ShortCircuit

I KNOW!!! And I made the mistake of watching those 4 eps and waiting - because it wouldn't be long, and they took it down, dammit. I wish I never started it, since it was so good. This happened to MoDu, and only the ~mistake~ of that guy who uploaded all eps of The Spirealm made it that the drama was ever watched, LOL.

I still hope, though, I mean, what else is there? It's not like the dramas aren't filmed already (2ha, Seizing Dreams, Eternal Faith too - all high calibre danmei stories, all already completed, just waiting for the right time.) *keeping fingers crossed*

Sneaky of them :D

Now if they get the courage to make/air more actual danmei and they don't really explode all over the streming sites like TU, maaaaaybe the censorship will relent. Here's (still) hoping to see 2ha in our lives LOL.

I am mystified as to how on hell does this even show up on Douban, TBH. And it seems to be a pretty high rating, if it's actually for this drama anyway, though - seriously - how are they listing it? Are they using the Thai version to rate it?

I don't think it even officially aired anywhere in China. If people there watched it, they did over VPN on some non-mainland streaming site. And I highly doubt there will be any promotion or mentions of it over SM, since the watchers cannot watch it officially/legally there.

I've been watching kdramas since before streaming became easy and available everywhere (including on phones and apps). I never got the kpop virus TBH, though I'd probably now call myself an Atiny, and that just for that one group. So to speak, I am an older kdrama addict, LOL.

TBH, it's not like this detached feeling is something new. It's ALWAYS been that some drama hit it big and there were dozens of others covering the same concept the next season - we had lawyer season, sci-fi season, demon/paranormal season, every kind of Hunger Games-themed drama season, romcom season (well, MANY romcom seasons, you can't go wrong with romcoms), military season, cop bromance + serial killer season, and so on, and so forth.

With the dramas that are already announced to air soon - wanna bet we'll have a (maybe Olympic) sports season of similar dramas? :D

And frankly, I don't really mind it. Whenever kdramas get too repetitive, I turn to cdrama and Thai and Japanese dramas, it's not like there isn't plenty of fish in the lake. And the cdramas will definitely NOT fall into the same pit as foreign-produced kdramas (not that they don't have their own pits, LOL).

The MAIN thing to learn though is WHEN to let go if the drama really isn't your thing. There are some that might suprise you in the end and become good when you were pretty sure they wouldn't, but those are pretty rare and far in-between. I've learned to drop dramas or place them on-hold with the vague idea I'll return to them sometime, but it's not like there aren't any other dramas to watch. And real life actually doesn't leave me that much time to spend as life happens.

Re: the dramas mentioned in the editorial. Well, Sweet Home first season was amazing (and I am NOT a horror-fan AT ALL). The next two were kind of very meh. I'll just pretend only the first season exists. My Demon - well, I took that as a glam fest (did you see all the pretty, LOL? So much pretty :D) and didn't expect anything more than that from it, from the very beginning. So no unfullfilled expectations there. Dropped KtL (because not even all the pretty could save that one for me), found BP so-so, didn't really watch the others (particularly the game-themed dramas, those are definitely putting my hairs up, even the concept is awful for me, even if the genre seems to be the most sucessful given so many watchers).

So what I'm trying to say is - there's not really an oversaturation, maybe an overspecialisation and a trend to give people what they want to watch, even if it turns repetitive.

And yeah, there's kind of a lack of a good police story lately - but for whoever is looking, there's still Connection, right? :D

P. S. Where the heck do BTS get mentioned? I don't remember even one instance when they're mentioned in any dramas I've watched (or maybe they were but it was so subtle that it didn't even ring a bell?!)

Thanks for the editorial, write some more :D

QSM felt to me more like Lin Chen (from Nirvana in Fire), and I loved him :D

Xiao Bao and Jin Bao were separating like Jack and Rose, LOL. I loved their respective SO's force-separating them, hahaha~ And ZhaoCai is now left to admire how his master can be all kinds of lovey-dovey, #giveZhaoCaialover

HuaiEn started totally uninterested and trying to use XiaoBao and ended up totally whipped, wrapped around XiaoBao's finger.

I haven't read the novel, so I have no idea what was skipped, but that last part with the refugees was kind of out of the blue. Unless it was supposed to get the Crown Prince back in the picture. He and XiaoBao will forever be cats and dogs in the tropey way, LOL.

Anyway - I liked this one. It's not the best, but there were parts of it that were really good, the acting was also good, everybody looked great, oh well the budget just wasn't there, and TBH, it's not the danmei I would've chosen to make into a drama, but maybe it was a buy-one-get-two, with My Stand-In as the other, LOL. I'm not complaining, I just wish some more authors found this work-around and sold the rights to some of the better danmeis out there to whoever wants to invest and bring it to the outside-China world!

OMG I love A Certain Someone!!!! Thanks for the heads-up!! Is it another Thai/Chinese co-production, or just Chinese? (in which case I'll just temper my expectations, given what iQiYi just did to the latest BL they made...)

