Although I am not SenpaiSuki, here is one : Drifting Away. But it's about criminals, and in real China, not about ptsd from civil war. Zhao Jinmai plays a ptsd (temporarily) afflicted adolescent after being caught by a group of mass murderers who get thrills from cutting their victims into pieces after milking them for ransom money. It was a real case. Some episodes are tough to watch, too. Trigger warnings in order.
Although only in some episodes, there's also Escape From The Trilateral Slopes which is about a young man inducted into a gang in the Golden Triangle. The ruthlessness of the gangs plural is well portrayed, and the rap music OST is very special. But it is difficult to find in complete subtitled version if you are tempted. Look at my Companion piece for it.
Somewhat less angsty but still, there are the two recent dramas starring Johnny Huang : The First Shot (remarkable acting from Zhang Yu who looks young but is actually almost twice the age of ML, and a few stars like Wang Ziqi, Qin Junjie... and a fun discovery of Xie Keyin) and Love Song in Winter , also a thriller but instead of drugs gang busting, this one is about a hidden murderer (who is played by the actor who portrayed "Benjamin" in TWOT).
How harsh you are from only watching one drama where Liang Jie portrays a rash girl afflicted by depression!
But you admit it yourself : you did not watch other dramas in which she stars, such as The Day of Becoming You, Hi Venus, The Eternal Love 1, 2 (and 3), You Are My Destiny ..., where she has a full range of expressions from playful, joyful, etc ; she was lots of fun to watch in several of those, with sweet smiles, laughs, and hot kisses. And actually, there are lots of moments like that too in The White Olive Tree. You must have been looking away? Busy? Sleeping?
Don't go face-shaming her features or slandering her for having a "perpetually sad" face. She would not be a close friend of Chen Zheyuan since playing together in Handsome Siblings, if that was the case. She is very calm, poised, and humble, although she can go far to "be" her character. She can joke about herself and her own "limitations" (dance) as I saw on a random clip from a past variety show, but many productions were happy to have her, valuing her acting skills, including for a version of the Jin Yong wuxia epic Side Story of Fox Volant. She has a good reputation and relations with almost everybody in c-ent.
No reason for anyone to start hating on her.
I have not explored her fandom, but I watch a lot, all sorts of dramas, so it happens that I did watch quite a few where she starred, and have an opinion. Despite being leaning more to other fandom, I don't mind seeing her, and if I happen to stray on her Weibo, I may take her suggestion to watch things she felt could be interesting, discovering this way a couple of young actors in one minor but sweet costume drama where Liang Jie does not feature. Grateful to her and for them that she hyped that drama which I probably would not have tried and liked, otherwise... She is not an outstanding singer nor a concert hall piano player, but she can stand her ground in some songs, and Chen Xueran the composer legend did not mind her nostalgic piano version and singing of Moonlight Dance https://x.com/whiteolivetree_/status/1890296715993051313 which I included with a GIF link in the music section of the Companion piece I gifted to MDL members (up in Discussions part of this page).
I can accept that you did not like the Song Ran character. I was not totally onboard with Li Zan falling for a near empty-head and rash rookie journalist over freeing her from a landmine and next over her persistence to meet him again, the way it was pictured in the drama. But that 's not the actress' fault, but that of the scriptwriter and director, who changed a few things from the novel, if I am not mistaken, and were perhaps a bit too full of themselves, disregarding the opinions of the actors on their portrayals. But that does not reflect on the fact that Chen Zheyuan was outstanding and that his partner Liang Jie is a good actress. It results only from the suspicion that part of production was not totally up to what was expected, given that it was an expensive S+ project to translate to screen a beloved albeit tragic novel. I still think the raucous denigration by some of the drama or actors is rather dishonest, and perhaps, as it often is the case, comes with an agenda to push some people away to make way for new things in the hope of accruing more revenue.
It is an imaginary country. Models can be a lot of civil war torn countries. It is never clear where all the hostiles…
Yes, the "holy site" in the drama is also imaginary, but there are lots of places with "holy sites" for locals in various parts of the world which could have served as models ( I first thought the Acropolis for the Greek. The Pantheon for the Romans. etc. ) But the description and visuals in the drama make Matuman Hill serve less as as a religious place than as fortress and military heroes mausoleum or cemetery, guarded by Greek corinthian helmeted medieval looking knights, so I thought models could be fortresses from Syria to Cyprus and Turkey (and Cyprus and Turkey are also divided on the island). Ideas for the made up country were probably sampled from diverse pictures and descriptions.
