I don't like beasts, but I agree this season is even better
yeah, but fables with existing or legendary creatures are common parts of folk's narrative in cultures and civilisations all over the world, so I count them as a part of superstitous heritage of the entire humanity. It's just that C-productions of this genre (mix of gong'an+wuxia+mystery) tend to overexploit animal motives in order to emphasize hystorical context full off superstions and if there are many, these motives become repetitive and annoying. They also tend to overuse illusionism (with no realistic explanation) preferably in scenes set in palace banquets or town feast, like in S1. This motif was avoided in S2, so lets hope the authors will figure out (maybe for S3, who knows) that beast-motives are unnecessary as well.
Tnx. My brain was so busy recalling who may be "the hunter" who adopted a girl that it temporarily cancelled Song Ami from the story 😁 Luckily, we have each other on MDL to clear our doubts...
Folks, I hope you've all updated to the ep 22. SWM to YT: "among the rebels was a 7-year old girl who escaped" and was able to ride that T-rhino. Later it was presumed "she was adopted by a hunter surnamed Song". Then, both of them looked at each other and screamed: "Song" This season hooked me so much, I've ff rewatched the entire S1 trying to figure out what they've figured out. Nothing. The only Song that appeared till now in both seasons was a side official in the alligator place where the leads met Yingtao for the first time... Please, do you have better clues?
You don’t have to. Its detective investigation by the main four leads. In season 2, in first few ep., this drama…
Totally agree with you: S2 can be enjoyed even if one hasn't seen S1. There's only one thing a person who has no knowledge of S1, and in particular of the special relationship between main leads, can find too odd and allienating: Su Wuming's snitching on Lu Lingfeng.
I'm into you, at the beginning i actually want to see the cases and follow the plot, enjoy the comedy, but omg…
I've taken into account the actors' level in this "reconstruction" - highly probably they were given the first scriptwriting (that's why I suppose the first script was fine) and took the roles. Actors contracts usually contain clauses implying plots "could be adjusted & expanded after the signature"
i do like your insight . I think one of the script writer is hired to do jsut fillers as our ML lead was out of…
5 days ago I've seen an interesting coment here of a person who was recomending other people to watch this drama but with a sort of disclaimer to watch it on 1,5-2 x speed in order to skip annoying parts... Rethinking, she was completely right
This would completely explain what's happening with the storyline. And I so agree with your assessment too. It's…
right, they've made me feel bipolar 🫥: on the one hand I still wish to see the (compelling part of the) story, but on the other I wish to drop it every time they "switch the gear" as Megumi said in one coment above, because those parts are totally irritating and unwatchable.
The cast & crew section mentions two scriptwriters (actually, they could be more than two), but nobody mentioned these authors are on totally divergent narrative paths: their storytelling is moving in opposite directions. At this point (ep. 30), I'm completely sure, the rating won't rise (it may even drop) and the fault is entirely on scriptwriting - or better - on the production that allowed mixing of incompatible ways of storytelling. I suppose (I may be wrong, ofc, the true dynamics could be different) the producers (from iqiyi) commissioned the story on subject "romantic compensation of the opposites", they even paid for using the opposites "shapeshifter-prosopagnostic" to the K-production which explored it first, with the idea of making the story as Chinese as possible. The scriptwriter who first handled the task wrote a good structure, we see logical arcs in linear progression (with just one little exception which is fine: flashback on FL's poisoning and the first childhood encounter of the main leads - this trope complies not only with Chinese, but with Asian taste in general, the memory which is connected with the death of ML's father). This narrative already mixed several genres (sc. "pastiche"): mystery, romance, comedy, investigation, pseudo-period, family-ensemble with hints of vengeance (for a ML: the death of his father, for FL, the poison which make her to shiftshape), a bit of politics and so on. It contained everything, but it was probably... too short (max. 24 eps), so they've hired another person to EXPAND this story to comply to their need of 40 eps. In all different arcs we've seen till this point, we witnessed that "something was off". Analitically: - Heman arc was originally max 3 eps, aiming to introduce the leads, "zornia problem" (investigated not only by the ML, but connected with the death of the ML's father) and the first marriage (nice, on the water) of the leading couple. Once "expanded", with totally unnecessary shamanic scenes of general's wife, or her snake-skin desease, it was transformed into 8 eps. - The 1st capital arc was tending to introduce the tension within Jiang family, the rivarly between two security forces, the 2nd and 3rd leads before they became couples, the introduction of "bad political guys". The original writing probably covered all these issues in 7 eps. It was expanded till ep 20 (12 eps), with totally unnecessary (yet, very Chinese) ghost market subplots, Suo Luo's long-unnatural persistence to fight her brother and so on. - The 2nd capital arc (espc. after the 2nd wedding): I think the best comedy (scenes ending with umbrella defence of ML's mother anxiety) was written by the first author, all the rest was totally unnecessary, including the rivarly between "beauty shops". And I can't blame the second scriptwriter either. He was hired to to expand and he followed the C-dramas trash & tropes guidelines perfectly.
I beg other productions not to follow this bad experiment.
the deadline was "to provide evidence of Lu and Li envolvement in zornia". That was provided in time but ended with murder and Lu's suicide in front of the emperor.
actually, the "price war" was that annoying because of the overracting in the scenes involving fuss (that fuss was really badly written) and FL's adoptive mother. The acting (of all the main crew) was great and convincing till this point, the actors "saved the stage" in other jarring scenes, but the authors truly could have spared us the ugly scene in a rival beauty shop.
