I am just not able to move past 2nd episode. I have this in my Netflix watch list.. but some how I am not getting…
A beautiful cast of characters who all have strong motivations and backstories, unforgettable music score, and romances that are make or break, as if you got in the right ship you’re happy forever, and if you pick the wrong ship to ship like I personally did, you’re doomed) 😂
It’s famous as it’s the OG trope setter for all Xianxia dramas.
iirc there was a rule that series could only be a certain length when this series aired, so they split into s1 and s2 to get around it. In fact part 1 and 2 are really just a 73 episode series, though due to the month gap between airing s2 has more flashbacks I think, though I’m not up to it yet.
So his all characters died in the end ? But I m more sad for Li chen zhou.
💯 agree LCZ’s fate was the most tragic, because he had attachments to his wife and his side and his nation and yet had to die like that ultimately b/c Emperor Bro didn’t trust him. It is like Blood of Youth’s emperor all over again. 😭
But yes can’t be sad for XQS’s in-game death, he died achieving freedom for the characters of this novel who are now no longer constrained by the plot he & AI wrote for them, and can now live freely and dictate their own actions again. (as from how XQS’s death is (I think?) narrated by that bro in the hospital reading to XMM, despite the interface being destroyed it seems that the AI did succeed in plotting the novel through to the end in the real world too.) And whether XMM lived or died, his heart was content as he got to journey through the martial world and get all his pent up anger out against his crappy boss, while hopefully ensuring the AI idea of his company failed beta and never takes off thanks to its users dying when the protag does, thus protecting creative industry from AI for future generations, as well as other innocent authors being pressured to take AI-generated shortcuts when writing 😭😂
So on all levels LCZ’s death is indisputably the saddest of the three 😭😭
Are there any issues with this drama? Why are they not releasing it? 😭
iirc from older comments it was something about bc the director filmed it without the permission of the copyright holder of the story (novel writer) so delay is for legal issues while they wait for author to give permission 👀👀 Hope it can be sorted soon 🙏🙏
Never before has a drama gone so badly wrong so quickly. The toxic brother has become the ML and the real one…
tbf it’s less terrible with fast forwarding the draggy bits (and absolutely all whiny creeper bro scenes). The CY parts are still good, it’s just he’s a minor support character for those middle 18-29 😭
Agree it’s crazy how a show as good as 1-12 was could go off the rails so completely 😭😭 I’ve made a mental note never to watch anything by the same director or writers ever again 🥶
oops 12!Just realized you’re not at the end 🥶🥶All i’ll say is that it gets better, in that some wild…
The cringe emotional scenes I cannot defend 😅 They do read kinda like the editing team ran out of time for the ADR in places, especially the anguished screaming ones.
No comments on the budget either 😅 I tell myself that ever since the government introduced rules that no more than 40% of the production budget could go to the actors (apparently it was getting to 50-80, not sure if that’s because on some contracts for some actors the agencies were collecting 90% of that, or some productions really did pay that well), that some budgets got possibly inflated post 2022, but that’s just my cynical suspicion, zero evidence 😂
Enjoy the bouncy landing for this one once you get there!
(I do get what you mean tho too that the support cast was a lost opportunity because so many were interesting but so few were properly fleshed out once their quest was over. Danged AI world building 😂)
As a big chengyi fan, who am i kidding??? As much as I love cheng yi dramas, this one was kinda ass broooo. So…
I loved this show but snickered at the “two music videos” comment, like your not wrong, that is so valid 🤣🤣😂😂😂
(idk if it helps, but for me this was a semi parody where yes it was touching on those wuxia tropes you listed, but at its core it was about a (probably 30yo) author’s journey from completely controllingly writing his characters (whether for one character’s elevation as in ep, or for many as in up till when he ruins the UI) to stepping back and letting his characters write themselves and ultimately write them to the point where they can continue on existing in a world without the author/script. Their actions up till he leaves their world are necessarily following signposted quest markers placed by himself in ep1, but once he leaves, what next for them? For me things came full circle from ep1, as there it ended with everyone cheering XQS and him leading a world implicitly unable to continue without him (“please rule us for 1000 years and here’s the military token!”), and in ep40, the world is so self sustaining the main character can die and the author can leave, but the characters can continue singing and eating happy without him.)
Like yes it’s completely true they didn’t develop those points enough, but aaaat the same time, I don’t know that I could fully have taken meaningful relationships between XQS and allies or enemies seriously either knowing that the plot is scripted and largely following the quest markers he himself set up? Rather than a wuxia hero journey, “journey of a B-grade author whose books under his own name never took off stuck living an interactive novel he plotted badly for work-related reasons and that’s now being generated by AI according to his life choices (though forcing key plot markers), which he now needs to salvage by finishing the book and returning the world to the characters it belongs to without wrecking it too much” was where I saw his journey, as opposed to any genuine wuxia journey taking place 😂 Idk if it helps or not! (completely agree the Shan Guado fight at the start with the fisher guy was epic 😆🤩)
Edit: what a struggle. finally finished. my overall impression didn’t change much. but Chenzhou, Shirong and…
oops 12!
