AleksandraSucur

if that was the case, one sincere hug would suffice.

If a picky person like me can watch it raw (without any notion of Korean), it's even a bit better than Mr.Queen. Excellent comedy

It's, illogical, I agree. Once "friend-zoned", a person can't breach out that easy, without removing the reasons of friend-zoning... Lovers can develop complicity and become camarades, too, but not vice versa. Her continous saving him from troubles made them camarades, the problem is he (and only he) got attracted to her after the scene in a bathtub. She is not attracted to him, why would she kiss him? To give him some comfort after he revealed his feelings? Too passionate to be a "bye-take-care" kiss. Out of blue.

@ Agree, those face shields look horrible. But we can't judge other people's choices because we don't know the underlying reasons of those choices. The sun, especially UVB rays are dangerous for the skin, it's a renown fact and they are more dangerous if your skin is naturally pale. I have that type of skin (I even have freckles, although not on face), Scandinavian pale and sensitive which can easily get burnt by the sun. This skin can tan only to a certain degree, and I can use foundation and shades only to that degree, otherwise my make up will look totally unnatural. Growing up on a Mediterranean island with 290 days of sun per year and with the sea temperature never below 17°C allowing swimming even during the winter, I've noticed that if I overprotect my skin with high factor sunprotecting creams or avoiding completely the exposition, I'll make the thing worse, because overprotection will increase the paleness and therefore the risk of burns after just 15 minutes of walk in wintertime sunny day. So, although I never "grill" myself on the beach during summers and after swimming I immediately escape to the shadow, I don't avoid the sun during the rest of the year (I use aftersun lotions and aloe vera creams throughout the year). In this way, my skin gets some tanning which serves as a natural protection when dangerous rays hit hard in summer. I'm 50+, I don't have one wrinkle. But I can understand that in some other parts of the world people try to avoid sun completely. In Australia (and other parts of Southern hemisphere), they had problems with ozone holes for decades, so it's normal they were scared and tried to avoid the sun in every possible way.

@FunnyBunny1026, yup, He Landou played that character really well (but NB, tanning make-up wasn't used on her either). You may be right, maybe it isn't so bad, it's just me disliking that kind of makeup I can't dissociate from my personal memories I've mentioned above. But if you also remember a case of female-playing-male with no heavy-tanning make-up, the make-up artists didn't do their job in this case, right?

Yes, partly it is cultural, but partly this thing is "industrial". Actresses in general often refuse to get exposed to the sun because of its effects on the skin (decrease of collagen, wrinkles, spots...). A notorius case is of Nicole Kidman who is obsessed with her pale skin (in order to avoid her natural freckles) and was tanned with make-up even for the outdoor movie "Australia". Women tend to imitate famous actresses but in doing so they deprive themselves of vitamin D which must be supplemented otherwise they'll develop serious bone problems. Between wrinkles and health problems, I'll always chose wrinkles. There's a famous quote of Italian actress Anna Magnani (recently re-quoted by the Pope): "Please, don't retouch my wrinkles, it took me my entire lifetime to earn them"

@FunnyBunny1026, hi, glad to read you again.
But I disagree with you, make-up artists didn't do well their job. Ostentatious Orchid mentioned one, but we've seen even better examples of how this job should have been done, the most perfect is probably the make up used without any artificial tanning. on
Zhang Ya Qin in "Love in Between" and, more recently, on Yang Zi in Lost You Forever.

On the contrary, the make up used on this actress (talented, no doubt, bc. we've all seen her in Snow Sword Stride, where she also appears androginously enough but has a pale skin) is the example of how the make-up SHOULD NOT be done. You are wrong if you think they lamped her to appear more exposed to the sun (& hardships). It's the worst kind of foundation which reminds me of cheap tanning shades used in early '90-ies & highly fashioned among middle-aged female employees, a foundation which left disgusting traces (uneasy to clean) on their table phones handset. Whoever saw the traces of that wrong foundation, will forever recognize it and feel the same disgust and dirtiness. The make-up "artist" who have done such a poor job should be banned from working in entertainment industry, fullstop.

this is true for the first episodes, but later on, eg. last two eps (7 &8) you can feel some presages of flows: not only bad makeup work or wrong cuts-directing (these critics are founded, not nitpicking)... Initial fast pacing which stirred up excitement in a viewer slowed down after the leads' separation and this sensation increses after their re-unification. There's an excess of probably unncessary details of their entaglements-disintanglements (read: waste of time) in the plotline which make the story going around itself and you get the feeling of some sort of stalling. I sincerely hope this feeling will not turn to a bore. I personally would not like to drop this one, too, bc. I dropped too many lately and bc. I somehow cheer on this not-first tier-idol cast.

