Skibbies

original script, probably happy ending. modern dramas usually have happy ending.

...it's an original plot, not a remake. body swap existed before secret garden.

yup yup :D I like that you can ship any two characters in the group too and it totally works, so much fun. I sort of like Ancient Detective for similar reason, but that group have more characters that comes and goes. I like JoL for its set up more than anything else.

LMAO I can't believe you googled his nose job. He looked all puffed up in the wrap up photo for 君九龄 too but that's probably temporary. I mentioned the nose job cos when Imperial Coroner aired, all the fans were like "bye Wang Kuan, I'm getting a new son in law till you fix your nose" LOL

I'm super happy you liked this, the ensemble camaraderie is my favourite part of the drama. I'm such a sucker for these kinds of relationships/dramas, too bad it doesn't seem that common in historical dramas. It seems far more common in modern school dramas (so I end up watching lot of those too lol) and esport dramas? I definitely prefer Xiao Jin x Wang Kuan, sorry Chu Chu x Prince An LOL

Wang Juan is hilariously fond of too many twists, and it's totally going for gotcha moment half the time. Totally agree on the noticeable drop in writing in latter arcs and such. If you are up for more twisty ensemble cast historical, you could try 舞乐传奇, but it's oldish drama (late 2014) so might have to look around for a bit. Lot of people kind of dislike the costume too + find the beginning bit slow, I did too but I rather like the setting of the drama in the beginning, Myanmar in the beginning then Yunnan for most of the drama.

i'd say the portrayal of c-ent is closer to the truth than most, I rather like a lot of little bits of c-ent "open secrets" they put in. If you are interested in more of c-ent, you can also try We Are All Alone, the FL is an agent and she manage different kind of celebrities, I find that fairly interesting and enlightening too. The Brightest Star in the Sky also shows bit more of idols and fan relationship, but I find some of ithe story rather draggy and unnecessary.

While I don't sympathise YMG much and think her redemption arc could be better, I actually rather like her as a character. Femme Fatale, selfish and manipulative are rarely seen in female characters in cdramas. I'm also annoyed at Xiao Mu and Chen Mu being both too nice, I do know that if they aren't that way, then they wouldn't be them, but at times it's rather frustrating to watch. YMG and SC's relationship was kind of neat in that they seem like two peas in a pod, it's too bad he ends up like a lost puppy and keep on giving instead of pulling back like he said he would.

you know those monologues that say what they do and such, i think they cut out some stuff there as well? i don't find it too abrupt honestly? maybe it's just cao dun pacing, he films meticulously but sometimes it's excessive. this drama keeps lulls me to sleep, i blame cao dun. or maybe it's 12 ep x 45mins, so 8 ep x 60mins? lol?

yeah i'm watching it. i heard it got cut 4 ep too. I get the impression it cut the more gorey scenes,

it's 60mins episodes instead of 45mins, Hunan TV have a different schedule for this slot starting from this drama.

If you are asking why it ends today, it's because on tv, it's going to air ep 4. Mangotv vip is ahead by 2 ep (ep 6) and it'll have on demand ep today for the last two ep (ep 8). Following the tv schedule, it'll end on June 15th.

3 ep about 30mins each or something, it's about planning the proposal.

I liked LYT in Bloody Romance, there were fair bit of depth in that character. This could def have been breakout role for her, Yu Zheng is good at promoting his dramas, but then he got slammed, alas. She was pretty well cast in GGS2 too as well, but that story + director had lot of issues, and the character isn't super interesting. I think her fans are bit disappointed too, but most fans sort of gave up on pushing the drama around second or third week, so it's all just non fans popcorning.

Well, Li Chengqian is one of the most well known princes, so I wouldn't be surprised if his experience contributed to Royal Nirvana's plot, since that plot is basically about "how difficult is it being a crown prince". Wasn't Luo Jin casted in RN cos of the producer? Even if Li Zefeng was casted, I'm sure they'd make him cry too :P If it's his character you are talking about, lol then I would actually watch Royal Nirvana. Cnet will tell you what flag waving dramas are good, most young cnetizens don't really care for them either. So far it's just Awakening Age (it's getting more views now than when it was airing, which is kind of hilarious), I don't think Minning Town even counts, and I don't think any of the remaining dramas will surpass them. :P Neither of them were overly in your face about flag waving till like last two episodes, which you can skip or fast forward (I still find them watchable, and interesting in the case of Awakening Age, in a visualising history way).

Hahahhahaha I love the way you write! I saw someone else describe Li Yitong's characters as always radiating Mother Teresa energy even in dark stories (like this one or Bloody Romance), so she can be bland and uninteresting. I think she might have had to be because gray characters aren't really ok by NRTA, but she definitely could show bit more conflict or they could have kept her quirk somehow.

The drama is definitely messy messy lives of inner court through eyes of FL, much like Held in Lonely Castle (Serenade in Peaceful Joy's book) was looking at tragedy of imperialism through eyes of a eunuch. I feel like this drama on paper could have so much better. If Feng Nong/scriptwriter could bring her writing in the beginning or her passion when writing Crown Prince's arc to other arcs, if the plot wasn't so weirdly misogynistic (?), if they could have kept the rebellion plot (I'm not sure if they got deleted due to trying to air on TV or is it just big budget drama gets more scruitinisation, Imperial Coroner's entire plot is technically related to rebellion but it got away unscathed, yay for small budget dramas?)

