The Knockout drama scenes flooded with tourists

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The Knockout drama scenes flooded with tourists

Tourists visit Changdi, a historical area that blends Chinese and Western-style buildings and where scenes of drama The Knockout were shot on Tuesday in Jiangmen, Guangdong province. The city of Jiangmen in Guangdong province has been flooded with tourists who want to get up close to where the popular TV drama, The Knockout, or Kuangbiao, was shot in Chinese.

Many scenes in the drama, based on real organized crime cases, were shot in Jiangmen, from the old streets of qilou to the traditional arcade houses of diaolou with structures blending Chinese and Western styles.

After watching the drama, I joined a tour group to visit scenes shot here, which are full of historical and cultural elements, said a tourist surnamed Liu, from Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong.

According to Trip.com Group, the number of tourists searching for Jiangmen increased by 163 percent month-on-month in the last two weeks, causing bookings to increase by 121 percent monthly.

The number of tourists visiting the city increased by 34 percent year-on-year to more than 2.54 million during the weeklong Spring Festival holiday, which ended on January 27 according to local tourism authorities.

The production team of The Knockout searched many cities across the country before they decided to shoot most of the show's scenes in Jiangmen, thanks to its typical regional characteristics.

Xu Tai, the drama's producer, said that Jiangmen not only retains old Western-style buildings, but also has a strong urban living atmosphere.

The scenes and environmental backgrounds will also change as stories in the drama continue, according to Xu. Changes in the drama can be found in Jiangmen. The story of a police officer's fight against organized crime over a period of 20 years shows the rise and fall of underworld figures and corrupt officials.

The 39-episode drama has received a rating of 9.1 out of 10 on Douban, one of China's most-visited review platforms, and has become one of the most talked topics on social media since mid-January.

Jiangmen, traditionally home to millions of overseas Chinese, has a large number of old streets dominated by old Chinese and Western-style buildings. For example, the historical cultural area of Changdi was an old business and trade center in the Pearl River Delta region after Jiangmen became a trading port city in 1902.

Birds' paradise is a 10,000 square-meter island covered by Banyan trees more than 400 years old.

The area, with its flourishing bird habitat and lakeside landscape, became a well-known ecological trip spot after Ba Jin, one of China's most acclaimed writers, wrote The Birds' ParadiseBirds' Paradise, which was later selected as a textbook for primary students.

Local authorities have pledged to promote the integration of culture and tourism, based on a number of key projects including the Chikan old town of overseas Chinese, with an investment of 6.6 billion yuan $973 million for its first phase construction, and a water scenic spot in Gulou, which will be developed into a beautiful water town.