Group Watch MDL'ers From Feed

 Estelll:

I stand corrected, and THANK YOU VERY MUCH for it, @MusicalVeggies!!!

Most welcome! Glad I was able to make some things clearer and hopefully better for you. This is my absolute #1 Favourite Show (seen it more times than I could count, lol) so I'm always glad if I can make it just that wee bit better for another viewer. :)

 PeachBlossomGoddess:

@MusicalVeggies the book has been sitting on my shelf for awhile now it sounds like it has got so much more rich detail I feel motivated to start reading it again. Or at least find a good audio version on Ximalaya or Lizi...

Unlike a lot of Chinese drama adaptations which tend to inject more content into their drama vis-a-vis the novel, 'Nirvana In Fire' is the other way round - it has been trimmed so much that only the absolutely critical and necessary plots/ arcs/ threads that are vital to the outcome or endgame are retained so the novel is definitely richer in detail but also a bit more meandering. The drama is super punchy and super tight but that makes me appreciate it so much more because nary a scene in here is redundant. Every scene is there by the production team for a reason so this is very much a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of show. Conversations are so packed with content that it is easy to miss a throwaway line which explains a particular detail. I've yet to see a show this tightly edited to this point, it blows my mind.

PS: Although the drama is practically 90% faithful to the book, there are still a couple of rather significant changes (do read the book yourself to see them!) but I personally like and prefer the changes made in the drama. Happy reading (if you do get around to reading it)! :)

 Kate:

well... I saw 20 episodes and I could literally recognize like few main characters so yeah... I am screwed. and now I try can;t make myself to watch episode 3 hahaha

We are on the same boat, start ep. 3 a few hours ago but wasn’t able to finish it. They talk so much that I get distracted every two minutes and start working the genealogical tree in my mind. It’s like in real life, if the discussion doesn’t interest me, I don’t care about the person is in front of me. Maybe I should focus less on who is who and just enjoy the scenes. 

 Kate:

That's my problem... the plot is told and now shown... some characters are talked about but I legit don;t remember ever seeing them or they were shown once so there is no way from me to remember them. Which is 100% not the type of directing and storytelling I enjoy in dramas... or anywhere. 

Totally agree, this drama reminds me all those games that tells the story with the lore instead of using the gameplay. Like destiny, neverwinter etc. you have to read tons od documents to get the story despite playing for 300 hours. NIF is the same thing, despite watching it is actually like reading a book, problem is you have to build the story with their dialogues. As you said, it’s quite annoying reading about stuff or people you didn’t watched yet. 

 mengosteen:

You can guess half of the plot and connection from Mei Chang Su's facial expressions. So even if you don't know someone's name, you know MCS dislikes them, so they are probably villains. 

Well, despite my liking for great facial expressions acting skill, I do like to follow a story knowing the name of who is on screen as well as see the plot development with some action and not only by words. As I said before, so far the direction/execution didn’t impress me. I appreciate having to deduct things, but I also expect the production to do its job. Since you said things start from ep. 20, I promise I will not drop it and give a fair try. but the introduction is killing the mood instead of building it. 

I do like to joke about my authors, years of korean coincidences and bad ending experience lol

Being a logical person my brains goes mad until it can figure out the name / face of who they are talking. But I already notice is not working so I guess I will just try to follow the dialogues and eventually spam here. You asked tho! You will be responsible for me lol 

Seems like I am the single force of non-rewatchers right now and I STILL don't have anything important to say yet, as I am lost in the fog of not familiar names (fortunately I can memorize faces pretty quickly) and not so clear story, but it's just a beginning so I'm not supposed to know much yet, right? Or maybe I'm just dumb, who knows! But one thing Chinese dramas taught me is patience. And to not jump on conclusions too early on.

I’m curious about the kid’s background and his connection to the Prince Jing tho. And I enjoy the women from harem but I got a feeling things are gonna get ugly there.

 I've read posts above concerning the way of storytelling  and I'm actually curious how I'm going to feel about it because the only worry I have right now is that the show may not be bingeable to me that way, hahaha.

Hello everyone! I hope you guys enjoy the show as much as I do hehe.

 Poia:

Being a logical person my brains goes mad until it can figure out the name / face of who they are talking.

Being a logical and impatient person*

If you have troubles remembering characters, just assign them some key words like Yujin - the funny man, Fei Liu - monkey boy etc. Or ask here.