Wasn't Li Zefeng amazing in Winter Begonia too? :P I first noticed him in Go Go Squid, his character was one of the more complicated ones of the drama and he played it pretty well. He got more popular with Nothing but Thirty, where he played a terrible character but was very charismatic, I skipped out on that drama though cos it had too much that would sent me raging. He was supporting in fair few big dramas, and will be in few more slated to air dramas, He's lead in one of the celebratory dramas airing at the moment, but it's not being watched by many so I don't even know how he did there. The only thing i heard about the drama was criticism of Zhou Ye's acting (Word of Honor's Ah Xiang) so oof.

yeah that's what i mean! fandom doesn't like it cos ML doesn't have enough screen time and the romance is terribly written (?). I wanted to watch it cos i heard good things about the crown prince plot + i like that actor, but.....at the same time I think i'd be really annoy at the story if i watch it LOL.

court lady is also weirdly historically accurate apparently, which is kind of hilarious considering how outrageous it is. (i still haven't seen it and likely won't now, but knowing this amuses me.) it's also the drama that's getting the most view count despite its messy messy story and characters + not very good feedback in fandom, so there's a lot of people that's just watching and popcorning at the show.

in my experience both iqiyi and tencent usually do dramas in count of 6 because of the release schedule. they dump 8 ep on the first day to attract the audience, update for 2 days/2 ep, so it's 12 ep first week. so your 36 ep have 4 weeks for vvip, 5 for vip, maybe 6 for non vip. it's not overly short but not too long either.

they'll experiment with the release schedule every now and then. like several dramas this year had more update days in the first week to attract maximum amount of audience. and they have changed schedule from 3 to 4 days sometime to make sure enthusiasm for the drama doesn't go down too much. (but that's usually for dramas that's 40+)

iqiyi's thriller series last year was 12 ep and had like 2/2/2 and then 6 ep vvip/on demand on third day, vip wait till next week to finish, so its schedule was super short and pirate videos were everywhere. 24 ep dramas that i watched last year were like 2 update days/week, but vvip wasn't as wide spread.

youku is bit different because they are bit smaller than the other big two, and have wonkier schedule. their non vip is usually much longer to attract more sub members. i think their webdramas are also in count of 6 though lol.

Oooh I see why you were feeling mix about the ending and big bad. I did find it somewhat anticlimatic, but it was still satisfactory for me. I guess because the drama felt like it was focused on the how and why, and not who? So while I was surprised that they revealed the big bad so early, I wasn't disappointed. The mystery never invited me to really guess who and how and why, or maybe I'm just used to being an audience in mysterys series LOL.

You guys are all more elaborate than me and wrote fantastic reviews, so I don't think I'll write one, feel free to dump my simplified explanation of the background :D For those that might want to learn bit more and understand Chinese, there's:
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/226319758/
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/225733640/
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Mq4y1E7jb (video explaining historical background and major characters' rather complicated relationship. quite a bit of SPOILERs!! Video spoils up till ep 24, danmu spoils the ending.)

the episode length is actually shorter than your usual dramas, so that's kind of curious. longer might scare off lot of audience actually. i thought it was a budget reason too tbh.

Lurk is def gold standard for its genre. I need to watch it sometime.

Q4 i know they have light on thriller series, i remember seeing some dramas slated for it too but they were like....dramas that haven't finished fllming/just did, don't remember anything big.

I'm actually surprised the regulation period started this early. May Fourth is good time to start, sure, but I thought it'd only affect tv dramas (omg tv drama ratings look horrible rn). I expected June ~ July then mid Sept to mid Oct. Oh well. You're right about flare ups of covid, at least it's encouraging reluctant people to get vaccinated.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts on it :D

I mostly like espionage dramas from the period tbh, and there's quite a few classics on cnet. 潜伏，悬崖，暗算，黎明之前，more recently 风筝, last year's 风声 was apprently good too (and finally two excellent FL front and centre!) Imperial Coroner's director's 面具 was pretty well received too. (I haven't watched them! My mum watches them tho, the list is general rec list I gathered from cnet, oh wait I've seen Zhang Luyi's 红色 and Wallace Chung's 一触即发, but they are little different)

iQiyi is kidding themselves if they want to dump all their dramas in Q3. Isn't July still celebatory period, and are they sure September and October isn't? XD

winter begonia is def one that might cause you heartache, but also pretty worth it. *patpatpats*

China actually make these kind of dramas every year, they usually don't have young or popular actors in them though.

ok I like both of those well enough, but I also don't think they are good fit for NiF3 honestly? hahaha Ode to Joy isn't good enough to add to your list tbh, it has good points but plenty of flaws. If I'd rec female centric modern drama that's well written, it'd be Qin Lan's We Are All Alone and recently finished Rational Life. but leave that till you run out of stuff to watch :P

The Rebel had been in rumour mills for cctv8 since like....February, now it's pretty good time to release it, wait till the current one finish I guess hahaha.