About the models for countries, I had added some possibilities in an illustrated sub-chapter in my "Companion piece" in Discussions, here : "4. Questions and answers part 1 : models for the fictitious countries" https://mydramalist.com/discussions/bai-se-gan-lan-shu/123595-shooting-location-cast-and-crew-and-more?pid=3244734&page=1#p3244734 The making-of (also with many pictures) links to the building of Uglai "ancient" city as a set which became a tourist attraction and is illustrated in section 3 just before (that was my first stub about that drama, while it was being filmed), and section 2. is a Characters and cast directory by order of appearance.
Jiang li , ben , the doctor ben admired can't remember her name 😅, ML and FL but in the novel not the drama…
In the novel, I am sure FL did not take her life but was killed by a random shooter. Long after the death of Li Zan. No promotion for suicide. From reading last chapter and epilogue.
wait which country is in the war? like which country r they in?
It is an imaginary country. Models can be a lot of civil war torn countries. It is never clear where all the hostiles come from. Except the last of them are clearly from Dongguo ("East country" not eastern country), though. So don't rush to believe it is a Middle-eastern country such as Gaza etc. From date of writing and other clues, my bet is models come from several conflicts and more probably the Yugoslavia split, since Li Zan is from Xiguo ("West country") which looks as a close by "new" country. Like Serbia and Bosnia. But it is just a possible model. The drama version can make us lean to that interpretation because of the type of armors found in the "holy shrine" which look Greek. Greece and neighboring areas are full of olive trees anyway.
what are you talking about?! they took their lives at the end…! It’s certainly not the actor’s fault, and…
buckeyewifey1 : Your interpretation is wrong because the pair are heroes. Here is my view of the shimmering images epilogue.
EPILOGUE : For those who prefer to imagine that Lǐ Zàn and Sòng Rǎn did not simply choose the "easy way out" to suicide (which would be inconsistent with their heroic status), but lived away in their own home, for many years and with offspring, like in the novel, the very last pictures of the series show them without the shimmering light, standing under an olive tree similar to the dream-like images when they had "vanished". So the last images can be interpreted as a phantasmagorical happy dream where everything is going to be fine, they will be forever young (as most old people still are in their minds) and the world will be at peace so they can enjoy a free and easy life and let go of the worries of the past. After all their struggles to save lives, why would they have given up on their own ones?
But I give you that production ought to have been more clear that they did not intend to change the ending in the book to make the sad end even worse, through making pretty pictures that could be misinterpreted. The production did not state "here they suicide, and that was the best choice". The pretty pictures were perhaps an unnecessary artistic choice to convey "being together forever". Stopping at the wedding was enough for an open ending not revealing the sadness of not being able to live into a painless old age. People would complain they "did not get closure" anyway and that stopping at the wedding would be worthless and unrealistic rosy dreams. They were afraid of the sad end in the book anyway. People always want the impossible.
No need to get worked up and look for people to blame. Just move on to another show if the end did not satisfy you: no way should a show be blamed for imagined untoward intentions and such blame be spread. It would be just as irresponsible as claiming the show promotes terrorism because some terrorists were shown blowing up orphans gratuitously. Or that the movie Titanic promoted suicide in the end and caused untold numbers of people to seek death by drowning. We don't see any method here for Li Zan and Song Ran to do away with their own lives, do we ? No corpse. No poisons. No rope to hang... I suppose they could make explosives, let loose deadly carbon monoxide in a non ventilated place, or douse themselves with gasoline and crack a match, or jump from a height, or under a train... But.... Imagining the many painful ways they could have died there and then is inconsistent with the rest of the story. The heroes are not cowards, they are still able bodied even if still suffering, so why insist on that "easy" interpretation and blame production for a sin such as promoting cowardice that is only in suspicious minds.
