Nepeta 22

Compare them, that's natural. I haven't watched Dazzling Days but have been watching Dream of Golden Years. That drama works because the music, the feel good factor and the FL with her mother bonding makes the drama extra sweet.

This drama is disjointed. The hostel people don't work and the humour is forced. I feel the director has got it all wrong. All the hostel characters are stock characters with no depth.
Bai Yu doesn't look or feel natural. His acting seems forced and most of the time he is overacting like he's performing for a theatre with his loud and often shouty demeanor.

His relationship with FL also feels like he's a big baby and she's the adult in the room. The female characters are the normal ones. Very often you feel sorry for them being lumbered with juvenile male characters.

I was expecting a bit more from the industry stuff but far too much has been focused on the hostel goings on. Lin Yun's character is very interesting but I feel they don't want to delve deep into her situation. If they do it's going to be so late on in the drama. Not sure I can hold on anymore if they fill it up with more on the painter and that musician!

I agree. They are to be honest all bizarrely written. I think they're meant to change but the attempt to make them appear silly and funny at the same time doesn't work. The humour just doesn't work. I feel that's the weakest part of this drama.

On episode 7 and they're still around and annoying as ever I'm afraid. The attempt to make them appear funny is also not working for me. I too hope he moves out as well...

Most of Chinese dramas put priority on domestic audiences because the money made through other areas still is in China, so international audiences need to bear that in mind, but I'm not surprised this drama would not be their top on the list.

Sometimes it's to do with the CP, since that tends to be the main attraction. The other one would be if the adaptation came from a well received novel.

A bit ironic since the ML is an inspiring script writer at a time when web novels were at its very beginnings, and you can see, the industry was very closed and insular and not at all interested in outsiders trying their luck in the industry.

Part of this drama is a sort of tribute to the Beijing charm of yesteryear. The joint directors are old hands in this industry.

Here, it's more nostalgia trying not to go too deep into the darker side of the industry hence a family warm feel. I like it myself. It's giving hope but not too much negatives. It all depends what people are looking for. It's not a realistic gritty sort of drama so expect a bit of rose tinting...

It's good to see comments like yours, and I'm seeing more similar comments. Young actors/actresses that get better resources do end up in these types of projects, as it's good for their growth and career. But for these types of dramas, they have the ability to attract more fandom type viewers in and some get pleasantly surprised by some of the past prejudices of these types of dramas.

I'm only on episode 9 so can only go on from where I am at. I hear it's a very dense novel packed with a lot of episodes. It's good on the visuals department in wardrobe and sets etc but I think areas where they chose to cut on I felt should have been the areas viewers wanted to see more of, like how it was done. How she defeated her cousin, their family, the police procedural stuff, especially during the 1980s, but that was all skimmed which felt like all the tension build up felt a bit flat afterwards.

The romance aspect was ok at the beginning but as they mature, there doesn't seem to be more details of how they live and interact. Suddenly she's cosy with his family. There doesn't seem to be flow on how they arrived at that, even if they skip years, usually the first few minutes may focus on these bits to help viewers to feel where we are in her life.

I hope the story calms down a little and start to focus more on her mother or her uncle and his family and of course ML's life and family. As for her toxic extended family, no doubt they'll rear their ugly heads again.

Her winning all the time is fine for me, and I don't think it's a Mary Sue character as she is working on a cheat sheet. Quite insightful and of course through the eyes of the author we get to see what they really think of that time and its boom period.

I knew I heard it before. Thanks for the info. It was recently covered by Amy Chen in the other airing retro drama Wonderful Times. But I think that song had not been released in the late seventies.

Thanks for the links, I am a bit surprised the The Untamed would be regarded as Wuxia. It was modern for its time but with all those over stylised spins and very limited fight scenes, it is not like a Wuxia drama to me. I must admit, there doesn't seem to be many made in China. Instead an over abundance of court intrigue stuff instead.

The recent Tales of the Dark River for me is the closest and after watching that, I am thinking, it's sort of setting the benchmark for other makers to think in that direction. It's a bit over flashy, but that is the way it's going now. But I like it a lot. Instead of slow motion, they sped up the fight sequence to create a more punchy interaction.

