PeachBlossomGoddess

I have no words for how delighted I am to see Chen Kun here. His Ning Yi is still one of my all time most iconic and favorite drama characters. But I have to admit, he had this tendency to ham it up a tad too much - he just couldn't help himself. This role Yu Hou is different. It is a truly immersive, mature, sober and complex portrayal of someone who is becoming unraveled and losing his way. He seems ageless and aged at the same time. As for Xin Zhilei, she always has this super powerful screen presence. Its like she just eats everyone and everything alive onscreen. She seems more muted here. And it works. Her Zhang Luyao and Chen Kun's Yu Hou feel oddly like soulmates even thought they are morally quite far apart.

And thus, he set Xiao Fang free so that he doesn't turn into him.
And why not him, wrt the gold? After all, the owner is dead. The guardians are dying out. Why not live well wrapped in Jiangnan silk surrounded by real guqins?

The production values were top notch.

I guess she thinks there are 3 kinds of people - good, bad and good turned bad. I guess Yu Hou must be good turned bad. I feel a bit sad that she must have met him right at the point of his moral descent.

Yes I think you could be right about her knowing the general rather than Yu Hou.

Or maybe she held back bc she has never killed anyone before. She wanted justice but not to take it in her own hands?

The more I think about it, the more I am convinced Yu Hou changed after finding out the general died. He didn't seem to be that interested in the gold in ep 1 and he wanted to kill Tie Futu. Maybe years ago he was to the general who Xiao Fang is to him now.

That ep 7 conversation seemed quite personal - how did you become like this? I was always like this. It seemed to imply a prior familiarity - like she knew he wasn't always a bad person. But then I realised she thinks the general still lives. Maybe she thinks Yu Hou is only following his orders. And I started to think that could be the case bc Yu Hou didn't know the general was dead when he conspired to bring Zhang Luyao back. And maybe he is still simply trying to fulfil the general's last order.

Depends on what you consider a happy ending. I'd have preferred to set Zhao Ling free.

Clearly he had her family killed to lure her into the treasure hunt - he admitted as much already. He knew all about her backstory in Ep 1 and seems to have been waiting for her to come to him. So now I wonder if they knew each other - their conversations are a bit too intimate and personal for them to be complete strangers. And then his necklace, it seemed to have some significance that persuaded her to let him go instead of taking her revenge.

I wonder why Zhang Luyao let Yu Hou go?

I didn't even make it past the intro minutes of Pull Strings. It is directed by Sam Ho, a bastion of mediocre dramas.

Ty, always happy to pass the chuckles around!😜

For Chinese dramas it is the industry standard to have a team of 3-5 directors. They work across multiple parallel sets with main director usually directing the most critical scenes. The others shoot supporting battle sequences, some specialise in shooting stunts while others get to shoot supporting characters in some sub-plots. That's why they can film 40-60 episodes in 3-6 months while Hollywood can take longer to shoot a 2 hour movie.

Well looks like we have "met" all the characters already.

Yes Deng Tan should be Lampshade - I didn't realize they were translating names I just assumed they stuck with the pinyin. Tie Futu would be Iron Pagoda and Pu Ying would be Servant Eagle or something like that...

Yeah this is so NOT be my list!!!

Bana is not a smart character. Getting into his head is gonna be beyond us. 😅😂🤡

Welp... he is a salty character for sure!!!

And I believe Deng Tan is one of Futu's men who died dead. The one with the distorted eyelid.

Tang Zheng should be Luyao's ghostlike husband.