"Wen Yifan has three names : 温以凡 Wēn Yǐfán, 降 Jiàng short for Shuāngjiàng 霜降 (the solar term day when she was born, which is known as "First Frost" among the 24 solar terms which rhythm the traditional luni-solar Chinese calendar) and 点 Diǎn or 点点 DiǎnDiǎn ("Dot", the name of the stroke which recurred in 以凡 and which was the only one she remembered when she was learning to write in early school).
Her father and close birth family called her 降 Jiàng Her friends from early on call her 点 Diǎn"
Familiar or endearing ways of addressing a person use a repetition of the syllable such as in 点点 DiǎnDiǎn , or depending on region or family to add "small" (xiǎo 小) or "ah" (阿) before the syllable, which could be the last of the two syllable given name, i.e. like in "xiǎoJiàng" 小降 or "xiǎoFán" 小凡 or "ahJiang" 阿降 etc.
I'll add that this is a "small name" like a common nickname, and that Chinese names have more complexity and variety than the usual First name, Middle name, Surname (or Family name) known in the West.
In HL, Sang Zhi has a small name : ZhiZhi. It is in the category of the 小名, xiǎomíng "little names" also called "milk name" (乳名, rǔmíng) as ZhiZhi is used only for close family. So this was a case of a "milk name" continued as a familial nickname into adulthood. (But milk name are usually forgotten after the formal given name was agreed)
In TFF, WYF 's small name 点 Diǎn is really a nickname (绰号 chuòhào, or 外号 外號, wàihào category) used by close friends but not by family, who use the alternate childhood name Shuāngjiàng 霜降 .bestowed by her dad, but not registered with local authorities.
Since they are not used in this drama, I have erased the stub explanation about other possible special names (courtesy names, generation names... also school names)
Very well said! Plus in Hidden love we didn't really get to see a lot of Sang Yan's personal life. Plus, as you…
You meant Sang Zhi. She is a minor character in TFF drama so her name should not be mangled. And ML's name is Sang Yan. Zhang is another family name....
I do not think HL was ever planned as having a second season. The two books existed and different productions decided to do different things with them. But even the books are only as faintly connected as you are to your older sisters dating life (although I assume you would have heard about or even met the more important persons sometime?) There is no whole meal in this. Even though some will desperately try to connect dots. I prefer not to try.
Some are attempting to build a timeline. It will necessarily have some discrepancies. Especially if they attempt as planned to build it around the dramas which differ from source novels.
Let's appreciate TFF the drama for its own merits without locking it as ball and chain to HL the drama, which is a wonderful story, on its own.
I initially regretted that some characters like the Sang parents, Qian Fei... are being acted by other actors, although the three leads from HL were clearly excused (no time, no willingness to go back alongside different leads as Support or Guests, Victor Ma not known enough to be chosen as ML and stating he was not interested in the romantic role).
In fine, perhaps it was best for production to have chosen a totally different cast in the hope also to avoid forced comparisons. TFF is not really meant by the new production team to stay in minds as HL S2 or HL.alt.
Yes! This is exactly how I feel about Sang Yan. I saw a comment below saying Ruo Nan is carrying this drama and…
perhaps skip also 3/4 of the last episode then, just stay with the wedding and the elopement, the kids driving under the clouds reflecting the white olive tree grove "mirage"... The episodes I point to are enough to see the awesome change that CZY enacted from cheerful to thoughtful and finally ptsd shell-shocked but nevertheless willing to love. There are many other nuances, but many of the episodes are indeed more angsty. So that's my "sample" for you. Me, I re-watched the drama 2-3 times along the way, but perhaps I've grown more detached now from ancient traumas, in other incarnations as an " ancient alien from deep space c-drama and world observer". This Earth is very troubled indeed. I don't blame those who look to c-dramas only for light fluff and uplifting moments.
Episode 9 end, for those who like to know what is the "cultural quote" being thrown as bait for those who watch and chafe that there is not much of cultural interest except Wen Yifan's three names which I commented on earlier.
The poem that Sang Yan reads in the bookshop :
When You Are Old William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep, And nodding by the fire, take down this book, And slowly read, and dream of the soft look Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace, And loved your beauty with love false or true, But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you, And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars, Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled And paced upon the mountains overhead And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Wen Yifan's names and connection to Chinese traditional culture: https://mydramalist.com/722171-first-frost#comment-20816574 : "Wen Yifan has three names : 温以凡 Wēn Yǐfán, 降 Jiàng short for Shuāngjiàng 霜降 (the solar term day when she was born, which is known as "First Frost" among the 24 solar terms which rhythm the traditional luni-solar Chinese calendar) and 点 Diǎn or 点点 DiǎnDiǎn ("Dot", the name of the stroke which recurred in 以凡 and which was the only one she remembered when she was learning to write in early school).
