The Dream Maker
The Dream Maker is a 40-episode Chinese period drama from CCTV. It aired from January 10, 2026 to January 29, 2026, and all episodes are out. In the US it streams officially on WeTV (VIP, episodes 1-3 free) and YouTube (free with ads, episode 1 only), checked October 25, 2026. It is adapted from the novel Zhongguo Nongmin Cheng by Zhu Xiaojun.
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Viewers curious about China's reform era who like a sprawling small-town cast more than a central romance
The story, without spoilers
What to Expect
We haven't watched this one. This section is based on the official synopsis and episode summaries, WeTV's listing and Chinese coverage, and we'll replace it with a verdict once we have one.
It is a zhuxuanlü (主旋律) drama, the name for state-backed series that celebrate official history, in this case the first years of China's economic reforms. For long stretches it is also a light comedy. The episode summaries are full of small-town business: a sanitation campaign, a private print shop shut down for hiring too many workers, a typhoon, a karaoke machine, a cinema in an old towel factory and the town leaders' nightly 7:30 meeting. The first half runs on the rivalry between Li, who goes by the book, and Zheng, who gets things done his own way, before they become partners. Romance is a side thread.
Chinese reviews were split. The Yangtse Evening Post said its reputation was polarized despite strong ratings and called Li's character too flawless to be interesting. Sina and Jiemian found the pacing slow in places and rushed in others, and the comedy an awkward fit with the official message. Coverage did credit both leads for playing against type: Zhao Liying gained weight and dropped the glamour, and Huang Xiaoming, known for playing tycoons, plays a rough, earthy official. A content note: the drama refers to a past suicide attempt.
The Story
In the early 1980s, Pingchuan county decides to build a new town, Yuehai, on the tidal flats by the sea, and the state won't spend a single yuan on it. Two cadres who can't stand each other are put in charge. Zheng Decheng, a blunt district secretary who likes to take risks, wins the farmers' backing and becomes the town's Party secretary. Li Qiuping, a county office secretary who studied in France, loses that vote with zero ballots and is appointed town head instead. With no budget, they persuade newly rich farmers to pay for the roads, houses and public buildings themselves. The Dream Maker (小城大事) is a 40-episode drama starring Zhao Liying and Huang Xiaoming, directed by Sun Hao (孙皓) and adapted from Zhu Xiaojun's reportage about the real town of Longgang in Zhejiang. It aired on CCTV-8 and Tencent Video in January 2026 and streams internationally on WeTV.
Release Notes
The Dream Maker premiered on January 10, 2026, on CCTV-8 at 19:30, two episodes a night, and on Tencent Video, the only streaming service in China to carry it. Tencent members got three episodes on the first day and then new episodes every evening, with SVIP members one episode ahead. At two episodes a night, the CCTV-8 run ended on January 29, and CCTV's drama center announced the next day that it had finished and was being rerun in CCTV-1's afternoon slot. Zhejiang TV aired it later in the year, though Baidu Baike gives conflicting dates.
CCTV's drama center reported a national average rating of 1.47% and a single-episode high of 2.23%. Baidu Baike lists a Douban score of 7.1 from about 119,000 users as of February 2. Its working title was Zao Cheng Zhe (造城者), and it was renamed in December 2025. WeTV and Tencent's YouTube channels use the English title The Dream Maker, which echoes the theme song's title. Baidu Baike lists Small Town Big Story, and some early English coverage called it The City Maker.
It was filmed in Pingtan, Fujian, and wrapped on May 1, 2025. Yuan Keping (袁克平) led the writing team, and the production companies include CCTV, Tencent Video and Beijing Baina Qiancheng (百纳千成). Wang Zhengliang (王铮亮) sings the theme song, Zao Meng Zhe (造梦者), and the cast sings the ending song, Rang Shijie Chongman Ai (让世界充满爱). At the 2026 Magnolia Awards it was nominated for Best Supporting Actress (Zhu Yuanyuan) and Best Adapted Screenplay and won neither. It was also nominated for the Golden Eagle Awards' TV drama prize, and we couldn't confirm the result.
Does The Dream Maker have a happy ending?
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We have not finished this one ourselves; this is based on outside sources.
