Yidenia

Lol the Chinese generally did not find the music Chinese. Nor anything about that opera very Chinese. The Chinese didn’t find the original Mulan Chinese either, nor did they like it, just because there were some pentatonic songs in the cartoon. They also don’t find the Chinese elements others appreciate terribly exciting; it’s about as novel for them as Disney action movies are for us. Granted, they tried to make something they liked with the Mulan remake and it was underwhelming, which might not bode well for this movie, but Turandot doesn’t speak to everyone the same way. And the plot, which is the basis of everything that’s different about this movie other than the medium and lack of singing, was one of many things about that opera that the Chinese themselves had zero input in. Of course they’re not going to keep the same highlights you value. They are marketing to their audience too, and their audience has true Chinese stories to express their culture through. Turandot to them is just an exotic tale some European happened to choose to set in China. It wasn’t quite cultural appropriation, exactly, but even Puccini’s efforts into bringing Chinese styles and elements into the opera does ring with a bit of European superiority, like Chinese music and culture weren’t something whole and deliberate but something Western music can just dismantle and pick out parts to claim for its own, so the Chinese have no reason to find anything intimate about a move like that, much less respect anything Chinese about the opera as sacred. To their own viewers, the opera itself was always just a flashy bit rather than anything profound and would find it totally lacking if they infused too much “Chinese culture” in it. With this kind of foundation, they wouldn’t feel it necessary to add in Chinese elements that feel Chinese; what would that even mean, anyway? Confucianism? The parts foreigners found distinctively Chinese were the parts the Chinese themselves found unimportant and boring, but the parts that really express the Chinese spirit in a way only the Chinese can tell it also can’t be conveyed through Turandot’s story. From the behind the scenes, though, it looks like they took some pains to incorporate other cultures, Calaf’s whitewashing notwithstanding. But, I suspect it would be the right thing for you to skip this movie, because I don’t think the interpretation is meant for people like you. It’s not an adaptation meant for those the opera had truly resonated with; again, it’s more inspired by it. Plus, if it does turn out like the Mulan remake you’d have dodged a bullet lol

I do agree that the Tartar white-washing thing's just…*eyeroll* clearly targeting the American audience here with Dylan Sprouse but let's face it; Turandot's an Italian opera based on a German play adapted from a Persian poet where Turandot was originally Russian, so…I think that ship has sailed centuries ago, whatever it is.

Not saying there is anything wrong with being a fan, but I personally never liked the opera. I did not feel that the storyline reflected anything Chinese, nor that it was beautiful; the Chinese princess was unnecessarily cruel for no explained reason, and I never understood Calaf's devotion to her, nor why this was particularly moving, since it was clear he had no chance to know her personally and was more attracted to the idea of her than her actual person. Operas generally weren't a great medium for profound stories, however, so I just try to enjoy the music instead, but the story certainly never spoke to me and I have never enjoyed the whole performance as a single entity. I suspect the folks who made this movie feel the same way I do, which is that the opera had its merits, but there is a lot that we wished were different. I personally think that there's nothing wrong with making a movie that's inspired by the opera but doesn't follow its plotline. This is one movie, and they even altered the name, so you know that it's just inspired; they never intended to make a faithful adaptation. If you look up Turandot in movies, there are at least a dozen of them already, and if we really need a remake that is true to the opera, we can always make them in the future. Or we can just watch an opera when the pandemic is over. Or a recording of an opera. For me, I'm glad this movie exists; it looks fun, and its existence doesn't prevent other better movies from existing.

That's true! There was something along the grapevine that ZZH was being investigated for Vicky Zhao's case since he was under her employ and it was thought he might have had to be involved in her business. He got in with the wrong crowd, alas.

and yes I know yelling at someone is nowhere on the level of a career ban, but I'm saying the ban with KW isn't really the punishment that fit his particular crime, it was just part of a bigger package. And yes, I left out whether the car was moving or not on purpose :P, because I'm not saying ZZH deserved the punishment or not, it's just, the punishment really wasn't the same between him and KW.

