PeachBlossomGoddess

Di Renjie was a popular folk hero because he officiated over many important regions of the empire before returning to the capital to become Chancellor twice. He had the pulse of the nation and thus had insight into both the suitability and implementation aspects of the reforms the empress wished to do. He often clashed with her as well.

There are many decent versions of Journey to the West - some of the ones written in vernacular Chinese are more enjoyable to read.

Not all novels lend themselves well to drama adaptation. And most novelist are not great at writing dialogue.

The results of that has been very mixed as well.

Yeah lots of good novels get destroyed by well meaning but not smart writers…

That YouTuber is 100pct wrong about that if they follow the book

I am still in disbelief what they did to this - it was a 8.4 Douban rated novel. It's just common sense that with that kind of plot you don't muck around with it! The director/screenwriter has no common sense whatsoever!!!

I don't know but you can try googling the Chinese title and web novel.

I think at this point even in China, the best read version of the original novel is Van Gulik's translation and yes it is quite detailed. He did a really good job with it. I personally did not read all of his novels - I thought the first book which was written by an anonymous Chinese writer was really good and authentic but Van Gulik's own stories were hit or miss. Some of them were pretty good but they are quite Western and modern. There were also many cases that were a real snooze fest so I never read the series in its entirety - I skipped around the boring cases. And I believe stirrups were one of the key inventions of the Tang dynasty that facilitated the expansion of the empire.

It’s filmed already.

First and only.

Nope so far not yet.

This was a complex story that was rated something like 8.5 on Douban books. I picked up the audiobook bc it sounded different and interesting but dropped it bc there was just too much war in it. But romance was not supposed to be the main focus I have no idea what is going on with this adaptation... I guess its expected they always have to amplify every smidgeon of romance...

I am watching on my treadmill. I have been lazy haven’t worked out.

I haven’t watched that yet…

No I don't think so. Chen Qi is from Beimo. I think A Mai's father/his army must have killed Chen Qi's father/parents in a battle with Beimo. He adopted Chen Qi and Chen Qi is just taking revenge. He probably got military credit for it when he went back to Beimo after taking out a serious enemy general.

True it was a bit of wishful thinking on my part but they'd just be returning to the fort to live to fight another day, which is what she had done.

🤞🤞🤞

Ha! My thoughts exactly! I'm not yet at 20 though...

I like the Wang Ruichang but he looks way too young to be a general and he is visibly quite a bit younger than Zhang Tianai. I just can't ship them at all. I'd rather they just keep this a story about a woman who joins the army for revenge and learns to love and fight for her country. The only relationship I think is interesting is the one between Chen Qi and A Mai. It's too bad they made her so just a kid at the time bc he was supposed to be her first true love.