In Brief
Ending spoilerShow the ending in brief
The Dream Maker has a bittersweet ending. Yuehai is built and is about to become a city, and the main characters are promoted: Zheng moves up to the county and hands the town to Li. But one of the town's deputy heads dies on the job in the second-to-last episode, and Li's romance with the reporter Du Tao is left open.
Full Ending Explained
Full spoilersShow the full ending
This account comes from the Chinese episode summaries for episodes 30 to 40, not from watching.
One last expansion. In episode 30 Zheng turns down promotion to deputy county head, saying he'll leave only when Yuehai reaches half a million people. The town then hits an economic slump and loses its best young designer, Wang Lili, to the bigger city of Nanzhou. Zheng and Li answer with their most ambitious plan yet: reclaiming more land from the tidal flats, at a cost of 150 million yuan. It means pulling down the first factories on Binhai Road, the ones the farmer-entrepreneurs built at the start. Gao Xuemei, who divorced Xie Chunlai in episode 34 over a misunderstanding about Sun Xiaoyan's karaoke hall, puts her family's whole fortune and a 3-million-yuan loan into the project and talks the other owners round. She and Xie have made up by episode 38.
Lin Dongfu's death. In episode 39 Lin, the deputy head in charge of construction, suspects the contractor of swapping in cheap cement that won't stand up to seawater. Rather than wait for an official inspection, he dives to take samples himself. He is found dead in his room later that day, his heart and lungs damaged by the long dive. The tests prove him right, the contractor is arrested, and Li chases down the trucks carrying the stolen cement.
The finale. In episode 40 Lin's apprentice, Yu Qingtian, insists on tearing out and rebuilding the foundation, and the whole town turns out on the mud flats to close it before a typhoon hits. At the leaders' last 7:30 meeting, ten years after they started, the posts change hands. Tan Guangming retires to travel with the wife he lost decades ago, found with Du Tao's help. Zheng becomes county head, Li takes over as the town's Party secretary, and Xie finally becomes town head. Yang Xiaohai's cinema screens a film made from Lin's photographs of the town. Du Tao comes back from Shanghai to settle in Yuehai, and Li welcomes him with a smile, but the story goes no further. As the approval to make Yuehai a city is about to come through, Zheng leaves and entrusts it to Li.
Baidu Baike's character pages differ from the episode 40 summary in two places: they say Li becomes Yuehai's first mayor and that Xie stays a deputy head. We've followed the episode summary.
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Cast and characters
The book behind it
The drama adapts Zhongguo Nongmin Cheng (中国农民城), a work of reportage, or literary non-fiction, by Zhu Xiaojun (朱晓军), a winner of the Lu Xun Literary Prize. It first appeared in the literary magazine Jiangnan (江南) at the start of 2022 and won a Zhejiang provincial award under the Five Ones Project (五个一工程). As far as we know, there is no English translation.
The book tells the true story of Longgang (龙港), near Wenzhou. It became a town in 1984 with fewer than 6,000 residents. Its first Party secretary, Chen Dingmo (陈定模), used a line in that year's Central Document No. 1, which allowed farmers who supplied their own grain to settle in market towns, to invite rich farmers to move in and pay for the place. Longgang was among the first places in China to charge for the use of land and to open its household registration to farmers, and in 2019 it became the first town in China to be turned straight into a city.
According to the Economic Observer, the drama renames Longgang as Yuehai and Chen Dingmo as Zheng Decheng, and adds Li Qiuping. Its "city construction fee" was historically a public facilities fee, and its idea comes from a garbled radio broadcast rather than the policy document. The piles of cash and the farmer-funded cinema are faithful to history. Chen's own path was less tidy than Zheng's: he later left Longgang to go into business and returned in old age to run a school. The drama also squeezes about 35 years into ten. Chen watched the premiere in Longgang and told The Paper that, like Zheng, he had persuaded a great many people to come and build the town.
- Original title
- 中国农民城 · Zhongguo Nongmin Cheng
- Author
- Zhu Xiaojun 朱晓军
- First published
- Literary magazine, 2022
- In English
- No official translation that we know of
Words and customs you'll hear
Hukou and a farmers' town
China's household registration system, hukou (户口), tied people to a rural or urban status, and farmers could not simply move to a town. The 1984 reform that Longgang used let farmers register as town residents if they fed themselves rather than drawing state grain rations. That is why Yuehai's settlers pay their own way: they buy the right to live there, and their money builds the town.
