A rehearsal of an act from the upcoming children's drama, Time Forest, on August 3, 2016 at the China National Theatre for Children in Beijing. [Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]

Anchor: A drama about how swiftly time passes changes people's life will be staged on August 25th to mark an end of the ongoing children's theatre festival.

Veteran Chinese actor Jiao Gang, who has captured a lot of public attention for his role in the 2012 film "Wan Jian Chuan Xin" (万箭穿心) also known as Feng Shui, is the director of this drama Time Forest. 

Wang Lei has more.

Reporter: Time Forest is a fantasy drama anyone who steps into this forest may go through a time warp.

There's more than a week to go before the show is finally screened in a theatre in Beijing's suburban Huairou district. Rehearsals are going on with some scenes presented in a way that actors would speak some local dialects.

Director of this drama, Jiao Gang explains why actors actresses speak local dialects.

"We practiced a lot in our theatre workshop. We felt nothing new when we practiced again again in mandarin Chinese. Why not let actors actresses speak their local dialects in our rehearsals? One day, I decided to have such a try. Eventually, they all felt quite excited. Also, I found bestowed with the inclusive qualities of local or cultural dialects, the drama looks very lively. So the part of speaking some dialects has been retained, including the Hubei dialect."

In 2013, Jiao Gang was nominated for best male supporting roles in both Golden Rooster Award Chinese Film Media Award for his portrayal of a dreadful coward Ma Xuewu who married a strong-minded sharp-tongued woman Li Baoli in Wan Jian Chuan Xin.

Coincidentally, that movie also featured the Hubei dialect. 

But Jiao Gang denied that his inclusion of local accents in Time Forest was influenced by his previous film.

"I've never thought of Li Baoli when rehearsing this drama. I think speaking local dialects makes this drama vivid with life, particularly in embodying how people around China all come to work live in an exhausting fast pace of life in Beijing. Speaking to their families in dialect indicates a slight slowing down in the rhyth.

The China National Theatre for Children holds a press conference on an upcoming children's drama, Time Forest, on August 3, 2016. The drama marks the end of this year's China Children's Theatre Festival.[Photo: CRIENGLISH.com]