Her father and close birth family called her 降 Jiàng Her friends from early on call her 点 Diǎn"
I'll add that this is a "small name" like a common nickname, and that Chinese names have more complexity and variety than the usual First name, Middle name, Surname (or Family name) known in the West. We are spared from the (sometimes bewildering in modern setting) courtesy names or the generation name in that story. In HL, Sang Zhi has a small name xiaoming as ZhiZhi which has a different use : only for close family. In TFF, WYF 's small name is really a nickname used by close friends but not by family, who use the alternate childhood name bestowed by her dad.
And besides, HL the drama did not follow exactly HL the book or manhua.
Yes but not only. The production changed it deliberately to fit several reasons and policies to conform to c-entertainment rules and laws, as noticed by some commenters who reminded of the "age of consent" law that was implicitly criticized in the story: the story could not leave any doubt that the ML had no romantic interest for a girl before she became an adult - despite there are tons of Asian or c- dramas with that sort of trope and age difference which escape being labeled as dubious. DJX had to be painted as older, OK, but only concerned with no other thought than furthering the girl's studies and well being, as a brother would be, for the duration of her "childhood" period. Therefore, the Beijing News official newspaper did an article to defend HL the drama against the cyber-bullying from raucous people that copy-pasted disparaging comments at the time. A move to state official position that does not often happen.
Yes! This is exactly how I feel about Sang Yan. I saw a comment below saying Ruo Nan is carrying this drama and…
It is not for the easily triggered... Those who have suffered depression and/or ptsd can still watch and relate or appreciate, also criticize. I was in two minds about adding one good criticizing comment among the ones I quoted in TwOT Companion piece, but left it out finally, so that readers would not feel I was thinking it's not worth watching because of those objections. After all, my objective is never to gun down a drama I was interested in, warts and all.
TWOT is a strange drama that will keep a special place. It is not a relaxation watch, nor really an educational one. It is a "raw" item in many senses of the word. Chen Zheyuan wanted to try something else, and did an outstanding job, hailed by all, even dissenters. Liang Jie is his friend from long ago so they had no difficulty, but there are audiences who did not like her; her character is in fact also a ptsd and depression sufferer, so it is a double dark story... If you are afraid of sad ends, this one is relatively light and open ended though. You can watch the1st, 2nd, 7th episode and the last one (that last one with some tissues since it does lean to tearjerker).
Good end (of sorts) "Drifting Away" is one drama you might want to avoid for the graphic torture scenes, copied from real news! Zhao Jinmai played very well and courageously.
Not Jaixu. Duan Jiaxu. dyslexia has a ball in these comments ;)
actually this mistake has been repeated many times here even by one commenter who knows both books and dramas and joked herself that it was dyslexia that kept her repeating the erroneous spelling. I assumed it could also be due to a problem with cut and paste for quickness, lol
Yes! This is exactly how I feel about Sang Yan. I saw a comment below saying Ruo Nan is carrying this drama and…
Thanks Twinty. I was considering, but there was not much of cultural interest up till now, despite the 24 solar terms which I covered in the Notes for GenZ or a few things like the poem and the white moonlight romanticism. Maybe the interest for horror movies since the beginning of Chinese cinema? Doing a Companion piece takes a lot of time and I am almost exhausted after TWOT. I only added some notes on Peachey Blossom's thread for the MVs and the singers ; there is one song that is not in OST which I will perhaps ad there, as I did in the thread for HL's OST. I like music and this drama has an original Mao Buyi song so ...
2 
5 
1 
1 
1 
Although only in some episodes, there's also Escape From The Trilateral Slopes which is about a young man inducted into a gang in the Golden Triangle. The ruthlessness of the gangs plural is well portrayed, and the rap music OST is very special. But it is difficult to find in complete subtitled version if you are tempted. Look at my Companion piece for it.
