AleksandraSucur

you "want to talk about the scenes" you've "just watched"
Ok. Start talking about that

yes, I have a number of these older good dramas I've seen before joining MDL. They don't appear on my watching list because it's hard for me to rate them - I always try to be as more objective as possible - with such a time gap, feelings of nostalgy and forgetting eventual bad things in those productions. That's why I rewatch them gradually, and FfL actually induced me to rewatch LoF. And wow, despite the linear narrative progression, more subplots than in 1001 Nights spread over 51 eps and other things which would normally turn on my bore, the story steadily kept my attention, each subplot had its own originality and excitement, never insulting the sense of logic and intelligence of the audience. Truly a great drama, I've rated it 9.
I've also liked what you've said above about "a stark visual gap that isn’t being bridged by her acting so that people can get over it." This is exactly the basic issue everybody has with FfL.

I've just rewatched The Legend of Fei, the actress featuring FL is 10 years older than Wang Yibo who is playing the ML. They both look of the same age, ML even a bit older, being his character less impulsive and more mature.

The critics targeting woman's age may be mysoginistic, that's true, but I don't think that's the problem most people feel but fail to articulate precisely. The actress is beautiful in herself and good in CERTAIN skills required to perform CY's character, like martial arts and dancing. But she is beautiful for her REAL age which is a bit older than the character she plays and although she plays an older girl, the way this character is featured (and probably also how it is written and directed) is simply too inconsistent to be believable.

I agree with you. The scenes became messed up with their battling (around ep 15) against Yao and the flows are also more noticeable. The direction employed more extras as assassins going after Gu than as soldiers starting a ribellion, ML fought (very unconvincingly) two squads and when the FL (very predictably) appeared, even a third one came just to make them "fall down from the cliff"... So cliché and so unconvincing, not to mention the lack of sound reason/background explanation for the sudden involvement of widows and Song marquise in the fight.
The story indeed went downhill this early.
I'll continue to watch it, at faster speed, but as the flows will probably accumulate and widen, I doubt I'll have the patience for all 21 remaing eps. Such a pity

I disagree with this generalisation. Yes, there are always some personal preferences, but saying "viewers love a cold ML, but hate when FL is cold" in general... hmmm. I have no statistics, ofc., but feel the audience today is fine with both cold FL and cold ML providing that their "coldness" is explained well and that such characters still possess human emotions people can relate to. People loved many FL cold characters, like the assassin played by Liu ShiShi in A Journey to Love or more recently Li Qin in Fated Hearts as well as many other "assassins" or "generals" or dettached/calculative/scheming daughters given in marriage to fulfill their family interests... At a certain point of time, the public taste for "always positive, warm and cheerful girls as FLs" and as dominant traits of femininity around aloof (and usually more mature or experienced) MLs got so saturated that the interest for such characters vertically dropped (and it still struggles to return, as we can notice with the FL in currently aired Sword and Beloved, written prior to the "saturation of the market" with such characters and even more in When Destinity Brings the Demon I personally struggle to continue...).
So, the new (colder) type of femininity started to be more interesting and in all such cases, the script contained sufficient elements to understand the reasons of their coldness (difficult childhood and training) and/or dettachment, and the actresses were able to convey other emotions (like deep grief expressed by Li Qin in her drunk scene in Fated Hearts) which made them relatable.
Now, this story provided the elements - as Mullagarey listed above - to understand the priorities of CY, but understanding her reasons and priorities is insufficient to make her relatable. The script didn't provide her with sufficient chances to express deep and relatable emotions, or when it gave her that possibility, eg. to express the grief for her father through the sword dance (and despite that dance was meant to attract Wei bro), or in the drunken scene, the set up (choreo, music...) and actress's perfomance failed to convey them.

The strength of one's opinions comes from observation and analysis. If you call it nitpicking, it's fine for me. Now I will nitpick, ie. observe and analyse as follows.

1. Although I've seen Luoyang, it isn't even on my watch list. It is on yours, indicating you've seen 12 out of 39 eps (ofc., you may have seen more but forgot to update) and rated 10! Wow, you gave top rating to "the plot (which) is not good", "some of the directing made" your "head hurts", while not being a fan of either male leads. Seeing such a high rating, was I wrong to think you were a fan of the actress?
2. You've said "you know people like me" implying - as a nitpicker, nothing will change my mind. You're wrong. Any analytical person like me changes his/her opinion if the arguments of the other person are stronger. I accept you've seen more of her dramas and noticed her acting improved, as your personal opinion (which I respect) but this is not an argument in our discussion. We were talking about her performance in two dramas we've both seen: to change my opinion, we should stick to what we've both seen and formed an opinion. Btw., you seeing her in many other dramas and reading many other people's opinion on her acting on social platforms is an additional argument in favour of the only opinion I've formed about you: a fan. There's nothing wrong in being a fan, I respect that.
3. Are your hasty judgments and labeling of MY persona indicators you want a "civilised" opinion-exchange? You're completely wrong: my main focus is always on the story and how the story is told through script, its plots, actions, dialogues, acting, visuals, sounds and directing. I can care less about mls or fls if the story doesn't convince me. I find this story interesting and I'll continue to watch it independently of the flows I notice and will continue to share my opinion about both flows and good things I've noticed while watching. And will be glad to change that opinion whenever so. else gives me strong arguments to change it

