The 56-episode costume drama, Novoland: Eagle Flag, has become a hot topic among viewers after its Chinese mainland and overseas debuts last week. [Photo provided to China Daily] A Chinese costume drama that chronicles the growing-up years of three young would-be heroes in a turbulent era is winning rave reviews from viewers, Xu Fan reports.

The much-anticipated Chinese TV series Novoland: Eagle Flag has finally hit TV screens and streaming sites after a delay of more than 40 days, and is a hot topic for discussion online.

Three days after its Chinese mainland debut on July 16, the 56-episode drama entered a string of overseas markets, including North America, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Cambodia, Japan and South Korea.

It has been hailed on some foreign review aggregators that bring together TV and film fans, with ratings like 8.7 points out of 10 on Mydramalist and 7.8 points out of 10 on IMDb.

A Chinese take on Game of Thrones, the costume drama chronicles the growing-up years of three young would-be heroes in a turbulent era that is full of wars, conspiracies and betrayals.

As the series is adapted from a best-selling set of novels with the same title, its release is also exciting for the books' fans.

An additional attraction for the readers is that the novel's writer Yang Zhi, popularly known by his pseudonym Jiang Nan, is the chief scriptwriter for the TV series.

For Yang, working on the six-volume Novoland: Eagle Flag is an important part of his life, and the effort spanned 12 years.

It all started in 2001 when the Anhui-born Peking University-educated Yang was pursuing a doctoral degree in chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis.

To deal with loneliness and academic stress, he spent a lot of time reading Chinese books, especially about historical figures.

"In that quiet city that made outsiders feel a bit lonely, I wrote my first story for Novoland: Eagle Flag," says Yang.

The 56-episode costume drama, Novoland: Eagle Flag, has become a hot topic among viewers after its Chinese mainland and overseas debuts last week. [Photo provided to China Daily] Novoland, or jiu zhou (nine territories), was a kind of writing project that was launched by several writers on then popular literature website Qingyun in 2002 and has since become one of China's best-known fantasy franchises.

Yang was one of the project's initiators, and they wished to create their own fictional world featuring ancient Chinese aesthetics.

It was an ambitious idea back then as young writers conceived a wide range of aspects to "build" this fictional place, named Jiu Zhou, from its geographical landscapes to currency.

Novoland is about human beings coexisting with creatures who possess supernatural abilities rooted in Chinese mythology.

For instance, in Yang's story, Yu Ran, the female protagonist among the three young heroes, is depicted as a princess of a tribe that have wings and can fly. And Lyu Guichen, also one of the three, is the heir to a nomadic tribe leadership. He has inherited his family's unique genes that can transform him into an unbeatable warrior if he's angry.

"I once felt so exhausted during the writing process that I took a nap on my computer's keyboard ... At one point I even doubted my decision to be a professional writer," Yang says.

But all his hard work has paid off. Thanks to his other popular works such as the Dragon Raja series and Shanghai Fortress, which has been adapted to be made into a star-studded film, Yang has been ranked as one of the country's highest-paid authors by the Chinese Writers' Rich List for a couple of times.

In 2015, Novoland: Eagle Flag (independently written by Yang) was published by People's Literature Publishing House, one of China's oldest and largest publishers, which symbolizes a recognition from the mainstream literature circle.

And in 2016, the Shanghai-based production company Linmon Pictures purchased the television adaptation rights of the novel.

"Every novelist wishes to see his (or her) works being brought to life. It is very thrilling for me," Yang says.

The 56-episode costume drama, Novoland: Eagle Flag, has become a hot topic among viewers after its Chinese mainland and overseas debuts last week.[Photo provided to China Daily] To bring the TV series to life, Yang along with veteran scriptwriters Chang Jiang, Shuang Cheng and Lei Bo, spent around two years on turning his novel into a script, adding new plots and characters, as the original story was not long enough for 56 episodes.

As for the casting, Yang recommended actor Liu Haoran to play the protagonist Lyu.

"I was impressed by his performance as a smart detective in the Detective Chinatown movies."

Also in the cast are actress Song Zu'er and actor Chen Ruoxuan.

The crew - which had more than 2,000 members at one time - spent over nine months in Xiangyang and the Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture in Hubei province, as well as the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, for the project.

Director Zhang Xiaobo says the filming in such picturesque areas was an effort to add reality to the fictional story, to make it more relatable to audiences.