I can't help comparing this response to Kris Wu as well, but…Kris Wu is also in jail. ZZH isn't, he's just banned. So I don't know if KW is necessarily the right standard to compare to. Bans were never reserved only for something as bad as serial rape; they were always milder offenses. The fact that KW happened at the same time as ZZH kind of links them together in our minds but it's a little bit like saying you shouldn't get yelled at for texting in your car because it's not as bad as someone else getting yelled at (and is in jail) for killing someone.

I don't feel optimistic about his chances of coming back. First of all, his management is apparently Vicky Zhao's company, and she's permanently banned. She cut ties with him as soon as his scandal broke out, so I think he's on his own. Second, even if he were to find another manager, he wasn't a breakout star for long enough to justify expending resources to bring him back when a comeback (and a sufficiently lucrative one) isn't certain. Third, I think the fact that there was no limit specified on the ban means that by default this is permanent; if the rule is that he can apply for a reassessment 6 mo prior to the ban limit, how's he supposed to know when that is if there's no deadline to schedule this? I think he's done.

There's word also (just a rumor, to clarify) that his boss, Vicky Zhao, was involved in foreign espionage and was leaking information about the Chinese market to agencies in Japan and the US; ZZH might have had to attend these events in exchange for his employment and possibly other benefits. It might explain why they took him completely off the grid—whether or not he was guilty, it may be that they sealed him in order to investigate Vicky Zhao for treason? This isn't the most outrageous explanation because celebrities have had ties with mafias and the like, but I…actually don't know if I prefer this or not. It definitely does seem like something big is going on with Vicky Zhao, so I wouldn't put it past the officials to place ZZH on lockdown due to his association with her.

I feel bad for him, but from what I was able to gather, I think the way he handled things makes it so that he's probably better off without the fame. This apparently started when some fans noted pictures of a possible gf/wife a month ago. They probed him in interviews and he refused to give a straight answer, which was his right, but then he went and sued the fans responsible for unearthing those photos with the charge of "false claims of a hidden romantic relationship". This was what polarized his fanbase, because while anyone has the right to protect their privacy, a lawsuit seems like an extreme reaction and a harsh way to deal with your own fans, especially when he also never gave proof this was false, he was so wishy-washy about his answers, and fans have conjectures about who's dating whom all the time, it's not like this should have been a big deal. That's what prompted netizens to investigate him in the first place, because a number of them felt he was a jerk. I used to think he was otherwise innocent, unlike Kris Wu who actually hurt people, but lawsuits can ruin lives. He had gone ahead and basically did something to end someone else's means to support themselves…this first of all makes him seem like much less of a good person, for one, and also much less of a smart person, for another :/

My comment was about that specific acting decision the actress made to do that weird chin-lift/side-eye every time she's in a scene with the male leads, not the writing or the character's actual personality. That gesture implies that the person she's interacting with is not worth her time, so from the perspective of the guys early on, that's all they get from her. They don't see her sweeter side when she's with other female students. We do, but they wouldn't know there is this side, so it's very hard as a viewer for me to feel convinced that their attraction to her makes any sense. When the men first started showing their attraction, her character hadn't done anything remarkable because it's early in the school term and the only achievement she had to show was a ruined project, so from the perspective of the guys, who don't really know her yet and only see that frankly rude posture, I wouldn't expect them to see anything particularly appealing; quite the opposite, really. If she were a real person acting that way to me, I would have found her very unpleasant to deal with and I wouldn't want to go out of my way to get to know her more. I've seen other actresses portray characters being shy and reserved without doing something like this; they often glance away but their heads are bowed, or they look straight ahead with their head up but they don't glance to the side. The chin-lift/side-eye is not necessary nor ideal to convey this character's reservation, and in my opinion is a mistake when it comes to portraying her, because you're almost forced to ignore it and pretend it's not there when you're considering her as a person. People probably overlook it because they were prepared to like her character and we also knew more about her than the guys, but in real life can you imagine lifting your chin and glancing to the side that way in front of someone you're actually supposed to work with? Or even a stranger approaching for something like asking for directions? It's frankly rude. You do that sort of thing so people would never talk to you again, not just because you're not interested in becoming best buds. Again, I get that she's trying to keep her distance from guys, but reacting this way when someone is talking to you just because they happen to be a guy is also totally inappropriate. So it's this one gesture that bothered me because I kept seeing it and I've known real people who do this; it's usually teenagers getting scolded and trying to convey nonchalance by pretending what they're hearing isn't worth their attention. It's kind of out of character and is an acting decision that truly baffles me, because I really don't understand Ireine Song's reasoning behind it.

