ShortCircuit

I mean the core reveal comes after they return from saving the juniors from the trap in the Burial Mounds, not at the end. That gives Jiang Cheng time to process it and then come to WWX's side (including giving him back Chenqing) in the final confrontation at the GuanYin temple. They even have a moment of mutual understanding, and the part where JC realises he's misunderstood his own brother, and then the part where he decides to keep the secret on how he got captured by the Wen Clan (which adds a completely new layer to the story and kind of changes the chain of who did what for whom, after all).

The donghua decided to switch some scenes around, and the reveal comes after the actual ending, so that there's nothing much it could impact... TBH, I quite liked the whole donghua, even if the last season got really tamed out compared to the first two, LOL, but them deciding to make the reveal the last scene, basically, ruined it for me...

In the novel, the sequence follows the same pattern as the drama chose to use, and that makes it great IMO.

The novel is great, you'll like it a lot :) (WWX is way too shameless and flirty and poor LWJ has to cope with that :D but it's totally worth it :) ) Some parts of the story got left unexplained in the drama (and even the donghua) that ARE shown, and you'll find the explanations in the novel (for example, the story of how LWJ got the same burn scar on his chest as WWX had in his first life). It's an overall amazing work :)

AND they get to live happily ever after :)

They changed a few of the details about the manner of Joe's disappeareance, but IIRC, Ming had just realised who Joe was - his TRUE infatuation/crush that he was also using Joe to stand-in for, LOL - and wanted to make certain of that realisation / get Joe back.

In the novel, the call falls because there's no signal in the wilderness (and IIRC, Ming comes to take part in the search and is among the last to stop). In the drama, IMO, they might keep it as that or want to make it look like there's a conspiracy to commit murder against Joe (too soon to tell yet).

You mean it completely stopped at the accident, not with the aftermath?! As in... an open ending? But why T_T

Xianxia is great... but I only watch select romantic xianxia (or wuxia) LOL. I much prefer (at least) bromance, and there's only so much bromance or censored danmei adaptations to watch. *Still keeping fingers crossed for May 1st*

If you're not adverse to straight xianxia, you could check out Till the End of the Moon - because it has LYX and Bai Lu, the effects are the best I've ever seen in xianxia, the music is amazing and the plot has some great twists. And did I mention they have LYX (using his own voice, to boot)? That man is smooth like old wine.

If you're more into danmei xianxia than modern time... Do NOT miss on 2ha (obviously), Bring in the Wine (Qiang Jin Jiu - this has GOT to be the most sensual danmei I've ever read, a true enemies-to-lovers story), Copper Coins and How To Survive As A Villain :D (I'm assuming here you already read everything MXTX :D)

The donghua messed up the ending though (as the core reveal happens as in the drama, not as in the animation, where the overall effect is destroyed.)

Then again, the donghua did some things better than the drama, too. The headband scene is the canon, LOL, they changed it in the drama.

LOL @ Incense Burner, my favourite is always From Dusk Til Dawn, even if less... energetic ;)

The SE on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlpEVsKiYCU&list=PLMX26aiIvX5q6hl3s418u7x47mIwLL4GK

I didn't watch SWM, I had watched Addicted til they pulled the plug (and then tried to read the novel. But then my HDD decided its time was nigh and died on me LOL and so I lost my books and never picked Addicted Heroin back up *shrug*) So even after censoring the hell out of it (which was deserved for some scenes, TBH) the story is not complete? Should there be a second season?! (Or if there were a second season, it would be based on the second volume?)

I am waiting for 1.05 myself, LOL, but I don't put much faith into it... I think it's a melon that looks good but won't taste of anything on the day. It's too far ahead to announce both the dramas, if they really wanted to release them they'd do it KoD style (I mean The Spirealm), all at once, out of the blue. I'd LOVE it to be true though, I want to see LYX as CWN so badly, he's perfect for it! (CWN is one of my favourite charas in danmei, along with WWX and SZC from Qiang Jin Jiu). And Chen FeiYu is also perfect for MoRan! As for Winner is King... I'd watch that for Tan JianCi :D

I'm highly recc'ing Rebirth of a Movie Star :D The shou is the cutest and the gong has the fluffiest son (from a former relationship) that ever graced a danmei novel. Both guys are amazing, apart and together, the TL is pretty good, and the story itself flows very nicely :)

(I might be a bit biased for rebirth stories. But in my defense, there are so many isekai involving transmigration of body and soul, AND also reincarnation, that one can't avoid them if they tried :D I mean, even MDZS is one of them, and if there's one common ground for danmei readers, is that 99% of us like MDZS :D)

Professional Body Double is VERY dogblood, be warned. The main romantic story is painful to read, and you might get tired of Zhou Xiang's continued interest in Yan MingXiu. But love isn't always clear-cut for those involved, so read the story for the sake of ZX being such a good guy and just hate YMX along with the rest of us :D The TL might be a bit wonky in some parts, but not too bad, either (I mean the fan TL, I am not sure if there's an official English version yet.)

