Some idiot by the name of David whatever donated $50 to the YT account of BiliBili in the comments section:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV4wf-CBHhYIt's…
Name sounds suspiciously like one of the David's posting here.
Let me give ya a bit of advice David whatever, NEVER GIVE TIPS TO CHINESE. They find it insulting. You can subscribe to their channel, pay for monthly/yearly subscription, but never ever tip them.
Tipping requires you to assume they are dirt poor and really need that extra bit of dough... Almost like they won't do good work, nor live up to their names unless you tip them!
Also like I said, you can tip even $1000's, to millionaires working at Original Force, it's still cow dung amount of currency!
(As if millionaires and billionaires are THAT desperate for your money... In Chinese culture tipping is seen the same as bribing someone. So instead of being seen as an esteemed viewer, you've just bribed the Original Force team to do a better job in the near future...)
Lost count how many times I seen shills paid by the production company to promote their stars/shows here on MDL. It's shameful, but MDL is the only way they could reach out to international audience.
You can easily ID them. Their username usually begins with or contains the star's name they were paid to promote on MDL.
Forum was neat and tidy again after they went on my blocklist.
TBH, I have never seen a drama score below 4/10 before. Even dramas that I would consider utter shiet in the past have scored something like a respectable 4.1-4.2/10.
Rebirth take the cake and is the new record setter!
The only saving grace Rebirth has is, if you pirate it from a Chinese website, the ENG soft-encoded subs are included with the 4K video. Most Chinese dramas don't bother to have ENG subs in the 4K video file containers.
You can pirate it from known Chinese piracy websites.
I'm gonna pirate this movie in 4K, possibly in 60fps if it's available. Then leave it on my hard drive and never watch it, like I have Legend of Condor Heroes movie by Hark Tsui in 4K for almost a year now and never even opened it to have a peek.
This is one of those movies where you get it and keep it so you don't have to watch it... You can bring a horse to the lakeside but you can't make it drink (pun intended since it's the year of the horse!)
(P.S: In the past, ie. last year, I provided the source when I quoted the daily box office figures, but the company made their website inaccessible outside China. Now this year, I'm smarter, I don't provide the source, and the company don't know about it, so they unbanned their website outside of China...)
All the previous episodes 1-7 DO have ENG subs, but nah, not this last episode.
This is the one thing I hate about C-ent companies. They're very sloppy when it comes to actually delivering contents onto streaming platforms.
Of course this is the case of BiliBili neglecting to upload ENG sub to this last episode for almost 2 weeks. But then there's also Tencent...
I lost count how many Tencent dramas/donghua episodes broke down through their streaming software because the video was corrupt. It's almost like the workers at Tencent just upload the videos and never bothered to sit down and check whether the video was uploaded correctly or had any errors in them.
(Almost like most of their workforce is tech illiterate. You don't even need to sit down and watch each episode entirely to check for errors. You only need to get the hash value of the video file, which takes like seconds and compare it to the original hashes to spot video corruption errors)
The last time I watched a Guo Jingming drama was Ice Fantasy. I have to admit, his Legend of Ravaging Dynasties movies were good, but they were forced to be high quality under Tencent's directions.
Ice Fantasy was shiet. They kept tying the ends of capes to strings and pulled on the strings to make the cape flap, it looked like shiet and so awkward on camera. Not to mention, people's faces looked like shiet, either digitally blanched or they wore too much makeup. The script was shiet all over the places with crappy ending. The only thing that saved Ice Fantasy was the score/soundtrack, it was sorta good.
I have collected 24 episodes of Veil of Shadows in 4K 60fps so far and plan to binge watch it soon. I have low expectations after watching the shietfest called Ice Fantasy. But we live in modern times where visual effects have improved, so at least even Guo Jingming dramas can now visually look good. I look forward to the script/story being shiet though...
It's a mini CGI movie of only 20 minutes long, but it makes shows like SoC S2 look like poo in comparison (talking strictly about the quality of the animation and visuals).
I simply think CloudArt studio destroyed an otherwise very good IP. Actually I haven't been very impressed with most studios contracted by Tencent to animate the IPs they hold. Tencent churns out donghua series like fast food. It's inevitable they will pick a bad contract animation studio for half of their IPs.
