Acrobit12

Wow, Hongchu was a busy man indeed!

Why do I think Hongchu's son and heir is about to join the ranks of the stupid young men in this drama?

Agreed, now that we moved past the pretend teens/early 20s, he is fantastic. Truly the heart of the drama (and FWIW I think Bai Yu is doing a great job too but the story has really moved away from him).

Ditto

You need to get through the first three or so episodes and figure out who is who (just like Nirvana in Fire) and it gets really good after that. Honestly, my only complaint about it at this point is the age of some of the (albeit excellent) main leads. They are just too old to convincingly portray men in their late teens/early 20s. But many otherwise excellent productions in many places are guilty of that.

The trailer for Episode 13 looks interesting.

Oh I remember The Crying Game! I was truly shocked. Of course (I am admitting my age here lol) I was about 15 at the time and not particularly wordly.

Yeah. I actually think that the only man that was halfway believe was Yang Zi in Lost You Forever and that was a very odd "man" to begin with.

And I agree that the emperor in The Story of Kunning Palace was decent. The emperor in The Double was not bad either.

The way the story is told none of the good emperors actually WANTS to be emperor (which, forgive me, I sort of have a hard time believing) because at the time the job kinda sucked and there was too much work and bloodshed involved.

Swords Into Plowshares that is airing right now actually has some very decent emperors.

I went into this with no expectations whatsoever and was actually pleasantly surprised (particularly given all of the complaining on here). We will see what develops.

I am definitely looking things up and am going to do some reading - I love history and I have realized just how lacking my knowledge is.

I think it definitely got lost in translation. They did give the background, but there wasn't enough there to connect the dots to current events and figure out why the emperor went mad, at least not for me. But then I basically have no knowledge of the relevant historical events. The way you lay it out, it is very clear, so thank you.

I don't disagree that it's a glaring flaw, but at this point it kind of is what it is. Those who want to find the answers will find them. Goodness knows this isn't the first cdrama chopped to pieces in editing nor will it be the last I am sure. That's what you get with censorship.

Well, this drama is not aimed at foreign viewers. It's primarily for domestic consumption where some surface-level knowledge of history is expected (although I have no idea how well they teach history in Chinese schools). Ultimately, this is entertainment, not educational programming. So far. I am pleasantly surprised by lack of propaganda.

There is a discussion on Reddit that is quite helpful and filled the gaps for me as my knowledge of the history of that period is very limited. It is shown in the drama that he wanted to reconquer lost provinces from the Khitan. Apparently, he initially did quite well and won two battles, but then one of his key generals betrayed him and defected to the Khitan and he decisively lost the final battle (I am not sure if this is the same general that Lord Feng does not want to become the emperor). This kind of explains why the emperor went mad and just gave up, while the drama just makes him look like a fool (the theory on Reddit seems to be that some of this storyline was censored out).

The veteran actors are amazing.

Yes, and then all the ministers are like "he is a child"! This scene needed a lot of suspension of disbelief from the audience. It would have hit very differently if they kept the younger actor around for a bit longer.

I think the young actor playing Hongchu being as good as he was did Bai Yu no favors. The audience got attached to the kid (at least I did) and Bai Yu seems too low-key compared to him. So far all three MLs are too old for their characters, although they will grow into them.