I'm not bothered at all, LOL, I am (or used to be) mainly a reader, and since TU aired, I've been binging danmei like there's no tomorrow :D I like talking about such stories with people who are interested in them, too :)

Unknown is the one I was talking about - it's based on Priest's novel Da Ge (Big Brother) :D

So if they made an unapologetically BL drama based on a danmei by a famous author, like Da Ge, why not more? I mean - just imagine someone gets the courage (and the c/right) to make an uncensored drama based on Sa Ye! (one can dream).

And definitely a drama based on my favourite modern-times danmei, Rebirth of a Movie Star. And a drama based on Indulging in Wine. Or on Accidental Mark (because why not a drama based on an ABO 'verse? It's not like it's an ancient setting :D) And First-Class Lawyer... There are way too many that would be great if made into dramas... *sigh*

It's because Ming uses Joe as a replacement in both lives (first for the person he mistook as Joe, and then for for Joe in his first life, himself, LOL). And by "uses" yes, he just uses. He doesn't like or trust or love Joe in either life (until it's too late - or almost too late, the second time around), he just has sex with him while imagining the other man in his place (and he's not even too good at it, since he's a virgin gong in the beginning, and then he doesn't care enough about Joe to treat him kindly.)

There were moments in the novel where I'd ask myself why the heck was I reading it, it got bad. But I read it for Joe/Zhou Xiang. I never liked Ming (Yan Ming Xiu) til the end, not even after he mended his ways and declared his undying (and kind of obsessive) love for Zhou Xiang (he's the creepy stalkerish type, IMHO). But Zhou Xiang is actually a good guy, so there's that. I hope they keep it that way in the drama, and don't make him come out as over-naive (because he's not, he knows what he's doing... but love's love.)

Still... the fact that they took an actual modern-times danmei and made an actual BL drama out of it is amazing on itself, and if they do stick with the novel and don't make big mistakes I hope it'll just break the dam. There are so many modern danmei I'd LOVE to see in drama, and I don't mind if they transfer to Thai BL or Taiwanese BL, as long as they DO get made. For xianxia danmei there's less hope, since a lot of the plot would entangle actual Ancient China (or Ancient China-like) settings and background that it couldn't translate well to Thai BL, and I wonder if Taiwan would want to invest the kind of budgets those drama would need... Even for Da Ge, they didn't invest all that much, IMHO, and it still looked amazing - but it was easier to do with a modern setting.

Here's hoping this one remains true to the end and that it emboldens others to follow :D

They don't part ways.

The Special Edition has the original ending that the production team intended for the drama - the final scene is in the OP sequence, LOL (they tend to do that in cdramas). The original edition introduced a final twist... and TBH, as I already know the ending in the novel (and allll the extras :D), I quite like the twist.

If you want to watch them end up together with no twists... watch the donghua.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsA1hKfRqtQ

Also... do try out WoH, they've managed to slip so many less censored moments past the censors, LOL, they caused almost an absolute ban on danmei for years now :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWX998-PMig

Very good (good cinematography, good acting, very close to the original novel.) If it keeps up, it'll be a very good adaptation.

Yes, he stays in this body. The other Joe's soul is gone, and the MC Joe's old body is long dead (they find his skeleton a while after the new relationship starts - which actually changes the whole story and makes the ML realise the truth - again.)

I guess it is a second chance/reincarnation story, given to both the stuntman Joe (who was unburied for all this time and is basically a very good guy being given way too many hardships he doesn't deserve) and also for the other Joe, who wanted to take care of his mother even after his death. Isekai sometimes works like this :D

I don't remember exactly, but pretty close to the end (like the last few chapters or something, or so it felt to me). THOUGH you should know that when they meet in Joe's second life at that elevator, Ming already KNEW what happened in the first life and had a very strong reaction to the new Joe's existence because of it. And it's NOT because he fell in love again. I've given huge spoilers from the novel to the other question above, so read at your own risk, if you want to know more. But the drama can always mingle the POVs and make it so that the ML's redemption's arc happens more naturally during the drama.