It isn't ONLY a comedy. It's a pastiche of genres: crime solving, mystery solving, romance, comedy, fantasy, pseudo-period, even a bit family-ensamble and subtle-revenge drama... C-productions literally love to mix genres and the result of mixing is usually a disaster. But in 10% of cases they get it right and then... it's usually a great watch (eg. Joy of Life). I agree with you that "every drama has flows", I was just reflecting on Little Daisy's pov. And I can agree with you, too, we've got a great comedy (rom-com), but this joy was limited to ep. 20-25. I don't count farting Persian foreteller or silly country-girl coming to a big town in search of her never-seen fiancé, making fuss, neither as a "great comedy" nor "it's just for fun". It's a jarring fun, but if the rest is ok, fine, I'll continue watching. Finally, I don't mind "many plots" at all. I've checked The Beauty Inside (K-drama from which they've taken the subject of romantic compensation between shapeshifter-prosopagnostic person), finding out that the FYH is better, the scriptwriters actually did a great job: they've enriched the story not only adding many subplots, but also the main subject, we have seen a romantic compensation between a person who has a dog-smell and a person with no sense of smell at all (2nd cp), and we will probably see this between the 3rd couple as well. But it's too early to call it "great", we will see how it will end, for now, we can just coment on what we have seen to this point, flows included.
3 
1 
They also tend to overuse illusionism (with no realistic explanation) preferably in scenes set in palace banquets or town feast, like in S1. This motif was avoided in S2, so lets hope the authors will figure out (maybe for S3, who knows) that beast-motives are unnecessary as well.
My brain was so busy recalling who may be "the hunter" who adopted a girl that it temporarily cancelled Song Ami from the story 😁
Luckily, we have each other on MDL to clear our doubts...
I've been thinking who could have been that hunter adoptive-father, so I've totally forgotten Song Ami 👌
SWM to YT: "among the rebels was a 7-year old girl who escaped" and was able to ride that T-rhino. Later it was presumed "she was adopted by a hunter surnamed Song".
Then, both of them looked at each other and screamed: "Song"
This season hooked me so much, I've ff rewatched the entire S1 trying to figure out what they've figured out. Nothing. The only Song that appeared till now in both seasons was a side official in the alligator place where the leads met Yingtao for the first time...
Please, do you have better clues?
I suppose (I may be wrong, ofc, the true dynamics could be different) the producers (from iqiyi) commissioned the story on subject "romantic compensation of the opposites", they even paid for using the opposites "shapeshifter-prosopagnostic" to the K-production which explored it first, with the idea of making the story as Chinese as possible.
The scriptwriter who first handled the task wrote a good structure, we see logical arcs in linear progression (with just one little exception which is fine: flashback on FL's poisoning and the first childhood encounter of the main leads - this trope complies not only with Chinese, but with Asian taste in general, the memory which is connected with the death of ML's father). This narrative already mixed several genres (sc. "pastiche"): mystery, romance, comedy, investigation, pseudo-period, family-ensemble with hints of vengeance (for a ML: the death of his father, for FL, the poison which make her to shiftshape), a bit of politics and so on. It contained everything, but it was probably... too short (max. 24 eps), so they've hired another person to EXPAND this story to comply to their need of 40 eps. In all different arcs we've seen till this point, we witnessed that "something was off".
Analitically:
- Heman arc was originally max 3 eps, aiming to introduce the leads, "zornia problem" (investigated not only by the ML, but connected with the death of the ML's father) and the first marriage (nice, on the water) of the leading couple. Once "expanded", with totally unnecessary shamanic scenes of general's wife, or her snake-skin desease, it was transformed into 8 eps.
- The 1st capital arc was tending to introduce the tension within Jiang family, the rivarly between two security forces, the 2nd and 3rd leads before they became couples, the introduction of "bad political guys". The original writing probably covered all these issues in 7 eps. It was expanded till ep 20 (12 eps), with totally unnecessary (yet, very Chinese) ghost market subplots, Suo Luo's long-unnatural persistence to fight her brother and so on.
- The 2nd capital arc (espc. after the 2nd wedding): I think the best comedy (scenes ending with umbrella defence of ML's mother anxiety) was written by the first author, all the rest was totally unnecessary, including the rivarly between "beauty shops".
And I can't blame the second scriptwriter either. He was hired to to expand and he followed the C-dramas trash & tropes guidelines perfectly.
I beg other productions not to follow this bad experiment.
Finger crossed 🙄
I agree with you that "every drama has flows", I was just reflecting on Little Daisy's pov.
And I can agree with you, too, we've got a great comedy (rom-com), but this joy was limited to ep. 20-25. I don't count farting Persian foreteller or silly country-girl coming to a big town in search of her never-seen fiancé, making fuss, neither as a "great comedy" nor "it's just for fun". It's a jarring fun, but if the rest is ok, fine, I'll continue watching.
Finally, I don't mind "many plots" at all. I've checked The Beauty Inside (K-drama from which they've taken the subject of romantic compensation between shapeshifter-prosopagnostic person), finding out that the FYH is better, the scriptwriters actually did a great job: they've enriched the story not only adding many subplots, but also the main subject, we have seen a romantic compensation between a person who has a dog-smell and a person with no sense of smell at all (2nd cp), and we will probably see this between the 3rd couple as well. But it's too early to call it "great", we will see how it will end, for now, we can just coment on what we have seen to this point, flows included.