode 23: I Am Legend
Episode 24: The Da Vina Code
Episode 25: Family
Episode 26: Raining With A Chance of Diamonds
Episode 27: In the Name of Love
Episode 28: The Drunk Angel
Episode 29: Dinner Party
Episode 30: The Festive Resurrection
Episode 31: The Conversion Fascination
Episode 32: The Best Actress
Episode 33: It's Not Father's Day
Episode 34: Hill of Hope: Cataclysm
Episode 35: The Secret Secret
Episode 36: The Story of the Single Woman
Episode 37: The Lady
Episode 38: The Boss
Episode 39: I'm Millionaire (Two-Part Finale): The Beginning
Episode 40: I'm Millionaire (Two-Part Finale): The End (Season Finale)
Season 3
Episode 41: I'm Millionaire (Part 3): The New Beginning
Episode 42: Fusion of Sekiya and Ziqiao
Episode 43: Silent Night
Episode 44: This Is A Miracle (Two-Part Story): The Return
Episode 45: This Is A Miracle (Two-Part Story): Stay
Episode 46: Nice to Meet You
Episode 47: War of Proposals
Episode 48: 2:30 A.M.
Episode 49: The King's Scar (Two-Part Story): The Best Ending
Episode 50: The King's Scar (Two Part Story): Life Is A Circle
Episode 51: Counter Strike
Episode 52: The Twist of Fate (Two-Part Story): Watching the Meteor Shower
Episode 53: The Twist of Fate (Two-Part Story): Moments We Share
Episode 54: The Scriptures from the Forbidden Summit
Episode 55: Social Network
Episode 56: No Ifs (Three-Part Story): The Break-Up and the Make-Up
Episode 57: No Ifs (Three-Part Story): The Truth and the Lie
Episode 58: No Ifs (Three-Part Story): The Prankster and the Pranked
Episode 59: My Girl
Episode 60: The True Lie
Episode 61: Flying Across the Mists of Mt. Creation (Two-Part Story): It's Night-Time, Close Your Eyes
Episode 62: Flying Across the Mists of Mt. Creation (Two-Part Story): It's the Morning, Open Your Eyes
Episode 63: The Matrix
Episode 64: Final Fantasy (Season Finale)
Season 4
Episode 65: Case Closed
Episode 66: No Problems
Episode 67: In the Name of Bro
Episode 68: Rock 'n' Roll
Episode 69: Incepted
Episode 70: Flight 19
Episode 71: A Long River
Episode 72: Love Life
Episode 73: The Cold Wars
Episode 74: The Watchman
Episode 75: Rich Friends
Episode 76: Escape Plan
Episode 77: The Bro Code
Episode 78: About the Crazies (Two-Part Story): The Prequel of the Sequel
Episode 79: About the Crazies (Two-Part Story): The Sequel of the Prequel
Episode 80: Superhero
Episode 81: Weekend at Sean's (Two-Part Story): Saturday at Sean's
Episode 82: Weekend at Sean's (Two-Part Story): Sunday at Sean's
Episode 83: The Paladin Goddess
Episode 84: When Love Breaks In (Two-Part Story): The Story of Us
Episode 85: When Love Breaks In (Two-Part Story): The Bright Golden Lining
Episode 86: The Shine of the Goddess
Episode 87: If I Saw Her Again (Two-Part Series Finale): Never Give Up
Episode 88: If I Saw Her Again (Two-Part Series Finale): Love. Never. Now.
Reception
The show has been well received by audiences and met with positive reviews since it is one of the few long-running TV shows that encouraged television comedy. The ratings dropped throughout the show's run mainly because of the constant reuse of running gags and jokes. Most of the criticism is directed towards the written material using jokes from Chinese-translated American sitcoms such as Friends,[1] How I Met Your Mother and The Big Bang Theory.[2]