The 56-episode costume drama, Novoland: Eagle Flag, has become a hot topic among viewers after its Chinese mainland and overseas debuts last week. [Photo provided to China Daily] Novoland, or jiu zhou (nine territories), was a kind of writing project that was launched by several writers on then popular literature website Qingyun in 2002 and has since become one of China's best-known fantasy franchises.

Yang was one of the project's initiators, and they wished to create their own fictional world featuring ancient Chinese aesthetics.

It was an ambitious idea back then as young writers conceived a wide range of aspects to "build" this fictional place, named Jiu Zhou, from its geographical landscapes to currency.

Novoland is about human beings coexisting with creatures who possess supernatural abilities rooted in Chinese mythology.

For instance, in Yang's story, Yu Ran, the female protagonist among the three young heroes, is depicted as a princess of a tribe that have wings and can fly. And Lyu Guichen, also one of the three, is the heir to a nomadic tribe leadership. He has inherited his family's unique genes that can transform him into an unbeatable warrior if he's angry.

"I once felt so exhausted during the writing process that I took a nap on my computer's keyboard ... At one point I even doubted my decision to be a professional writer," Yang says.

But all his hard work has paid off. Thanks to his other popular works such as the Dragon Raja series and Shanghai Fortress, which has been adapted to be made into a star-studded film, Yang has been ranked as one of the country's highest-paid authors by the Chinese Writers' Rich List for a couple of times.

In 2015, Novoland: Eagle Flag (independently written by Yang) was published by People's Literature Publishing House, one of China's oldest and largest publishers, which symbolizes a recognition from the mainstream literature circle.

And in 2016, the Shanghai-based production company Linmon Pictures purchased the television adaptation rights of the novel.

"Every novelist wishes to see his (or her) works being brought to life. It is very thrilling for me," Yang says.

The 56-episode costume drama, Novoland: Eagle Flag, has become a hot topic among viewers after its Chinese mainland and overseas debuts last week.[Photo provided to China Daily] To bring the TV series to life, Yang along with veteran scriptwriters Chang Jiang, Shuang Cheng and Lei Bo, spent around two years on turning his novel into a script, adding new plots and characters, as the original story was not long enough for 56 episodes.

As for the casting, Yang recommended actor Liu Haoran to play the protagonist Lyu.

"I was impressed by his performance as a smart detective in the Detective Chinatown movies."

Also in the cast are actress Song Zu'er and actor Chen Ruoxuan.

The crew - which had more than 2,000 members at one time - spent over nine months in Xiangyang and the Enshi Tujia and Miao autonomous prefecture in Hubei province, as well as the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, for the project.

Director Zhang Xiaobo says the filming in such picturesque areas was an effort to add reality to the fictional story, to make it more relatable to audiences.

The 56-episode costume drama, Novoland: Eagle Flag, has become a hot topic among viewers after its Chinese mainland and overseas debuts last week. [Photo provided to China Daily] Novoland, or jiu zhou (nine territories), was a kind of writing project that was launched by several writers on then popular literature website Qingyun in 2002 and has since become one of China's best-known fantasy franchises.

Yang was one of the project's initiators, and they wished to create their own fictional world featuring ancient Chinese aesthetics.

It was an ambitious idea back then as young writers conceived a wide range of aspects to "build" this fictional place, named Jiu Zhou, from its geographical landscapes to currency.

Novoland is about human beings coexisting with creatures who possess supernatural abilities rooted in Chinese mythology.

For instance, in Yang's story, Yu Ran, the female protagonist among the three young heroes, is depicted as a princess of a tribe that have wings and can fly. And Lyu Guichen, also one of the three, is the heir to a nomadic tribe leadership. He has inherited his family's unique genes that can transform him into an unbeatable warrior if he's angry.

"I once felt so exhausted during the writing process that I took a nap on my computer's keyboard ... At one point I even doubted my decision to be a professional writer," Yang says.

But all his hard work has paid off. Thanks to his other popular works such as the Dragon Raja series and Shanghai Fortress, which has been adapted to be made into a star-studded film, Yang has been ranked as one of the country's highest-paid authors by the Chinese Writers' Rich List for a couple of times.

In 2015, Novoland: Eagle Flag (independently written by Yang) was published by People's Literature Publishing House, one of China's oldest and largest publishers, which symbolizes a recognition from the mainstream literature circle.

And in 2016, the Shanghai-based production company Linmon Pictures purchased the television adaptation rights of the novel.

"Every novelist wishes to see his (or her) works being brought to life. It is very thrilling for me," Yang says.