I think OP means that from ML's point of view FL appears frigid and it's kind of stressful to watch because while we all know some suspension of disbelief is needed for these dramas, the more this drags on the less reason ML has to tolerate that. From his point of view, she's his wife, she has her wife duties that this celibacy is preventing her from fulfilling, he's been more than patient when it comes to waiting for her to be emotionally ready, and after a whole year, there aren't a lot of good reasons to postpone a consummation from his perspective, unless she has an undesirable secret to hide (ie she's not a virgin or she has no functional female parts). We as the audience know she has her reasons, but that doesn't mean he knows, nor that we should expect him to maintain faith in her good intentions.

Surprised that they did this, but this seemed to be a key element in the other adaptations too. I saw the UK version and though the dad didn't get caught, he had sex with the robot. He just felt too guilty and "didn't finish".

Even if the mother were so completely incapable of thinking outside the box that to her it really was a "Just because" kind of matter, there's nothing about the camera shots, the way the footage was cut, the music, the way the other actresses react to her, that suggest that they find this at all questionable, and you'd think you'd get at least some defiance from the actress who raised the subject in the first place; she's the one to question it, isn't she supposed to be smart, why is she just letting it go? There are ways to play with the zoom, to time pauses in conversation, microexpressions on the actresses, to indicate that even if the characters themselves are within their own thought bubble, the producers of the show are aware of the divide between the story and its audience, but there was none of that. It's that very apathetic treatment the show gives to this topic that bothers me, because it feels like it's not acknowledging the audience. A show always has to be aware of its audience; that's how they choose to film close-ups of what a person might be doing with their hands behind their back, or linger on a character when they know they need to draw your attention to something about that person. That this show just didn't react to what its own characters are saying, as if there were nothing unusual about what was said, and yet feels the need to portray that same conversation over and over again…that makes me really uncomfortable. And again, I do like the show overall. This one detail does really get on my nerves though. I've had real conversations where people argue about the importance of marriage using very traditional arguments that feel less suspicious than this show.

I understand there's an inherent need to justify having this philosophy present instead of trying to obscure it in a period drama, but I'm more annoyed by how it was portrayed. Like, if I were the mother from this period and my daughter and I had this discussion, even if I were from this period, I wouldn't have directed the conversation this way. I would have said, "Look, what are the alternatives?" or, "Look, life is hard. Everyone has their own trials. Men have their hardships too. Just because it is hard doesn't mean you can avoid it." Or even "Look at me, am I not very much in the state of alive-ness" or even sympathetic like "I know, I understand, I wish things were different too, but such is life and look, you can do it. You're smart, etc, etc". Not laugh like the mere idea of this is the silliest thing I'd ever heard and go "Silly girl. Bachelorette-hood is for kids!" I mean these conversations just didn't feel organic to the story, when the women were otherwise so thoughtful in their plans, it feels so out of place, like these words, which were repeated almost word for word even throughout the same episode, were directed more for us to hear than for the characters to hear. As in, the message is for the viewers, not for the characters to say to each other and we happen to be present to know what's going on. And the makers of this drama are not from the Ming Dynasty; they're very much from the 21st, and there is reason to support that they might be trying to convey this message to the real audience for political purposes.