Somewhat less angsty but still, there are the two recent dramas starring Johnny Huang : The First Shot (remarkable acting from Zhang Yu who looks young but is actually almost twice the age of ML, and a few stars like Wang Ziqi, Qin Junjie... and a fun discovery of Xie Keyin) and Love Song in Winter , also a thriller but instead of drugs gang busting, this one is about a hidden murderer (who is played by the actor who portrayed "Benjamin" in TWOT).
But you admit it yourself : you did not watch other dramas in which she stars, such as The Day of Becoming You, Hi Venus, The Eternal Love 1, 2 (and 3), You Are My Destiny ..., where she has a full range of expressions from playful, joyful, etc ; she was lots of fun to watch in several of those, with sweet smiles, laughs, and hot kisses. And actually, there are lots of moments like that too in The White Olive Tree. You must have been looking away? Busy? Sleeping?
Don't go face-shaming her features or slandering her for having a "perpetually sad" face. She would not be a close friend of Chen Zheyuan since playing together in Handsome Siblings, if that was the case. She is very calm, poised, and humble, although she can go far to "be" her character. She can joke about herself and her own "limitations" (dance) as I saw on a random clip from a past variety show, but many productions were happy to have her, valuing her acting skills, including for a version of the Jin Yong wuxia epic Side Story of Fox Volant. She has a good reputation and relations with almost everybody in c-ent.
No reason for anyone to start hating on her.
I have not explored her fandom, but I watch a lot, all sorts of dramas, so it happens that I did watch quite a few where she starred, and have an opinion. Despite being leaning more to other fandom, I don't mind seeing her, and if I happen to stray on her Weibo, I may take her suggestion to watch things she felt could be interesting, discovering this way a couple of young actors in one minor but sweet costume drama where Liang Jie does not feature. Grateful to her and for them that she hyped that drama which I probably would not have tried and liked, otherwise... She is not an outstanding singer nor a concert hall piano player, but she can stand her ground in some songs, and Chen Xueran the composer legend did not mind her nostalgic piano version and singing of Moonlight Dance https://x.com/whiteolivetree_/status/1890296715993051313 which I included with a GIF link in the music section of the Companion piece I gifted to MDL members (up in Discussions part of this page).
I can accept that you did not like the Song Ran character. I was not totally onboard with Li Zan falling for a near empty-head and rash rookie journalist over freeing her from a landmine and next over her persistence to meet him again, the way it was pictured in the drama. But that 's not the actress' fault, but that of the scriptwriter and director, who changed a few things from the novel, if I am not mistaken, and were perhaps a bit too full of themselves, disregarding the opinions of the actors on their portrayals. But that does not reflect on the fact that Chen Zheyuan was outstanding and that his partner Liang Jie is a good actress. It results only from the suspicion that part of production was not totally up to what was expected, given that it was an expensive S+ project to translate to screen a beloved albeit tragic novel. I still think the raucous denigration by some of the drama or actors is rather dishonest, and perhaps, as it often is the case, comes with an agenda to push some people away to make way for new things in the hope of accruing more revenue.
But the description and visuals in the drama make Matuman Hill serve less as as a religious place than as fortress and military heroes mausoleum or cemetery, guarded by Greek corinthian helmeted medieval looking knights, so I thought models could be fortresses from Syria to Cyprus and Turkey (and Cyprus and Turkey are also divided on the island). Ideas for the made up country were probably sampled from diverse pictures and descriptions.
About the models for countries, I had added some possibilities in an illustrated sub-chapter in my "Companion piece" in Discussions, here : "4. Questions and answers part 1 : models for the fictitious countries" https://mydramalist.com/discussions/bai-se-gan-lan-shu/123595-shooting-location-cast-and-crew-and-more?pid=3244734&page=1#p3244734 The making-of (also with many pictures) links to the building of Uglai "ancient" city as a set which became a tourist attraction and is illustrated in section 3 just before (that was my first stub about that drama, while it was being filmed), and section 2. is a Characters and cast directory by order of appearance.
Here is my view of the shimmering images epilogue.