Correct, I've immediately admitted I don't speak Mandarin, so I can't tell how correct is her pronounciation but I'm not deaf either not to notice that the tone of her voice was lower and the line delivery almost robotic, as she was forcing herself to finish her "talking task" as soon as possible. (Btw, how can you tell her real voice "worked fine" in Luoyang if you haven't finish it?)
As for the lack of her facial expressions and 0 chemistry in both dramas... I am not the only person here who noticed them in this section and, as for Luoyang, just read PeachBlossomGoddess's review. That been said, being neither deaf nor blind, I can still notice her dancing and martial arts skills (that's probably the reason why she was casted) but are these skills sufficient to perform the FL role?
I'm sorry I didn't get immediately you're a fan of her, so you may not notice what the majority of viewers are noticing when it comes to her and as a civilized person, will leave you to your convictions. Bye

yes, Li Qin played brilliantly the FL role in FH and that was exactly how a drunk woman looks like. Pity that story went south in the second part, but the leading actors performed impeccably.
Yes, there's smth off with the voice, too. But I saw VS in Luoyang and although not childish at all, her real voice sounds worse because she is unable to calibrate the tones, probably due to her insecurity when delivering lines... As you know, I don't speak Mandarin, so I can't tell how correct is her pronounciation but I'm not deaf either not to notice the tone of her voice was lower and the line delivery almost robotic, as she was forcing herself to finish her talking task as soon as possible. The directors probably ought to compromise with what they had... and this is the result.
Ofc., no hate from my side either. I get the reason why the production hired her: her dancing and martial skills, but must also say that initial dancing scene, taken from the novel, was pretty disappointing as well. And that was not entirely the actress's fault, but the wrong choreo, music and dialogues in that scene.

there are two directors and I think they've divided their tasks. Her acting looks better in scenes involving martial arts, but in other scenes... Maybe the directors didn't have the same idea of the FL, but it is more probable they did, but no director can make miracles. It is clear VS can't fully impersonate FL's character, in particular she can't show pretending, scheming and unserious emotions with her face and eyes. In all such scenes she is looking either subpar or is overboard.
I don't know if you've seen how she played a drunk woman in today's eps... She is basically a dancer and her body and limbs unconsciously move rhytmically, the problem is that's not how a drunk person moves, then her exaggerately childish voice (ok. that's the dubber, but the voice actress adapted the tone to what she saw on the screen) and even her dancing was off, it was too perfect and professional so it totally failed to convey the intoxicated state of mind in which she was. Actually, the effect was the opposite. She is a terrible miscast, but the story isn't bad at all

you're not wrong, but taken separately, ML is heavily exuding feromones lauched by testosterone even through the screen, so the problem is not with the actor playing this part.
The FL is still cold as ice, we are evidently "not there" with the script, but looking at the actress's stiff facial expressions, I doubt she'll be able to express the same🔥

yeah, I also feel it was just one of his (wet?) dreams, lol

Oh, no, on the contrary, it works too well. 😂😂😂
It's just seeing them so close... 🪭

He is my first sus of being a traitor along with Yao and duke.
Because he was the only person who had sufficient clues (from CY) to figure out WY's and CY's plan at the Princess's banquet. Once returned to his mansion, Yao general said he didn't send that assassin to kill CY but to "get info", which means the assassin got such an order from a person who was in the Princess's estate and was coordinating with Yao.
There's still a small probability so. of other followers heard CY and Hanmei's conversation when she broke into the Princess's garden, but now that we know Hanmei is a Beiqi person... the ambiguity we've all noticed started to make sense

Can't watch, can't watch 🫣🫣🫣

It looks like Gu's wife is stupified by her feelings and easy life she lived to the point she can't come up even with some silly assassination plan. 🤦‍♀️
Turning to our conversation, I start suspecting that scholar toyboy... Yao must have had someone inside the Princess's household and Yao was informed about CY+WY plan. The Princess didn't know about it, but the toyboy got sufficient info from CY to figure it out. Besides, Yao said he didn't send the assassin to kill her but to "get information", so there must have been a person who gave such order to the assassin and the major sus is the toyboy.
What do you think?

Her line delivery in Luoyang was terrible, even I, who usually don't mind voice performance nor speak Mandarin, noticed smth was off. Better being dubbed. Btw. with the exception of her martial arts movements, her acting was so noticeably unnatural and not on par with other leads, that she stood out exactly for her underperformance, stiffness of her face and 0 chemistry with Huang Xuan. Definitely a miscast in that production.
Even in this drama, she is able to produce 4-5 facial expressions at max. I don'ty think she was a good choice to play CY character, especially when she is pretending and acting like a scoundrel

yes, I also feel there's someone else beside general and the duke

Ofc.
It is wrong to manipulate if the goal is to harm other people, espc. if they've done nothing to us or people who can't defend themselves. But the FL's manipulation doesn't harm anybody and in particular she means no harm to the ML or any defenceless person

Ofc. me too, but for some reason I am unable to articulate in this moment (probably from the next eps' trailers, when he hands the evidence to WY), I don't expect that usual scenario, I don't expect him to turn evil, at least not at this point, when he still wants, as a priority in his life, to find out the truth about his own family tragedy.
That's why I ruled him out and suspect just his wife and the general.

😂😂😂