The other drama I can remember is Love In Between, which for me a big tribute to Wuxia, and one of my favourite dramas.

As for this drama, a very good start and just the right amount of action and I like the very matter-of-fact style of filming of the 1980s instead of falling into the trap of over-doing the tribute. It makes it more natural and just so. For viewers, you don't feel like it's the past, but quite like the present, if you know what I mean!

To your last paragraph, maybe so, as each episode is titled, and it usually starts with the modern version of her before fully starting back into the 80s version. Hopefully it may be less when the drama moves on. I suspect they did this to contrast between her original life with the 'Dream' version. It's pretty obvious her modern life was miserable. That taser could be some strange link somewhere as when ML gave it to her, it sort of came from nowhere.

Thanks for the links, very informative. Did you mean Word of Honour rather than The Untamed? I struggled with Word of Honour myself and still haven't finished The Untamed yet.

I can see where you are going with that.... But I actually think she looks more like Janice Wu.

Ok thanks for clearing this up as I never understood why some go through, but I then keep reading censorship for rebirth or transmigration.

I don't get that. If you watched An Ancient Love Song, explain how the ML readily forces himself to go back to a certain time period? He does this on numerous periods to try and force a change, this also happened in Triple Echo of time. I don't think it's what you mentioned.

There is no ban on it. It's only questioned if they try to change history when it's clear the drama has used real life figures, but since many are not I'm not seeing any bans. In fact the hashtag rebirth seems to be a top listed hashtag on Chinese dramas!

Could be she may have a mild advantage coming from a modern background and then utilising her knowledge of the future to move things along in regards to the business side.

There has been an appetite for retro dramas lately with Romance in the Alley coming back for a second season, and with The Wonderful Times still airing right now, they too tackle similar themes, but focussed more on stigma or remarrying and how children of the time felt and reacted but set in a factory town and goes into extreme detail of real life events of the time and weighs more heavily on past antics of dobbing people in for personal gain or petty jealousy.

Although I haven't seen enough on this one but I think the theme will be more growth of heroine through learning through others that she may have overlooked in her modern life. It's also a chance to re-live these years that saw a big change in a short period, and also for the younger audience, they can watch the changes happening.

The cast more or less stays the same which leads me to think they will go through the eighties finishing up around the early nineties at a stretch, otherwise the actors would need to be aged up too much.

I suspect Fan Cheng Cheng & Lu Yuxiao's characters will be a bigger focus this time. Because these alley houses are the centre of the story they will most likely witness a regeneration of their own homes.

Whilst it's great to hear this, but I heard Shi Yun Peng's role is going to be replaced by Deng Kai.

I have nothing to add on that! Let's not turn this place into a big depressing read ....I just hope through sharing cultures and being more open to all, this can somehow filter through to those in position of power.

But somehow I fear those that sit at the top didn't get there by being all nice. They probably trampled on others, used others to get to their post. They're more likely narcissistic people that like to build their name through a culture of fear and hatred. Funny how they are the same ones to call China that. As the saying goes, it must takes one to know one! 😉

I doubt the western education system will educate about China and its history. There's a lot to not be proud about. Opium war and how Hong Kong was lost. They already have to deal with slavery and the empires of the past. There were a lot of concessions to Germany & France. Of course it's best to not add that into the education system.

I don't know how many countries have banned Huawei but no doubt the narrative is to tell their citizens it's a security issue when it's most likely they are threatened and worried they can't compete. The electric car market is already giving them a headache. China is opened for business and the former coloniser countries are unable control it!

Anyway, soft power from China is their next step of trying to shut out. That should be interesting😉

I'm all for openness and accepting everyone regardless of racial background or regional accents. You are right. China has grown and changed dramatically, especially in the entertainment industry and past beauty standards are fading and making way for many looks and skin tones.

They are also making much more drama content that includes smaller ethnic groups like To The Wonder and very recently aired Born to be Alive. There are also many in the pipeline like Bloom Life.

Regarding laws in China they have been doing this for a long while and I think their fruits of labour is starting to show. During the one child policy period, it excluded ethnic minority groups. The education system especially into the university level, the threshold is lowered to accommodate these small ethnic groups. So positive discrimination wasn't necessarily invented in the west.