mistrules

found it annoying in lot of ways

true now that u said it, i agree it was like he was falling for her separately through the camera haha

decent light watch, been a while since i saw the FL, CP were quite good

how did u like it? i found it decent even if usual trope, leads are beautiful n not much angst, her friends were great

hmm interesting, I might look into why

better than above due to leads together but still an old trope and not much to watch out for

same old, fl too childish n plot premise made no sense, good 2nd ml though

My only gripe with your choice of relying solely on douban is that you clubbed a 5.5 and 6.2 rated show with 2 6.9 rated douban shows and calling them similarly overrated, which would be factually incorrect based on your own logic

You decided to make your own assumptions ignoring the facts i stated.. I clearly mentioned till the end of the moon multiple times and explanied why those 2 got low douban scores but you chose to ignore that example. TFF is my favorite modern drama along with lighter and princess and hidden love. So I am a fan not an "obsessed fan" and I used this example to show why douban ratings for this were verifiably wrong, it had nothing to do whether you like it or I like it. If L&P or Hideen Love were relevant to the discussion, I would have brought those up instead.

Personal preferences don't change facts. I pointed out that 2 shows did extremely well on every metric from viewership to ratings on other platforms but only douban was critical due to biases (which you said happens often in MDL and I accepted). I don't believe in any single platform's rating/metric but I believe you feel douban is the only source of truth, so good for you. Take care

same for till the end of the moon "Many fans on platforms like Reddit contend that the low score was driven heavily by anti-fans, rival fanbases, and commercial competition rather than the show's actual popularity or quality"

I never said it doesn't happen on mdl, mdl gives good ratings to bad shows but Douban also gives bad ratings to good shows due to unrelated reasons to the show's quality.

A simple google search will tell you "a The First Frost (难哄) received a low Douban rating of around 5.4 to 5.5 primarily due to novel adaptation backlash, controversial plot changes, and fandom-driven review bombing". It was successful in every other rating from MDL, to china viewership numbers, international viewership, imdb etc. Hidden love which is from same author has 9 on mdl vs 8.9 for TFF which is fair imo as both are close but douban is 6.7 (good for modern drama) vs 5.5 which is ridiculous.

Whether it's The First Frost or any other show, taste is obviously subjective. But First Frost is still widely regarded as a standout modern drama and was huge both domestically and internationally. The same goes for Till the End of the Moon—it's widely celebrated, yet its Douban score got trashed mostly due to fan wars. So your logic holds up: Douban is great at brutally filtering out bad shows, but it also penalizes genuine hits that don't deserve the backlash. That aspect has less to do with personal preference and more to do with platform dynamics.

As for MDL, it functions as a "people's choice" metric—closer to IMDb, whereas Douban is more like Rotten Tomatoes. But Douban isn't as reliable as RT because RT doesn't suffer from the same extreme fan-driven anomalies. Plus, MDL caters to viewer preference; not everyone wants a slow-burn, 60-episode epic when they could watch a fast-paced revenge drama.

Definitely let me know if you end up watching Unveil Jadewind, to me, it doesn't match Pursuit of Jade in any area, yet Douban rates them similarly. MDL captures that gap much better, giving POJ an 9.1 (should be closer to 8.8 imo) vs Jadewind’s lower score, whereas Douban misses it completely. At the end of the day, we can both find examples to prove our point! haha.

My point is when looking at how good/fair shows, ratings are one should look at all factors douban, mdl, people's comments, popularity rather than saying X is the only thing that matters. For me, the double, poj, blossom, sokp, fluorished peony, ming lan, they stood out on all those metrics and they align with what I like/don't like vs something like Jadewind which only has a douban score.

Anyway, take care!

"I never watched a poor show rated high on Douban" I probably agree, but you have good shows like the first frost, Immortal Samsara, Till The End of the Moon rated extremely poorly on douban under 6, too right? So in MDL you see more crappy shows with high ratings whereas on douban you see good shows with lower ratings. I don't see how saying one or the other being blindly better is correct without ignoring the surrounding context. Each has their own faults.

