Skibbies

Pacing comparison: partial relevant timeline taken from 1, [] is Qin Shi Huang (filmed in 2001, broadcasted in 2007, 33 ep) featuring Zhang Fengyi which covers Ying Zheng's entire life, first 2/3 of the drama (ep 1~22) overlaps with ep 1~78; [[]] is Legend of Lv Buwei (2001, 29 ep) featuring Zhang Tielin and Ning Jing, last 2/3 of the drama (ep 7~29) overlaps with this drama from ep 1~64, largely fictionalised so not a lot of check points.

ep 1/[[ep 7]]: 259 BC, Ying Zheng born, start of Battle of Handan
ep 1/[[ep 10]]: 257 BC, Ying Yiren/Zichu escape Handan with Lv Buwei
ep 4/[[ep 11]]: 251 BC, King Ying Ji (Qin) dies at 75
ep 7/[ep 1]/[[ep 12]]: 250 BC, King Ying Zhu (Qin) dies at 54 after only 3 days of reign
ep 13/[ep 3]/[[ep 20]]: 247 BC May, King Ying Zichu (Qin) dies at 35 after 3 years of reign, Ying Zheng ascends the throne at 13
ep 16/[ep 4] (adult Ying Zheng appears, 16 years old, 243 BC roughly in this drama)/[[ep 22]]: 246 BC, start constructing Zhengguo Canal

ep 24/[ep 12]/[[ep 26]]: 239 BC, completion of Master Lv's Spring & Autumn Annals
ep 30/[ep 8]: 240 BC, General Meng Ao dies
ep 30~33/[ep 9~12]/[[ep 24~25, adult Ying Zheng appears, 20 years old]]: 239 BC, Cheng Jiao's rebellion fails and dies
ep 36/[ep 12]/[[ep 26]]: 239 BC, Lao Ai gets promoted to Duke Changxin
ep 45~47/[ep 15]/[[ep 27~28]]: 238 BC, Lao Ai's rebellion fails and dies, King Ying Zheng gains control of the court at 22
ep 48~49/[ep 16]/[[ep 29]]: 237 BC, Lv Buwei demoted and leaves the capital
ep 50 ~ 51/[ep 17]: 237 BC, 谏逐客书 (jian zhu ke shu)
ep 53/[ep 16]: 237 BC, Mao Jiao risked death to ask Ying Zheng bring his mum to the capital
ep 64/[ep 17]/[[ep 29]]: 235 BC, Lv Buwei dies
ep 65/[ep 18]: 236 BC (roughly), Zhengguo Canal complete
ep 69/[ep 18]: 233 BC, Han Fei (Han) dies

ep 69/[ep 18]: 230 BC, Han King surrender to Qin, Han Kingdom conquered
ep 71/[ep 19]: 229 BC, General Li Mu (Zhao) dies
ep 72/[ep 19]: 227 BC, Zhao lost its last battle against Qin, Zhao King surrenders, Zhao Kingdom conquered
ep 72/[ep 19]: 227 BC, Queen Dowager Zhao Ji dies
ep 74/[ep 20~21]: 227 BC, Jing Ke fails to assassinate Ying Zheng, Ji Dan (Yan) dies to stop Qin's constant attacks
ep 75/[ep 21]: 225 BC, Qin floods Wei's capital Da Liang, Wei King Jia surrenders, Wei Kingdom conquered
ep 76/[ep 21]: 225 BC, Qin lost against Chu's army led by Xiang Yan (grandpa of later King of Western Chu Xiang Yu), Mi Qi/Xiong Qi betrayed Qin
ep 77/[ep 22]: 223 BC, Qin conquered Chu's capital, captured Chu King Xiong Fuchu, Mi Qi/Xiong Qi became Chu King but dies when Qin attack again, Xiang Yan (Chu) dies, Chu Kingdom conquered
ep 78/[ep 22]: 221 BC, Qi King Tian Jian surrenders, Qi Kingdom conquered, Qin ends Warring States, starts Qin dynasty and Ying Zheng becomes an emperor at 38

yes, it gets more and more obvious.

isn't it a tencent drama, maybe they finally got in house paid subbers LOL, it's in tencent's interest to do so since they can get more customers that way. this one airs on youku, and youku just license them to other platforms overseas. youku is known for being hilariously shitty at marketing domestically so half their dramas fade into oblivion, the ones that don't are the ones that naturally have buzz. (also fluff dramas are easier to sub, but this one's language isn't that difficult honestly) wait, aren't the subs episodes the same speed as the free episodes? I think that's the speed tencent and iqiyi sub their dramas too?

I watched her year end review which had romance of tiger and rose, love in between, ancient detective, i've fallen for you 少主且慢行, my roommate is a detective, fearless whisper, crossfire, hikaru no go, long night and bad kids. (winter begonia almost made it into top 5) I think only i've fallen for you and my roommate was something that caught me by surprise? love in between and ancient detective are underrated considering their quality, but they show up in recs consistently if you look for 2020 historical drama recs. idk much about i've fallen for you but i guess it's a cute fluffy drama considering its pretty good rating. (6.9, small budget fluff webdrama)

I don't really watch people rant about dramas I like/sort of interested in watching, since sometimes they make me not want to watch OR they make me dislike the reviewer LOL. i watched some for this though! because i got flooded with all the negative buzz the day it aired, it can't get worse! lol

They didn't get criticisms for age lol. It helps it aired earlier, before people got tired of big budget dramas and not in the middle of multiple too old actors playing too young characters dramas, but also because Zhiwei was 18. I think people have lot less issues with 30 playing 20, 40 playing 25, Chen Kun is the bigger age gap there but he doesn't actually look his age anyways. Probably helps that age was downplayed in the drama too.

tRoP is the closest drama for comparison in terms of style tbh, but this drama has more romance, and better pacing, weaker politics schemes though.