There is also a real pressure in China, even now, for women to get married, because women have become quite picky in this generation; due to the one-child policy, the parents who didn't abort female children (cuz abortion's not a political controversy there) are generally forward thinkers, and since their daughters are their only children, they invest everything into the girls. The girls (generalizing a lot, I realize, cuz abuse and neglect and "accidents"/"Poor planning" happen there as much as anywhere) grow up talented and well-loved and have more specific standards for what kind of men they'd want to marry. Even though there are more men than women in China as a society due to the preference for sons, there are a lot of "leftover women" who go into their 30s, 40s, without getting married, and people shame them (hence the flattering term). Though this drama is a period drama set in the Ming Dynasty, it is very much made by people in the 21st century, who are also influenced by the Chinese government with their helicopter-parenting/governing agendas. Again, the execution of this theme is what I have issues with, not the existence or even pervasiveness of the theme itself, so I wonder if this show is trying to pressure real women into marriage by repeating this as a "fact" over and over again without raising specific points. Raising specific points would invite discussion and debate. Keeping it vague and just saying "Just because" smells more like brainwashing.

Definitely 21st century thoughts won't help, but this isn't an issue of me displacing my 21st century philosophy on this period. I wouldn't have bothered to watch this show if the mere idea of backwards thinking and traditions had bothered me, and again, I really like this show overall. But just because it's a period drama doesn't mean they have to repeat the same idea of marriage with pretty much the same phrases multiple times even within the same episode. They were almost quoting themselves verbatim, and each subsequent time adds nothing to the ones before. It's always "Just because". I get that real people had those exchanges in the past, and were just as unwilling to be logical in their rhetoric (Women are just inferior, cuz I say so, cuz Confucius say so and no one questions him) but I feel it's unnecessary to go out of your way to film these actors doing the same motions over and over again just because you're worried the audience won't get it. And again, I even listed actual arguments that made sense and can be used in a way that would make even unhappy marriages very justified. I'm not upset that the idea exists, or is even the backbone of how the characters make their major decisions to drive the plot forward, but there are things that really don't need to be shown, much less so many times within 3 episodes, I mean the same conversation happens like 8 times. That means these people believe that us viewers can't remember the past 45 minutes. And this is super annoying to me because it feels less like this is an important element of portraying the story itself, and more like the people making this drama are trying to drill this into the real female audience through repetition.

Lol I'd totally get jealous too. I'm not upset that the theme is there, I just find it annoying how it was executed. I guess I can just skip over those sections, but if I don't lose anything by skipping over them, should they really be there in the first place? I'm not saying there is anything wrong with having a story based on the premise that women can't survive without being married, but again, there are other ways to portray that. I mean look at Untamed; that show's infamous for playing coy with how they show certain things and not others. There are certain messages that ring more powerfully when they aren't explicit, and certain words that are louder when unspoken. In this show, the same exact dialogue exchange gets repeated over and over again within the same episode, and each subsequent exchange doesn't add anything to the previous exchanges, and they're scattered so much throughout the show that it's often getting in the way of the stuff I do enjoy, and I do like this show overall, it's just this one part. I love Story of Minglan which had similar themes and addressed similar issues women had to face, but the way they did it had been different. I even outlined how I would have portrayed such dialogue differently, even while coming to the same conclusion the characters did. This isn't an issue with me picking on the genre.

