Skibbies

I think you can just do one for both? Provided you don't finish second half years later XD I'd only separate the two cos I don't really care for large chunks of second half haha. Oh oh yeah Qin Empire 2's last two ep is throne ascension, there's a bit about his older son dies cos he went to lift a ding 鼎 (true history), so his other son succeeds and you see bit of empress dowager Mi? I think Qin Empire 3 starts with those two ep too so technically you can skip it I guess?

I was waiting for more ep to release for Day Breaker, but then I went off to read novels instead and this dropped so oops. Ordinary Greatness looks like it has some anger inducing citizens haha. Why is your Qin Empire 2 on second last ep and AA on last ep? XD are you just procrastinating from writing reviews? XD

I do think it gets better as the drama goes and the plot is probably at its best near the end, but I don't think it's must watch. Oh Zhang tao (Hunter's Hao Xiaoqiang and Under the Skin's Lu Haizhou, the new dude that came out near the end and kept Du Cheng from working) plays a hilarious over the top villain in it, which is fun.

Finally a tencent S+ that seem to have mostly positive feedback domestically too lol :P I was considering Day Breaker and Ordinary Greatness too, ahh.

Oh no, that's awful. Don't worry though, there's batch of dramas coming up for June to ramp up for summer I think.

Strange Things is...okay, the set up is interesting, and technically the plot is kind of neat, but I don't really care about most of the characters? I've watched this semi indie (they started out indie) team's Moral Peanuts before and I liked that more. That one also tend to foreshadow and plot twist a lot, but its cases was one or two ep/case in the beginning so it felt lot faster, this one was 3? minimum I think. I have a friend that likes it a lot. Oh and the drama was filmed in 2016 , I don't think it feels dated but friend mention it feels 00s to them lol.

the second ML have since aired multiple dramas (including on prime time tv slot) with face switching so it's not him.....

Wang Juan really have little control over who they cast as the leads and he can't exactly give as much scenes to FL as ML due to the source novel. He added significant amount of scenes for FL in both SSS and JoL already (I've read the parts the drama covers for both). A more sound comparison for his ML and FL are his original works, of which I think only Young Blood is translated.

It's strange to compare this to that tbh, because this one's source is FL centric, the ML legit didn't exist (?), both JoL and SSS's source novel are ML centric.

How are you juggling so many dramas!! hahaha. I have to finish Record of Strange Things before starting this.

On that ending, it had more impact in the novel IMO. HFX personally cultivated the flower, he excelled and is known for cultivating flower, but it's one of his more romantic gestures, where he did this show his love towards BFX. HFX was much more ambitious and ruthless in the novel (BFX have good reasons to distrust him in early part of the drama, cos the lines are straight from the novel), he genuinely wants to unify the states and rule because he can do a fabulous job. It's BFX and YWY who don't really care who rules, as long as regular people are at peace and well fed. The drama glossed over BFX's desire to be free vs she HAS to become the Queen because that's how she can protect her people. So when he gave up his life + flower that symbolise his love/their reunion to ensure BFX is alive, then gave up his life's work, it worked a lot more.

He actually aged several decades, not just turned his hair white, and I think he had like a month to live. BFX was in disbelief that someone that was so prim and proper and cared a lot about appearance would give it up to her. BFX have a brother figure who have special blood, that basically could transfuse life force into someone else, so he saved HFX for indefinite amount of time. You can take that ending as the drama ending :P

WRTW's source novel was serialised in 2005 or 2006, the alleged plagierised drama's source novel was serialised 2008 till 2013, so it's unrelated to the novels. The scenes were specifically added to Royal Nirvana's drama by its scriptwriters (the novel doesn't cover that part, the novel starts after it's over and done with, when the drama is like half way through lol), WRTW's have some questionable line to line copying, and more importantly, his family background doesn't quite fit his characterisation.

Both ML's detail family struggle and tianshuang sect were drama original, and I think where the drama fails. The novel have fair amount of issues (everyone are really op and it's pretty mary sue) + not particularly suited for adaptations (the romance is hilariously minimal, there's more outright romance-y bits with side characters than the main otp, because they both have more important things to worry about and they distrust each other, for really good reason but still), but it mostly make sense by itself. I'm very used to changes when it comes to adaptations, hell I'm super lenient towards it, but I really wish scriptwriters could fuse their own plot + original struture/characterisations better yknow?

I have little issue with more focused on ML, but it could be -> family issue -> he goes to other places (with FL) to prove himself or whatever -> gather army in secret and train -> maybe intro FL's family bit earlier -> more yong zhou court stuff, it'd feel less repetitive and lopsided. I want my badass FL to actually have balanced screen time, but if you can't even give that to me, at least make the ML story better. The novel doesn't cover otp's jianghu adventures (it starts the same way drama starts), that's a huge gap you could fill in. Alas.