When there's an overall scarcity of good dramas such as we suffer lately, a return to oldies but goodies is just normal...

You are right, I was just adding a little bit of "salt to the injury" (don't have emojis on this keyboard to express moods). Indeed, this actor is a good veteran, too, but that outfit belongs only to the JOL's emperor. Lets hope we'll see the 2nd season soon enough.

Hi, dear PeachBlossomGoddess! So, we are watching this one now, LOL.
Just to add smth off-topic, Chen Daoming is the most suitable Chinese actor for the emperors' roles in general. And not only "Chinese", I perfectly imagine him playing Octavian's role in Shakespeare's "Julius Ceaser", nobody would notice he is an East Asian, that's how good and convincing is the "imperial demeanor" of this actor, this unforgettable Liu Bang. You are unfair to compare anybody to him, because there's no actor up to his level for these kind of roles.

thank you for this info. In Italy, 42% of households keep at least one pet: there are more pets (65M) than people (60M), LOL. But among pets, there are 10M cats and 13M microchiped dogs, let's add 2M unregistered, we'll get 16,5% households with dogs and cats. It's not a huge difference, you are catching up fast in everything :))))

yes, I can understand why they can afford to be so careless with "western-historical details", but the dogs? In Italy the first couple of American pitbull was imported/got the necessary authorization only in mid-80' and the first breeding farm was established only in 1996, followed by years of incessant articles and tv talks on its "origin" and how "dangerous" is this sort of dog... I assume these things happened also in China (where most probably they were introduced even later) and Chinese audience (or at least, Chinese dog-lovers) could know it. Lu Yang is 44 and not a beginner, it's normal to question the use of such a recent sort in his drama. It's not carelessness any more, it is sloppiness, it's not giving a sh**

You are right about languages. If you haven't pointed out, I would not notice the directors created Brotherhood of Blades and Hidden Fox.... or that the eunuch was that one - I know the story but it's difficult to connect through names which are difficult to memorize without being a Mandarin speaker. As for European history... I was overthinking, there are too many inaccuracies in this drama to assume the authors used Spanish instead of Portuguese because they've known about the Iberian Union. It was just a coincidence. In terms of accuracy, this drama is as cheap as its poor cinematography. Not that I've expected accuracy in a story with mutants, but if you set up the story in late Ming, you can't use the dogs (American pitbulls) that didn't exist until late 19th , the guns and dresses from 18th century and what to say about this imitation of Black Pearl sails from Pirates of the Caribbean? This typical American-movie invention may be fine for phantasy stories on pirates (btw. in that movie sails on official vessels were accurate, with right coat-of-arms), black sails didn't exist until our times, produces in higly sophisticated carbonate. There were few battles in hystory when one of the forces PAINTED sails in black to decrease its visibility while approaching the enemy during the night, but never ever any vessel sailed with black sails...
I think I'll drop it now, I'll eventually read your opinions and decide weather to recatch up

I was wondering what to watch (after THAT one) and here I find familiar names. Maybe I can solve the mystery behind the use of Spanish. The late Ming dynasty coincides with the period of sc. Iberian Union, i.e. a personal union of two kingdoms/empires and their respective colonies under the Spanish branch of Habsburg dynasty (Phillip II et al.). Although the two states remained formally independent of each other (they had their own courts, judicial system, local administration), Portugal gradually became subservient for 2 reasons: 1. strong Portuguese dependency on income from their colonies which 2. induced other colonial forces (Dutch) to start overtaking them (Brazil, East Indies including Ceylon, Africa and Spanish enganging too much in wars for Portugal (with subsequent demands to turn Portugal into a simple royal province). Portugal lost its ground in Cortes, and Spanish language was largely used in colonial affairs (ministry of Indies) and warfare.
Now I must see this drama...

You make me die, lol 🤣😂

excellent summary!

Liao is a river that gave name to a Khitan-led dynasty and its country. Khitans are related to Mongolians. River Liao gave name to other geographical terms: Liáoníng, Liáoxī, Liáodōng etc.
Khitay/Cathay (still used in some languages) is the name used for China in Middle Age, Marco Polo calls the Yuan dynasty empire "Catai", and it was still used after Ming took power (eg. the 14th century Catalan Atlas calls it Catayo). Name "China" entered European languages only after Portuguese explorations in South-East Asia, where locals still called it after Qin, because they were in contact with it for thousands of years.

I agree. Besides, Chinese productions are limited, they probably had no sufficient episodes left to show details that may have occurred causing such a huge change.

You "know" it just like that, you expect the change of record, for the sake of changing the record/mood? Things happen for a reason, there must be cause-effect logics between events, if not - that's just the bad writing...