Skibbies

That's my estimate anyways, 6 months to a year is regular time for historical dramas, more if it's planning for tv release but I doubt they are shooting for that with Luoyang. IDK what's up with Zhao Ge honestly.

Blossom Shanghai idk if it even finished filming, if it's Wong Kar Wai directing, see you in 5 years I guess. Shen Yan (My Best Friend's Story) was going to direct the drama version but the schedule clashed so I think he dropped out, HE films dramas really fast.

Dreams & Glory is Dragon TV's celebatory drama, I don't have lot of hopes for it because uhhh Huang Xiao Ming. Like I liked him in NiF2 and Winter Begonia (do rec btw, republican tho), but uhhh still hesitant. People also have specific image of historical figures, and HXM's public persona might make it hard for people to get into the story.

I haven't heard anything! mhm I know they have plans for it, even though I don't think they should make another sequel. NiF2 didn't do that well commercially mhm. I've only ever see Ode to Joy's casting rumours (3 season, new cast new story). I'm actually interested in a project Madhouse's director was involved in but it looks like it's in development hell.

rumour has it JoL s2 script had to be rewritten rip, ML's actor is busying filming police drama atm.
Jin Dong, you haven't watched Disguiser, try that! Jin Dong's popularity is from that and it's his best performance IMO + best character.

Luoyang just finished filming so it'll be in post production for at least half a year. Ancient love poetry and Golden Hairpin both seem to be stuck on vying for banners and promo stuff so that's they haven't been released (rumour has it anyways, Golden Hairpin def passed NRTA)

I have real low hopes for big dramas these days tbh, it doesn't stop the small budget dramas airing, all three platforms just dumped some, so it's ok.

p.s. oh oh you've seen advisor alliance, that director directed awakening age! idk if that's a plus for you because it was for me, I think he's my favourite cdrama director *gushes forever*

I was huge fan of Daylight Ent after Nirvana in Fire for few years, not as much anymore, since they keep making dramas on topic I'm ambivalent towards + disappointing dramas (for me), but I still watched i think most of their dramas lol. Come poke me if you need more recs :D I don't have good historical from this year though lol, they are either old historical or they are modern dramas. Have fun drama watching :)

Going Rural was a sister drama to a 2014 rural drama, so that should tell you how long the drama was stuck in production.. Jin Dong fans didn't have too much hope for it tbh. Oh just heads up, Joy of Life s2 still haven't started filming yet, so if that worries you, you can sit on it bit more lol.

The latter, mystery front and center and romance is a side thing :) So no worries, keep watching.

it's mostly a detective drama, the comedy is sprinkled and more natural type than slapstick. Romance is also a side thing and mostly slow burn (although when they want, they could progress pretty quickly). So I guess depends how you much you like the main group solving mysteries? I don't find the mysteries super impressive, but I do like how stuff are connected

Do check out Minning Town if you like Daylight Entertainment. *waves flag for Awakening Age too* I know the sypnosis scares people off, but I swear it's 10/10 in terms of directing, script and acting, it's more interesting than it sounds ;___;

For the three you have, I'd say Joy of Life then Longest Day in Chang'an, haven't seen Secrets of Three Kingdoms. iqiyi and tencent's dramas have been bombing Q2 so lol.

ever night 1 had the most hilarious product replacement I've seen! they had pizza hut, some cosmetic thing and zi hai guo/self heating hot pot. they tried really hard to incorporate it into the drama and it works for the most part, but it still makes me laugh every single time.

I didn't find it rushed to be honest? They resolved the main plot and everything pretty well? maybe 5mins epilogue would be better but in the land of rushed and bad endings of cdrama, this drama is a pretty good ending IMO.

oh yeah that has 100 ep, i watched like two ep and quickly forgot about it oops. Will pick it again, one day (TM)

I haven't read the book but you might want to lower your expectation, since this script is work of director + scriptwriter + author (who's also scriptwriter) after 3 years. I get the impression that the director's attention to detail and work in filming serious dramas/cctv dramas have lot of influence on its historical basis.

Good luck on your chinese history class :D wiki'ing background history for dramas is always pretty fun, especially for dramas that takes it seriously rather than using it as just a backdrop.