In the novel, the focus is definitely on the main four state, one of the them fall too early for there to be much focus (it's at war around the time when YWY first show up). The other fall quickly too, and it does get small bit of focus, Bai Langhua in the novel is princess of that state, so you see from her eyes how her country come to ruins and she suffers quite a bit. She hates the leads for very good reasons but she also envy they can do anything they want and they can protect their countries etc, I actually really like her and was super happy to see she's loved in the drama version but then scriptwriters came in and everything was terrible. Youzhou doesn't seem to get enough focus in the drama, but in the novel the war covers about half the story, and the battles last longer, so it does get decent amount of focus. There are more screen time for the barely shown generals of BFX and Huang Chao, I actually really like all the generals.

idk why you'd take MDL's 60 ep as it was planned for that many though, MDL's sourcing isn't exactly always accurate, its rumour casting is literally all over the place at times.

I don't think it was affected by 40 ep rules because even its 40 episodes weren't fully utilised (lot of episodes were less than 40mins long). It's clear its directing, scripting, and pacing have plenty of issues without the limit.

I wouldn't call Huang Chao villain, he's an antagonist yeah, but the book had always portrayed him to do things differently but not evil. They do still give the throne to HC, because he's genuinely a good ruler who care about his subjects. He's ruthless but so is HFX in the book.

The novel was pretty much BFX's journey, HFX is around quite a bit, but it's definitely BFX front and center. Cut out ML's family and Tianshuang arc and most of the romance, add in more one sided crushes from supporting characters, you basically have the novel plot. The wars make up about half the book.

Young Blood was super fun and I loved the FL. Modern dramas I really liked We Are All Alone (about chinese entertainment industry), Rational Life (on netflix), Remembrance of Things Past (starts out rather heavy but it's generallly uplifting, slice of life, not romance focused), Delicious Romance (slice of life as well and the three FLs have two choices)

Ohh you blitz through AA really fast. Yeah I'm not huge on whitewashing either? Like why bother building up his wife to be his one and only and he really fears his wife, but oh this girl is his soulmate, it'd be a tragedy if they don't get marry! Like if he and his new true love doesn't get married, then it's cos his tiger wife sucks? How about no? That's the only blemish for first half for me I think.

Yeah I get you I like US's scifi dramas a lot, it's why modern cdramas I like are mostly limited to stuff that brings up nostalgia or more down to earth.

The Li Yifeng and Song Yi light on drama is airing on 22nd! Hope it's decent. ZRY's police drama (idk if you are going to watch it) is rumour to be May 27th, cctv 1 so daily.

Oh i forgot WoH, that's filed under BL for me, I think my fav was My Heroic Husband but I rated Imperial Coroner higher? Oh SSS, i listened to the audio book, up till drama's s1's ending, I think I like Mao Ni (JoL and Ever Night's author) writing style more, anyways SSS's book is more xuanhuan-y, like there's more marital arts bit.

Modern cdramas I like the coming of age youth dramas and slice of life FL-centric dramas and occasionally suspense dramas.

even longxi didn't work for me, i think my high ratings for last year were bunch of modern slice of life FL-centric dramas and......flag waving dramas......lol. The costume drama gaping hole is dire.

this drama didn't do well unlike its front end viewcount indicates, I'm worried that instead of considering "oh maybe we shouldn't add so much dumb plot and balance it bit more", it's "let's just go back to silly fluffy romance" or "let's skip all the awesome fl centric-dramas". in 2020, i genuinely felt that cdrama had variety of dramas that were great, even if not all of them did super well, last year and this year not so much?

i expected it to be male-centric but they could have made it less boring, spice it up with other elements/arcs, pace it so FL didn't seem like a supporting character and it would have came out pretty nice, since I do like the power couple that doesn't have much misunderstanding, alas.

I think I'd love the drama more if they cut out ML's family and tianshuang sect LOL. I don't mind ML's family at first, so if they kept it to like 5 ep, it's ok too, he could spend more time gathering army, or going on adventure with female lead, or more flashback to jianghu times, it'd make this way less lopsided.

I actually rather like the book even though I have fair amount of complaints (so very mary sue, so op), mostly cos FL is genuinely awesome, and antagonists have sound logic and depth, just different ideaologies, the tragedy of living in chaotic times is much more pronounced in the novel.

Like FL really doesn't like being a Queen but she shoulders it because she has to. Langhua is a princess in the novel, one of the states that's not really relevant in much of the novel, her country was destroyed and she went through hell, she wants to be awesome like BFX but she can't, but she still struggles to live, to do something (I forgot what her goal was lmao)