nephie

You're still misunderstanding the term "conspiracy theory/conspiracy theorist". I never accused anyone of conspiring, I said they sounded like conspiracy theorists (conspiracy theorists are the ones accusing others of being in on a conspiracy. in this case they accusing MDL of secretly favoring kdramas on purpose).
I didn't respond to anyone directly because there were tons of almost identical comments more or less accusing MDL of the same things, my comment wasn't just in response to one person but the majority of the comment section.

It's weird, in the broadcast version of the show (like that's actually shown on TV) there's actual music used when they listen to music together in ep.2 (it's a pretty groovy track too) but on viki it's just generic orchestral music. I think they do the same with other song clips too.

I disagree about the length. The donghua (anime) is much quicker paced and I think that adaptation suffers because of it. Some scenes here or there could have probably been shaved a little, but I loved all the time I got to spend with these characters.
I do agree that most dramas could be much shorter, but I don't think this is one of them.

There are a few awful CGI elements but IIRC most of the bad CGI is pretty early on in the show, so if that's deterring you I hope knowing this helps.

Many comments here accuse MDL itself using their rating system to not only purposefully favor Korean dramas, but specifically to sabotage CQL and Chinese dramas in particular. Those types of comments are conspiracy theories by definition lol.
It seems you saw my comment (no other recent comment mentions conspiracy theories) and are misunderstanding the term "conspiracy theory" or my use of it. Yes, a conspiracy is a secret plan, but a conspiracy theory is "a theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators".
If you were bothered by my use of the term you could have just responded to my comment directly instead of doing the MAL comment version of a subtweet.

Also, I don't see any comments saying that people shouldn't be able to speculate or
talk about the ratings/rankings at all, only that it's unfortunate that almost all the comments on this page right now are about that. There's nothing wrong with being skeptical or asking questions, but is the comment section for the drama the best place to do that? I can't imagine what this all looks like to someone looking at this page for the first time hoping to see comments about the show itself, but seeing comments about MDL instead.

Something I realized yesterday is that Wang Yibo's portrayal of Lan Wangji has made me less forgiving when the stoic and quiet characters in dramas come off as stiff/badly acted (unfortunately a common occurrence). Direction of course has a lot to do with it so I don't place the blame solely on the actors, but it's a lot harder to watch that type of character now because I just think about how well done a stoic character can be lol.
I think this might also be a big part of why this is my favorite adaptation of the story, the other versions of Lan Wangji just don't hit the same for me.

(also, it's a bit disappointing to see that this comment section has been reduced to complaining about ratings and rankings. honest to god y'all sound like conspiracy theorists and it's actually a little funny but mostly just sad. then again, the comments here have always been pretty militant when it comes to any sort of less-than-positive comments about the show so i'm not sure what else i expected.)

me, knowing i'm gonna watch every damn adaptation of this series even though i hate it: ah shit, here we go again

Well, in the 7 months after writing this comment I still haven't finished this drama, but I rewatched the entire original series twice (thank you IMDB tv), so do with that information what you will LOL.

I'd say it's still worth a shot but people who enjoy it the most seem to be people who haven't seen the original, so it might be a lost cause for you like it was for me.

Whether this is better than the donghua (anime) or not I think comes down to preference, but I would still certainly recommend it! esp since the donghua hasn't adapted the full story yet.
You might find the drama a bit slow compared to the donghua at first, but I think you'll get used to it. Personally I felt the pacing of the donghua was a bit too fast, but I watched it after watching the drama so it's hard to say.

I put off watching this because of some of the negative comments and because I found the other movie to be disappointing, but I actually enjoyed this a lot!

It's not perfect but I actually liked it much more than The Living Dead. TLD focused so much on telling the story of random characters and then fighting them that it missed an opportunity to show Wen Ning and Sizhui's development and relationship. Fatal Journey however actually focused on the relationship between the Nie brothers and really fleshed out Huaisang's character.

This film could've used a lot less CGI and some of the fight scenes felt like they went on a bit too long (especially when you already know certain characters are going to make it out alive), but apart from that like I said it was very enjoyable.

I find many translations of plain text w/ out accompanying visuals and/or voice hard to get into unfortunately. I tried to read the translation of MDZS everyone always links to but for me the writing was too stiff for me to get immersed. :/

The past/"flashback" section is about 30 or so episodes and the present section is the other 20, so maybe thinking about it as two separate arcs or seasons could make it less daunting?
Also the episodes are only about 40ish minutes if you skip the OP and ED (although most of the time I didn't want to lol), so as someone who is used to hour+ long kdrama episodes I was like "oh, the episode is already over?" when I started watching lmao.

