Club for girls (or boys) who like General Chu

 Kokuto:

I never had high hopes for that, and thought he would be wasted there.

The first thing I saw WYS in was Song of the Moon, and he was an awesome second lead there.  Plus, Rile Wang was his brother who caused him no end of grief, but they were great there together, and appeared to have fun on the set too.  The bad news is that the rest of Song of the Moon was a mess.  They filmed two endings and just dropped them as the last two episodes with no explanation.  I was so confused and then mad.  lol

I've watched a few other dramas where WYS was the lead, but they were Mango costume dramas, and not high production.

Someone said Young Blood was good, though it's an ensemble drama.

Just yesterday, I asked a friend who is an editor (Chinese) why many Chinese dramas nowadays tend to have a strong start but a weak finish in terms of plot development. He said that many times, after the screenwriter finishes the script, the director or producer thinks it needs to be changed, they will find another screenwriter to do it. Therefore, many scripts are completed by different screenwriters, and the plot is sometimes good and sometimes bad. Besides, many famous screenwriters have their own studios. The scripts of those dramas under their names are actually completed by the big screenwriters themselves and the employees in their studios. Usually, the first few episodes are completed independently by the big screenwriter, while many parts of the later episodes are left to his/her employees.

In conclusion I think the job of screenwriter is not respected enough in China, that everyone thinks they can modify the script :-(

 Kokuto:

I think this is true.  I mean, when you have iQiyi rewriting the ending of Demon Hunters Romance by AI, you know they don't respect the writers.   But I also don't think most directors are respected either.  I remember reading an interview where some directors said they don' t even get to cast their own productions.  Often it's about what the money wants.

I don't know when this situation will change. The last costume drama I watched in its entirety was The Glory. This is a true high-quality drama produced with great care. However, then Chen Duling and the entire production team were tricked by money into promoting their star. Perhaps when there are enough dramas with poor ratings, money will finally learn to show a little more respect for the creators?