Sitcom presents grassroots life

Hong Jiantao, one of the country's most popular smallscreen comedians, is busy making another sitcom. This time, he's playing for laughs as a stingy building manager.

Hong Jiantao is having a love affair with the situation comedy. And this time, his former classmate from actors school, Ding Xiaohan, is directing. That gives him supreme confidence in the collaboration.

Midway in production, Hong is relishing his role in "My Home Land."

Another familiar face in the production is Gao Yalin, who played the daddy in the smash-hit sitcom "Children of the House." This time he plays a clerk at a property management company. In a remarkable coincidence, Gao Yalin is also an alumni of that same acting school.

Hong said, "Gao Yalin is a former schoolmate of both of us. We lived in the same dorm room in college. He's younger, like a little brother. So there's no competition between us. I'm the better one, at least in terms of age."

"My Home Land" is largely set indoors. It's about the interaction between residents and their building management. It poses the question whether the building management and their clients are friends or foes. The setting is a new residential area in Beijing, where both the management company and the homeowners are faced with a host of problems left by the developers. Each character has a distinctive personality and their reactions to the problems turn out to be both witty and hilarious.

The humorous dialogue gives an easygoing interpretation of the conflicts between the building managers and their customers. It highlights the importance of understanding other people. By solving the various problems together, the management company and homeowners finally become good friends.