I'm actually really enjoying this show, but I do have one pet peeve: I'm watching episode 3 and already I'm seeing so many repetitions of how women MUST get married. How can women possibly exist without being a wife at some point in her life egads! This IS a period drama and undoubtedly what women of that period were told all the time, but…like…editing. Kind of like women also DEFINITELY used the toilet, and had to deal with periods without tampons, but do any of these dramas feel the need to portray that? I don't need to see these people lecturing on how being an unhappy wife is better than not being a wife at all. Like, once or twice to establish that yes, the premise of this drama hinges on an arranged marriage that pushed through despite not looking picture perfect in the beginning, but I can live with knowing that the importance of getting wife-status is being drilled into these girls somewhere offscreen. The way they harp on this makes it feel like this production is trying to lecture its actual female audience. It's weirdly emphasized by the dialogue in a way that really doesn't make any sense nor does it flow naturally. They're more like, "It's just a fact that if you are a woman, you gotta get married" and not the actual substance that people might have said back then like "Let's be practical, you're a lady and no one will employ you, how are you gonna find a job" or even things that modern women are worried about like "If people know you're a young lady living alone at home, you might be a target because violent men might try to break into your house, knowing there's no other guy they'd have to fight to rob you or worse" or even "There's a contemporary stigma against single women in this Ming Dynasty and you might lose respectability which would cause people to discriminate against you while you're performing activities of daily living, like purchasing basic needs or getting fair customer service". Or even "No person is an island and you need children to help care for you when you are old, and if you don't have any, certainly your Chinese neighbors wouldn't step in to take that responsibility". There are plenty of reasons why women might prefer an unhappy marriage rather than remaining single that actually do have merit, ESPECIALLY back then when doing laundry takes 10 hours and drinking water requires a trip to the well and back at some point in the recent past. A "Just because" is lame and seriously cheapens how much women historically had to tolerate. Women didn't all get married because they're stupid and couldn't think of alternatives, China, and they certainly didn't all get married just because someone said they must.

I watched till episode 5 and I couldn't make it past the middle of it. The thing that actually bothered me most about this show was actually Ireine Song's acting. I've never watched any of her other shows before, but I heard good things about her in Ever Night and I liked that she wasn't pretty and dolled up in the standard many actresses are, but her mannerisms here are just not attractive to me, even from a personality standpoint. I don't think it's because she doesn't know how to act; it seems to be a decision made either by her or the director or both. Her character has a tendency to not look at people when she's talking to them (if they are men), but she kind of stares rudely to the side, kind of like she's scheming or something. In fact, a lot of villains in Chinese dramas (and maybe other dramas) tend to have that side-eye to convey to the audience that they are plotting something sinister, so it's weird to see that on someone like her, when she's otherwise pretty direct with a brusque, practical outlook on life. When she does look at the person she's talking to, a lot of times the bottom whites of her eyes show, but her upper eyelids are slightly drooped, like she's simultaneously rolling her eyes. She also constantly lifts her chin up while literally looking down her nose when she talks to guys. I get that she's supposed to be someone who's above romantic relationships, but the way she acted made me feel like this is a character who thinks she's just above all men. Misandronist, much? Just because you are not interested in romance doesn't mean you shouldn't build a civilized professional relationship with your male colleagues, girl. Being independent doesn't mean you have to literally turn your nose up at the men around you whenever they approach. I see a lot of comments complaining about ML's acting, but I feel like he wasn't given a lot to work with; every time the two of them are together, I'm more confused about what there is to like about FL. She's not particularly amazing as a student, she doesn't stand out in any way as a person, and the way she affirms emotional distance from men is through derisive expressions and postures. Realistically, why would any guy like her? How's he supposed to bounce off someone like that? The character's normal around girls, so this seems to be an acting choice, but it doesn't really make a ton of sense to me. I'm not expecting her to be all flirty and sweet with the males around her, but one can be refined and dignified without being condescending. Every time she does that weird subtle chin-lift plus side-eye downward, I can't tell if she's trying to enhance her side profile for a photoshoot she wasn't supposed to break the 4th wall for, or if she's trying to surreptitiously read some cue card hidden out of frame somewhere on the floor. It's so hard to watch her like that. It makes her look unnecessarily ugly and sort of old.

Ngl I wouldn't have gotten any of the sex references when I was 12 it would have gone right over my head.