zineaera

After watching all 6 episodes that are out here are my thoughts.

The 1st episode is quite shaky start BUT they certainly got stronger and stronger as the story progress. Xu Kai and Esther Yu did excellent in creating the dynamic relationship how they have only each other to rely on for 3 years so the familiarity in interactions between them the bickering. the reprimanding, the indulging is very endearing to watch. I am very comfortable and feels excited with pacing so far. They way they introduce one character after another did not feel sudden or too showy, they came when the scenes reached their role first appearance and being introduce seamlessly. The casting director did a good job with the cast so far, everyone plays their role to perfection and this is just up to episode 6, I don't have feeling to fastforward anyone scenes yet. Xu Kai playing Yue Jinzhao and Bian Luohan so distinctively is an added bonus to this already satisfying start. The script so far is intact and good. Everyone is doing their job well so I hope this goes beyond 6 episodes and the quality will be consistent till the end.

I won't comment on CGI because I'm already satisfied with the story

They just bought copyright from tencent to air not that they own it

CP4 finished filming in 2021 while CP6 finished filming at the end of 2022, and only after CP6 rumored to air on 18th Jan that CP4 suddenly drop on 17th. This is iQiyi's usual "strategy" to build up heat by increasing discussions through "audience" fight to compare both dramas.

It's not up to Tencent. For this drama Tencent is only a broadcasting platform. They follow TV Slot

They did this all the time in China, but after realizing that his has bigger fame in international, slowly these kind of rumors posted on Youtube as well.

Imagine someone leaked this info through unofficial channel such as marketing accounts posts, people already hype after found it out from that source, then by the time the official channel officially announce do you think people would be excited? No. because everyone knows about it already. This is what they called "stealing heat" rival platforms did it to sabotage crowd anticipations by making it "stale" hence they cancelled it and arrange it on another time.

the score went down during xu kai's Snow Eagle Lord drama airing in June at the same time with his 3 other dramas She and Her Perfect Husband, Falling into Your Smile, and Royal Feast. All these dramas went down 1 point in one day, at the same time, at once.

Haha its ok people have the tendency to look down on Xu Kai because of his face as well and look down on his acting. One thing I like about him is that, he never employ marketing to influence public opinion with hundreds of bought hot search and instead accumulate reviews based on what people see in his drama. If they already have negative impression of him then naturally no matter how good he act they will say he only has good looks to rely on and not acting. Its good though all these harsh critics on him eventhough these people barely even watch his dramas, so that he can keep improving eventhough he is already good, why not with more people looking down on him, he can improve towards excellent instead of just playing the same character over and over again to accumulate positive impression but going nowhere in development.

I agree. His character arcs meddle if every possible scenes that resulted in brainless plot. The actor is signed with Tencent hence he keep being given additional role just to expose the actor more. It happened to a lot of cdrama lately

Don't have to bring the discussions from that page here, I appreciate how this page is being viewed and use by sane and genuine watcher who actually wanted to discuss the drama or express their opinion be it negative or positive rather than a bunch or rabid fans posting praising over and over again. Good drama can be appreciated by the right people.

https://youtu.be/taniCra8HrM?si=lxJy46B8WGfedkb3

I agree with what you said, people are allowed to rate the drama based on their own preference but it is a fact that in June 2023, 4 of Xu Kai's dramas including Ancient Love Poetry dropped 1 point at the same time at the same day, now is that a possible situation where a group of people watched all these 4 dramas at the same time at the same day, together they don't like it to rate all 4 dramas lowly so that the rating dropped at the same time?

not too long ago during SEL airing I think? 4 of Xu Kai's popular dramas dropped 1 point from their original rating at the same time and it hasn't been fix until now.

Jing Tian is actually not experience in riding horses, she said it herself that during filming she was scared and xu kai is a good rider so she had to keep up most of the time she used doubles.

