After 12 episodes, I am liking the lead actress, soundtrack and how some fight scenes/imagined fights, techniques are filmed. Yibo is cute. On the other hand, it's very cheap and slow and some characters defy every logic even for wuxia. Li Sheng is one of them. How many ways you can say moron? I hope it picks up or it will be bye-bye soon.
I am liking the drama so far (Ep 35 at the moment) in spite of glaring flaws due to the obvious cuts. You can see the holes in the narrative and occasionally cuts impeded the characterization as well. Censorship sucks, yes, but I consider what we got- a coherent narrative - a small miracle. The leading trio is fantastic, but really all the actors are great. The soundtrack is fantastic. It could have been a masterpiece, but I will settle for this. I will see how it develops over the next 20+ episodes.
Does anyone know what is the name of the boy in stripped shirt from Lay's team? I still have to catch up with English subs, so I don't know. I was really sad that he got eliminated and I'd like to follow his career in the future.
I have to agree with your assessment, though my enjoyment really plummeted in the second half of the season. Zhu…
Until creators start seeing it as a serious problem, things will remain the same. And we have to take into account cultural differences. Even without political control, Chinese value harmony above all, rocking the boat just isn't in their nature. I am just frustrated that female characters are almost always subpar if they are not the leads and even then chances are better for a good role if the actress is successful (like Zhao Lusi or Dilraba). Ah, well, we can always enjoy the view and talent that is Zhu Yilong. :)
Even though I think this show suffers from similar problems to Mystic Nine with regards to the kind of slash and…
I have to agree with your assessment, though my enjoyment really plummeted in the second half of the season. Zhu Yilong cannot carry the drama on his own, others must show some charisma too. It's hard when the only major trait of the only other actor with significant screen time is being cute. That's not personality, that's Hello Kitty. But, I agree Xiao Bai was at least tolerable, other women were wasted and so was our time. Imagine what a writer who knows writing women could do with a single working mother with sick child or a disabled woman. Alas, it was not meant to be. I also think the show suffered from cutting 72 episodes to 66 to two seasons, the narration is broken, pacing too. Also, I heard (maybe even here) that the major part of Piaopiao/Pang Zi story was censored and so changed which is why dubbing doesn't match their lips. Still, I'll watch season 2. I want my Iron Triangle back.
If I have one major complaint about this drama (which I love dearly anyway), it's uneven pacing and I think it might be to a larger degree a consequence of dividing the story in 'two seasons'. The 'draggy' parts of the story might not be that in a context of 66 episodes, but within 32 I often feel 'why are they spending so much time on this?'. Ah, well, it can't be helped.
On the other hand, we have such pearls like Pang Zi saying his dream was to become female pilot and Wu Xie answering something like 'It's good to have ambitions', so never mind the pacing.
On the other hand, we have such pearls like Pang Zi saying his dream was to become female pilot and Wu Xie answering something like 'It's good to have ambitions', so never mind the pacing.