When everybody was expecting a long dramatic final meeting between HuaiEn and his not-father, XiaoBao was there like - NOT ON MY WATCH!! And HuaiEn immediately agreed.

It was clear then who's calling the shots LOL.

That girl will find herself married ASAP when she's of age, LOL. For now, whenever they're trying to kiss, she's being summoned, like a c*ckblocking demon :D

Okay... but I'll miss Que SiMing the most.

And now we've had this one, can we have more? Pretty please with a cherry on top? :D

Why the hell did she need to save him from the shotgun?! He's a demon, he wouldn't die unless by those rules. So that kind of ruined the last two eps for me.

God(dess?) was also pretty cool until the last eps - even her cute worn out cap with one of the "o"-s in "good" scratched out was a very nice touch, LOL - but then why does she break the rules so easily? And out of the myriad miracles she could've made, she chose to revive one of her own demons that had broken the rules and not - say - save the little cancer patient. *sigh* And if she DID revive him, why not make him human again to live out his life with DDH?...

Out of all the endings there, the one I liked best was the sword-dancer's, what's-her-name. She didn't have anything much to do throughout the drama, but at least she found a calling in the last ep. Oh well.

First 10 eps were pretty good, last two were kind of out of sync with the rest of it. The father-and-son duo commanding a serial killer also didn't make a lot of sense, but at least it was entertaining while it lasted. This drama was always going to float on the power of love and not reason anyway LOL. (And yeah, there were paralels with Goblin, but for the main part they were kind of subtle and not really in your face, so it's allowed).

But ooooh, so much pretty. So much pretty!!! Song Kang looks amazing here, and so does Kim You Jung. The OST added a lot to the show, both the songs and the BGM.

Overall, a good drama to come off the highs of the Olympics and through the withdrawal, LOL.

An 8+ drama, but I added an extra half star for all the pretty. Nice OST, too.

It is a general rule that danmei have HEAs. Unless they're the very, very few who do not (those tend to be mostly modern though.) So don't worry, they'll get a HEA.

Not XiaoBao and ZhaoCai doing the surprised Pikachu face when Jin Bao is taking responsibility for Que SiMing, LOL. Also, this happened:

Jin Bao: Well, if you look at him carefully, he's pretty cute.
XiaoBao (totally riled up): He's NOT as handsome as HuaiEn!

Cue ZhaoCai doing an epic eyeroll with both idiots in his life, LOL.

And Que SiMing channeling his inner Lin Chen is my absolute favourite, LOL. I could stay here and watch a whole series of him being rude to everybody in China and their relatives outside the country, hahaha~

Seriously, the second half gets better by the episode.

Not serious?... Are you telling me you're... Bong... Bong-Hwan-ah?!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duTz9QtcBo4

If it's not dual cultivation it doesn't count, LOL. Or does it?...

After TU, I started reading a lot of Chinese webnovels (well, danmei, but what can you do, LOL). I'm already used to the names, some of the usual expressions, a bit of history (not a lot), the costumes (for costume dramas), quite enough (hopefully) of the tricks of wuxia/xianxia/xuanhuan LOL, a lot of the main actors and actresses and SO MANY of the support actors :D

So the secret is just exposure :D

OOOOOOH finally someone who also falls for the music!!! NiF has one of the best OSTs ever (and I mean the BGM in particular - I mainly fall for the BGM usually :D). Beautiful haunting themes, I love it all! Just listen to this little gem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ie5ROyaHuk0

Don't let the length of some dramas daunt you, LOL. It's already been a while since they made all cdramas be shorter than 50 eps, and then when some of them sidestepped the rule with adding seasons, they also made them release them further apart, so now most of them won't pass 50, some not even get close. Lengthier dramas could take their time getting anywhere. I'm happy that NiF was made when there was no restriction (not that it would've been too long even by today's standards). You'll get used to the longer dramas - cdrama eps are never longer than 45 minutes, so nowhere close kdramas eps that can be anywhere from 1hr to 1.30hr or so :D Just consider AoS - 30 eps of at least 1 hr but more often longer, so in the end somewhere between 30-40 hrs of drama, compared to Nif that has just about 35-36 hrs of drama-time. You've ALREADY watched longer dramas :D

I haven't watched either, LOL (I want to watch The Double, but more dramas are coming through and getting in the way.)

NiF has a very structured feeling, IMHO. More of a slow burn, continuous build-up and at times very subtle hints. It has a kind of gravity of its own. (I won't say it's the absolute masterpiece, but it comes pretty close to it according to my standards :D)

It's also based on a novel, and the novel is great. It might take a few episodes to get totally hooked (I think it took me about 7 or so), but then you'll probably want to binge it, it's that seducingly good.

And it's going to hurt, a lot - but it's a good hurt, I promise. Just watching them move on-screen is SO freaking good, I try finding other dramas to compare it with and TBH none come to mind. This whole drama / story is about showing not telling, and it's masterfully done.

Just give it a try - it will be a little while maybe until you get the Mei ChangSu virus, but maybe not that long, actually :D

I want another one like this one (I want Immortality now). *sigh*