Ten-thousand-yuan households
Wanyuan hu (万元户), "ten-thousand-yuan households", was the early-1980s name for rural families who had suddenly grown rich, at a time when ten thousand yuan was a fortune. The drama's investors are mostly families like these. In Longgang they were nicknamed "monkeys" (猴子), and the drama keeps the joke.
Private business limits
In the early 1980s a private business that hired more than a handful of workers counted as exploitation, and the rule of thumb was a limit of seven or eight. Li shuts Gao Xuemei's print works for breaking it in episode 8, and the province lets it reopen in the spirit of shishi qiushi (实事求是), "seek truth from facts", the slogan of Deng Xiaoping's pragmatic reforms.
The Dream Maker FAQ
What is The Dream Maker Chinese drama about?
The Dream Maker is a 2026 period drama set in 1980s China. Zhao Liying and Huang Xiaoming play two rival officials who must build a new town on tidal flats without any state money, so they persuade newly rich farmers to pay for it. It's a light, sprawling ensemble story about China's early economic reforms.
How many episodes does The Dream Maker have?
The Dream Maker has 40 episodes of about 45 minutes each, so the whole series runs roughly 30 hours. Some 2025 coverage mentioned 36 episodes, but the broadcast version and WeTV's listing both have 40. All 40 aired in China in January 2026, so you can watch it straight through.
When did The Dream Maker air?
The Dream Maker premiered on January 10, 2026, on CCTV-8 and Tencent Video. CCTV-8 aired two episodes a night, which puts its finale on January 29. CCTV's drama center announced the next day that the run had ended. It was later rerun on CCTV-1 and on Zhejiang TV.
Where can I watch The Dream Maker?
Outside China, The Dream Maker streams on WeTV, Tencent's international service, which lists all 40 episodes. When we checked from the US on October 25, 2026, the first three were free and the rest needed a VIP subscription. Tencent's official YouTube channel also has the first episode with English captions. In China it streams only on Tencent Video.
Is The Dream Maker on Netflix?
No. We found no Netflix release of The Dream Maker as of October 2026. It's a Tencent Video and CCTV production, and its international home is Tencent's own WeTV, which lists all 40 episodes. We'll update this page if it reaches Netflix or another service.
Who is in the cast of The Dream Maker?
Zhao Liying plays Li Qiuping, the town head, and Huang Xiaoming plays Zheng Decheng, the Party secretary. Chen Minghao and Zhu Yuanyuan play the married couple Xie Chunlai and Gao Xuemei, with Qin Junjie, Geng Le and Yu Ailei in the main cast. Zhao Liying is best known abroad for The Story of Ming Lan.
Is The Dream Maker based on a true story?
Yes, loosely. It adapts Zhu Xiaojun's reportage about Longgang in Zhejiang, a town that farmers paid to build from 1984 and that became a city in 2019. Zheng Decheng is based on the real town's first Party secretary, Chen Dingmo. Li Qiuping is invented, and the drama renames the town Yuehai.
Does The Dream Maker have a happy ending?
SpoilerShow the answer
Minor spoilerReveal whether it ends happily
Mostly, but it's bittersweet. The town is built and is about to become a city, and the leads are both promoted. But one of the main team dies on the job shortly before the end, and the heroine's romance is left without a clear resolution. The final episode's tone is upbeat.
Do Li Qiuping and Du Tao end up together?
SpoilerShow the answer
Ending spoilerReveal Li Qiuping's romance
The drama leaves it open. Du Tao breaks up with Li after his article about the town and moves to Shanghai. In the final episode he comes back and says he will settle in Yuehai, and Li welcomes him with a smile. The episode summaries show no reunion or proposal beyond that.
Who dies in The Dream Maker?
SpoilerShow the answer
Ending spoilerReveal who dies
Lin Dongfu, the deputy head in charge of construction, dies in episode 39. He dives into the sea to take samples of cement he suspects is substandard and is found dead later that day. The tests prove him right, and the final episode honors him with a film of his photographs of the town.
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