Dafeng has a vice grip on me even now (been traveling through China so I'm too tired to actually go on The Internet lol) because of its stance on accents and dialects. It really shouldn't be such a bold statement, but here we are.
From the first episode, where the salesman boss mocks Yang Ling for his accent, then to him casually speaking in dialect...
The hints of Li Yuchun breaking into dialect when we first meet him...
Their full-blown HILARIOUS fight when Ningyan full on snaps and they start yelling at each other in dialect (because their actors are both from Sichuan, meta meta).
And as they begin to actually grow close, their small, occasional exchanges where they reassure each other in dialect.
I truly, truly cannot stand the weird standard Mandarin-washing in most films nowadays. C-dramas demand perfect Beijing-esque dialect even when it makes zero sense. Wang Yibo is literally from Luoyang, let the boy pop in a few dialect words in 风起洛阳 (Luoyang). Liu Yuning is from the northeast, homeland of the Manchurians, him voicing himself in his normal accent would actually spice up the narrative more in 天行健 (Heroes).
And before you say "well, that's harmless," it's happening in international films too, like Ip Man 4 and Shang-Chi -- films where it actually makes more sense to talk with southern accents and languages because Chinese diaspora is still mostly southern. I loved Ip Man 4 (hot take, I know, may or may not go into that one day), but dubbing standard Mandarin over a Chinese American girl born and raised in San Francisco is not it. If there is anywhere in the world where a westernized/Cantonese hybrid has basically become its own dialect, it's Chinatown. That is literally erasure within our own communities facing gentrification and displacement.
So yeah. I really love Dafeng. It's already a super fun romp, but even if it weren't, I would love it just for showing us that accents and dialects don't need to be washed out. For having fun with it, for actually giving the characters greater depth. For cleverly playing with dialogue.
