Aluminous1

I've been watching this for the last month or so (if only work could be a bit less busy...), and finally finished!
To put it shortly: Li Changge is a great character, and the whole storyline is amazingly solid.

At first I preferred the secondary couple, but the main one won me over eventually. In the end, I came to like both roughly equally as much, though for very different reasons.
However, what really made an impression on me were the platonic and familial relationships, which I spent many scenes crying over. Li Shimin and Li Changge's relationship especially had me fully invested throughout.
This was also my first drama from Dilraba that I've watched, and I think it was a great starting point to her works. I honestly feel that the whole cast did a good job, but Li Changge's gradual growth and the small changes in her character truly tugged at my heart strings, and that is fully thanks to the great care Dilraba took in her portrayal.

The one complaint I have is that, even as a person who largely prefers to focus on plot over romance, I felt that the last arc used far too much screentime on the Khatun's scheming with almost no direct input from either Li Changge or Ashile Sun. At times, they felt like side characters in their own story.
However, in the grand scheme of things, that's not a big problem for me, because the plot held together the whole time and all the threads, both political and romantic, got tied up very nicely. In conclusion, the positives definitely far outweigh that one negative. :D
I'll probably come back to do a rewatch eventually~

Yes! It's so nice to see a community slowly forming around a new project. It's giving me a warm feeling of nostalgia, actually. :)

(A slight tangent: See, I used to be a fan of a few other actors years ago, but then my life got too busy, and by the time I came back to dramas last year, they'd all mostly retired. ...And I'd also gotten a bit disillusioned with c-ent.
But then I got back into the bigger fan community through Word of Honor (which I hope you're enjoying, though no pressure) in March. And these past few months have proven to me that, while the industry does have its problems, there are also many good people within it that I'm happy to support. So, while GJ remains my priority (& ZZH, if he ever returns to a public career), I'm excited to slowly delve back into the waters and discover what else I'm missing, both drama- and actor-wise.)

And really, thank you again for the clarifications/recommendations on both Eternal Love & Pillow Book. I've copied them onto a sticky note for when I get to those dramas.
The Long Ballad also very much sounds like my cup of tea, so I'm quite hopeful. ...And it has LYN in it, too, so that's two out of the main three in Anle.
I'm actually thinking of making time for TLB this coming week, so I might show up in that drama's comment section pretty soon :D

Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun!

Thank you! I'm seeing a pretty clear consensus that those two should be first. :D

Oh my gosh, thank you for the detailed reply!
Seems it'll have to be TLB first and YAMG second, indeed. :D
I'll put both Eternal Love and Pillow Book on the list as well, but I find I'm not the biggest xianxia fan, so I'll see how I like them once I get to them. At the very least they'll have lots of eye candy~

As for the older dramas, that sounds very reasonable! I think it's usually best to start from the newer dramas, because then you can see the actor/actress's development when watching older ones. I'm weak against historical dramas, though, so I'll keep The King's Woman in mind.
And I'll definitely comment once I get into TLB! I might be able to start it pretty soon, too :D

Okay! I don't mind sad endings as long as they work for the story. :)

Thank you! I think I'll be watching TLB first, but I'll put You Are My Glory as #2 and then Flame's Daughter as #3.
All of them sound good :D

Thank you so much! As I thought, TLB should be first, then. :D

I have a question!
I've been following the filming of this drama because of GJ, and both he and Dilraba look great in their roles. I'm also reading the novel. But.. I realized that despite knowing of Dilraba for years, I've never watched a drama of hers. I've seen some of her variety show appearances and interviews (based on which her personality seems lovely :D), but that's it.
So, I was wondering, what would be the best drama to watch to get familiar with her acting? Can be historical, can be modern, but sadly I don't think I'll have time for more than one or two before Anle airs. So any help with the choice would be much appreciated! I'm guessing maybe the Long Ballad might be one?
(PS I'm planning on watching GJ's and his WoH co-star's earlier works next year, and those add up to quite a lot, so Dilraba's larger catalogue has to wait until that's done. I fully intend to get to it eventually, though, as I can already tell I'm gonna want more after Anle :D)

Ah, no, you did include everything in a very succinct way!
It is simply that I feel putting things succinctly when discussing the two sides on this issue can easily make it seem as if those two sides are further apart than they actually are, so I sought to clarify. I do fully agree with your original post.
(Also, I don't have a personal opinion on the situation, beyond being able to sympathize with both sides as a fellow human being.)

Many people's problem with this is indeed less that this blew up and that there were consequences, and more with the way those consequences followed. So a lot of the arguing isn't because anyone disagrees whether he did something morally wrong, or even really on how morally wrong it was, but with the judgement getting delivered before he got to defend himself in any meaningful way.
You are correct that that technically has nothing to do with his original actions, but it does have a lot to do with the disagreements and anger online, which is why I think it needs to be considered when describing the two sides. While for those who agree with the punishment this is clearly mostly about his actions, for those who don't it seems to also have a lot to do with the 'cancel culture' type handling of what ensued. Again, my point is simply that, in reality, the two sides don't disagree on the core issue nearly as much as it seems.

