PeachBlossomGoddess

Idk - I don't follow the gossip that much although I have friends in the business that will sometimes tell me all kinds of stuff. My impression is just that there are lots of fragile egos in the business its not specific to Youku and when someone feels slighted its very easy to get a lot of drama and fan wars. I don't have time for it so I just half listen and try to forget it.

Oh ok - thank goodness I didn't watch more than a few seconds of it.😅 I don't watch trailers.

WeTV, Youku and iQiyi are all investing huge amounts of money into AI. They normally go back and get human translators to clean-up the AI generated subs later on as they are trying to improve the accuracy of their bots over time. It just takes longer bc there is always a shortage of good translators. They are also using AI to write scripts and dub dramas into English and other languages. One of them will soon be launching human like bot dramas. I have seen some of their bot stars- they are scarily humanlike. I watched a 10 minute clip and was completely fooled.

For current budgets, CNY 300mm is very high but I would not be surprised if it is true. That's why it took a long time to air - it was very hard to raise the needed advertisement and investment to break even. Youku now has a hard rule that dramas have to at least break even to air.

I don't know if its a trailer or deleted scenes but there is a Surprise episode.

Yeah she been MIA in promoting the drama. Whatever her reasons, it seems misguided to me. She is not that well-established as an actor and this is a high budget, high popularity drama. This is a huge opportunity for her - she needs it a lot more than the drama needs her. A more commercial actor would maximize every opportunity to be visibly and vocally associated with it while it is airing.

Got to keep them employed! 😂😂😂

Yes, that's why Luo Yunxi also does his own stunts and gets spun around on wires all the time - he is super light. I personally prefer actors in martial arts roles to be heftier and do more hand to hand combat instead of spinning around on wires but for xianxias wires make sense.

I heard about his 7kg weight loss from a reliable source. He was doing a lot of stunts involving wires. It’s better and safer to be lighter. He may have lost more as shooting progressed as it is grueling work - most actors lose a few kgs during shooting bc you shouldn’t eat or drinkmuch to avoid looking bloated. He looks healthy I don’t think he starved himself - just shed a few kgs that are easy to gain back.

C-netizens have been calling it out as another cosmetic intervention mishap.

Yeah agree completely.

Tyvm - been wanting to do it for a long time!😅😂

Yes it was a lot of fun. But now I have to get in top condition to hike Mount Blanc in a few weeks.

Well they also could have used a much more ordinary looking actor as they did to play the younger him in Hongloumeng.

Pct is short for percent %. And my mistake I meant RMB 1mm/episode. Based on my understanding of the guidelines, YY at most got paid RMB 30mm/~$4mm for this. There is also a single actor pay cap of 10pct of the budget but since we don't know the budget its hard to use that. If I had to guess the budget was probably in the RMB200-300mm range, in which case at the low end he made RMB 20mm. This is a huge pay cut for lead roles - in the past they used to make US$10-15mm per drama but now after all the controls its only US$3-5mm. The less well known actors make a lot less than that and the main difference in whether a drama is S/S+ or less is mostly just the lead actor pay.

Different actors have different asking pay rates. Zhang Ruoyun for example is well known to always ask for very reasonable pay, especially if he likes the script bc he wants to act across other good actors. So his dramas have many veteran actors in the cast and the cast acting is on a different level. Yang Zi I believe is also known to be very reasonable so she is also often teamed up with strong casts. Unfortunately there are many very greedy very popular idol actors who always ask for the maximum they can get. I won't name them bc I don't have time to deal with hate spam. But if you look at their dramas and you will see they always get paired with super cheap (and bad) newbie actors. That is bc they ask for a lot so there is not enough budget left for good actors in the co-lead and supporting roles. In general, the more serious actors don't go for the maximum bc they know they by themselves cannot make a drama good.

Dilraba is someone that only does dramas to stay relevant - bc when she has series airing she trends hard. But she makes so much more money from endorsements (she has so many) that the dramas are a waste of time for her.

Lol - I know - I was being cheeky suggesting Yang Yang faked his credentials to get this "average" role. You busted me.

Maybe Yang Yang wanted the role and submitted his 16 year old casting picture:
https://mydramalist.com/photos/rOORy

No stunt double.

This is not like Journey to the West which is about Buddhist philosophy and morality although they are not incompatible. They are just different paths to immortality. In the Daoist path, being righteous or good is not necessary nor is it about morality, it is survival of the fittest. This is because the Heavens or the universe itself is neutral - it doesn't care about good or evil and karma is a weak force - so bad deads rarely lead to heavenly punishment. I didn't read the novel but I believe it embraces the 大盗 Daoist concept where the cultivators "steal" spiritual energy, lifespan etc from nature and others. All the heavenly tribulations are a test of power, not morality. Thus you have hypocritical "righteous" sects (although so far the sects don't pretend to be righteous, they seem like cultivation schools) and being morally gray is what helps Han Li ascend. In this universe, immortals are not saints or paragons of virtue. They are simply those who out compete and out live the the others. They also ultimately have finite lifetimes although much longer than ordinary mortals. That's why its so much like an RPG.😅😂

Have you seen his stunts? Got to be light for those.