roddib

eng subs are very bad on iQiyi

Inoue is disgusting to the max. Desperately want him sent off from the island. Why does he have to be both smart and bestial. Unfortunately he's still around in ep 14.

Thanks a lot I was going to look up whether the Tokyo raid succeeded but you saved me the trouble!

Exactly, also German bioweapons researchers were brought to the US overnight in Operation Paperclip and hence got immunity from prosecution in the same way as Shiro Ishii and his collegues. Bioweapons research is still funded by the US and now takes place in countries outside of the US, for instance in Eastern Europe. That there are bioweapons research facilities Ukraine has already been admitted. I think there are also currently many things that people just do not like to know. I'm just beginning to realize that my own country has been vehemently denying its collaboration with German nazis. Many of us had a lot of time to read in 2020, lol, and much of what I read was around bioweapons research.

The translated episodes are gone, it's such a huge disappointment. I got to ep 15. Tried ep 16 with Youku's subs but it's not understandable at all.

Exactly, review (what people like to call censorship) means that certain basic standards of quality are met whilst artistic ambition is encouraged

Drug trafficking plots are not censored. See e.g., The Narcotic Operation, The First Shot, Escape From The Trilateral Slopes, etc. Plenty others in the works, e.g., Just Fight. (https://www.reddit.com/r/CDrama/comments/1q58vl9/just_fight_%E6%9A%B4%E8%99%8E_from_iqiyi_officially_wrapped_up/)

For dark crime dramas, see a list here: https://mydramalist.com/list/Lp6QvXR4

I'm sorry to say it's not always easy to find the dark crime dramas. But in general these are highest quality, highest rated (in Douban), popular with the domestic mainland TV audience. MDL audience is 15-25 years old girls so you won't see any hype around dark thrillers.

***Pls do not repeat misinformation re. censorship if you're not absolutely certain that what you say is true.****

The Narcotic Operation: https://mydramalist.com/771571-dong-qu-chun-lai
The First Shot https://mydramalist.com/745353-the-first-shot
Drug Addiction https://mydramalist.com/58605-drug-addiction
Escape From the Trilateral Slopes https://mydramalist.com/744133-bian-shui-wang-shi

So the level of AI translations is getting better. I used to filter dramas on iQiyi and Youku based on manually vs. auto translated. It's good news that this is no longer necessary (for me) in the case of new releases. For me at least, the subs in River Sunset are completely okay.

Cinematography and dialogue are truly ambitious in Chinese dramas. Ambition and experimentation are expected as per the written guidelines! Agreed, graphic violence is not the way to make a high quality drama. Finding and exploring narrative techniques to let the watcher imagine the menace in her own mind is what is clever, imo. It does require a lot of attention to narration techniques. Background music is oftentimes enough to convey menace!

yes the goal is to make the publishing process faster and more streamlined. The review of dramas is going to start taking place more during the filming, also.

In my understanding the US part was filmed in the US and has an American director. It's a co-production between China and the US. Shao Tong character is a Chinese American.

I don't think it's AI subbed. AI subbed dramas so far have not been understandable at all. The subs have some mistakes but generally good.

Yes, the lifting of the more than 40 eps ban and several other new guidelines became effective from the start of the year. I read the documents explaining the guidelines bc it's all interesting stuff.

Sometimes the suspense just gets too much. I tend to stop watching when I feel too much anxiousness for what is going to happen. Then I continue watching in the next day, somehow the break has done it's work and it's easy to continue. But I'm grateful that Chinese dramas avoid graphic portrayals of violence and gore (I hope they keep it this way bc psychological suspense is already enough!)

not a sequel

The dialogue between Bingrui and Kojima was utterly poignant and memorable. Even today, most people just accept war propaganda without questioning or looking deeper into what is real (referring to the Ukraine war here). So it was an epic, timeless discussion.
As was the reasoning of prisoner 909. A human being needs hope to survive. Even false hope is better than no hope.
The US has a lot to do with helping Japan destroy the evidence about Unit 731. Also the drama Lost Identity referred to the way the US was flying out Shiro Ishii and his research immediately after Japan surrendered. As the US continued Ishii's research and used his methods (e.g., weaponized ticks) in the Korean War, silence around Unit 731 is undertandable because admittance would have meant also admitting the US war crimes. The situation in China was chaotic as the war continued as civil war, therefore, gathering evidence and securing documents was not a primary concern. In the US, German and Japanese bioweapons research and development was continued in Fort Detrick and Plum Island. For anyone interested, there are interesting documentaries about Plum Island in YT.

About ep 6 below

This is fun and entertaining (am currently at ep 5). Family & slice of life drama. A story of an alienated hutong family coming together again.

There was prudishness but she threw the Colonel into the bathtub just like that! I agree we can look for forward to her character development.

I agree. She was thrown in a situation and she hasn't really had time to come to grips with her new role. She makes dumb mistakes but the realities of her new situation are just slowly sinking in.

This is really good, highly recommended! I watched the first 5 episodes and they flew by just like that! There's a lot of tension of course and I expect things to get even heavier, as historical accuracy demands. But there was quite a lot of intelligent humour in the first 5 episodes as well. Mainly, the interactions between Wumu and Ye Bi Ying are so delicious! It's nice to see banter and chemistry like that.

Edward Zhang's acting is simply awesome. Of course playing an undercover agent means dual acting (the character is an actor who acts). Both a dream role and a big challenge for an actor. The nuances as in how the Colonel puts down his weight to make the Japanese not suspect his authority and how he deceives them acting drunk are just very fine indeed. I haven't seen Ning Chang before but she's wonderful in this.

The cinematography is another factor that deserves full attention. Especially the scenes in the club were worth noticing. (Of course the war planes CGI is not on current level but to me that's irrelevant).

The suspense is quite not as hairraising yet as it was in The Guardians (2025) or Silent Tides (2025) or Lost Identity (2024). But as I've watched all 3 recently, this is a relief. If this gets more intensely suspenseful, I'll still be seated as it's already obvious that we are getting great writing, acting and cinematography.

I guess this got the streaming permission after 8 years because the ban on historicals having more than 40 episodes was just lifted. How lucky we are!