Nepeta 22

Every country will tell their story, especially during the World War 2 era. The US & UK are no different. This is China's modern history, and there is no escaping the Japanese invasion, the civil war with KMT & the ending of feudalism/warlords, this is their recent history & this is made for their domestic audience.

I'm in the west, when I watch dramas here I'm used to it here. I've only just started this drama, so hope this is a good story and not done in a clunky way.

What you see is tunnel vision of one fandom driven by hormones and not reality, especially in China. Very unfortunate your response seems to have undone your fake respect for Li Qin. Of course, blame IQIYI if you must for the limited information. Reality is, WYB is the junior actor here, and actors like Wang Yang and Li Qin are buffeting his position, so he's less exposed to negativity. Regarding BL, it's pretty obvious that WYB gained fame from Untamed. Without that, we could argue today's landscape of male actors might look a lot different. In other words, his success may not be down to his acting skills.

You don't for sure, which is why you made a comment earlier stating it's a male centric drama. You said "Because it’s a male centric drama. What's fl job isn't matter much". Now that just about sums up the ignorance of "some" WYB fans. They either only watch because of WYB regardless, or the assume the FL's character actually has no relevant storyline.

BTW, in China to passerbys, Li Qin is a far more experienced, recognised and respected actress compared with WYB who rose to fame due to the short lived BL wave which then created a series of lazy writing and imagination before action was taken to stop the descend into poor standard dramas using BL just to grab temporary attention.

I think your comments are not really putting into account the strong western propaganda that's been going on for decades. Don't assume S.Korea pushes hard to get themselves known. Their placement is due to geo-politics. No amount of what China does on the entertainment circuit will get to be mainstream because most western countries are tied together in keeping China out and alienating the whole nation. Your comments come from a tiny group that believes it will grow. Unfortunately, it won't be now even if it was growing around 2010 onwards. Even TikTok is controversial. Basically, anything from China is seen as scary and untrustworthy. The entertainment industry/film industry will see less exposure internationally right now compared to 15 years ago. This is just the way things are. China markets are not trying to court the international community either. Their thinking is more, if you like what they do, you go to them, you learn the language.

Yep, I agree with you there.

This will be my final comment for you as we are all entitled to our opinions. I think you need to Google what Narcissists' personality consist of. One of the top personality trait is being kind and charming, often making those around them adore them. Ultimately, those that stick by them need to be under their command and control. Many clever and top politicians are narcissists.

You mention unconditional love, but it's not at the true sense because many of the story lines were centred around the ML's plight. Building a background of why he is so obnoxious. The rest of the characters were built around him, excusing his poor behaviour which consisted of humiliating others, bullying others by shaming them into work excessive hours. You choose to ignore this fact. Parents and side characters were only there to build him up through ignorant views. This central plot tries way too hard to do that. D you know why? Because he was a really an unlikable guy, only the FL can see past him. This fairytale story has been told for decades and often it just covers the cracks of many real-life relationships that are like this but fails.

The FL did this under the banner of being diligent and hard working when you actually peel back this layer, what's revealed is someone that's a classic upper-middle class person seeking a "project" to "right" the wrong and he was her project.

Hiding it under an obsession often makes the story more palatable. Reality is, she had been manipulated. He treated her bad for many of the in between sweeteners you have listed, and sadly this shows that this type of drip drip effect works and many young and impressionable women think it's love or even romantic. It's the classic beginnings of a toxic relationship. If this story makes you happy, that's good, but for me, it's another dated trope that's stuck in another era.

Those are my opinions, and you are entitled to yours. No problem. The generous score was for the industry, and other characters like the FL's parents, especially her father who was torn and fair minded. The mother was also realistic and let's be honest, what sane parent will be happy for their one and only daughter to end up with a partner like the ML?

The story is to try and show a divide between generations, and that's fine. That's the realistic part of the story. The unrealistic parts were a "convenient" illness inflicted on the baddie to help ML to suddenly be kind hearted when all throughout the story he was anything but kind. That is why I use the word narcissist to describe him. His behaviour was consistently self-important and controlling. He knew what he was doing and the FL was really a victim, but the writer tried to bury that by making her like an obsessive odd-ball. Reason? Because the target audience is young and impressionable women fantasising they too could hang out with the tearaway that makes them look cool.

