A poster for the TV series Small Town, Big Events staring Zhu Yuanyuan

The final screen work of late Chinese actress Zhu Yuanyuan, the TV series Small Town, Big Events, will officially hit the small screen on Saturday. 

The series is adapted from Zhu Xiaojun's reportage Longgang, the First Farmers' City in China, about the real-life history of farmers in Longgang, Wenzhou, East China's Zhejiang Province, who raised funds to build their own city in the early 1980s.

In the drama, Zhu plays Gao Xuemei, a pivotal figure who leads local women embroiderers to start businesses and helps drive the transformation of farmers' lives. 

During the filming of the series, Zhu did not disclose her illness. By the time production wrapped on May 1, 2025, she was already seriously ill, yet continued to shuttle between the hospital and the set, the Jinan Daily reported. 

She passed away on May 17, 2025 at the age of 51 after a five-year battle with cancer.

The series also stars actor Huang Xiaoming and actress Zhao Liying. Huang said in a post on Sina Weibo that no one on the production team was aware of her illness. 

Judging from the trailer, Zhu appeared in good spirits, even in scenes where she was carrying loads, with no visible sign that she was unwell, according to the Jinan Daily. 

Zhu, born on March 18, 1974, in Qingdao, East China's Shandong Province, was a first-class actress with the National Theatre of China. She graduated in 1997 from the Central Academy of Drama with a degree in acting. Her representative works include The Happy Life of Talkative Zhang Damin, Nine Daughters in My Family, A Little Red Flower, My Sister, and A Love For Separation.

Recognized for her exceptional ability to shape memorable stage roles drawn from Chinese literary classics such as Four Generations under One Roof, in April 2024, Zhu attended the Global Times' second "My Reading Life" book-sharing event as a keynote speaker. 

During the event, she left a strong impression on the attendees with her eloquent remarks, graceful manner, and warm smile. 

In hindsight, nothing in her demeanor suggested that she was fighting cancer; all that those in attendance perceived was her deep passion for reading and acting.

She told the Global Times at the event that only through literary novels was she able to accurately grasp a character's "physical mannerisms and thought processes," and more profoundly, "their destinies and nuanced emotions contextualized in bigger social and cultural landscapes."