short form china

Deng Xiao Ci is just beautiful and everything he does is perfect. I really want him to get a main role in a long form drama.

Technically a happy ending, but not the variety of happy ending I wanted. Deng Kai is really good at playing morally ambiguous characters with redemption arcs. If you want angst, watch a Deng Kai drama.

A very meh drama about two  very broken, moderately evil people getting revenge on people who are irredeemably evil. The dynamic between the couple is what saves this one, for example: the emperor ultimately consults a courtesan to figure out how to become the woman in the relationship.

If Palace Shadows: Between Two Princes  had a baby with Twin Fates, and that baby had an even smaller budget than either of them.

Zuo Ye has the best micro expressions, they really tell you everything that going on in the character's mind.  He's going to be an amazing actor in like 10 years.

I just wanted to see Huang Xing in a costume drama. Gorgeous. 

It's Li Dai Kun, he's just so beautiful. 

Delightful trope-mocking fun with the possibility of happy ending.  I started this because Zhang Zhe Xu has a very small part but I forgot about that so by the time he showed up I was just delighted.

A house husband antihero! I love the  Dominate Woman/Matrilocal Husband trope.

Another Dominate Woman/Matrilocal Husband  show but he's a mermaid. So fun and so stupid and so cute. I should read the book.

The pretend twin thing is superbly differentiated in body language and speech cadence by the one actor playing them, they could forgo the blue contacts and no one would ever be confused about which twin he was playing in any scene. 

A modern girl with modern morals in ancient china has been done a million times but this version was irreverent and clever.

Budget? None.  Costumes? ML looks like Dracula.  Serious somber moments? Comedic acting.  

But I love Zuo Ye as a tsundere. It's my favorite trope. He's very obviously pretending to be cold and scary in the beginning but  I'm going to count it anyway.

The book is amazing. The voice actor they used for Deng Xiao Ci is a perfect match for his face.  The book is better, but isn't it always? 

How did all these dual cultivation scenes make it through the censors? Omg. 

Literally only here for Zhang Zhe Xu again. 

Very spicy for a cdrama. The ML is Uyghur he looks appropriately out of place for his role. The plot is kinda dumb but the leads actually know how to convincingly kiss each other which is rare.

Really only watched this because of Zhang Zhe Xu is in it.  I wish he had done his own voice over but his natural husky rasp doesn't work for this character. The plot here someone was just sat down and was like, how can we get Lin Ze Hui to take his top off? Make the FL go crazy when she smells musk and the solution is to suck on ML clavicle.

I love a reverse-harem. Li Dai Kun  is delicious.

I already watched Prisoner of Beauty and read the web novel, and the vertical  version got the characters relationship more accurate. They still erased all months of non consensual intimacy  in the beginning of the marriage that I think is very important to their character development but no one is going to include that part. 

So, same leads as Dong Lan Xue but the woman is royal and the man is the commoner, better costumes, better wig styling, hint of gay romance in the side characters.