I don't think i saw her rant on LoF, only watched her rant breaking down the cameraworks in one particular scene but she does seem more lenient on it, maybe because we don't have enough wuxia? So the story is vaguely interesting even if adapted shoddily.

The novel itself is from 15? years ago though, and you can definitely predict the plot and a lot of the tropes. i don't mind but she does lol, I avoid most tropey dramas usually, and am largely watching this because I want to see how they adapt the novel. If anything, I want to complain that they made it MORE tropey in the drama, and they are the dumb tropes too (falling off a tree and getting caught TWICE) and it changes a pretty impactful first meeting (ep 11). It added in really unnecessary sexual assault, and there's more....messy relationship dramas than I expected? The tragedy of sacrificing everything in the name of power seems somewhat downplayed, but we are still early in the drama, so it'll probably come later.

She's ambivalent towards the cinematography because we've been burnt by gorgeous ones with plot that have all kinds of issues (also burnt by movie actors doing dramas lol, but zzy holds up). She didn't like the meal so she's not going to care about the dressing, basically. I feel like cnetizens in general have higher expectation for zzy, and for this drama because of the production team (it's a movie award winning production team), so when the story doesn't quite meet their expectations, it plummets. zzy's high profile mentoring in acting variety show absolutely did not help either.

I don't watch her reviews/impressions much since i get influx of opinions + douban score for cdrama pickings, but she's always fairly harsh on dramas that isn't particularly fresh, or have some pretty noticeable flaw. She tends to more leniant towards her bias, as do all of us, but when I don't share it, I sometimes come away confused.

ep 15, grandma was crying. it happened very suddenly

because historically that's what happens, 15 is girl's coming of age and then they are married off, so a lot of novels will specify the age. If you set it to 18 or 20, the audience will be all ???? why didn't she get married? They could have glossed over the age though. As for the male lead, he's a lot of older, because he had to climb his way up, it'd be unrealistic to have a general (one with no background no less) at 18.

2018 feb till dec from my cursory search. normal time for historical dramas to air is about a year due to post production + getting pass NRTA + waiting for tv channels to arrange them. as for why they take that long, my personal guess is because the dramas you listed were trying to air on tv, since they are big budget dramas, tv channels used to pay big bucks for them.

they all failed because it's too risky, tv channels don't get as many watchers now, it's far cheaper to buy modern drama and if it bombs, that's fine. sometimes they are required to air celebratory dramas too, 2020 had a bunch of poverty related ones. Let me see, 9 historical premiered last year on tv i think? (half of them produced by tv channels they aired in) 7 in 2019, so it's just been rough for historical dramas. it's trending towards just airing online, recoup the cost with vvip system, but i don't think that quite recoup cost of this drama tbh.

idk what's with fate by the way, i think the tv channels just pulled it out from their closet, it likely didn't air before cos other dramas seemed more appealing/were required at the time?

for a drama to have everyday update, it'll probably have to air on tv, all webdramas have an update schedule similar to this one.

Song Huai En? That's Liu Duan Duan, also appeared in Joy of Life as second prince.

yeah of course, she's a tv star. ZLY's rating queen rep isn't super solid honestly (Sun Li is the solid one) but she did have multiple very popular dramas, but they definitely expected lot more from legend of fei. that cast + tencent s+/all that budget that seemed to have vanished + well known novel. zzy doesn't have that many fans, in fact for ages, a lot of people hated her because of all these scandals or something.

yep that's right

yes. the update schedule is mon to wed, 2, 2, 3. next thurs will have vvip and release 6 additional ep (25 - 31), there's a calender in the photo section (second page).

mary sue probably because everybody loves her, yes it has to do with her family, and I know why she has multiple suitors but that is part of being sue-ish.

some people like fresh ideas even with new faces with average acting and so so production, some people like big budget projects with cliche plot, some people like both and some people dislike both and find other stuff to entertain themselves.

zhao liying got criticised for playing zhou fei too lol. her baby face + popularity with audience helped soften the blow a little, but that drama have so many other issues on top of that. at the end of the day, it shouldn't be normal, and cnetizens are outright tired of it.

she was always a special guest role, a mentor. she's embodiment of what a lot of young women look up to. I like her a lot, and do wish she had more scenes, but I feel if she played bigger role, she'd be like ye jinyan, ultimate deus ex machina.

XD because the novel is from 15 years ago, and the drama is from 3 years ago when it was trendy in the drama world.

I'm guessing because his goal is prosperity of his family, so long term vs short term. it's not like he can't deal with them later? (this is all drama original I think so I'm guessing here)

Wang Kai is in no way as popular as Zhao Liying, his fans internationally are mostly from NiF (politics), Serenade of Peaceful Joy is politics with side serving of harem drama. tRoP's plot is mostly about politics, Rebel Princess is probably most similar to tRoP, with lot more romance, and female lead focused. T&E is fantasy + politics.

Oh yeah, the director is absolutely abysmal at pacing. It shows in both Minglan and Serenade of Peaceful Joy, he's only half decent in When a Snail Falls in Love and it's still slower than other Daylight directors. T&E's director improved with Longest Day of Chang'an but still too long. tRoP, well the director is better suited to modern dramas IMO, and should have cut their losses far sooner with the script.