XiaoQing

As an Italian viewer I feel like saying, please treat the "Italian" parts of this drama just as a fantasy retelling of what Italy, Italians or the Italian mafia are. Nothing you see is remotely believable as something that would happen in reality. Mafia is not handsome men in suits who live in beautiful palaces and only make war against each other. It’s dirty and ignorant old men who ruin the lives and families of innocent people, enslave immigrants and turn children into killers and drug dealers. It shouldn’t be romanticized.

Native speaker here. I'd say that it's ups and downs. Sometimes it's basically unintelligible and I have to read the subs, sometimes it's surprisingly pretty good. I guess it depends on how much he worked with the language coach on each line lol.

Overall, you can tell the actor is reciting words he memorized but doesn't really understand from how he puts emphasis on the wrong parts of the sentence or things like that. But in the end it could have been worse, it's definitely not a disaster or butchering. And at least they chose native Italian speakers to play the Italians.

Hikaru No Go and Winter Begonia are my top two dramas of 2020, but they're not really comparable. They're equally good in their respective genres IMO, so the choice depends on your taste.
HnG is a story focused on friendship, competition and loss set in a modern setting, with a younger cast; it's a pure shōnen in spirit. WB is an aesthetically gorgeous BL adaptation set in Republican China focusing on Peking Opera. The only thing they have in common is that they're both tearjerkers lol.
I haven't seen Ultimate Note.

I only watched the first episode, but I guess he's supposed not to have a ML's aura? This is a comedy drama and not a "swoon for the handsome ML" drama. He's supposed to be a guy who looked like Zhang Ruo Yun who got transported into the body of a chubby, mediocre guy from the past.

I meant propaganda in the sense that it was put there to publicly celebrate an achievement. But since that achievement hasn't been reached yet, I think they should have cut that plotline entirely or edited it during post production to remove the references to COVID being vanquished

No, I wouldn't compare to Reply 1988. It's got a much more serious tone, and the cast is older. The closest drama it reminds me of is Like a Flowing River, which is from the same production company.

This is a family comedy drama meant for, well, the entire family. It was made for Chinese New Year TV-watching with your parents, grandma and aunt. So it's not a "male lead and female lead falling in love" kind of drama, but an ensemble story meant to be lighthearted, a bit nonsensical and just fun.
I think people only watching this for Bai Yu will be disappointed because he's not the only focus but one of many and there are episodes where he doesn't even show up.

That being said, I think it's a pretty good drama in its genre. I'm finding the main plotlines all pretty amusing, especially the one with Hu Jun.
The only thing bothering me is a sort of "celebrating the defeat of COVID-19" side story that they shoehorned in which feels too much like propaganda and well, we know that we're still far from defeating COVID so it's kinda in bad taste in my eyes.

I haven't read the novel or watched previous adaptations, but I think the 15 years start from when they met as kids (the "wedding" scene)

The first two episodes are subbed on YouTube now. I hope they'll continue subbing.

I'm on episode 9 and I'm really liking this drama. It's slow paced, with a melancholic but at the same time relaxing feel. The FL is quiet and reserved but not boring or dull. I think Hu Yi Tian is very good in this and is showing his growth as an actor. I much prefer his character and visuals here as compared to You Complete Me. Sometimes you just need dramas like this, to take a break from "explosive" characters and stories and just enjoy the little moments.
I just hope it won't drag by focusing too much on the side characters. 38 episodes is a lot.

Here: https://m.weibo.cn/status/4593759222239808# it's LQ but it's the only one I could find

You should probably mark this as spoiler. It's an open ending that you can interpret as you like, I like to think that they left together because I can't bear to think they didn't...

There is also an alternative ending posted online by one of the scriptwriters. There are many clues that this is the ending that's considered "real" by the production team and the actors but couldn't be aired: https://m.bilibili.com/video/BV1Uk4y1r7KP

The Long Night, A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower

A 15 minutes long special episode of The Bad Kids was filmed and broadcasted live today during the iQiyi 2021 Scream For Love Night!

Thank you for the info! I didn't know Baidu listed the voice actors too so that's good to know. Jian Bu Zhi's voice was so familiar but I couldn't recall where I had heard it before. Now I see it's probably from Legend of the Demon Cat that I've seen recently.

IIRC, Si Ming is a title passed down from god to god when they assume that position. I think they say this Si Ming's real name at one point in this drama. So it's two different gods that shared the same title in different eras, they're not the same character.

Does anyone know if the actors were dubbed or if they used their own voice?

Thank you! I'm on episode 21 and was afraid Lu Ke and Zhang Mang wouldn't be endgame and she would go back with Cheng Nan in the end. Now I'm much more tempted to continue.

Ancient Detective really deserves the title of most underrated drama of 2020. Tight and solid script, it’s always about the main characters here, no time wasted on useless subplots or side characters, no fillers. This is how all dramas should be.
The cinematography and the lighting are big IP drama-level, not something you'd expect from a low-budget web drama like this. It looks sooo beautiful. My only complaint lies with the acting that sometimes is a little weak, but I believe this young and mostly unknown cast did their best.
Praying for a second season!

Okay, thanks for replying!