Michelle Topham

Sold on this the minute I realized Kim Mi Kyung was the grandmother - love, love, love her in everything she's been in.

And an amazing cast, Just two eps in so far, but this is fabulous. Both main leads are perfectly cast as well.

Currently playing OSTs from Guardian (LOVE this one), A Dream Within a Dream, Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty (all 3 seasons, all beautiful), Crazy Love (LOVE this one), What's Wrong with Secretary Kim, The Oath of Love, The Princess's Gambit, Descendants of the Sun, Our Blues, Lovely Runner, Alchemy of Souls, Hometown Cha Cha Cha, Who Rules the World, The King's Avatar, Fangs of Fortune, Till the End of the Moon, Winter Begonia, The Untamed, Whispers of Fate, Genie Make a Wish -- and a slew more. All a mix -- some instrumental, some mainly songs.

Plus boatloads of individual songs from other soundtracks.

And don't even get me started on anime/donghua OSTS. I'm beyond help there. LOL - Main ones right now are Heaven Official's Blessing (favorite), The Apothecary Diaries, Mr. Villain's Day Off, The Seven Deadly Sins, sSkaiichi Hatsukoi, No Longer Allowed in Another World and JUJUTSU KAISEN.

Was a radio DJ at an alternative rock station (97X WOXY in Ohio) for 8 years, then a music/entertainment journalist for the last 30 (moved to Austria because of a bearded drag queen singer who won Eurovision Song Contest -- Conchita Wurst :), so even if I hate a drama, I'll still latch onto the OST and become obsessed.

Used to listen to mainly American, British, Austrian and Thai music (lived in Thailand, live in Austria), now it's mainly Chinese, Korean and Japanese, as all I watch is Cdrama, Kdrama and anime/donghua.

Do you have any faves I might have missed? And there's no one genre. I like everything :)

Only 2 episodes in, but LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this so far. Exactly the type of rom-com I like -- interesting characters, a very cool FL, a decent looking intelligent ML with a problem personality (LOL), and super pretty sets. Gorgeous cinematography around Shanghai too.

So happy this one is out. Hope the rest of the episodes are this good.

Drama itself is excellent (although I still think it should have been shorter) so I definitely recommend. But.. if you only wanted to watch it because of Snow Kong, no, no point :)

No. Yang Yu Tong has the most prominent female role. Most of the rest were pretty extraneous and, honestly, I'm not sure we would have missed much if they weren't there? Would have preferred the writer to expand their roles personally but the men in this, including even lower supporting cast members, had more screen time than most of the women. (I think you can see pretty quickly what the writer thinks about women -- pretty accessories who he likes to make strong but then are easily dismissed :) All of the women give superb performances though, so there's that.

I'm the same. The humor in this is a bit sillier than I usually like, but really loved the first 2 episodes. Highly entertaining.

I think the Koreans and the Chinese really excel with drama OSTs. So many are so beautiful, with the Chinese really excelling with orchestral pieces. I have so many of them saved in my YouTube Music library, and play them on repeat often.

Surprising to me, I ended up dropping this from a 10 to an 8.5. Thoroughly enjoyed most of it, thought the performances were excellent and the cinematography/sets are gorgeous. The script was decent enough by the end. Nothing more. Would have been much better if the writing was tighter.

But... like so many Chinese dramas, the last 8 episodes were incredibly draggy as the production team stretched out events just to make more money from advertisers. Chinese audiences have been complaining about it for years. Govt changed the maximum number of episodes allowed because of it but, disappointingly, have recently reversed that decision. So, I'm guessing we can expect a lot more drag coming out of China :(

(And no, I don't have a problem with a long drama (I'm not an 18 year old brought up on 15 second Tik Tok videos :), but the events in this ended up not being complicated or deep enough to warrant so many episodes. Especially the final arc with the lunatic First Prince (long and uninteresting for the most part), and then the last most important event between the two leads being nothing more than an added on footnote. Sadly tho, a too long script is usually the case with a huge number of Chinese dramas -- looooooong but the substance runs out before it ends.

Would watch a second season, but only if I had the last few episodes on double speed. Probably should have done that on this :)

Overall, a good drama and would recommend - especially for the superb cast, IF you don't have the impatience of a flea like I do when events are taking soooooooo long to play out :)

Hahahaha, all very true. Although, in your case, I would have bet on Tippi Hedren too as I grew up in the UK and the Hitchcock film 'The Birds' was a classic we must have watched on the BBC 3 times a year. Always thought it was odd Melanie was her daughter as, IMO, they don't look alike at all. So I definitely understand your Kim Novak bet, LOL.

And no, sorry, no exchange (LOL) I have the best mum in the world, AND she knows not to bet with me on American or international politics (she's great at British politics from the 1940s onwards, but I've lived all over the world including during 2 military coups in Thailand, and she's only managed the UK and the U.S. :). Also, political science ended up being my undergraduate degree from a U.S. university (weird choice, I know, considering I started out in Theater :), so she'd apparently lose out to both of us it seems. Hahahaha. Your mum and your brother sound great tho!

Could be I suppose :)

And mothers. Super annoying isn't it? My dad and I argue with her ALL the time and, then when we check about what we're arguing about, (who was British Prime Minister in 1964, which was the last country where we met my aunt and uncle for a family vacation etc) she ALWAYS ends up being correct.

