AleksandraSucur

I agree, especially because the other book was so detailed in depicting the society and the environment in and around the Prohibited City (eg. the cruelty of eviration of boys destined to be eunuchs which took place in a nearby street), no judments, only descriptions.
As for white washing... Europeans' attitude towards China has always been very ambigous: when opium wars started, being enamoured of Chinese culture, history, distinguishing different dinasties' artifacts or enjoying tea was a must for every noble or upper class gentleman or lady since Napoleon's times (actually, even before but not that much). In England, France, Central Europe and Northern Italy you won't find one historical palace or villa, built or renovated for living in 18th century onwards, without a special "Chinese lounge". I myself drove 350 km to Treviso just to see the exhibition on Cixi (fearing it will never come to Milan where I've reseen it two years later)... What can a person conclude after seeing her dresses, portraits and jewelry? What a craft, what a power held by a woman, a visitor certainly can't see the reality of a decay of an empire in these artifacts, they only fuel the "European imaginery of China", formed throughout the centuries, since Marco Polo's Million, which is the worst white-washing, imho. The economic relations, trade, silk roads, foreign concessions, etc between Europe and China were all built on this enamourment with objects, not on the real knowledge of each other

Yes, the Chinese author is Jung Chang, you see how small is this world? 👌I've read the Italian translation, which wasn't excellent. I can't find the French book neither in my library nor through google. I'm pretty sure it was a female author, luxury hard cover English translation (I've bought it in a second hand bookshop at Notting Hill in London in late 80'), but mantained the French style of name transcription (Tseu-Hsi) and was full of photos and documents, so it can't be Charles Pettit or other male authors proposed by google, who wrote their books before 50', this book could have been published in late 60', early 70'-ies, not before. And I'm sure it wasn't Pearl Buck's Empress of China, I've read her other books on China, but not her book on Cixi.
Yes, she is already 2-years dead at the time of this story, a little Pu Yi (in Italy and Europe in general, everybody is familiar with his life because of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor) is on the throne, but the geist is the same.
I've studied Chinese Contemporary History (which starts at the beginning of 20th century) at the University of Milan under Enrica Collotti Pischel, author of The History of Chinese Revolution (containing the only Western-written biography authorized by Mao in 1972), she was also the only person China and USA agreed upon to be the official English-Mandarin translator during Nixon's secret visit and the meeting Mao-Kissinger in 1972. She was a great historian and an excellent prof, she (together with another prof. of The History of International Relations) is the true reason why I'm familiar with th C-contemporary history. 😊

Yes, I know, I've studied the downfall of the Qing empire and its transformation into Min Guo. I've even read two biographies of Cixi (one author is a Chinese and another, integrated with photos, by a French author and that one toroughly described the country, the politics and the society of the time in general).

ok, you are probably ahead with eps, I'm still on ep 3, left the rest before going to bed :))))
The vibe is great.

it isn't a complete wuxia, but it displays characteristic elements of wuxia: heroes from lower classes, a lot of fights, a strange (Bu Fan's) sect... mixed with politics and mystery. The late Qing period is certainly not a typical "jianhu" environment but constant political-social turmoils and external pressure give vibes of injustice-to-fight-against typical in wuxia, which makes it perfectly adaptable/combinable.

Not Indiana Jones style, it's very Chinese wuxia style, somewhat faster.
It is veeeery good so far.

Exactly 😁. And I was wondering why there's no wuxia tag, too.
The cinematography (including historical black and white doc inserts) and the cast are great. The story is flowing, wow, I'm very excited...

I agree. It was very smartly written with the purpose for the audience to catch up with major events in C-history immediately before the events in the drama.

This thing regularly happens when some character, espc. a villain, is introduced in late eps: the things get rushed and messy, the plot suffers...

In that case, MDL might be wrong

I found today's ep. rushed and a bit boring (except for the fighting scene).

the date and hour of airing are on the left side, it changes according the date set in your device. Mine is CE (Central European) showing the tomorrow's episode airing at 6 AM.

yeah, for the plot it's better they remain in exile as more as they could

you are not spitting nonsense all day... 😂
I find your ideas 👌

Joy of Life 2 was announced for mid-May

You have a point, actually, but lets' be patient 👍

Sorry, I completely disagree with this opinion. I am a parent and was in love several times in my life, remaining always the same person (obviously growing my knowledge and evolving through experiences, acquired with or without my love partners). Yes, when you are a couple or a parent, your priorities may differ, you won't hang out with friends in the evening, you'll adapt your daily agenda to persons you love, you'll dedicate to develop life projects together (thing that HZ did, she actually hired him and treats his sister as a family), but you don't change your character or temperament because of love. On the contrary, couples fail for three reasons: 1) one of the partners pretend to change you (and that means he/she doesn't love you at all as you are), 2) a partner changes (for whatever reason) and he/she is not any more the one we fell for and 3) you overly adapt, and you loose who you are.
When reciprocated and you get the support of your partner, what love does - at the most is - to bring out the best of you. And HZ already showed what she can do for her man, during their trip back from the North.

The Minglan's character didn't change because "she stopped pretending", she is always the same person and btw., we saw her in "non-pretending" version when she fiercly (ie., without caution) fought for the mutual divorce arrangment of her cousin in Sheng's native town. It was way before she fell in love with GTY, she was actually "getting over" the other guy.

You may not remember...
Minglan's father best described her personality, the quote (in one of the latest episodes) is more or less: "I wondered how my obedient daughter became like this, shouting for people to be beaten or killed without blinking a bit? I've figured it out. You didn't become like this, you were always like this, you've only been too good in pretending otherwise". And then she replies to him: "I'm a person who remembers forever good things done to me. Even if I have to risk my life, I'll repay them." And we know that she repayed those who wronged her people, as well. That's Minglan before and after falling in love, she never changed, before marriage she wasn't "overly cautious", she was just pretending to be somebody else, someone who must not outstand, but she was smart, brave, sensible, revengefull and undertaking even before her marriage with GTY, his status (not his love) only gave her more options, because the courage was there even before and without him.
Besides, why someone must change after falling in love?

Minglan is one of the most memorable female characters in dramaworld in general (in the world), she is Chinese Elisabeth Bennet in even more "ensamble" drama compared to Pride and Prejudice: more characters bring more plots and complexity. The Story of ML is a classics, and although it is not "my N°1 drama", it is the drama I've rewatched the most.
Compared to the SOML, the production of BiA didn't put that much money and heart, the main plot is also less ambitious. BiA is also an ensamble drama with female-empowerment as Leitmotiv, so the two heroines can actually be compared.
I disagree Minglan showed more affection to her husband. With the exception of her hearthbraking "beating the drums" while struggling to free her husband from prison, she always showed a significant level of disattachment to Gu Ting Ye (she wasn't jealous, she didn't daydream about him, before marriage, her "reputation" always came first and so on). Compared to her, HZ is a super-romantic girl, while ML is an ice-cube. Besides, this drama isn't over yet, I'm pretty confident the authors balanced well her emotional display but we still have to see those scenes. I'm confident about because till this point, the plot followed a perfect cause-effect logics and the dialogues are really well-written. The only thing that doesn't make sense to me is how the two scriptwriters could possibly be the same persons who wrote the plot and dialogues of the messy and badly written TTEOM and only this fact makes me fear they might mess up smth towards the end

no doubt about that and one of the reasons of my high (90%) droppability rate of C-dramas (and I rarely click on romances in general). That trope is so boring...