I don't care, myself, I still don't like him after all this time, LOL, but I like the MC very, very much, and so far, they're doing a great job about the story and production. I have high hopes about this!

MANY spoilers ahead (from the novel, we'll have to see how the drama goes, but so far they're 99% following it).

So, Zhou/Joe is a rather well-known name as a stunt double (I'm going to use drama names from now on), and he basically takes Ming (who is a student still) home for a night stand. Ming has a crush on (in-drama) Tong, because he saw a movie where he fell in love with Tong's back profile / silhouette (yes, it's stupid, but he's still a stupid kid). So Ming starts courting Tong with presents and things, because his family is pretty rich, and so Tong never rejects him, but as he's straight, he doesn't actually give hints that he's available. But Joe's back silhouette fit "Tong's" perfectly, so Ming wants to make Joe his pretend lover and make believe he's in a relationship with Tong.

Therefore, Ming just goes with Joe and they start a relationship, where Joe (who is a confident gong, originally), allows Ming to be the gong instead and presumes they are in love with one another. Eventually, he realises his mistake and by that time Tong has already learned that Joe is involved with Ming and starts trying to derail Joe's career. In the end, both in order to escape the toxic love with Ming AND Tong's manoeuvres, Joe goes with a wildcountry documentary team and dies in a land slide (his body unfound for years).

Joe wakes up in another Joe's body, who had tried to commit suicide because he was cheated on by his (male) lover. The other Joe's mom turns out to get ill, and Joe doesn't have all his money any more (he was comfortable before), so when Ming AGAIN proposes they live together in exchange for money to treat mom, he accepts. He even thinks Ming somehow remembered him, as he seems to treat him as the original Joe... and it turns out his back profile still looks like the person Ming originally fell for, so that he's now the double for HIMSELF, LOL. (Because obviously the original person Ming fell for WAS Joe, acting as a stunt double for Tong, LOL).

Thing is... Ming also found out who Joe was before Joe's death and rebirth, but it was too late. So he had a career change and tried hard to live as he should've, from the beginning, and maybe take revenge... and then found "another" Joe again and became a sadistic freak yet again.

It takes a lot of time until the whole thing gets cleared so that everybody who should get revenge, gets it, and who is in love with anyone else, solve those relationships, too. But it ends in a HEA, because danmei :D

The ML was unlikable from beginning to the end, though, and TBH, I LOVED how when Joe discovered the truth behind his original relationship, he cold-turkey cut it off, despite being basically destroyed (he was in love). And in the second life, when he accepts the new relationship, he is much more guarded against Ming.

But oh well, danmei has to have a happy-ending :D If there's things to change from the novel, it should be the personality of the ML. Then again... who knows.

I hope it's not TMI. But going by what I've seen in ep1 - this is very, very well and closely adapted. I approve! :D

(A bit older) Stuntman gets involved with (younger) rich guy type who's actually infatuated with a person that he mixed up with someone else (because he was infatuated with their shoulderblades, I kid you not). Eventually, the stuntman gets a very bitter medicine and breaks the "relationship" up, but accidentally dies. Until he wakes up in someone else's body (someone who tried to commit suicide and was in a coma for years) and he finds himself in the path of the rich guy again - said rich guy having changed careers and become an actor. For some reasons they again become involved, but this time, the reborn lover is very restrained towards the person he had loved, while the ex-lover is pining for someone who died, and is AGAIN very abusive towards the replacement lover he just found.

It is a pretty dogblood story, TBH, and while there's a HEA, you won't like the ML if they keep the story as in the novel. The highlights are the relationships between the stuntman - his name is Zhou in the novel, so even the name they picked for the Thai adaptation fits, LOL) and his "new" mother, and then with his BFF from before rebirth. Even the ML gets somewhat of a redemption arc, but in the novel... he's still unlikable and pretty sadistic towards his fake/replacement lover, in BOTH lifetimes. So I really couldn't like him all that much. But the MC is a cute, soft-hearted, confident type (despite being totally broken by the ML - because he trusted to love him until he got destroyed completely) who is the bestest son and bestest friend ever to anyone who lets him close.