I'll look into these! thanks.

Are there any dramas similar in setting to this one? Like I'm curious about the genre (wuxia/xianxia??) but specifically I'd like to watch something that seems like it could take place in the same world as CQL, if that makes sense?
I'd say CQL is pretty character driven and doesn't have a whole lot of world-building or details beyond what was needed which was fine for the story, but it left me wanting to know more about all the sects and stuff lol. So maybe a drama with a similar setting could quench that a little bit?

I'm finding out a lot of thing are apparently banned in China! The donghua seemed to be able to bring the dead back to life though, so it's a bit confusing. But maybe live action has different rules? It would explain why in the drama and the movie with Wen Ning they're very adamant about how he was somehow never truly dead.

I think I'll stick to my theory/headcanon though, or else I'll just end up confused LOL.

I haven't read the novel but I have watched the donghua(anime) and the fan wiki page. From my understanding in the novel (and other more accurate adaptations) he is in fact in MXY's body and looks different so masks aren't necessary.

My interpretation is that in the drama the summoning changes the features of the face/body to the person who is being summoned and thus would be recognizable.
I think this change makes sense for a live action adaptation.

glad i'm not alone on this at least LOL

I think you might have misunderstood what I said.
I didn't say that the flashback comes after he wakes in the new body or that it's like that in novel. I said (in my opinion) it would have been better if it had been done that way in the show regardless of how it happens in the novel (as I have not read it yet, like I said).

To me it introduces too many things without enough context and I was left wondering "who are these people?" "what are they doing?" "why are certain people so hostile with each other?", and right when things seem to start to get going the flashback starts. Based on other comments I'm not the only person who was confused in the beginning.

Perhaps it's written better or makes more sense in the novel but I found it to be odd in both the drama and donghua. I felt that most of what was shown ultimately didn't enhance the flashback section and could have been put off until after that section was over.

I have to say I only have three complaints about the show and they're pretty minor.
1) the blood on people's faces I found distracting at points. like please... just wipe it off lmao.
2) the way the intro is set up is strange and confusing. obviously opening with a Big Fight is a pretty common tv trope so i'm not talking about that, but the start of the "flashback" should've happened right after WWX wakes up in the new body, rather than after all that stuff happens. once i got to the episode where it goes back to the present i actually went back and watched those first two episodes again because i found them very confusing the first time.
but at least the drama put all the "flashback" at once rather than going back & forth like the anime. making the past and present more like two acts rather than jumping around is better imo. (no idea what the novel does since i have not read it yet).
3) occasionally the OST would confuse me because i'd be like "is that just the bgm or is a character actually playing" lol

You know how big anime series will often have spin-off movies that are essentially filler/non-canon? That's how I'm going to treat this movie.
I wished this movie had been more like a montage of Wen Ning's development after the series, rather than focusing on one random haunting where in the end I did not care about any new characters introduced. Seeing actual bonding between Wen Ning and Sizhui would have been nice, but unfortunately almost all of their conversation is about the investigation.

But like okay, what the hell was up with his powers? Is it like that in the novel? Is it like that in the series and I just misremembered? Has he always had fire chains and other abilities like that?
And whew, the plot was predictable as hell, but I was expecting the Yin Metal to actually be some sort of fake or cheap imitation that would break in the end or something. But no, this movie just casually gave Wen Ning one of the series' most powerful items.

Also I have to mention the scene of the "sister" dying. That scene of her in the fire looked absolutely horrendous and they showed it like 4 times.
The scene of Wen Ning and Sizhui walking in Gusu had pretty obvious green screen too.

I suppose I'm glad I least gave it a shot, but I have absolutely no plans on watching this again.

Spoiler tag just in case.
I would say it's less of his characteristics and more of certain actions? I was surprised to learn that the drama makes it so a lot of deaths aren't actually WWX's fault at all (Jin Zixuan's and his sister's deaths in particular). The way he acts is probably pretty similar, but I guess I prefer how in the drama there's actually a bigger villain behind a lot of things.
Also, I have to admit that right now I'm busy binge-ing all the fanfics I can get my hands on lol.