Deirdre19

I agree. To my mind the love story was never the main focus of the novel.
In the end the greater good has been achieved with the people of the empire living in peace under a stable government and the people of Yueluo having equal rights.
That being said, I’m afraid with all the changes they have made to the story,bathe original ending would no longer make any sense now.

Yes. Book fans on Weibo are currently raging against the director and his three screenwriters 😂
Sadly, such changes are the norm in Chinese dramas. They usually remove any novel and unusual ideas to replace them with the standard tropes, add love triangles where there were none, turn ruthless characters into paper tigers and change the villain if it previously was the emperor because that would question the ultimate authority.
I’ve read many of the novels that were turned into dramas and so far the only one of them where the drama version stayed true to the spirit and most of the plot of the novel is Word of Honor.

Both plot and characters deviate considerably from the novel. Wei Zhao’s presence has been considerably increased because he is the ML whereas both Pei Yan’s standing and intelligence have been greatly reduced. Many characters from the novel have been deleted completely and the hero’s cause has been changed from liberation of his oppressed tribe to a revenge story.
The overall political considerations have been watered down and partially misrepresented, which makes the plot feel a lot more conventional.
As far as I can see the whole storyline regarding the martial arts alliance has been completely removed.

Wei Zhao didn’t “rescue” her, he just kidnapped her from Pei Yan because he wanted to use her to put pressure on Pei Yan. He just happened to turn up at a fortunate moment for Jiang Ci.

Braveness of the Ming, a costume drama filmed in 2015 has now been released on a streaming platform in South Korea. Hopefully, someone else will pick this up to make it available to a wider audience.

With stupid restrictions like that, one can only hope there are some pirates about somewhere.
We’ve waited for this for far too long!

That’s great news! Thank you!

Hasn’t Brocade Odyssee been postponed to 2025?

The contract was supposed to be ending but even so they refused to let him go. They mustn have used some legal loophole and right now he isn’t in a position to fight battles on two fronts. Absolutely despicable people!

Don’t worry, he will be back. I just hope whatever he stars in next will be a bit more complex than these idol dramas to do justice to his acting skills.

Oh, so now they’re not only deleting Pei Yan’s best lines, they’re also putting stupid words into his mouth. This isn’t Pei Yan’s philosophy at all!

Way to ruin a great character!

Except the one that she chooses for her precious tool (i.e. her son). 😂

It is good to have an actress with some gravitas in this role and she is doing a brilliant job, but I really hate the character.

I think they may have slightly overdone it… in the novel they reached a sort of truce shortly after the birthday banquet. This whole storyline about her master feels artificial to add complications. They are wasting precious time on small conflicts ( like the whole drama around the medicine for Jiang Ci) instead of concentrating on the greater political lines. Did they think this would be too intellectual for the viewers?

Yes, in the novel she actually tells them that they are one as bad as the other (they both poison her to keep her under control). I don’t really like the fact that Pei Yan is here presented as the gentle albeit hypocritical one. It’s probably a set up to make him go all mopey once she decides for the ML.
Cui Liang is indeed the only person who is genuinely nice to her.

I think an agreement has been reached. I would like to think that he got something in return for that humiliating post they made him send on 06/09/2024. Maybe he had to extend the contract for another year in which he will hopefully not be coerced into another idiotic idol drama.
So far there are no news on what his future plans are.

Then why is Pei Yan caught out time and time again? Anyone just walks into his manor like it’s a public park?
Also, he already was the Prime Minister in the novel, so clearly his importance has been diminished.

There is nothing wrong with Jeremy being the SML. On the contrary, it frees him of the usual romantic drivel which , frankly, is a waste of his acting skills.
The thing that is regrettable though, is that the script doesn’t allow Pei Yan a bit more bite. Some of his best lines have either been completely cut or were given to other people.

6 episodes in and I’m getting rather annoyed with the way the plot is going. Instead of giving us the bigger picture of the political factions and conflicting interests, the plot goes around in circles over made-up trivial stuff. Why take a perfectly fine novel and then change the plot to add one cliche after another?
And why did they have to dumb Pei Yan down beyond recognition? Were they afraid that with an equally clever opponent (as he is in the novel) the ML wouldn’t be impressive enough?
Pei Yan’s tagline was that “Despite thousands of calculations, he failed to calculate his own heart.”
I really cannot see it. This Pei Yan looks like he couldn’t even calculate what’s for lunch tomorrow 🙄

Yes, it is quite refreshing. I just wish they had left Pei Yan some of his ruthlessness as well. He is far too passive in the drama version.

Yes, I normally prefer a HE, too, but in this case it was nicely done in the novel and didn’t feel depressing, so I would hate for them to chan