The "boring" story would be she ended up with the artist family friend. It's OK, these stories are common. But this drama over amplified the FL lead into some crazed obsessive that wanted to "tame" that tiger. It's an ego thing because for the audience, they all want to be the "one" that can be there to sort out this intimidating, misunderstood narcissist.

I agree with that, but sadly, many dramas glamourise these types of characters to make female audiences feel they can be that fantasy woman that can be the "only" one that can change this man or shall I say be the only one he will be different to. It's basically a toxic relationship that in real life, most sane people will tell you stay away from. Also, she changed the most to accommodate his ways, and still in the final episode, he just bought a property without even consulting her. Only in a drama can this be re-branded as romantic. This is classic controlling narcissistic behaviour. Women have been sold a con-trick.

It could be... who knows, either way it's the first time I have seen something unresolved. It's a good drama dealing with very current issues and has a decent Douban rating in China. Worth a watch if you are into crime/security.

MDL is now turning more like a fan-site because they haven't given guidelines on the photo gallery. Actually this one is tame...have you gone down to Xiao Yao & Fangs of Fortune page to see repetition? There's nearly 11K of repetitive photos in Fangs of Fortune.

It was Spy Game that aired in autumn last year. I originally wanted to watch it because Tony Yang was in it, but Han Geng, Wang Li Kun & Zhou Fang all gave good performances.

Ok, thanks for getting back. Recently a spate of dramas were released this year and some were as far back as 2018! That's 7 years...I hope this one will not be taking that long!

Thanks for writing all that up. I must have missed all this bit in the end! Yes, all criminals need to be locked up/ caught or killed off. However, a recent C-drama I watched, this wasn't the case. I suspect to leave things open, some dramas are using the idea of a possible second season so that baddies are never found. Nonetheless, this drama was rushed at the end and I was expecting more twists in the end.

Totally agree. Final episode was so deflated. Unless I missed something, where did A Long go? Also, nothing was mentioned about A Dong. So I'm assuming the latter just helped ML get back and scooted off easily?

As for so-called FL, I squirmed that she is called a FL, the lesser actors did a better job. She sure knew how to make her character 2 dimensional and dare I say unlikable. ML carried the drama but the end was weak.

Yes, which is quite unusual nowadays. There had been a move to cut down dubbing in the last few years.

To see who has been dubbed or not, you can also get the name of the dubbing artist too. See link below. Scroll down to cast and you will see dub section. It's usually blank if actor uses their own voice. Ding Yu Xi has no name under dub so it means he is using his own voice. Translate to English if you can't read Chinese characters.
https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A4%A7%E7%90%86%E5%AF%BA%E5%B0%91%E5%8D%BF%E6%B8%B8/57908398

I can't speak for others, but my initial comment was about the over usage of the word Bromance nowadays. Nothing to do with homophobia. I find it odd that very few took notice of posters trying to shame others for asking whether there might be romance in this drama. Aren't others allowed to even ask? It's as if it's wrong to even ask such a basic question. Like some kind of gate-keeping on the whole drama that needs protecting from women entering into the storyline. Even if the original story did not have these elements, sometimes it gets changed, so it is a legit question.

I will give it 3 more episodes to see where it goes. Yes we all have different taste, and unfortunately the comedy here, so far is not to my taste. Ironically, I found more comedy in other dramas like Fighting for love and A journey to love. Here, I feel they tried too hard to make it the central theme, but the end result is a feeling of being very light-weight and plain.

Very difficult to get into. Bromance? That's an over-used term for anything that has a group of men working together basically. For me it's slow and draggy and simply almost next to no case to go on.

I've limped to episode 5 and still the group of men do not have enough individual characteristics to make them likeable let alone memorable. They all seem bland and flat. The forced comedy is another issue. Then the "side kick" character is predictably silly for most of the time to feel any connection other than offer dated well-trodden badly timed comedic moments. I sincerely hope it picks up soon as the tempo and story telling is disappointing.

I'm getting addicted to it too. Loved that scene with the coffin. Didn't know whether to laugh or cry! So far, for me one of the better dramas for this year.