Skibbies

Bad TV ratings =/= it's bad. Douban ratings is pretty good. 7+ are all pretty good.

@Moochi: book fans doesn't think it's too slow, book fans would give it more chance if they decide to watch it (they would have dropped it once it's clear that significant changes were made if that bothered them, so wouldn't have watched it). It's general audience who think it's slow, because it's edited to have no hook in the beginning besides main characters.

cdrama producers first and foremost audience are Chinese audience, do they care about international audience? Kind of, in a very distant low priority way. Netflix let it recoup some cost, I don't know when they enter into agreement, I would think it's before it aired though.

The streaming channels you mentioned are different companies, they have conflicting interests and again, tend to focus their energy on competing for guarantee profit in domestic profit rather than unknown and possibly insignificant amount of profit for international audience. There's also copyright issues, even if you speak Chinese, you need VPN to bypass the region lock to watch them on those sites.

A lot of the supernatural stuff are explained away by mental problems, and sci-fi is fine, it's why the weird superpower protag has has a "scientific" explanation. Also why a lot of fans (and the director) doesn't want the drama to be too popular that it'd get noticed because then it'd get taken down and recut. (Tienstin Mystic got taken down for example. A number of mystery dramas were taken down for gorey or unsuitable themes or something.)

They've been doing massive cuts since 20 something (there were minor cuts before). Partially because that's how the terrible broadcasting schedule worked out (it's right after CCTV news and that sometimes get extended so this show straight up didn't air on Aug 31st. and it gets cut into variable length to fit its weekend schedule.) Hunan TV have always had notorious editing for primetime slot but this show is very much anti-arbitary editing, slow low tension beginning made a lot of people drop the show too. It actually started doing better in last week or so but it bottomed out for a station that's used to being Rating King. (other dramas haven't been performing as well as expected but this one tanked really hard. rip)

There wasn't that much fuss about other shows because they weren't bought by netflix. Netflix is the kind of company that have the money and time to crack down on illegal streams, something Viki and Dramafever doesn't. A month after it start its broadcast and would have originally been 3/4 through its broadcast really isn't a long wait. You should see Netflix doing batch release for weekly animeshows after it finished airing for several months. FYI, the show was slated for broadcasting without too much warning in China too.

You also really overestimate the amount of cdrama fans who actively want shows to simulcast. (comparatively I mean. for cdrama producers to invest in subbers. cdrama producers haven't really paid attention tbh? Netflix only started buying cdramas like last year? The Chinese anime industry sort of noticed and I've still only seen 2 series do it, they were more likely to be dubbed in Japanese and then subbed or straight up fansubbed.

This show is also pretty hard to sub tbh. RIP subbers. The production team in general weren't very good at online promoting tbh, utilising weibo and stuff. Netflix also rarely does promotions for shows because streaming companies just don't really do that for foreign shows???

Sorry I watched it raw.

DVD ver beginning of ep 28, middle of ep 30, TV ver end of ep 25, ep 27 I think. He talks a bit in the first scene, second scene he's more of a background character in court, he talks more when he gets out of the court scene which should be in 30/27 or the episode after. I almost forgot his first scene orz.

they split the kingdom actually, both of them became respective rulers of their kingdom. ning yi abdicated to go have peaceful lives with zhi wei. it was a lot of pain and suffering before that though.

I think they kept more than 10% of the plot tbh, a lot of the scenes with zhi wei are from the book.

Re: the parts that confused you. technically yeah the crown prince ordered the shooting of the baby (and therefore for Gu Heng to jump). Ning Yi feels incredibly guilty about it because he thinks he could have saved them, he PROMISED to save them but then his brother killed them.

As for why Zhi Wei's mum seem to think so, because no one knows the specificity of the situation that night, if they marry, she marries into the FAMILY that killed her dad. It's technically not Ning Yi's fault but to them a) he was involved somehow b) Gu Heng died. and that's all you really need to be sworn enemies yknow.

