absurd

I feel like they overdid it with the melodrama. It's an exercise, not real war. I am trying, but can't really take it seriously. Competitiveness, I get. People crying and having breakdowns... if they can't even get through the exercise, why are they in the army?
I also don't understand why all of those people in the observation room (not on the island) are so against Gu Yiye's tactics. If you can't adapt your plans according to the situation, what kind of army commander are you? A dead one. At last Commander Big Boss (whatever his name and rank is, I didn't catch it) gets it. Commander Big Boss is a smart man, he gets a cookie

They painted him as very dumb in the beginning and when during the war GL decided to sacrifice himself, I thought that this is the narrative they are pushing: Gu Yiye the ruthless commander and Gao Liang the saint hero to save the day. But because they apparently needed them to constantly go head to head, they are forcing this idea that education and training had turned GL into a tactician. But imo, being smart and being educated are not the same thing. People can be hella smart without any education and vice versa. If they had at last given us some hints of his smarts in the beginning, it wouldn't look so forced now. They didn't though. He said that he was the first in class before he had to quit school, but how can I believe it when he is also the guy that asked an officer responsible for promotions to help his friend out and didn't think that he was doing anything wrong?
I did actually start to warm up to GL recently, the episodes about his trauma and recovery were very good and I really felt his despair and frustration. If they'd just stop forcing him into this genius role, that he does not fit...

I have actually stopped watching since the drll started, because I wanted to watch it all in one go, but it's still going?! I hope it will end in today's episode 🤦‍♀️

Well, sure, if it was a completely different drama. But given what it is, that would be just an irrelevant piece of information to go along with all the propaganda, that everyone skips.

This is not a war drama and it does not try to be. It's about soldiers and military internal affairs. The single battle was there as a plot device: for character and relationship development, it's not actually relevant or has any impact on the plot who they are fighting with.

That's a good point actually. They repeatedly say that Gao Liang is good leader and tactician, but when it comes to it he's not actually a leader, he's a one man team that throws himself into danger and is always ready to sacrifice himself. While admirable, that is probably the worst quality for any leader to have, it makes it look like he does not trust his subordinates. Who's going to lead the soldiers if he gets killed?

That's exactly what I meant. XZ is not the only person who worked on this drama, there was a giant team of actors and crew that made the whole thing possible. No one has to praise anyone, but saying XZ is the only person who's allowed to get the credit for the drama is just ridiculous.
I do understand that arguing is pointless here, guess I was kind of in the mood :) especially since in the latest episodes I kind of warmed up to Gao Liang as a character

They literally skipped years of JNZ and GL relationship development. One episode she calls him her brother and the next she's "been in love with him for years". How's that different?

I never said anything about liking other actors, my exact words were that we should respect the work they put into making the drama. And characters importance in the story is not measured by their screentime, but by the way their story is told and Gu Yiye's story is very well developed in my opinion. Also wasting time on actually measuring out every minute the characters are on screen is just petty and pretty much pointless, imo

Look, I love XZ and I can admit that he's the only reason I started this drama, but I don't really understand why people cry wolf every time he's absent from the screen for more than 5 minutes. He is One of the leads, there are two other people who are considered leads in this story, there are also multiple very important supporting characters and so far (I'm up to episode 35) there are only a couple of episodes where we don't see that much of him. There are also couple of episodes where there's not much of Huang Jingyi, people just don't notice it, because most of the people here are watching for XZ. But whatever production company did or did not do before, they obviously fixed it and this is a multiple character story, you can't expect him to be present in every scene. Whatever rating you put is up to you, no one can tell you what to do, but I really don't understand the need to discard other actors work, just because they are not your idols.

Well, if we say they are around 19 by 1983, then, yeah around my parents generation :) though, if we take into account that this is China, then I think a lot of people there still take that approach. Still don't agree with it :)

We'll just have to agree to disagree, I guess. To me that perspective, of him wanting to be superior before they marry is a very outdated one and also one that does not bode well for the marriage where both people are ambitious (my parents literally divorced over that). I also don't see relationship (or marriage) as something that will hold people back, if that's the case then maybe it's not a good relationship. Also if his only reason to succeed is because he wants not to feel inferior to her, than he should just quit the army right now, because that is not a good reason in the long run. But then, I don't think any of that is true. GL said again and again that after what he went through, he changed and army became very important to him and JNZ always showed herself as very supportive, but also ambitious in her own right. I don't see how being married would stop them from doing what they are doing. It's not like they have to immediately have a bunch of kids and quit their jobs to take care of them.

I understand your point and have to say that to me it seemed weird how much time we spent on JNZ and GYY, considering it went nowhere, while getting barely anything between him and A Xiu, who he is now married to. We also didn't get any explanation of how is that JNZ who repeatedly called GL her brother, suddenly fallen in love with him. But also there is a difference between relationship development (or deterioration as was with JNZ and GYY) and relationship that is already developed, but being constantly waylaid by some excuses like "they had no time", "he feels that he's undeserving of her to get married, but will still kick other men away from her". I guess it's a problem that a lot romance focused c-dramas have (I'm only watching Chinese ones, so idk about other countries). Is that they get the leads together by, like, episode 10 and then for the rest of 30 episodes we're just watching them break up and get back together over dumb misunderstandings. And to me it looks like what they are doing with GL and JNZ is exactly the same. He loves her, he knows she loves him, so this martyr act seems pointless.
I also feel that it doesn't actually bring anything to the plot, they could be married and still continue learn, grow and invest themselves in their career.

Have to say, I did not expect them to actually make GL's injury a serious one. They surprised me there and Huang Jingyi's acting was very good in those scenes. I also really liked that they brought Hu Yang back. I still wish she and GYY were the endgame, but whatever. At last she was there to kick his ass into gear.
GL sending JNZ away by the end of his recovery, though.. ugh. Why? Why do they feel the need to drag it out unnecessarily? They should just marry them and focus of the army and training. It's not like there's some kind of mystery in how it will end, we all know they will be together.

One of the things I really like about this drama is that they don't villainize their characters. People may be weak, not entirely honest, make mistakes... but they are still people, there are different levels to them. Granted sometimes it's a bit melodramatic, with the speeches and all, not vey believable, but I still applaud them for the effort.

Well, that's c-ent for you. They are all very very skinny.

Have to say I was one of those cringing people. I get what they were going for, but it was just a bit too much and as you said, unnecessary

Isn't this an add for JD electronics? I mean it's long and artistic, but it's still an ad, not a short movie

Or like they were planning to go one direction and half way through the filming... changed their mind.

The problem I have here is that we spent 20+ episodes watching JNZ and GYY relationship develop to the point where they actually got through their problems and talked it out. And for both of the endgame couples (GL/JNZ and GYY/AX) we get nothing. At all. It's like they wanted the audience to get invested in GYY/JNZ as a couple, but not in the people they'll actually end up with.
GYY goes to the village, sees what's going on with A Xiu, and Then he comes back and distances himself from JNZ because he's struggling with his decision to sacrifice his life to take care of A Xiu. Before that while he and JNZ had their problems (like, honestly, every couple does. perfect relationships don't exist) we were actually shown that it's getting better. All of that stuff that GYY is talking about, him and A Xiu supporting each other and getting closer - all of that happened off screen. The initial moment when he broke up with JNZ there was none of that "we were drifting apart, while I felt closer to you" - the drama have shown none of that. He didn't even have any contact with A Xiu. And why would he? They barely knew each other and because of his guilt he couldn't even look at her.
IMO, They really f it up because they way everything was set up it looks more like they changed directions half way through the drama, rather than planning ahead.