(As for his own responses, yes, reading his apology, it could've been much better. To put it lightly. However, considering the time frame, I think it's also likely it was hastily written as an attempt at damage control to give him time to formulate a proper response. Realistically speaking, everything went down in less than two days, during which he also had to navigate numerous breakings of contract, which would've taken away most of his time.
Additionally, due to the memorial day, he had no real chance of responding in a way that wouldn't have worsened the situation even more, because calling attention to himself would've been seen as yet another disrespectful act. And by the time he could've said anything, his entire social media presence had been wiped out. At that point, anything he said would've had to come from a friend's account, which would've made whoever it was yet another target.
It is easy to say that he could have handled things better, and that would also be my first reaction. But considering it in more depth, I honestly doubt many could've handled it any better than him in those circumstances. It is not an excuse, but a potential explanation for why things happened the way they did.)

Finally, because of how fast everything went down, there is no way to verify his actual intentions and views anymore, so forming a picture of him is now down to a lot of wild guessing on anyone's part, all based on incomplete information. This greatly lessens the credibility of both accusing and defending statements.

There are of course always people at the extreme ends of the scale- those who think he did nothing wrong and those who think his punishment was too light. But from what I've seen, most people (not simply on this board) seem to be somewhere in the middle, and mainly disagree on whether mob justice is at all acceptable in this case.
In any case, what is done is done, and my personal hope would be for the general atmosphere on social media to improve from now on.

Thank you for compiling the views on both sides!

I've been staying out of this whole situation because it's really none of my business. But I've noticed something that's missing from your post and that I think gets easily buried because of the strong emotions. Something that I think is important to take into account:

A lot of the people who agree with the extent of the punishment tend to assume that the ones who don't actually don't care about the suffering of those massacred. This assumption is understandable due to all the historical context and the often toxic fan culture. However, I've actually seen very little of that view anywhere.

From what I've seen, most supporters simply think that the punishment (the ban ruining his career + attacks against his family + death threats + constant negative rumor mill + the total silencing of any dissenting voices + being branded as a traitor + etc) is close enough to a criminal sentence that it warrants the accused being given an honest chance to defend himself.

So the problem people have is more that punishing him outright without giving him a chance to calmly present his case, especially when he hasn't committed a crime, has led to a situation where he's in an unfortunate gray zone. He is getting a truly harsh punishment without any of the chances to defend himself that he would have gotten had he done something he could be sued for.
And that is what goes against the personal ethics of many, not the fact that he's getting punished at all.

Just finished the drama and in my opinion, it's not really worth it beyond the first half of the show, though the last episode is fine also.
The good:
-The drama has some really good actors and most of the characters are fun to watch.
-The first half is your usual fluffy romantic escapism with some nice firefighter action.
-One of the side pairs has a very solid and cute storyline throughout, and it's what carried me through the lackluster second half.
The bad:
-The editing is horrible at multiple points.
-The main plot suddenly disappears in the middle of the story and a random side plot from a different genre takes over until the very end of the second-to-last episode. It's the most bizarre writing decision I've seen in a long while.

So, if you like any of the actors, go ahead and give it a try, but there are honestly much better options available plot-wise.
(I ended up giving this drama a chance because of Gong Jun after Word of Honor, and I have to say I'm glad he's got more choice in scripts now than when he chose this one. I'll definitely also be keeping an eye on some of the other cast in the future, though.)

I'm pretty sure it's only the ones on bilibili, and even then only the ones that didn't film their reactions in the allowed timeframe by youku. But still, it sucks.

As for the dubbing- Gong Jun mentioned that he had just caught the flu when he was dubbing his character's lines (could be for the whole drama, could just be for the parts where it was too loud while filming. Not sure which). So that might play a part in it.

#1 is one of the 100th year celebration dramas and #3 is a movie. So to be #2 is really quite an achievement for SHL. :D

It's also on Youku's actual website, but I don't think the eng sub version is available there

It's best to ignore all the random drama. Every fandom and celebrity has those troublemaker 'fans' whose hobby it is to be a public nuisance, and they usually think that they're somehow helping whoever they obsess over by doing it. Those people aren't worth anyone's time.
But the tl;dr version of this incident is that some of those 'fans' of GJ have been attacking ZZH, and vice versa for 'fans' of ZZH attacking GJ. The 'fans' crossed a line, so it seems the actors collaborated to launch lawsuits on the same day, because them acting alone against each other's 'fans' would be a PR nightmare. And because ZZH & GJ are as popular as they are, this ended up trending on weibo. It's just your usual case of slander against a celebrity.

The main leads become aware of their feelings very early on and have lots of cute interactions throughout, but things keep getting in the way (both external factors and a short break-up) so they only 'officially' get together in ep19.

Technically a bromance because of the censorship, but it's far more explicitly a BL than the Untamed.

This drama was very funny and touching at its best. It had that dip in quality in the middle, but I think it improved again towards the end.
The one thing I wish had been done better was the relationship between the main leads. By the end I was rooting only for the secondary couple, because they communicated openly and avoided the constant stupid misunderstandings that plagued the main couple.
Nevertheless, all the characters were generally nice, I appreciated the lack of love triangles and the plot had some nice twists and turns. Not a bad series, all in all.