EPILOGUE : For those who prefer to imagine that Lǐ Zàn and Sòng Rǎn did not simply choose the "easy way out" to suicide (which would be inconsistent with their heroic status), but lived away in their own home, for many years and with offspring, like in the novel, the very last pictures of the series show them without the shimmering light, standing under an olive tree similar to the dream-like images when they had "vanished". So the last images can be interpreted as a phantasmagorical happy dream where everything is going to be fine, they will be forever young (as most old people still are in their minds) and the world will be at peace so they can enjoy a free and easy life and let go of the worries of the past. After all their struggles to save lives, why would they have given up on their own ones?
But I give you that production ought to have been more clear that they did not intend to change the ending in the book to make the sad end even worse, through making pretty pictures that could be misinterpreted.
The production did not state "here they suicide, and that was the best choice". The pretty pictures were perhaps an unnecessary artistic choice to convey "being together forever". Stopping at the wedding was enough for an open ending not revealing the sadness of not being able to live into a painless old age. People would complain they "did not get closure" anyway and that stopping at the wedding would be worthless and unrealistic rosy dreams. They were afraid of the sad end in the book anyway. People always want the impossible.
No need to get worked up and look for people to blame.
Just move on to another show if the end did not satisfy you: no way should a show be blamed for imagined untoward intentions and such blame be spread. It would be just as irresponsible as claiming the show promotes terrorism because some terrorists were shown blowing up orphans gratuitously.
Or that the movie Titanic promoted suicide in the end and caused untold numbers of people to seek death by drowning.
We don't see any method here for Li Zan and Song Ran to do away with their own lives, do we ? No corpse. No poisons. No rope to hang... I suppose they could make explosives, let loose deadly carbon monoxide in a non ventilated place, or douse themselves with gasoline and crack a match, or jump from a height, or under a train... But.... Imagining the many painful ways they could have died there and then is inconsistent with the rest of the story. The heroes are not cowards, they are still able bodied even if still suffering, so why insist on that "easy" interpretation and blame production for a sin such as promoting cowardice that is only in suspicious minds.
Enjoy your c-drama watching ! 😆
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9ktAt-Gg2k&pp=ygUObWF5ZGF5IHdpbGxmdWw%3D
Here again : Wen Yifan's names and connection to Chinese traditional culture: https://mydramalist.com/722171-first-frost#comment-20816574 :
"Wen Yifan has three names :
温以凡 Wēn Yǐfán,
降 Jiàng short for Shuāngjiàng 霜降 (the solar term day when she was born, which is known as "First Frost" among the 24 solar terms which rhythm the traditional luni-solar Chinese calendar) and
点 Diǎn or 点点 DiǎnDiǎn ("Dot", the name of the stroke which recurred in 以凡 and which was the only one she remembered when she was learning to write in early school).
Her father and close birth family called her 降 Jiàng
Her friends from early on call her 点 Diǎn"
Familiar or endearing ways of addressing a person use a repetition of the syllable such as in 点点 DiǎnDiǎn , or depending on region or family to add "small" (xiǎo 小) or "ah" (阿) before the syllable, which could be the last of the two syllable given name, i.e. like in "xiǎoJiàng" 小降 or "xiǎoFán" 小凡 or "ahJiang" 阿降 etc.
I'll add that this is a "small name" like a common nickname, and that Chinese names have more complexity and variety than the usual First name, Middle name, Surname (or Family name) known in the West.
In HL, Sang Zhi has a small name : ZhiZhi. It is in the category of the 小名, xiǎomíng "little names" also called "milk name" (乳名, rǔmíng) as ZhiZhi is used only for close family. So this was a case of a "milk name" continued as a familial nickname into adulthood. (But milk name are usually forgotten after the formal given name was agreed)
In TFF, WYF 's small name 点 Diǎn is really a nickname (绰号 chuòhào, or 外号 外號, wàihào category) used by close friends but not by family, who use the alternate childhood name Shuāngjiàng 霜降 .bestowed by her dad, but not registered with local authorities.
Since they are not used in this drama, I have erased the stub explanation about other possible special names (courtesy names, generation names... also school names)
(for those who are interested, I wrote a piece about the solar terms in my MDL Notes for GenZ : https://mydramalist.com/discussions/hou-lang/100789-about-traditional-chinese-culture)
And again, since I'm at it, here's the song from the Chengdu zhongguofeng group, about Frost's Descent : https://archive.org/details/zhao-fangjing-songs/Zhao+Fangjing.+ST18.+Shuangjiang.+Frost+Descent.mp3
Zhang is another family name....