I am not an idiot who thinks those war scenes has actual 10k people on the scenes but surely you don't think changes in the production planning don't cost money let alone to employ an additional CGI, they had to cancel the mongolia trip which was paid for, and I don't think all those location rental, accommodation, transportation etc would refund? The CGI is indeed wonky, the whole wonderland scenes supposed to film in mongolia but they had to cancel and had to build the set in warehouse last minute which again cost money. So there is a different between those productions you mentioned who make preparations for years to create the war scenes with proper CGI background planning, and this drama filming situation where they had to shift a lot of things last minute which cost a lot of money, many other dramas filming during this time face the same thing, some even had to shut down their production because they couldn't carry the costs. Not making excuses for what is obviously bad, but I am merely sharing the background of what the crew had to face. I don't know which episode you are at now. but for me I think they picked core plot to properly use money there you will see some scenes in later episodes where the level of quality is actually quite good and they had to chose where they can spend the money.

As I informed another user before, during this drama filming, unfortunately China was hit with 2nd wave of covid and government ordered lock down, any filming crew are allowed to continue filming but inside a close area (they continue filming in a warehouse) and one of the rules are they are not allowed to film with many people at once, hence they had to resort to such solution, they even supposed to film in Mongolia but had to cancel due to the lockdown order.

You assumed Xu Kai has leverage because his drama doesn't meet expectations despite in your words not being proper actor not worthy of pairing with Tian Xiwei right? So let me ask whose expectations did you conclude that his dramas didn't meet? Based on those words being spread around? Have you actually look at his dramas audience statistics? Just because he didn't pay media to spread around controling public impression doesn't mean it didn't do well as you believed. It's not about market size and even then you overestimated how many actually knows your girl in China. Copyright buying by overseas satellite TV is an indicator that his dramas are trusted to based on its performance in mainland and the fact that it even did well in ratings means these dramas are actually doing well and justifed. Because in order to buy a copyright and broadcast it, TV station need assurance that they make the right choice as it is expensive.So their choices are based on dramas that actually generate profit on its original broadcast, so many dramas nowadays has watery data aka adding extra data for good public impressions but to know if the drama actually generate profit os based on the interest of copyright buying by overseas platforms. So the fact that various countries purchased copyrights for Xu kai's various dramas means these dramas are actually doing well in profit hence your claim that xu kai get these roles just because he has leverage is merely your own assumptions and bias without any proper research. Not to mention your accusations of him not being a proper actor is ironic because he is one of the few artist in China who refused to use internet-celebrity style marketing (paying marketing accounts to spread how good acting etc to control public opinion and tearing for billing) in order to retain the path as an actor by allowing public opinion to have rights,but Tian Xiwei is actually doing this kind of internet celebrity marketing so that means the not proper actress is Tian Xiwei, Bailu, those that you are deemed Xu Kai are not worthy to be paired with. So tell me, why do you think Tian Xiwei pick this project with a "not proper actor"? If you don't believe, let's see when they started filming, there will be various marketing accounts with similar words saying things like "Xu Kai and Xiwei is equal billings? Does Xu Kai's position is not equal to Tian Xiwei" etc. These are internet-celebrity marketing aka trying to control public opinion by massive brainwash, which you fell victim to, or willingly fell victim to.

Ah so its your assumptions that actor got leverage instead of doing actual research. Royal Feast did really well in Hong Kong you know one of the drama that you believe media said didn't meet expectation. New Life Begins actually did poorly im ratings in Hong Kong, they even mention its due the unknown cast. Just because you believe everything marketing by her team sold to you doesn't mean the drama doesn't actually meet expectation. Xu Kai's dramas was bought left and right by overseas platform that means he has audience who actually watching his dramas. Does this means he get project by leverage? Based on what? His looks?

Txw herself not a proper actress, she can choose other project and other Male Lead ao why would she chose this drama since according to you Xu Kai is not a proper actor. If she is a "proper" actress than Xu Kai, she must have be more wise than choosing this project with this low life actor like Xu Kai right? She must have so many other better project offers since she is a proper actress that deserve a proper actor. But she still chose this project.

I agree, LCF ruined the drama potential to be very good. All the things done by him are just his agent arranging for the actor to have more roles destroying some of the logics that should not happen with smart leads.