PeachBlossomGoddess

She just said focus on the matter at hand, i.e., the victims; Golden Hairpin is just one project out of many.

I was very impressed by her attitude and statement bc as much as it sucks for the production team, she is right, it is not about them but those poor girls. So I may never end up loving her acting but I will probably not avoid her dramas going forward.

I wasn't planning to watch this because I have already read the books and I am not a fan of Yang Zi's acting. But I feel it must be mentioned that her immediate reaction to this scandal and its impact on her is very cool - I believe she/her fan club made a statement along the lines that this is just one project among many for her and we should focus on the victims.

That would be a great watch party. But sounds like what we really ought to do is ask your mom for a watch list.

Lol tyvm - I am with you on Republican dramas but you won't even notice that about this one. My folks loved it, even my dad who has short attention span I am actually shocked he finished it. He kept shaking his fists at the screen yelling rascal, rascal!!!

Oh you must, I can't write a review to do justice to how good this show is.

I haven't seen much of Jin Chen yet but yes, she is doing great. Fingers crossed on the script. I will switch to this after I finish The Last Kingdom. More episodes should be out at that point as well.

Lol - hopefully its not as tragic as Hunglou Meng... I am kind of addicted to The Last Kingdom so I only caught the first 4 of this so far. It is a bit of a slow start and the ML seems not in character yet. I don't like the humor, it feels forced and Yu Zheng likes to use the rotund comedian actress but her slapstick style of comedy doesn't fit the tone of this show. He did that in Court Lady too, it really annoyed me. But it seems to be going in the direction of a new take on Hunglou Meng with strong female characters so I kind of like that I can stick with it...

Absolutely. I have only watched the first episode and the opening is unmistakably Hunglou Meng but there will be differences the most obvious one being it is set in Ming dynasty not Qing.

I was hooked from episode 1. I just loved Gu Xiang go after ZZS with the whip.

I found them both super annoying as well. The only reason I watched L&R was I liked the plot and the villain a lot, the couple was really meh.

I dropped AOL. Enough said.

Thank you for your comments. Chen Moqun was great he deserved a much better end. I don't know was an unintended consequence of making Lin Nansheng seem so great but the rest of the CCP spies in this show are so incompetent they couldn't even take down Chen Moqun or Wang Shi An. They were only good at getting themselves killed. smh.

I must have missed that tyvm.

There are a few big budget historical dramas that are not dubbed, they are live recorded including Nirvana in Fire, Rise of Phoenixes, Longest Day in Changan, Royal Nirvana and most of the actors in Joy of Life are also not dubbed. You can assume most of the lower budget dramas are dubbed.

Most c-dramas, especially historical ones are dubbed. This recent article gives a decent explanation why.
https://mydramalist.com/article/dubbing-in-chinese-dramas-how-did-i-come-to-love-it
Zhang Linghe has been cast as one of the leads for Heaven Official's Blessing, which is a big role for him.

This is indeed a hard drama to enjoy if you are not invested in the two main lead characters; as you point out the plot is nothing to write home about although it has new wuxia elements.

Thanks for reading and your kind words even though it seems you didn't enjoy the drama as much. I like reading reviews that come from the opposite point of view and I have seen many very fair critical points of view out there on the flaws.

Sadly they ran out of money.

Lol I am glad you enjoyed it so much my dear, your enthusiasm for the drama really shines through in your review. I tried many times to watch - there really is nothing else but sadly I couldn't get into it at all. I ended up finishing the book (which I was already in the middle of) instead. I think this reviewer captures perfectly my problem with the drama - the adaptation completely misses the essence of the book, which is fantastic even though its sad. If I had not started the book, maybe I would have not dislike the drama so much. Rao Jun is IMHO a terrible scriptwriter he ruins almost everything he touches and he dumbs down great female characters and turns them into lovesick fools. After I dropped this, I picked up Sparrow and I am having a massive allergic reaction to ZDY's acting - I had no opinion on her before. That is going to make it very difficult for me to revisit this anytime soon.
https://dramapotatoe.com/c-dramas-first-impressions-june-12-to-june-18-mini-discourse-on-ancient-love-poetry/
PS - I actually almost dropped L&R (another Rao Jun special) many times as well - I only watched it bc I was working from home during covid and I like Liu Xueyi/Hao Chen. Heheh... maybe I just don't really like xianxia that much. :)