ibisfeather

A classic comedy move. You'll see it in other chinese shows, it is really an older thing from stage comedy, in the States too .

Prisoner Of Beauty with Liu Yuning and Song Zu-er. Understated and leads-focussed, so very different in one way but the same sort of intelligent storytelling in 4 dimensions. Laughing while crying.

Let me add was that Buster Keatonesque? CY turning around with two huge bundles of spears on her shoulder and nearly decapitating first one then the other of those two old dears, Mr.Zhao and Grand Tutor Tao. Totally silent film comedy. I think Charley Chaplin did it too but BK is always first with physical comedy.

Me too, lots of funny comments!

So many small moments to treasure along the way.
I am just remembering when GongSun visits the Fan house for the first time -- she asks GS if he is a friend to YZ and he says "I thought so but...now I find out he didnt tell me he was getting married."
To which she says, "oh it was so sudden" (the marriage, so YZ didnt have time to tell GS about it), and adds -- "I begged him to marry me."

And GongSun says to himself with his wonderful funny little ironic/wry look, "So all those other noble high-born ladies had to do was...ask!"
(paraphrasing a lot here)

She will charge off into the woods with the squad and bring back how many deer?

I didnt expect that this war sequence would have such a swooping rom-com arc built in. I was ready for ridiculous coincidences, butterflies and the ongoing sneeze joke, but now: imperial Princess runs wild! CY tosses her up the path like a sack of potatoes! The blue hair ribbon without spooky music lifts itself up! and trails away to slip into the window grille of the tent where the Marquis is sleeping incognito amongst the wounded soldiers!

The entire lower rank of the camp dotes on CY and knows she has found her Yan Zheng. The entire upper echelon of the camp protects the Marquis and knows that he has found his wife again. The lovers meet in a liminal space into which subordinate characters burst for comic relief.

And then we have the Henry-the-V allusions ongoing, chief among them being walking-the-perimeter-of-the-sleeping-camp patrol which precedes the most ridiculous and ridiculously perfect moment under a full moon.

Shadow puppetry will never be the same. The smell of a tangerine peel candy starts a shadow play where the two lovers separated only by a tent flap and somehow casting their shadows from 2 directions, almost touch their shadow hands, until a phantom wind blows out the lights.

EP24
amazing. Fun, beautiful, but yet did not feel like a whiplash from the dam bursting, the horrific mansion with its creepy secrets and the massacre of Linan.....
How do the director and his team hit that perfect balance between such different tonal elements!!!!?????? Wow. Just wow.

I am getting very close to the m*********e word, which should not be said until the large lady warbles into the darkness.

Just starting but I will say, in response to the criticism of Meng Zi Yi's Dhou Zhao, that she reminds me of Gulnezar Bektiar's work in the Hou Ming Hao "Glory". The FL was also was very reserved because she was a powerful businessperson. Same line of thought?

I was impressed to start with by the skills she listed as part of every noblewoman's life. Hard work, that.

IMH, the supporting actors are really important to the viewing experience.

me too, when it came out i watched the temple scenes and then stopped.

The writer Jia Bin Bin, did Flourished Peony, the director is the same as Pursuit of Jade which I am watching now --Zeng Qing Jie. What are his trademarks? the shots around corners? who is his cinematographer? Li Yun Rui looks like he is doing his stunts without wires?

? pretty sure the hero of the story is the butcher's daughter,

Thanks @nolatoo and @Ti02 for saying something measured and thoughtful.
An interesting topic (QM and QQ) which seems to constantly veer too close to coming off the rails.
The big issues, art, entertainment, fiction and feelings, are often sort of background presences to this, our fun time to talk and shriek. Your comments recenter the group talk around storytelling.

It took me a while to get over the smell element too. And pig blood probably smells a lot like human blood? The one thing which I thought should be clear is this. Soldiers dont mind the smell of blood, technically. They are used to it. I expected our two to at least discuss what they have in common.
I got over it and went with the flow --if she can lift dead weight without a belt then she can keep her house supernaturally clean, fine with me.

Yes, honestly, who does Li Huai An think he is?

I think the actors, Deng Kai and Snow Kang must have some special charisma, because the more I see of QiMin and QianQian the more tragic they seem -- meaning I am starting to really feel sorry for them, how did that happen? All that tying each other up and saving each other starts to blend together.
I agree with those who are having that 'in another drama' feeling. 'In another world' maybe...

Joy of Life, diff director/writer, but there are 2 of them and soon to be 3! The romance is minor. The same hero-fantasy structure as POJ, interesting for that.
Love in the Clouds, romantic equality.

I dont remember Unfamiliar Stranger very well, but it was clear to me then that the director has a certain territory of the extremes of human behavior that he is interested in, and the QiMin/QianQian story seems to have been fleshed out or shaped with that in mind?

Same. They both lost their mothers to suicide, although for different reasons I think, not sure.
I like the way subsidiary characters can reflect back to the main leads story . Echoes and harmonies, contrasts and disharmonies.