I do not think HL was ever planned as having a second season.
The two books existed and different productions decided to do different things with them. But even the books are only as faintly connected as you are to your older sisters dating life (although I assume you would have heard about or even met the more important persons sometime?) There is no whole meal in this. Even though some will desperately try to connect dots.
I prefer not to try.
Some are attempting to build a timeline. It will necessarily have some discrepancies. Especially if they attempt as planned to build it around the dramas which differ from source novels.
Let's appreciate TFF the drama for its own merits without locking it as ball and chain to HL the drama, which is a wonderful story, on its own.
I initially regretted that some characters like the Sang parents, Qian Fei... are being acted by other actors, although the three leads from HL were clearly excused (no time, no willingness to go back alongside different leads as Support or Guests, Victor Ma not known enough to be chosen as ML and stating he was not interested in the romantic role).
In fine, perhaps it was best for production to have chosen a totally different cast in the hope also to avoid forced comparisons. TFF is not really meant by the new production team to stay in minds as HL S2 or HL.alt.
Me, I re-watched the drama 2-3 times along the way, but perhaps I've grown more detached now from ancient traumas, in other incarnations as an " ancient alien from deep space c-drama and world observer". This Earth is very troubled indeed. I don't blame those who look to c-dramas only for light fluff and uplifting moments.
The poem that Sang Yan reads in the bookshop :
When You Are Old
William Butler Yeats
When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
How many loved your moments of glad grace,
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;
And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.
Wen Yifan's names and connection to Chinese traditional culture:
https://mydramalist.com/722171-first-frost#comment-20816574 :
"Wen Yifan has three names :
温以凡 Wēn Yǐfán,
降 Jiàng short for Shuāngjiàng 霜降 (the solar term day when she was born, which is known as "First Frost" among the 24 solar terms which rhythm the traditional luni-solar Chinese calendar) and
点 Diǎn or 点点 DiǎnDiǎn ("Dot", the name of the stroke which recurred in 以凡 and which was the only one she remembered when she was learning to write in early school).
Her father and close birth family called her 降 Jiàng
Her friends from early on call her 点 Diǎn"
I'll add that this is a "small name" like a common nickname, and that Chinese names have more complexity and variety than the usual First name, Middle name, Surname (or Family name) known in the West. We are spared from the (sometimes bewildering in modern setting) courtesy names or the generation name in that story. In HL, Sang Zhi has a small name xiaoming as ZhiZhi which has a different use : only for close family. In TFF, WYF 's small name is really a nickname used by close friends but not by family, who use the alternate childhood name bestowed by her dad.
(for those who are interested, I wrote a piece about the solar terms in my MDL Notes for GenZ : https://mydramalist.com/discussions/hou-lang/100789-about-traditional-chinese-culture)
And since I'm at it, here's the song from the Chengdu zhongguofeng group, about Frost's Descent :
https://archive.org/details/zhao-fangjing-songs/Zhao+Fangjing.+ST18.+Shuangjiang.+Frost+Descent.mp3
Therefore, the Beijing News official newspaper did an article to defend HL the drama against the cyber-bullying from raucous people that copy-pasted disparaging comments at the time. A move to state official position that does not often happen.
TWOT is a strange drama that will keep a special place. It is not a relaxation watch, nor really an educational one. It is a "raw" item in many senses of the word.
Chen Zheyuan wanted to try something else, and did an outstanding job, hailed by all, even dissenters.
Liang Jie is his friend from long ago so they had no difficulty, but there are audiences who did not like her; her character is in fact also a ptsd and depression sufferer, so it is a double dark story...
If you are afraid of sad ends, this one is relatively light and open ended though. You can watch the1st, 2nd, 7th episode and the last one (that last one with some tissues since it does lean to tearjerker).
Good end (of sorts) "Drifting Away" is one drama you might want to avoid for the graphic torture scenes, copied from real news! Zhao Jinmai played very well and courageously.
I only added some notes on Peachey Blossom's thread for the MVs and the singers ; there is one song that is not in OST which I will perhaps ad there, as I did in the thread for HL's OST. I like music and this drama has an original Mao Buyi song so ...