Skibbies

I'm super late, but if the reviewer is who I think it is, she's the type that tends to hype stuff she really likes. I have very different taste from her, and she's generally very critical, so I actually mostly like her when we share opinion on the same drama, not use her as a guide lol.

As for people rating this high, it's literally this is cliche but it's addictive, and that's what certain people look for in a drama. I read cnet regularly and they are much more critical, there are lot of people that freely admit this is super old school, and the plot is cringey but they can't stop watching. It sounds like you look for something more, it's best to just drop it. I passed on this even though I like Wang Ziqi, because the tropes sound like they'll drive me crazy.

Hey i'm late, but just want to chime in my favourites of his are actually his earlier works, the underrated ensemble coming of age drama My Huckleberry Friends and ensemble adventure historical drama Young Blood.

Skate into Love, a popular romcom with splash of winter sports, and Go Ahead (note, he's the SML here), a family drama are both popular, but I personally had minor issues with those stories, they are definitely still worth watching though.

Recently aired Justice had very interesting premise that was executed pretty clumsily (it was filmed just before this drama if you see familiar faces). Symphony Romance was based on popular manga that had successful anime/jdrama/kdrama adaptations, classical music or just music itself is very rare focus for cdramas so I watched it. They toned down the quirkiness of characters to make it fit more, it was interesting experiment, but I personally didn't find the music as exciting as it should be (pieces they choose or directing etc). Do give them a try if the topic of the dramas interest you though.

Late but TV version have 42 ep because some of the episodes are 20mins and lot of the latter ones are 30ish minutes. The content should be the same, actually the 41 ep ver probably have few more frames.

I'm extremely late, but I thought I might chime in. Unrequited Love was serialised first, but finished last. then My Huckleberry Friends then With You. MHF end up being published first. With You's novel had endings for Unrequited Love and MHF's otp due to time skip (Yu Huai were flatmates with Lin Yang and Zhou Zhou during time skip in the novel).

Zhou Mo is a drama original character, he replaces Lin Yang in the novel. In the novel, it's Lin Yang who's the gifted genius that Yu Huai constantly compares himself to. As for why Zhou Mo and others could do cameos, cos they could get them to return, but not the main cast basically. Lu Xinghe is also completely drama original character, and don't you feel like he's kind of not related to anyone except Geng Geng? They didn't include Lin Yang probably because they had plans to adapt the other novels, but wasn't sure if With You would be successful (web dramas was still pretty new in 2016), Lin Yang was casted last for this drama, and that's like a year after With You had already aired.

As for Yu Zhouzhou and Yu Huai being relatives, it's essentially cos they shared the same last name, the author thought it'd be hilarious to include that tidbit. Lin Yang appeared at first as cameo, but the readers + author really liked having him around, and he was interesting foil to Yu Huai so he end up having lot more scenes. There's actually another otp that's in the same year as them. The author finally published the book this year, after let me see, 10 years? lol.

there are two. one is 52mins long, one is 46mins, they are basically like deleted scenes, so there's all these segments of different scenes.

ode to joy is probably most similar to this, I found this far more down to earth and hit closer to home though. Rational life might work too, but it's bit more idealistic.

I definitely expected a Huang take down at the very minimum, considering the amount of time Feng shows up, I expected he'd play bigger role too, especially when he's essentially representative of KMT. It's like they cut an arc at the end? Huang Ruhong just fizzled out as an antagonist which was super weird.

Excellent review as always. I really wish this drama was better written and edited, since I liked the business angle of republican era quite a bit, I don't think I've ever seen one? I was somewhat surprised they didn't actually milk the second Sino-Japanese war more as they normally would, I think if they wrapped up the ending more, I'd probably love the second half as a whole.

It's the drama's fault for such a floppy first half LOL.

I find the FL fairly clear headed and there is little bit of discussion about the overwhelming amount of fame and money they get, as well as ML struggling between money or dream, I think it's little surface-y discussion, but it IS there so there's more substance than one might expect, and why some people say the drama is about mature relationship. The drama definitely focus more on ML's job/aerospace engineering than FL's job/entertainment stuff, although I guess the gaming bit count as her job, but lot of people didn't like it mhm.

Fairly late, but I feel like commenting that the patriarchy stuff isn't overtly in your face, it is somewhat stereotypical. But the story is about an actress and an aerospace engineer, they are the focus, so it's unsurprising to find female characters are more regulated to stereotypical roles. Her manager for one is a fairly capable and fun manager (much like Rational Life's actress' other drama We Are All Alone, do give that a try if you are interested in inner working of c-ent), but the story isn't about her.

I think the story is little flat/too slice of life for some, and I know many are turned off by gaming scenes in the beginning, but it's the kind of pleasant fluffy warm cup of tea in cold winter morning kind of drama, so I can't really criticise it for lack of plot.

Heads up, GMP have a lot of frustrating misunderstandings in the middle.... I like it for the directing and some of the inevitability but it's too long IMO lol. iQiyi have light on series and luoyang coming up, I guess. Also, didn't their BL drama director skipped out recently LOL. They didn't do that well in Q3, what are they gloating about damn.

I actually rather like the Japanese guy, he's smart and not that cartoony generally speaking. You don't have dramas in backlog? LOL

HAHAHAHHAHA good thing it's about to end, or I'd worry about your eyes. Honestly if this drama wasn't about finance, I'd probably would have dropped it 5 ep in, the stuff I watch for fresh concepts.... *cough* case in point, I finally finished Pandora Box, it was hilariously bad but I loved lot of the concepts, the directing was actually pretty good too.

i actually thought it was really rushed and kind of questionable in the beginning too lol.... his plot armour was way more apparent then, at tleast he has more obstacles in second half

i actually only like the finance parts now even though they are really simple. I like a lot of base concepts about this drama, but wow why is it such a mess LOL

it's actually consistent though, too consistent so I'm unsurprised about it, really annoyed that's the way they decide to take the plot

One of my biggest issues with the drama is everything done by Yizhi is spun in positive light, there's some rare moments where he admits he's wrong, but I wish that was explored more. oh well, I found all the business stuff were resolved ways too easily

Lizi is westernly educated and Yizhi is more open guy, she's more a regular lean towards conservative person, so I think it make sense.

I don't actually remember my history haha, but remember I watched bunch of CCP related dramas few months ago, so I finally have some sort of timeline/background knowledge between 1911 ~ 37, before it was just ??? uh LOL. Like the part about Cai Gongshi, I didn't know till I looked it up. The part about Manchuria I knew, but could never really tell you exactly why/when (they are also partially linked with Japanese occupation of Taiwan and Korea so those help)

Just a small note, there will be no episodes for today or tomorrow due to Oct 1st being China's national day, Hunan TV will be airing something else, the drama will finish on Oct 4th, I'll also note that the new schedule looks like there's 42 ep (due to news delaying broadcast lately making them cut off some earlier episodes' material I'm guessing), but we'll know on the day.

For people curious about the timeline, the timeline is VERY messy because the props conflict with each other, so I'm going to use stuff from dialogues mostly, I'll update after I catch up more:
Start - should be late 1926, but you could argue for 1925 too. Early meeting with Dao Qi references 1925 May 30th incident
ep 17 - around 1927 April 12th
ep 22 - Cai Gongshi got brutally killed, 1928 May 3rd
end of ep 24 - 1932 January 28th
(end of ep 28 - 1933 September 6th, this is newspaper prop though, I'm too lazy to check the props lol)
start of ep 32 - 1937 August 14th