absurd

Idk about being the heart of the drama, but I do like her too. She's a very strong character

There is literally not a single word mentioned about politics, who are they fighting or even how the war actually ended. All that's been shown is a single battle without any specifics about who what or why. Stop spreading false information. The show is focused in soldiers and army training, and soldiers suffer and die on both sides no matter who's right or wrong.
Do you honestly have nothing better to do the spreading bs? Don't want to watch? just move along

I am also going to be veeery petty and say this: Zheng Yuan saying that Gao Liang haven't suffered enough setbacks and that it's a bad thing for a man he wants his daughter to be with, is Kar-ma. Because if Gao Liang is used to the lack of consequences for acting reckless or making mistakes, no one is more at fault for it then Zheng Yuan. There is nothing wrong with making mistakes, everyone does. But people also need to learn from them.

Man this drama really likes to tell, rather then show. So now Gu Yiye says that apparently he and JNZ drifted apart, while A Xiu is the one who supported him. When what the drama actually shown us at that moment was Gu Yiye stating that he will be the sacrifice, struggling with his decision to break up with JNZ and barely being able to do it, and GL telling GYY that since he made the decision he should learn to love A Xiu (because he did not love her). Would it have been so unimaginable to drop the martyr plot and just show us what GYY told us about in ep 28? 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

Yes, can't disagree with that, but then there are also all the "tear jerking" speeches that I can definitely live without, that take a lot of time. I personally prefer romance to be the most background as possible in the shows that have an actual plot, that has nothing to do with romance. But, we got what we got. Let's see how they finish it up

I'm sure there are technicalities that they can use to get around it, like episode length or calling it two seasons.
But anyway the number of episodes in the license is probably the maximum footage that they have, that is submitted and then cut to the intended length after it has been censored.
I do agree with you about the length, but in this drama in particular nothing has been dragged out so far, it's the ones that have nothing but romance that really need a cut.

It isn't. It's just that they implemented it only a year or so ago, so older dramas are longer.
https://www.hotpot.tv/news/china-puts-episode-limit-on-chinese-dramas

It is worth it. There are definitely some editing and writing problems, they are not very noticeable in the first half of the drama, but it does feel like there's a huge chunk of character and relationship development missing after the time skip in the second half. But it still doesn't prevent you from getting invested in the characters.

The question was because the drama was licensed for 48 episodes. But you are right that it's unlikely that they were planning to do more that 40, because the drama was announced to air on TV before they even finished post production

You know what I just thought about... how much better it would have been if instead of this outdated sacrifice trope, they would have shown GYY and A Xiu slowly getting closer, while supporting each other after Zhang Fei's death (because they both lost him). They wouldn't even need them to meet, just letters would work. All the while he and JNZ would drift apart because she can't understand his grief and is just waiting for him to get over it. And JNZ and GL would get closer in the mean time. Damn, that would have worked so well, while still being realistic. They should have hired me as a screen writer LOL
But seriously, there's nothing original about that idea, I've seen it done a lot, but nope we're getting enormous plot gaps instead. It feels like they just got veeery lazy by the time they got to the second half of the drama.

TV limit for c-dramas is 40 episodes. If they were just a web drama they could do more, but with tv broadcast 40 is the max

I would not expect anything more than what we got between A Xiu and Zhang Fei. Have there even been any kissing between any of the characters? Because I don't think so.

I was honestly expecting that by now we will get more of the army reforming and their career in it. But there's so much "romance all around" in the last episode, that the whole army reform feels more like a backdrop. Here's hoping we're caught up with everyone who's marrying and dating now, and ready to move on.

No, sorry for confusing you. I meant all the episodes that are available (27) are vip only (except the first 4, those are on youtube for free).
Yes, post production definitely f-up some things, it also swings between romance all around and army centric a lot. I would have preferred if they kept the focus more on the army, (but that's me).
It's a little bit uneven, as we get a lot a relationship development in the beginning, but then skip a lot later on. I mean it's the general c-drama problem, because of the censorship, but I think it was exacerbated here by two things: TV limit of 40 eps max and attempts to shift the focus back and forth between two leads. Idk if all the talk about XZ's scenes being cut excessively is true, so I'm not going that direction, but they really should have made their storylines more intertwined to keep it an even two lead story.

Yes, exactly. People not ending up with their first love is totally fine, if they'd actually show me how it happened. But they are just expecting people to use their imagination here and if you are not invested in a couple (like some people really root for A Xiu and Gu Yiye, unlike me) how can you do that and why do you have to even.
Yeah, I'm still into it too. Just praying that they don't destroy it with the last episodes, like some dramas do. There's so little GYY in 26-27, I'm kind of sick of this Gao Liang rainbow parade. How is he suddenly a tactical genius?

I was facepalming so hard there. It's like now they are just making up the difficulties for the sake of dragging it out.

Well, I guess we disagree here. Because I don't think JNZ would have continued to insist if said that he already made his decision. At first, she would have, but she does not seem like someone who would discard her own pride that much. Maybe he was more afraid that she would be able to talk him out of it, because he barely convinced himself to do it.
But at this point I might be reading too much into something, that isn't that deep LOL writers probably just thought that this dialog would be too rational and boring, and that's it

It's everyone at this point, people just go from 0 to 100 without anything to show for it. The funny thing is, the only couples we've seen relationship development for are those that did not work out in the end. GYY and JNZ, GL and Hun Chuyu, Qin Hanyong and "what's her name, JNZ ex commander", well they are married, but apparently she got abortion and hates him now. It's like they want people to get invested and then disappointed LOL

But that's the same as saying "sorry guys, we don't know how to explain how those two characters got together, so... it's been 10 years, use your imagination". Well, thanks.

At this point I am on the fence about this drama. On one hand while watching I got really invested in the characters, even the ones that I find annoying (yes, even Gao Liang) and I do think, that overall it is a good story about the army and friendship, that surprisingly is not too heavy on propaganda (there are speeches, mind you, but they are easily skippable). On the other hand, the more I watch, the more it feels like it was written by two different people, that were taking turns for two or three episodes each and then someone went at it with the butcher knife. The story has a lot of inconsistencies. It also does a lot of talking at you, rather than showing and letting you make your own decision. But it's funny and very dynamic, it also has several episodes where I cried so much, my head hurt.
To conclude all my senseless rumbling, I can dissect and criticize all I want, but at the end of the day the most important thing is that it did manage to get me invested in the characters lives, get me crying, laughing and anticipating every next episode. They can still manage to spoil it all with ending, but so far, I think it's very much worth watching.
It's already all vip though, so it won't make any difference if you wait until it ends and see what people think then.