Just realized you’re not at the end 🥶🥶
All i’ll say is that it gets better, in that some wild plot appears post ep20, but it definitely shouldn’t be compared with MLC. CY’s fight scenes were just a bonus icing on a very epic cake in MLC; here, the icing is basically the point and the plot kind of primarily exists to string together beautiful fight scenes 😃
(Since he’s a player/writer immersively LARPing in a world generated by AI though that’s primarily an action game/interactive novel, it does make sense not to invest too much in plot, since it’s following plot markers r we saw him outline in the opening of ep1 (with some creative license permitted) so we already roughly know where things are going.)
But yeah, I can see how it would suffer if expecting the next MLC too 🥶 if you end up continuing, then hope you enjoy the rest of the show! It’s definitely one where the enjoyment depends a lot on enjoying good fight scenes!
Can anyone tell me which episodes Ding Yuxi appears in? 😘
Pretty sure it’s just a couple of “blink and you miss it” type 10-secondish flashbacks to the previous season, maybe the final ep and possibly one in the middle-ish when they’re explaining how bad black fox is 😅😅
1
It’s famous as it’s the OG trope setter for all Xianxia dramas.
But yes can’t be sad for XQS’s in-game death, he died achieving freedom for the characters of this novel who are now no longer constrained by the plot he & AI wrote for them, and can now live freely and dictate their own actions again. (as from how XQS’s death is (I think?) narrated by that bro in the hospital reading to XMM, despite the interface being destroyed it seems that the AI did succeed in plotting the novel through to the end in the real world too.) And whether XMM lived or died, his heart was content as he got to journey through the martial world and get all his pent up anger out against his crappy boss, while hopefully ensuring the AI idea of his company failed beta and never takes off thanks to its users dying when the protag does, thus protecting creative industry from AI for future generations, as well as other innocent authors being pressured to take AI-generated shortcuts when writing 😭😂
So on all levels LCZ’s death is indisputably the saddest of the three 😭😭
Agree it’s crazy how a show as good as 1-12 was could go off the rails so completely 😭😭 I’ve made a mental note never to watch anything by the same director or writers ever again 🥶
No comments on the budget either 😅 I tell myself that ever since the government introduced rules that no more than 40% of the production budget could go to the actors (apparently it was getting to 50-80, not sure if that’s because on some contracts for some actors the agencies were collecting 90% of that, or some productions really did pay that well), that some budgets got possibly inflated post 2022, but that’s just my cynical suspicion, zero evidence 😂
Enjoy the bouncy landing for this one once you get there!
(I do get what you mean tho too that the support cast was a lost opportunity because so many were interesting but so few were properly fleshed out once their quest was over. Danged AI world building 😂)
(idk if it helps, but for me this was a semi parody where yes it was touching on those wuxia tropes you listed, but at its core it was about a (probably 30yo) author’s journey from completely controllingly writing his characters (whether for one character’s elevation as in ep, or for many as in up till when he ruins the UI) to stepping back and letting his characters write themselves and ultimately write them to the point where they can continue on existing in a world without the author/script. Their actions up till he leaves their world are necessarily following signposted quest markers placed by himself in ep1, but once he leaves, what next for them? For me things came full circle from ep1, as there it ended with everyone cheering XQS and him leading a world implicitly unable to continue without him (“please rule us for 1000 years and here’s the military token!”), and in ep40, the world is so self sustaining the main character can die and the author can leave, but the characters can continue singing and eating happy without him.)
Like yes it’s completely true they didn’t develop those points enough, but aaaat the same time, I don’t know that I could fully have taken meaningful relationships between XQS and allies or enemies seriously either knowing that the plot is scripted and largely following the quest markers he himself set up? Rather than a wuxia hero journey, “journey of a B-grade author whose books under his own name never took off stuck living an interactive novel he plotted badly for work-related reasons and that’s now being generated by AI according to his life choices (though forcing key plot markers), which he now needs to salvage by finishing the book and returning the world to the characters it belongs to without wrecking it too much” was where I saw his journey, as opposed to any genuine wuxia journey taking place 😂 Idk if it helps or not! (completely agree the Shan Guado fight at the start with the fisher guy was epic 😆🤩)
Just realized you’re not at the end 🥶🥶
All i’ll say is that it gets better, in that some wild plot appears post ep20, but it definitely shouldn’t be compared with MLC. CY’s fight scenes were just a bonus icing on a very epic cake in MLC; here, the icing is basically the point and the plot kind of primarily exists to string together beautiful fight scenes 😃
(Since he’s a player/writer immersively LARPing in a world generated by AI though that’s primarily an action game/interactive novel, it does make sense not to invest too much in plot, since it’s following plot markers r we saw him outline in the opening of ep1 (with some creative license permitted) so we already roughly know where things are going.)
But yeah, I can see how it would suffer if expecting the next MLC too 🥶 if you end up continuing, then hope you enjoy the rest of the show! It’s definitely one where the enjoyment depends a lot on enjoying good fight scenes!