# The Long Season (2023)

> A former train driver in a declining North China steel town reopens a brutal 1998 murder that has haunted his community for decades.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/143732

## Facts

- Seasons: 1
- Episodes: 12
- Episode runtime: 67 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: crime, drama, mystery
- Created by: Xin Shuang
- Network: Tencent Video
- Cast: Fan Wei, Qin Hao, Chen Minghao, Li Gengxi, Liu Yitie, Jiang Qiming, Liu Lin, Shi Pengyuan
- TMDB rating: 8.8/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27628576/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: slow
- Intensity: moderate
- Complexity: layered
- Violence: moderate
- Tone: melancholic, brooding, contemplative, tense

## What critics say

Audiences broadly acclaim the series as a restrained, atmospheric slow-burn mystery whose emotional weight lands through its characters' long-held grief.

## Synopsis

The Long Season (2023) is a Chinese crime mystery miniseries created by Xin Shuang and released on Tencent Video. Across twelve roughly hour-long episodes, ex-train driver Wang Xiang (Fan Wei) returns to a fictional North China steel town to untangle a brutal murder that took place in the autumn of 1998. Former colleagues Gong Biao (Qin Hao) and Ma Desheng (Chen Minghao) are drawn back into the past as the steel plant struggles with layoffs and a community that has learned to live with silence. Each episode peels back another layer of grief, guilt, and family damage, with memories surfacing in fragments that reshape what the characters thought they knew. The mood is patient and melancholic, with a wintry industrial atmosphere and a slow burn pace that rewards close attention. Fans of Chernobyl's haunted provincial dread, True Detective's wounded investigators, and The Killing's rain-soaked moral unease will find resonance in this single-season, self-contained story. It is a contemplative, emotionally weighted drama that treats its mystery as a window into a generation's lost certainties.

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