Skibbies

yeah it's less exciting opening than I expected, but second half of ep 1 at least established everyone's roles pretty quickly I guess. I'm super behind and still on ep 2, ah well I have a holiday coming up.

He's the director of Chang Chen's Brotherhood of Blades!

I'm thinking NRTA might not let him, but this has cctv 8 backing, maybe it can get away with it. Enemy (also cctv 8 drama) got away with more than I thought, especially for a modern espionage drama lackluster ending though. Chen Kun's wife? the actress is Sun Yi, never watched her dramas before, I know her as Dong Zijian's wife LOL.

Li Yan is apparently a real person, but I don't remember him at all from RoTK, good job me.

hahahaha it'd make more interesting story, but I doubt it. i want chen kun to go bad, but he's the main main character so i super doubt it.

I don't remember Li Yan at all omg.

I gave the cast list to my brother, the resident three kingdoms lover, all the people he knows are at the back of the list, so like background people for the drama. Like that guy they murdered 10mins in (Ma Su) is real and Guo Huai (Guo Jingfei, haven't seen him yet I think?).

Bai Yu's character is called Xun Xu, I thought it was Xun Yu (this dude that Cao Cao really likes, he's played by Wang Jingsong in Advisor Alliance). Chen Kun's Chen Gong is also like "that looks familiar" but no it's the wrong Gong. Excuse me Ma Boyong! I think I'm going to fiercely wiki the time period over the weekened, even if it might not be much help.

*bows* thank you thank you, I'll be here all day :D

I've never actually seriously play the three kingdom games, but my brother and cousins sometimes talk about it LOL, I think I only played bits of it where they capture the cities and you try to put out fires and make sure a good officer is governing it. But anyways.....

Cao Cao basically could have been emperor if he didn't care so much about bloodless transition of the throne/his reputation in history. I think we talked about it before, Sima Yi only "won" cos he lived for way too long hahahaha, and even then it took like 30 years and it was his grandkid that did it.

I'm not super familiar with three kingdoms but I think I'm decent and I struggle with some of these characters. it's fine, Ma Boyong probably made up stuff.

if it's any comfort, I've been told she filmed 10 days out of 100 days filming, Sun Yi's role should be bigger than hers, female characters are almost always irrelevant in three kingdoms dramas/movies.

Zhuge Liang is result of the biggest fanfic of three kingdoms cementing him as the hero + smart strategist I guess? Honestly if you play any three kingdoms games, you basically realise Cao Cao was on a sure win half the time, and Liu Bei shouldn't have been able to rise under his nose, but he did, and RoTK basically say Zhuge Liang is the reason (idk about real history).

I'm not huge on the first episode, it's not very attention grabbing, the dialogues are bad for me to only semi pay attention. So many bearded men, thankfully I know like half the cast.

It's weird they picked such a weird time for three kingdoms? It's after both Liu Bei and Cao Cao dies, so basically when romance of three kingdoms almost stop being interesting (which is when Zhuge Liang dies, he's still here at least). I guess it gives more room for artistic license cos it's not so well known? Lesser known three kingdom period x espionage is kind of odd combo.

Thank god they lightened the filter a bit for broadcast!

lol of course you are here. :D

shijin and liu ling are close, just really dysfunctional relationship, it's actually one of my favourite relationship because despite all the hardship they went through and their prickly or guarded personality due to upbringing, they'do everything in their power to make sure each other are happy. most of liu ling's relationships are dysfunctional due to her family background + mental issues.

they kept most of the important dialogues but sort of glossed over a lot of the bits so stuff doesn't make sense. (shen yan implies he see through her playing around attitude in the beginning for example)

This make more sense in the novel. She's attracted but not super in love at the beginning with the ML, he served as a distraction and life boat to her. She had severe depression + survivor's guilt + ptsd from family issues, so the insecurity is from that and just not sure when depression would affect her perfect life/sometimes she feel like she doesn't deserve it.

The drama gloss over most of that, but it's technically all still there, cos they kept a lot of the important dialogues from the novel, you just have to squint sometimes.

because YAMG was produced by three tencent subsidiaries, tencent's subsidiaries are usually competitors of each other, they rarely co-produce. One of them was Honor of Kings' company, the most popular game in China, I do mean THE, because you can play it on your phone and it covers significant portion of everyone under 40. (Games are tencent's main source of revenue, tencent video is still losing money after 10 years in the industry cos drama copyrights and production is expensive). Also cos Gu Man, the author is popular and they invited two very popular actors so they definitely wanted it to do well. Its Q2 did badly enough that tencent mentions YAMG before it aired (it aired in July, Q3).

It's doing fine in terms of promotions, maybe the producer used more money on the drama, less on promotion, but it's not too bad honestly. Also, shanghai is in lockdown so there wouldn't be disney date either.

It's the same imperial guards, so they all wear similar uniform.

I read it in chinese lol. http://www.jjwxc.net/onebook.php?novelid=2361501 this is the official site that it was serialised on.

Yeah it's little too depressing for people too I think.

I do agree with you and I specifically tend to watch dramas that have decent FL, but historical cdramas definitely still write shitty FLs because it "causes dramatic tension!!" "create situations for fluff!" or something. I'm not saying it as a defense for people criticising reasonable FLs, I'm saying it as a criticism towards the scripts, both of which are manifestations of ingrained misogynism IMO.

Just started Who Rules the World. i watched super short drama https://mydramalist.com/722423-zhang-gong-zhu-zhai-shang (28? x 2mins) and mini drama https://mydramalist.com/724971-the-killer-is-also-romantic (18 x 10mins). Liked both of them quite a bit, since there's little that can go wrong with dramas this short.

I was watching Great Miss D before that, it's so so honestly, but it was only 12 eps so eh. Lifelong Journey before that, it's kind of interesting to see people's lives change through like 5 decades, but boy do I hate some of the plot points in this drama, wouldn't rec it for plot, the acting is good though.

you'll see when they meet. I'll tell you about novel liu ling after the drama finish next week in case it spoils anything

A Girl Like Me's FL is sort of meant to be spoiled, cos she grew up extremely priviledged and the emperor adores her. Her being spoiled and her family being dumb most of the time ensure their safety, they are actually pretty smart when it comes to big things. Not sure if this came across in the drama since I didnt' watch it.

MLs are often given far better characterisation (likeability OR depth), and FLs are often dumbed down or given shitty treatment or damseled, it's very frustrating.

You are entirely correct people are super harsh on FLs all the time. While this FL have some issues, she's the more interesting one and ML is more run of the mill (he's a good boi and he does have depth but I haven't really seen it in the drama yet)