Skibbies

Oh yeah I agree the timing would have been different, but from her pov, it make sense and she didn't think that was the outcome. It is kinda odd that it's often him apologising when they fight, and she doesn't really do so.

I think she was right that he would have been a target anyways, I don't think it's realistic that he could be a prince and station at laolan pass at that point, cos he has too good of a reputation. The only way he could leave would be the army dissolve itself and he's cast aside, but even then, the court probably wants him around cos he's a better choice as crown prince (even if emperor doesn't think so).

I kinda twitch every time people call ML qin wang, because I feel like channelling Li Shimin and yell at the screen "STOP FOULING MY NAME".

It's just, even if they wanted to have a competent ruler that didn't want to be one, I feel like they could have had a nuance portrayal, rather then FL pushed him to. I think circumstances push him to do so, but it's not super clear in the drama, and I guess ML never felt like he stepped up for the game, he just....wanted to make FL happy and cos no one else could do the job? It was just kinda depressing, cos he was clearly super unhappy.

I actually really like the trope where the leads are toe to toe against each other, and I think this started out fairly strong. But as you said, the plot sort of devolved as it went. In the 30+ ep, esp them as newly weds, I feel like the author just wanted to write one trope (be at each other's throat despite being married) but didn't seem to have the competence to make it flow.

I was definitely tired of multiple times FL was damsled, but I sort of liked that she had her own goals and ideals and priorities, and they often weren't ML. I think the most infuriating thing for me was ML's dad, omg how can he be so incompetent and have so much power, I even like his brothers more, even though they are incompetent, but at least they were trying to scheme, dad kinda just "omg how dare you disobey me!! i'm so benelovent!" wow are you for real, you didn't do anything useful for the entire drama. I feel like he's an insult to sorta his source, Li Yuan, but ML is very idealistic and rather unrealistic tbh ver of Li Shimin anyways.

Ning Li was amazing in Burning Ice (the drama have lackluster ending) and Enemy (also lackluster ending, idk if this is subbed), and the movie Wandering Earth 2. He also played a really nice teacher in My Huckleberry Friends, but he's a teacher in a youth drama, so there's not that many scenes, I really liked that drama though for coming of age of bunch of kids..

hope you enjoy the rise of phoenixes :) i loved that drama despite it being severely flawed, it also doesn't have much romance scenes though haha, even though I liked their chemistry a lot.

oof i'm super late, there are some skinship and kiss but it's super rare I think. if you are watching just for the romance, you are probably going to be super disappointed.

If you like the push and pull, you could try fake it till you make it, that one balance the romance with business more I think. You can also kinda skip the office stuff if you find it too slow, since it doesn't affect the romance side, it's mostly use to make the characters relateable + show some personal growth.

anyways, this drama is based on a book, which I haven't read, but I got the impression it's based on real life events, so business was always going to be fairly central I think. especially since the business rivalry and their busy schedule play big part in their rocky relationship.

the movie is just a different adaptation, it'll likely be s1 of donghua (up to ep 11 excluding the tournament stuff) since wang ye and zhang lingyu was never announced.

the drama and movie were made at the same time actually, late 2021/early 2022. there have been multiple novels that got similar treatment.

Oh yeah I liked the team fight, I liked all the team operations here actually, wish there was more of them.

Wei Yu's books are about different characters (and tend to be set in different parts of China), there might be cameos, but dramas about side couples are unlikely I think.

I'm surprised she kinda just let things go when she was losing, I mean yeah there's not much she can do, but I thought she'd put up more of a fight.

I liked 36 too, it's an ok battle scene, even if bit small in scale LOL. 37 and 38 mostly just wrapping stuff up. I expected the team to split up cos there aren't really ways for them to all be together, I'm pretty satisfied with it.

I was actually ambivalent towards the romance half the time and rather like the last 1/3 when there was more plot, the world building is definitely uninspired by the production team, which is a shame since that's what makes it pretty different from other dramas. While many were disappointed by the big fights, I think I was fairly satisfied, since I found the first action scene (the one where they fight the random scorpion eye guy) was just so badly done even to my amateur eyes LOL.

The roosters deserve extra 0.5!!!

The world building didn't translate as well into drama, wei yu is often criticised for the romance for various reasons (like here, chang dong is the brains of the team and tends to helm all their operations, and liuxi can feel bit dumbed down at times, which a lot of people didn't like), but her world building is decent.

A better production team would have expanded the last 1/3 of the plot or liuxi's past etc, I think they just took the safe and easy route (and kinda failed in pacing. I really didn't need so much flashback to kong yang if you are starting the tinge of romance so early!)

I really liked 32-35 though!! (hi i'm bit slow)

The romance here does humanise Ye Liuxi somewhat, it's also explicitly mentioned as dialogues somewhere around the middle I think? I think Ye Liuxi also sort of forcibly broke Chang Dong out of his shell by at first teasing him, he'd eventually move on but it'd take longer I think.

I sort of liked that they didn't necessarily need each other though, it's just they like each other and enjoy being in their presence, that's fine by me. I think that for the author, they thought romance was stronger than just adventure buddy, I don't necessarily agree but it works ok here I think.

they probably were mostly just added as afterthought, but the easter egg is kinda fun for book fans to make it bit more palatable i guess.

yeah that and the old man is a specific reference to a minor character that appears in several of wei yu's book. I assume tencent want to use him + some of the town names which reference some other books to indicate all wei yu's story are in the same universe.

Oooh glad you had fun! Some people had high expectation and was bit underwhelmed

he's a minor character from other books in wei yu's story, tencent is likely using him (and some of the town names) to string all the books together into one universe. It bought all the remaining wei yu books' drama rights, excluding the one with youku, and announced a wei yu universe in 2021.

Yeah I was looking forward to this due to his filmography too, such a shame that it turned out to be flatter than it could be.