Comparing the ratings of double to ming lan to fluorished peony's ratings is fine if they were wildly different, they're all basically 8.6-8.7-8.8 not 8 vs 9. Such differences are statistical anomalies based on people's choice, the year it was released and many other things

For me, Douban isn't always reliable because people rate shows for very different reasons. For instance, Unveil Jadewind got boost on Douban primarily for its raw femalecentric portrayal of historical abuse; a topic that rarely makes it past censorship - so that uniqueness skewed the scoring. That’s why its Douban score sitting around 6.8 (which is usually solid on Douban) translates to a disproportionate 7.8 on MDL, whereas a typical 6.8 Douban show hits 8.6–9.0 on MDL.

There are always exceptions driven by off-screen noise. Take First Frost—its 5.8 on Douban is absurdly low for one of the best modern C-dramas, largely because toxic Hidden Love stans review-bombed it.

Star power also skews metrics. The Double hit big without an established traffic fanbase backing it. On the other hand, shows like Pursuit of Jade or Unveil Jadewind benefited heavily from high-traffic leads. While Pursuit of Jade drew viewers, it didn't leave the same lasting impact as runaway hits like Blossom, The Double, Story of Kunning Palace, or Love in the Clouds.

Ultimately, I don't look at just one metric. I cross-reference personal enjoyment with view counts, annual rankings, and community feedback across both MDL and Douban. Pursuit of Jade pulled ~4B views, but The Double hit 2.7B to become 2024’s #3 hit behind only Zhao Liying’s comeback show and Joy of Life 2. Meanwhile, Blossom scored sky-high critical acclaim despite lower overall views. MDL has its own fan-war bias, but taking all these factors together gives a much clearer picture.

I totally agree with not liking/watching a show cos you didn't like one of the leads, I do this quite often as well. But I believe overall reception of WXY in the role was overwhelmingly positive from all I had read, of course there was some criticism which is always normal imo.

I know it's meant as a criticism, my point was people with that much power in those times would be like evil eunuchs. So i don't mind the douban criticism, considering it got 6.9 which is quite high(same as Pursuit of Jade) so i would believe overall people liked the show and the leads.

I dropped all his dramas after the double except the perfect match since i am a huge fan of both Lu Yu Xiao and him and it was decent. Other than that none were good, not his fault imo the scripts were bad including the bai lu one. Unveil Jadewind I dropped twice, it was the same loop of women suffering and bai lu being stoic (not a fan of that look doesn't suit her).

He looks absolutely dapper(better than ML for me) in amidst a snowstorm of love so doing a modern will do him well which is his next upcoming one. He's only 24 and youngest of current actors with similar trajectory, so i think he can definitely break into top 5 ML category in the future. Let's see!

Yea we’ll have to agree to disagree on this haha. Personally I loved the ML’s role. He was all-powerful and restrained, yet still went for the FL knowing her history and upcoming revenge plan, helped her when he could, but also knew when to withdraw, like when her maid died. That whole role honestly made me a WXY fan.

The evil eunuch remark isn’t even a criticism for me 😂 The role of an all-powerful Duke who’s basically next to the Emperor is pretty much supposed to have that vibe imo. The fantasy elements were a little weird, but they fit the BGM/setup well enough that I didn’t mind them. And I actually liked how much development the supporting characters got, like her friend eventually winning the archery competition.

Fun fact, the ost of this drama https://mydramalist.com/686379-zhu-qing-hao (FL of Love and Redemption) was used in this drama in the couple scenes, check out ep 17. I love the song so I was happy to see it.

The OST of this drama was used in Key to the Phoenix Heart multiple times, I rem ep 17 being one.

i totally agree, hope you liked it. I loved it and it immediately goes to my fav costumes list even though the last arc was a bit weird but in most dramas even POJ last arc is a s**tshow, so comparatively this was good.

ah ok. Yea the double didn't have high budget but was a smash hit, even blossom didn't have a big budget. Only other female revenge/fl centric arc drama I watched which is in my all time list would be ming lan. Another women centric show which I heard is a classic but haven't watched is yanxi palace with the same FL as the double. I loved blossom but it does have a lot of angst for me, the double other than the last couple of eps was the perfect synergy between drama, revenge, strong fl and strong ml, extremely strong villains. that's why I rate it so highly. Wu Jin yan is just a force majeure with her performance.