In Han, eunuchs were used to balance power of empress's family 外戚. I didn't even realised this till I watched this really cute donghua on bilibili 如果历史是一群喵/if history was a bunch of cats?, which is 5mins/ep and goes through chinese history starting from legendary times. It's english subbed on bilibili too, idk if they went back to sub the first 8 ep on youtube but the rest are def eng subbed. The series is just finished Three Kingdoms period, so we are up to chaotic times of Eastern Jin + Northern and Southern dynasties. It has manhua, and apparently that's much more detailed but I haven't read it.

Yeah I'm interested to see how emperor handles things later.

Late Tang period is like this, as was Late Han and Late Ming, but Late Tang looks like when they were most powerful. I was wiki'ing the emperors trying to figure out everyone's relationship. ML's great grandpa is Mu Zong who had three kids that became emperors. Jing Zong (killed by eunuch at 17 after 2 years), Wen Zong (under house arrest and got sick and died after failing to kill powerful eunuchs/Gan Lu incident), Wu Zong (died from immortality pill poisoning). Xuan Zong were their uncles and was put on the throne by eunuchs, they picked him because he was pretending to be mentally unstable and they thought he'd be easy to control.

Princess Xi Ping, ML's mum is Wen Zong's daughter. The Gan Lu incident was referenced in the first episode (and ep 21). The ministers that supported the emperor's operation were killed under the name of them "rebelling", 1000+ people died due to this. So basically Xuan Zong can't really just lop their heads off. Jing Zong was too young and murdered, Wen Zong tried and failed, Wu Zong I think sucessfully lessend their power a bit but he died too young (in this early 30s, after just 6 years of an emperor). This emperor historically also lessen their influence as well. (He's just four years older than Wu Zong by the way, despite being a generation older)

The reason is because after An Shi Rebellion (100 years before the drama's time and about where my general knowledge of Tang ends LOL), emperors didn't quite trust the Jie Du Shi anymore, but also couldn't really take the power away from them fully. They needed military that they can control, but they don't have trusted generals, so eunuchs were given power to control the armies, then they got more and more powerful. It's why 玄宗 gets mixed reviews on him being an emperor. Everyone think he lived for too long, his early life was fantastic in terms of achievements but An Shi Rebellion completely changed the course of Tang dynasty and partially influenced the rest of dynasties. Song feared giving powers to generals (also due to how Song was found), Ming & Qing was heavily into retaining power in the hands of emperor.

supposingly netflix bought it so just waiting for it to release, it just finished its broadcast in china.

This one, Find Yourself got some criticism for characterisations and criticism for its second half. I really liked this FL and how she handle conflicts and rough situations. But if you got time for both, watch them both?

it's just a re-edit version, so watch the one you are watching if you haven't finished it.

It's price discrimination. iqiyi actually introduced two tiered vip system last year, regular vip and vvip, vvip lets you watch the fast track episodes. Chinese viewers have yelled and screamed at the platform for better half of 2019 and early 2020 but has grow accustom to it by now. VIP are still ahead of non vip, which by the way is the still the majority of these platforms' users, the vvip people are small small subset of vip members.

The dramas actually lose viewcount if they get advance episodes because a portion of viewers will jump to pirate site to watch the drama and never come back. But the platforms are really really desperate to recoup money, ANY money.

This drama was notable for having NO advance episodes in the airing calender despite it being a tencent only drama when it was first released, it did really well first week so they changed the schedule and introduced advance episodes, and that's actually when tencent gave it in site promotion. In site promotion that the drama sorely needs since it has no well known cast and relatively low marketing cost. The marketing cost was raised after it started airing, reviewers came into play in second week, weibo trending was also second week. Despite the advance episodes, the viewcount are still better than last week's, likely because it's still getting new viewers, so it's still upward trajectory.

I don't think it'll stay in top 10, youku's viewcount is generally lower than the other two platforms. Lower than expected (for a hit drama) viewcount doesn't really stop it from being a hit, since it's a BL drama, and those tend to make hit actors.

no she's little box cos she keeps dying lmao, you turn into a box when you die in the game.

the game in the novel is PUBG, the drama one only model parts of it on it, a lot of it is made up, esp since some parts make no sense (why is there a place where they can just sit there and chill, this isn't mmo?)