PeachBlossomGoddess

I don't think they should have killed of the two of them. I think that was just not great writing. But if you look at the final scene, even Shande and Xiuér are not there in Zhao Xinmin's audience. The drama closed by essentially saying everyone from Changán was fictional invented by Xinmin anyway so it kind of doesn't matter that they killed them off.

Yeah the last episode included some clear storytelling fantasy/exaggerated moments to get around censorship requirements regarding distorting history. So you can just assume the fish spirit bit was Zhao Xinmin taking some literary license with his narrative.

I think that was to avoid censorship of distorting history.

Yeah unfortunately subs are only half their revenue. They have to depend on ads for the rest and the ad market in China has been dreadful for years. Its nuts - WeTV is more than Netflix if you watch express!

In case anyone was looking for An Lushan, he should be the big fat guy standing besides the emperor and consort Yang's pavilion during the litchi tasting.

It is very not cool of Tencent - they decided to try to force subscribers to buy the last episode via Express. If you don't need subtitles, you can watch the last one on iQiyi its up already but its not subbed.

Nothing - he is fine but I don’t think he got the girl.

Zhang Ping'an's ending was unnecessary. And WIERD!!!

Finished. Not bad but:

Longest Day had the best sets, character arcs etc but the storytelling was all over the place and the pacing was super stressful in the first half and then super slow and a bit draggy in the second half. It also lacked humor. Definitely a higher quality drama overall with high snob appeal but this one is much more down to earth and entertaining.

The problem is even the first gen wasn't even that special outside of Gu Yu- it was just all the usual youth school dramas tropes. And the second gen was even more uninspired and forgettable. It was all filler.

Lol... I thought it would never end.... The right place to stop was when the school was done. All the rest was anti-climatic. I was watching with my mom so I couldn't drop it or I would have. This kind of story should just be a movie.

Ep 32 conversation between He Youguang and Zhao Xinmin was hilarious bc the actor did play the emperor in Longest Day in Chang'an.

No not at all, they are not related.

The first ~10-12 episodes were great and then it got boring.

I recall when I was growing up, I referred to my teachers xiansheng and I always found it odd my nieces use laoshi nowadays.
Funnily I also thought of Zhang Guimei but I didn't much enjoy the drama, I snoozed through it so I didn't pay enough attention to remember if they used xiansheng in it.

I vaguely remember watching something else where it was used for a woman but I can’t remember exactly what it was.

Tang dynasty was very open and egalitarian towards women. So very educated women from renown poets, medical practitioners respected for their knowledge or professions are addressed as 先生 (xiān sheng) or in this context, teacher. In later dynasties it became an honorific used almost exclusively for men.

Indeed expectations were so high it was impossible to meet. It was obvious from the trailer that the production values are nowhere near Longest Day in Chang'an which cost a bomb. And while Longest Day was a huge "hit" in terms of viewing charts, to the extent people paid money to go watch it in theatres, Youku still lost quite a bit of money on it - back in 2019 when Longest Day aired Youku lost a stunning RMB~1-1.5bn a quarter!!! At the time no one cared but times have changed. So Tencent sold out its ad slots on this and is making money - just not as much as they hoped. That is also btw why they sped up the episode release. Platforms only drag out airing schedules when they still have empty ad slots to fill - all those melon posters have no clue about what they are talking about. Tencent didn't budget anywhere near as much as Youku spent on Longest Day so it is unrealistic to think they could just coast on Longest Day's reputation and make a huge amounts of money/achieve similar viewership.

Storytelling wise, I didn't read the book but I can tell the that Pingan's arc was written by a different writer. Its not bad but it does impact the pacing of the litchi arc. I am not super fussed by that though bc I found the high speed chase over the first half of Longest Day very stressful to watch after the first ~10 episodes. I also think what is happening to Shande is quite depressing - imagine to have to die if you can't get litchi to Changan by a certain date! So I don't mind the humor at all - not all of it lands but its quite well done overall. It is however quite stupid and unnecessary to kill off his wife bc he's just more or less left his kid home alone. Some of the criticism of the plot/writing is fair but its not by any stretch near the terrible logic and writing that made me drop Zanghai at ep 3.

In any case, I think it is beyond dumb to equate a drama's quality just with viewership. Chinese audiences love idol dramas so some of the highest viewed dramas are crappy idol dramas with incoherent storylines and atrocious acting. Give me a "flop" any day of the week over something brain cell destroying like that so called hit that is also currently airing.

Wouldn't call it a flop, its still topping of viewing charts.