Is the movie part of the weekly donghua? I was catching the latest ep and story was kinda strange continuation…
Answer from Deepseek:
"Based on publicly available information, the upcoming movie Shrouding the Heavens: The Imperial Path is likely a re-adaptation or a condensed retelling of the original novel’s arc rather than a strictly alternate timeline sequel or spin-off."
I guess alternate timeline was not the right word. Anyways most donghua movies are not meant to be part of the main series, but more like extra stuff you could watch. And if you don't watch it, it doesn't really affect your enjoyment nor understanding of the main series.
I don't think this Drama will capture the magic of the Donghua...
but this Donghua is not even magical at all. If you look closer, everything was put together like they just want to do the bare minimum to honor their contract to Tencent to animate their IP/screenplay and not something they poured their hearts into.
Look at the cheesy way they populate the environment with grass blades and could tell right away their work is something like fast food instead of real food...
Go watch the donghua. There are many ppl who prefer the donghua version becoz it's done by the same studio that…
You mean CGI. The only AI the donghua ever used was to capture the actors motions without those white dots all over their bodies. Everything else was "hand-made/drawn" or physically acted out in real life (but captured into a virtual world by AI cameras).
Is the movie part of the weekly donghua? I was catching the latest ep and story was kinda strange continuation…
No, just like the Renegade Immortal movie, it's a spinoff set in an alternate/parallel universe. Remember the kid bro of one of the bad guys? In the series he just got beat up badly by Ye Fan. But in THIS movie Ye Fan actually kills that kid, so it's definitely set in an alternate parallel universe.
Anyways, life is too funny... Soon as Tencent releases SHROUDING the Heavens movie (made by team "Mortal's Journey" aka Original Force studio), iQiyi also releases an animated feature called SHROUDED Hamlet: https://movie.douban.com/subject/38411029/
Lastly, the one thing I like, it sort of ties in with the previous live action movie called Shrouding The Heavens - The Forbidden Zone. The MC of that live action movie is actually the "Void Emperor" (Xu Kong) of the just released 3D CGI movie by team "Mortal's Journey".
OMG, wow ClouddArt animation studio sux. In Ep 12 or 13 of Sword of Coming S2, the sword spirit fairy is much…
Another angle to it is, Tom Cruise is actually a midget actor, but the director will try everything possible to make him seem like a tall man on camera via tricks and gimmicks.
Sword of Coming S2 donghua has the opposite problem, the camera man will try everything possible to make giant sword fairy seem the same height as Chen Pingan... D'oh! It's supposed to be a fantastical world, and a gigantic sword spirit is actually a novelty and should be exhibited/celebrated, not something you'd try to suppress with camera tricks!
OMG, wow ClouddArt animation studio sux. In Ep 12 or 13 of Sword of Coming S2, the sword spirit fairy is much taller and bigger than Chen Pingan, even though her overall figure is actually typical skinny supermodel beauty.
CloudArt simply fails to capture the size difference, ie . Her humongousness on camera. That's how you tell apart the good studios from the second/third rates. For a first rate studio, such scenes as sword fairy standing next to Chen Pingan would have you go, "holy cow she's humongous!"
But nah, if I didn't look closer, I would have thought they were both similar physical heights thnx to bad camera angles, artistic direction etc of CloudArt!
WORD OF ADVICE: DON'T WATCH THE DONGHUA ON A WEEKLY BASIS, UNLESS YOU WANNA SUPPORT BILIBILI!!
Just a friendly suggestion, unless you're looking to support BiliBili with a subscription, you shouldn't be watching such high quality donghua on a weekly basis. It breaks the flow.
Even then, you could just subscribe/keep your subscription active and not watch till the end of the season.
I binged EP1-76, took a break, then 77-124, took another break then 125-176. For me it was the best experience!
So many things become disjointed and confusing when you forgot what happened last week, 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago. Best to keep it all together during binging.
There is a rumor that they will start filming for season 2 at the end of this year and it has a budget of 600M…
Like I alluded to a few posts below how the OST is mostly borrowed from another work (Renegade Immortal donghua).
