AleksandraSucur

It is not. They have different priorities/responsibilites. HZ is a food provider for her family, customers and homeless they feed with their excess food. She can't waste her time on longing when there's an imminent peril to her business and so many people she takes care of. Btw., she is the food provider for YX's sister and the emperor's 6th son (his cousin), too. Her care for them is a concrete proof she cares about him, too. He may repeat to the emperor "they severed their ties" as much as he wants, but we all know where his sister lives.
On the other hand, YX's job is all about the emperor, his uncle, who is the sole responsible for their separation btw.. Being on the same route, it's normal for him to suffer more and to secretely protect her. I don't find anything strange about it.

The imperial level of hypocrisy: first be mean (ie. separate them), then feign compassionate understanding. "Yanxi, I was also young once. With time, romance will naturally fade away... Take this chance to relax". How GYX could remain so composed? I could bear with his malicious selfishness, but couldn't stand his hypocrisy. The scene deserved some ironic reply like "really, will it?" or a significant silence with tightened lips...

The Shens (senior generation, except grandma) are opportunists, totally different from the two of the youngest generation. Opportunists are not weak, they are just easy to manipulate, bc they are easily swayed according to the power wind

I agree, but although not the emperor, imho, he was even stronger power-thirsty psycho in TRoP, The Rise of Phoenixes, this veteran actor truly knows how to deliever that.
But if we speak about the imperial demeanor in general, nobody beats Chen Daoming, possessing the power of that kind naturally brings controversial aspect, it is never black&white, the actors who can perfectly portrait this aspect are rare, but this Chinese actors tops all the others I've seen.

I agree but would add that he was not the only one to create this situation. GYX "added the fuel" by "taking time to investigate properly" in obvious defence of the Shen's.

But imao when read your: "I mean dude, next time you find a needle in the hair of a sleeping despot, just let it be!!!" Exactly what I've thought 😂👍

But I like the coherence of this character. He was naive, idealistic and akward from the beginning. The actor delivers that vibe perfectly, btw.

I will, tnx, but I must be "in a mood" to watch a romcom.

TTEOM es Till The End of the Moon y LIS es Love is Sweet. A veces ni yo entiendo abreviaturas 😁

@Naizaa, now I see, Love is Sweet, I didn't see it, but in the trailer they indeed look very much normal, not messy makeup at all 😁👌

Help me remember what was LIS?

Not all of them, but yes, the fact he directed several good dramas (Starry Love, Ahes of Love, The Long Balad...) makes us check out each new one.
Actually, I don't like his weird use of light, camera spinnings (that's why I've dropped Kunning Palace), he uses a lot of melo and slo-mo in romantic scenes, but fortunately in BiA he abstained from all those annoying things.

This drama's plot is based on well-written dialogues. It's completely different from Shen Li. The pace isn't boring, many things happen to many persons and they happen pretty fast, with minimum of violence, CGI, blood-spitting etc. It is an ensamble drama, with many characters entangled with the CP, actually the main leads miraculously go together well, without misunderstandings and melo typical for Cdramaland.
It isn't a masterpiece, there are elements of unlikeliness in it, but it's very refereshing and enjoyable to watch

I continue to be impressed by subtle details in dialogues. The encounter of the emperor with HZ was sooo well written, I can't believe the screenwriters are the same persons who wrote TTEOM (which I've dropped because of horrible dialogues, excess of screaming, blood-spitting, confusion, lack of elementary logics...). The plot, the pace, characters... everything here is a complete opposite.

The entire scene was carefully built up in a way to create a sense of ackwardness, of tension but... smoothly. No voice-raising, no open threats, no blackmails. The sense of sinister in psycho-despot's demeanor was conveyed progressively by: deception she was invited by the empress dowager -> double sense of the phrase "you are bringing your business to my palace" (implying her friendship with Shen's not her pastries) -> "I don't mind YX is with you (if that means) he'll work better for me" -> the sinister story of his youthful love -> all that culminating with a word "insignificant", while intending "expendable". People who don't retreat in front of his will are all expendable. He left her no choices but to retreat and this single scene in ep. 32 perfectly announced what followed in ep.33.
Chapeau to the screenwriters!

I've appreciated a double-sense in the 6th Prince's lines (during the kitchen competition), answering to Yan Xi's question "Are you happy watching this game, cousin?"
- If the father (intending also his own father) loses, I'll be happy. If he wins, that would be uninteresting".
It helped to build up the tension, resolved by a good fight.

Although the plot is often "unlikely" in terms of realism, the storyline is continously enriched with these subtle details in dialogues which actually makes the drama very enjoyable to watch.

I've noticed the same thing, their lips have similar shape

why did they do that?

Today's eps (31 & 32) turned an interesting financial-political thriller into a less credible melodrama with certain characters starting to show more & more psycho disturbs. Don't like this turn, hope it's transitory

This drama is a fiction in documented settings, titled "The War of Faith" in English and "The Storm Chaser" (implying a person who wants to achieve smth. great but hard or impossible to reach) in Mandarin. It's normal that the main traits of the characters, as well as their believes, are exaggerated for the purposes of story-telling. In reality, it would be improbable for such an educated lady like SJZ, who joined the CP believing it could create a better system for people and their families, not to ever have heard of the famous Mallet Du Pan's quote: "revolutions are like Saturn, they eat their children".

Well, this production is already high quality and satisfying to watch. If the story is good and well told, I don't mind if it's a fiction or based on real people and events. The principle which rules a good story is "se non è vero, è ben trovato" (even if it isn't true, it's nicely figured out). It must contain its intrinsic logics.
Actually, an additional enjoyment for a history lover like me are doc-fictions, i.e., fictional stories placed in documented settings. The costume department here made a terrific job: dresses, uniforms, weapons, artillery, interiors... everything is so accurate, completely different from other C-dramas with people eating corn, potatoes and tomatoes in Tang, Song or Ming dynasty settings, using weapons invented centuries after and so on. I get too irritated to watch, my drop-rate of C-dramas is more than 90%, either because they are badly script-written, or because of the inaccuracies.

"the ordinary people better stay away from politics in chaotic situations", how are you supposed to protect your family? Everybody wants to protect their family, family is everybody's weakness, even that local gangster who abducts WRL wants to "make friends with communists in order to protect his family in Jangxi". The more situation gets chaotic, less you can protect your family if you are disconnected from the ruling system. You are not living in a police state, in most part of the countries today you can be completely disinterested in politics, so you should try to think how would you act if you were a Chinese in circumstances of police terror and witch-hunt, one wrong word can condemn your entire family, indipendently of how "ordinary people" you are. You have two options: to flee or to fight. Not everybody can flee, we see that neither STN nor LQS are allowed to flee. And if they want to fight then they can't play a sheep among the wolves.