She also probably doesn't want her to marry him because in his current position, he will likely die one way or another, and Zhi Wei would die because she's his wife. It's just a bad idea to marry a prince who doesn't have power and the emperor doesn't like. (it's also bad idea to be TOO GOOD and have too much power as a prince, hard life being royalties)

I think the Qin Empire 2 is on netflix, but not 1 for some mysterious reason. You can technically watch one without watching the other I think.

MDL ratings was 6.8 before which is lmao. It has been holding 7.6 on douban for few days, which is fair, since it's having hard time grabbing people.

They were recorded on set and limited dialogues were dubbed by themselves in a studio I think. (dialogue change or whatever) which is incredibly rare for historical because even when dramas have actors' own voice, it's usually largely dubbed in post production for noise pollution reason (? I think).

8.9 is an incredibly high score though, I'm not sure how much higher you think this deserves?

RAW trailer, it's preview of first twelve episodes, the first two episodes are more horror-esque with jumpscare, while latter ones lean towards suspense: https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzc2OTM5MDkyMA==.html?spm=a2h0k.11417342.soresults.dtitle

Fun tidbits: the director, Passsee Mu is a newbie director but he's also the writer and editor of this drama, he also made posters for each episodes: https://movie.douban.com/review/9580417/

A fair few supporting characters are from or have worked with Daylight Entertainment, as well as the director of photography & post-production have also previously worked on their dramas, which is how I found out about it.

The most similar drama I can think of is probably jdrama Galileo with sesmingly supernatural incidents having a scientific explanation, and the creepy tone, with dash of Mr.Brain where a genius doctor treats his patients using unconventional methods.

Watched it raw on iqiyi. I love the set designs so much holy crap. This is also the first recent historical I've seen that doesn't use dubbing, damn, real indicator in everyone's acting ability (and accents :P)! The pacing is pretty good, first two episodes are ofc set up but there's a ton of stuff happening already, I think it might be slightly confusing at first tbh, but that's okay, I'm sure everyone was mildly confused and overwhelmed by sheer number of characters for NiF too.

The OTP's first meeting was different but it's a fun first meeting! so I quite like it. I expected the change since the drama focus is different, but I was quite dazzled by the book's opening )and first meeting) so I did want to see it. There are fair amount of difference as been indicated before but I think it kept core aspects pretty well? We'll see how it goes!

Good to hear about the pacing not being draggy!

Good god, why is this 60 episodes?? Isn't the novel pretty short? Can't we have nice and cute dramas at 20 or 30 ep? :c

Sorry I just saw this. I read it in Chinese unfortunately. I loved the book enough to buy it and briefly contemplated translating it, but I don't really trust my own translating skills and the level of commitment that'll require (with all of the epilogues, it's double the length of With You). Maybe a future project.

@Map_Linh: I know they changed supporting characters and the drama is actually male lead focused and haven't really looked into anything else. I think you can change a lot and still keep the soul of the story but it's very difficult and doubly so for historical. To be fair, a lot of the characters in the book were super OP so toning it done would be better.

@etcetera: I think the sequel is on Netflix for some mysterious reason and you can technically start with it. I always feel like I need to bring a history book or three to watch Qin Empire though so I don't know how it would go for you.

Nirvana in Fire is pretty darn hard to match, especially in the current cdrama world, what with strict restrictions of what can be filmed, a distinct lack of competent screenwriters (GOOD GOD so many good materials and actors and production ruined by plot), and the lack of patience to craft a good drama sjdfhsdjf bluh. The same production company has a historical coming out this year though? It's about the life of a girl but it's not epic. The novel is well regarded but I haven't read it. Also it's not the same director as NiF, but it's a different kind of story so eh. https://mydramalist.com/23911-the-story-of-ming-lan

Have you tried The Qin Empire? or the Advisor's Alliance? Both are super serious historical though. They tend to be better quality but are usually incredibly hard to find subs for and have limited appeal to a lot of drama watchers. Lighter ones are lot more tricky since they'll fuck up the casting or the story usually, and broadcasting restriction can also make things terrible. I can only think of https://mydramalist.com/23514-hua-jian-ti-hu-fang-da-chu but it's slice of lifey.

anyways. there's enough content in the book to fill all 70 episodes, so I hope they pace it well.