I really look forward to the soundtrack/music of S2.
I would be disappointed if it didn't tried to emulate Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES game from the 1990's) sounds.
If you 've watched the donghua, you will know S1 took place on land continent, but S2 will take place on "mini" islands in the ocean. The perfect musical theme for this kind of drama is the kind of music you hear in DKC2 involving water/island exploration and pirates!!
(This tune from Renegade Immortal, which Immortal Ascension S2 will inevitably "borrow" from, with its heavy drums sounds like Lockjaw's Saga from DKC2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEhit8JQHWE)
Let me give ya a bit of advice David whatever, NEVER GIVE TIPS TO CHINESE. They find it insulting. You can subscribe to their channel, pay for monthly/yearly subscription, but never ever tip them.
Tipping requires you to assume they are dirt poor and really need that extra bit of dough... Almost like they won't do good work, nor live up to their names unless you tip them!
Also like I said, you can tip even $1000's, to millionaires working at Original Force, it's still cow dung amount of currency!
(As if millionaires and billionaires are THAT desperate for your money... In Chinese culture tipping is seen the same as bribing someone. So instead of being seen as an esteemed viewer, you've just bribed the Original Force team to do a better job in the near future...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV4wf-CBHhY
It's near the bottom highlighted in RED. Muahahaha!! LOL!! Sucker!!
Guys at Original Force are all millionaires. Founder of BiliBili is probably a billionaire or close to that. Your $50 is like cow dung to them...
Lost count how many times I seen shills paid by the production company to promote their stars/shows here on MDL. It's shameful, but MDL is the only way they could reach out to international audience.
You can easily ID them. Their username usually begins with or contains the star's name they were paid to promote on MDL.
Forum was neat and tidy again after they went on my blocklist.
https://movie.douban.com/subject/36809858/
TBH, I have never seen a drama score below 4/10 before. Even dramas that I would consider utter shiet in the past have scored something like a respectable 4.1-4.2/10.
Rebirth take the cake and is the new record setter!
The only saving grace Rebirth has is, if you pirate it from a Chinese website, the ENG soft-encoded subs are included with the 4K video. Most Chinese dramas don't bother to have ENG subs in the 4K video file containers.
I'm gonna pirate this movie in 4K, possibly in 60fps if it's available. Then leave it on my hard drive and never watch it, like I have Legend of Condor Heroes movie by Hark Tsui in 4K for almost a year now and never even opened it to have a peek.
This is one of those movies where you get it and keep it so you don't have to watch it... You can bring a horse to the lakeside but you can't make it drink (pun intended since it's the year of the horse!)
Scare Out $0.11 (daily) $199.16 (cumulative)
Blades of the Guardians $0.06 (daily) $211.38 (cumulative)
WHERE IT STANDS:
Top 50 movies in China
#50 Pegasus (2019) Box Office $255.8 million USD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_(film)
FAILED TO PLACE AMONG TOP 50 IN CHINA!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-grossing_films_in_China
FAILED TO DEFEAT NOBODY IN CUMULATIVE
Nobody (2025) Box Office $215.3 million USD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobody_(2025_film)
(P.S: In the past, ie. last year, I provided the source when I quoted the daily box office figures, but the company made their website inaccessible outside China. Now this year, I'm smarter, I don't provide the source, and the company don't know about it, so they unbanned their website outside of China...)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV4wf-CBHhY
All the previous episodes 1-7 DO have ENG subs, but nah, not this last episode.
This is the one thing I hate about C-ent companies. They're very sloppy when it comes to actually delivering contents onto streaming platforms.
Of course this is the case of BiliBili neglecting to upload ENG sub to this last episode for almost 2 weeks. But then there's also Tencent...
I lost count how many Tencent dramas/donghua episodes broke down through their streaming software because the video was corrupt. It's almost like the workers at Tencent just upload the videos and never bothered to sit down and check whether the video was uploaded correctly or had any errors in them.