I sure hope they keep "Joe"/Zhou as he was in the novel. Maybe soften Ming a bit and not leave it til the end for the redemption. The first ep is really promising though, high production values, lovely cinematography, the leads can act - yes, I'm in :D

It's actually the plot of the novel (and they're following it very well). Warning - spoilers ahead.

Wow, this is a VERY nice surprise. They've been extremely faithful to the novel so far (minus the manner of MC's disappeareance, but the change makes more sense in drama world). The OP song is pretty good (not too happy about the ED, but it might grow on me).

The opening scene - WOW that scenery! When I grow up (that means never, LOL), I might move there and build a house powered by solar energy and be a total hermit in that corner of paradise.

The leads look amazing and I like how they're showing this is not actually the same person/face any more. And hey! Acting skills, hellooo~ :D (Can't WAIT for the mom-not-really-son bonding moments, I LOVED that part of the novel).

I know how the story goes, so in that manner there shouldn't be too many surprises (unless they change more from the novel, but as I've said... they've followed everything in it so far, which I loved). I suppose I'll still hate the ML and the obnoxious "love interest" that he's stupidly mistaken as his actual love interest, LOL, until the POV changes. But so far... they've totally nailed everything. I'm liking this a whole lot.

So... if this can be done for novels like Da Ge and Professional Body-Double, should we expect more like this in the future? Original danmei taken to other countries and adapted to dramas there? All of the modern-times danmei would be easily adaptable in Taiwan and Thailand, if there's interest.... in which case, iQiYi (I haven't forgiven you for not making - yet - a second season for Oh No! Here Comes Trouble!, but...), please take a look at Rebirth of a Movie Star! (And there's a lot more to adapt, just saying :D)

...That just means you haven't yet got to the part where (adult) LWJ gets drunk ON PURPOSE and in front of LAN CLAN WITNESSES - just so you know how serious he is about admitting his feelings.

No, the main plotline is the fall and redemption of WWX - and how he needn't have fallen in the first place. There are so many underplots - like the brothers' relationships, by blood or by oath, or how much the clan's business comes between lovers, or what is actual an orthodox cultivation method and what is demonisation, and most of all, how much can you endure and still not break and how much can be forgiven when you've made gruesome mistakes... The Yin Iron is something non-xianxia watchers can catch up easier on, though (since a lot of shounen anime, for example, has that one item everybody's into getting, LOL, I guess the production team wanted something similar to that to just make it a bit easier).

WWX isn't going to change, though, he's always a mischievous agent of chaos. Don't worry, those cute interractions won't stop :D (well, you'll have to wait til the flashback is done, because the second half of it gets really painful and tragic. I still like it the best, though.)

This feels incomplete as heck.

The music is amazing, though.

Nobody cares much about the Yin Iron, TBH. It's more like a drama plot device - in the novel, WWX just finds the maleficent sword inside the XuanWu monster, just kind of takes it and only when he gets into the Burial Mounds he realises he can use it to survive.

The thing is WAY too powerful for any sane cultivator, so no one actually wants it - basically everyone else but WWX wants to destroy it or contain it. (LWJ tells even WWX repeatedly that using "talismans and tricks" will pervert his qi and his heart, and it has happened before to lesser people, he's not just being annoying for no reason.) If you're not through the long flashback yet, I won't tell you more, but only one other cultivator even tries to make use of it and botches the whole thing. WWX is kind of unique in mastering it.

Also, the freaking Wen spy birds (chicken/vulture/owl LOL) get toast soon enough.

LOL, you wanted MORE of the school days?! I like the whole drama - and love the novel - but my favourite part is the tragedy (confession - I might be a bit sadistic about this LOL). The novel has the flashbacks split into more parts and mixed among the present happenings, so it lessens the impact of the cute schoolboys doing cute schoolboys stuff, but the drama decided to unite them in one long flashback so that the story is easier to understand. If you actually end up liking it (enough) by the time it ends, you might try out the novel. I mean, it IS danmei, but there has to be a starting point LOL.

What, just them? The whole cast looks like they could be models, villains included, LOL. (Or is it just me?!)

Err... the director and production teams of such dramas don't work blindly LOL. The censorship rules are set (and can change from time to time) even for straight romances. They had to ADAPT an actual (famous) novel and bring it as close to the original as possible. It's not like they wrote the original story, LOL.

Fear not, there aren't all that many obvious romantic scenes in the novel either, except for the last few chapters. The main story is NOT about that romance first and foremost, and choosing to reduce this to just the romance is not giving it enough credit.