Promotional material for the TV series Beyond Photo: Courtesy of Linmon Pictures

A Winter Olympics-themed TV series about China's short track speed skating national team has been getting viewers pumped up for the upcoming Olympic Winter Games since it debuted on January 9.

Taking Beijing's successful bid in 2015 to host the 2022 Games as its background, the 29-episode Beyond is the first Chinese TV series to depict the ups and downs of Chinese short track speed skaters since the sport was firstly made an official competition event by the country's top sports authority in 1982.

Instead of focusing on one main role, the TV series follows two parallel timelines to tell two contrasting stories. One story in 1989 follows the older generation skating team representing the very beginning of the country's short track speed skating history; with the other storyline takes place in 2014 as the younger generation of skaters prepare to make their dreams come true in 2022.

"Including myself, I know most audiences in China don't have enough knowledge about the events of the Winter Games, especially short track speed skating. One reason for that is that the event started quite late in our country and another is that there are relatively few films or television dramas in our country concerning the Winter Olympics," Zhang Xiaobo, director of Beyond, told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"Therefore, through this drama, I personally hope more people can learn about short track speed skating and have more things to talk about when it comes to the Winter Games in February," he said. 

Depicting reality

In order to stay close to reality, the film crew carried out detailed research into how the sport evolved from 1989 to 2014. 

To create a 1980s vibe, "we tried to restore the time when people in the north part of the country would go skating on lakes during winter. And we also included details such as ditching daily practice to go to the cinema and buying stickers featuring their favorite celebrities, memories that only Chinese people from that period of time would have," said Zhang.

What's more, in order to contrast the different generations, a very detailed comparison was made between the athletes who drank only brewed milk powder in 1989 and the team members drinking bottled milk in 2014, to better show visually the changes that have occurred with the training for the national team as science has developed.

"We've interviewed professionals, including coaches and athletes from the national team, to learn about their everyday life, and we asked them to give guidance to our actors so the latter could complete basic skating moves on their own," he said.

Hu Jun, one of the leading actors who plays a character in the 1980s storyline, told the Global Times that it took him almost a month, practicing at least three hours a day, to transform from a "rookie" skater to "quite a good one."

"When I was a kid, I skated on natural lake ice with my friends. The first time I did it, I fell hard on the back of my head, and I can still remember the pain. After that, I never went skating again," Hu told the Global Times on Wednesday.

"It was not until this drama came my way that I started to properly learn how to skate from my coach. And the funny thing is that this time I learned how to skate without a single fall."