I don't know why we insist on keep arguing, as we're always wrong -- hahahaha.

Yep. There's nothing wrong with her performance. She's portraying the character well so far. (I even just went back and watched a couple of her scenes again. Nope. She's decent).

Seems to me nothing more than a group of trolls who, apparently, didn't like her performance in another drama so have arrived to attack her here. To the point one person is even attacking her EYEBROWS. (shrug)

Same trolls with sad little lives. Different day :)

EDIT: Btw, drama is doing VERY well in Korea. Just jumped 2 percentage points for Episode 3.

Anyone else rewinding scenes just to oggle the gorgeous sets? :) I have a thing about books too, and when a character is in a library (the Emperor for instance) surrounded by books/scrolls, I rewind about 6 times just to check out the beautifully-designed shelves. I think it's a fetish LOL.

Believe me, I'm not always right about a lot of things :) That's my mother, and she's surpremely annoying because she actually IS always right - ROTFL.

I just think I am here as, right from the first minutes of Ep 1, my years-long-trained intuition for a good performance or not was screaming "What the HELL? Why is the acting so exaggerated?" then I saw several Chinese viewers asking a similar thing. So realized it wasn't just me :)

Now, I think MY acting skills are only average. Hence, why I decided not to make a career out of it - LOL. But I'm pretty good at spotting inauthentic performances and they're all over this Season. (AGAIN, still loving it tho!

Yep, I read that. But having covered the Asian drama industry for a couple of decades, I tend to take that stuff with a grain of salt. :) Could be true. Could not. But I always go by the golden rule = nothing is happening until the production company announces it. You get in less trouble in my business that way. LOL.

But, hope it's true, as I wouldn't mind a short drama form for more seasons. Just recently finished the 27-episode 'The Crime Unit of Tang Dynasty' -- 15 minute episodes (about 12 mins without the credits). And, while it had its problems, it was a fun watch if you just wanted a quick hit of period C-drama without signing away 35 hours of your life :)

Yep. Didn't fall asleep until 3am. Dead today - LOL.

EDIT: to move my final paragraph to the top, so I don't come off as an absolute bitch. Hopefully :) As that's not how I intend this to sound.

(Final paragraph moved :) - Sorry, I'm not meaning to lecture, and I do appreciate your points. But I do think I know my stuff when it comes to acting and to dramas. Acted for over 20 years, written about dramas for over 30. It's my business, just like writing AI programs would be your business, if that's what you did :)

I'm a trained actor. 15 years in RADA training in the UK since the age of 6 years old (we start early in the UK :) so, yes, I do understand theatrical acting. :) Acted in theater myself, and started out my undergraduate degree in the U.S. in Theater before switching to another discipline at the beginning of my 3rd year.

And no, while I do see your point, I don't think this is intentional in the sense you mean as it certainly doesn't fit that period. As you will see from just about every other C-drama based in the Tang Dynasty, or in almost every C-drama based over a thousand years ago.

Besides, if it "fit the period" the acting style would have been the same in Seasons 1 and 2, and it's nowhere near as bad in those.

In Season 3, it's a bizarre deliberate choice by the director, IMO. The dramatic orating to the camera, while the people the character is actually speaking to are standing behind him awkwardly. The dramatic outflung arms as they artificially make a point. The over-exaggerated facial expressions and voice tones. It all looks and sounds amateurish on film. (I'm even seeing Chinese viewers commenting on this on social media).

And, yes, that exaggeration works (if not overdone) in theater, and that's because the audience is much further away from the actor, so exaggerated gestures/expressions are sometimes necessary to communicate something the audience may miss otherwise.

On film, with a camera 6 inches from an actor's face, it's silly. In fact, the only time it works on film is in comedy, and it's then usually done for comedic effect. Or for a spoof.

Which, this IS to some extent (a spoof on other detective series based in the Tang Dynasty), but the problem with that, in my opinion at least, is the director doesn't seem to know what he wants Season 3 to be -- a serious drama or a spoof -- so it's sort of straddled in the middle - awkwardly :)

Just finished watching Eps 3 and 4 while stuffing down 2 huge apricot jam-filled Krapfen (Austrian donuts). So I feel ya :) . Bloody cold here too, so a good C-drama, hot chocolate and donuts = Best way to spend a Friday night, IMO. Enjoy yours!

Hahahaha, yep. It's just so weird as I really dislike ALL of them, but can't get enough of the drama and desperately hoping the rumors of a Season 4 are true :)

What's weird for me is I don't like ANY of the drama's main characters. Didn't like them in the first two seasons either. They're all so abrasively, stupidly, arrogantly or weasel-ly unlikeable. But really detest LLF, always have, as he's weak, not particularly bright and kinda creepy. But the drama itself is superb. :)

And yep, agree with you on the vibe being different in this one. Still thoroughly enjoying it, but it's definitely a weird show for me, as some things (the characters, the over the top very amateurish acting in so many scenes, especially by Yang Xu Wen and Yang Zhi Gang) would have caused me to drop most other Cdramas by now. But... here I am on Season 3 and loving it. LOL.

EDIT: The sets in this series though are some of the most beautiful in Cdramas. Really wonderfully designed, and add such atmosphere to the series.