(Almost like most of their workforce is tech illiterate. You don't even need to sit down and watch each episode entirely to check for errors. You only need to get the hash value of the video file, which takes like seconds and compare it to the original hashes to spot video corruption errors)
https://movie.douban.com/subject/36640236/
The last time I watched a Guo Jingming drama was Ice Fantasy. I have to admit, his Legend of Ravaging Dynasties movies were good, but they were forced to be high quality under Tencent's directions.
Ice Fantasy was shiet. They kept tying the ends of capes to strings and pulled on the strings to make the cape flap, it looked like shiet and so awkward on camera. Not to mention, people's faces looked like shiet, either digitally blanched or they wore too much makeup. The script was shiet all over the places with crappy ending. The only thing that saved Ice Fantasy was the score/soundtrack, it was sorta good.
I have collected 24 episodes of Veil of Shadows in 4K 60fps so far and plan to binge watch it soon. I have low expectations after watching the shietfest called Ice Fantasy. But we live in modern times where visual effects have improved, so at least even Guo Jingming dramas can now visually look good. I look forward to the script/story being shiet though...
https://movie.douban.com/subject/38411029/
It's a mini CGI movie of only 20 minutes long, but it makes shows like SoC S2 look like poo in comparison (talking strictly about the quality of the animation and visuals).
I simply think CloudArt studio destroyed an otherwise very good IP. Actually I haven't been very impressed with most studios contracted by Tencent to animate the IPs they hold. Tencent churns out donghua series like fast food. It's inevitable they will pick a bad contract animation studio for half of their IPs.
"Based on publicly available information, the upcoming movie Shrouding the Heavens: The Imperial Path is likely a re-adaptation or a condensed retelling of the original novel’s arc rather than a strictly alternate timeline sequel or spin-off."
I guess alternate timeline was not the right word. Anyways most donghua movies are not meant to be part of the main series, but more like extra stuff you could watch. And if you don't watch it, it doesn't really affect your enjoyment nor understanding of the main series.
Look at the cheesy way they populate the environment with grass blades and could tell right away their work is something like fast food instead of real food...
Anyways, life is too funny... Soon as Tencent releases SHROUDING the Heavens movie (made by team "Mortal's Journey" aka Original Force studio), iQiyi also releases an animated feature called SHROUDED Hamlet: https://movie.douban.com/subject/38411029/
Lastly, the one thing I like, it sort of ties in with the previous live action movie called Shrouding The Heavens - The Forbidden Zone. The MC of that live action movie is actually the "Void Emperor" (Xu Kong) of the just released 3D CGI movie by team "Mortal's Journey".
Sword of Coming S2 donghua has the opposite problem, the camera man will try everything possible to make giant sword fairy seem the same height as Chen Pingan... D'oh! It's supposed to be a fantastical world, and a gigantic sword spirit is actually a novelty and should be exhibited/celebrated, not something you'd try to suppress with camera tricks!
CloudArt simply fails to capture the size difference, ie . Her humongousness on camera. That's how you tell apart the good studios from the second/third rates. For a first rate studio, such scenes as sword fairy standing next to Chen Pingan would have you go, "holy cow she's humongous!"
But nah, if I didn't look closer, I would have thought they were both similar physical heights thnx to bad camera angles, artistic direction etc of CloudArt!
Just a friendly suggestion, unless you're looking to support BiliBili with a subscription, you shouldn't be watching such high quality donghua on a weekly basis. It breaks the flow.
Even then, you could just subscribe/keep your subscription active and not watch till the end of the season.
I binged EP1-76, took a break, then 77-124, took another break then 125-176. For me it was the best experience!
So many things become disjointed and confusing when you forgot what happened last week, 2 weeks ago, 3 weeks ago. Best to keep it all together during binging.
I really look forward to the soundtrack/music of S2.
I would be disappointed if it didn't tried to emulate Donkey Kong Country 2 (SNES game from the 1990's) sounds.
If you 've watched the donghua, you will know S1 took place on land continent, but S2 will take place on "mini" islands in the ocean. The perfect musical theme for this kind of drama is the kind of music you hear in DKC2 involving water/island exploration and pirates!!
(This tune from Renegade Immortal, which Immortal Ascension S2 will inevitably "borrow" from, with its heavy drums sounds like Lockjaw's Saga from DKC2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEhit8JQHWE)