absurd

Well, if she was older, maybe the "not using words, but actions" tactic would have worked, but on a fifteen year old who knows nothing about relationships... definitely not.

That's actually true, somehow... Which is amazing considering his personality

You are not wrong, that there is a lot of politicking in the beginning of the drama, but I think it's there to introduce Li Shimin's character as a wise ruler, rather than the brutal murderer who killed MC family. Later on (not much, I'm only on ep 13 now) it focuses on Chang Ge and the way her worldview changes as she gains new experiences. I can see the changes already, but obviously they won't happen overnight.
But it's , of course, all personal preference. I actually like when the story is not very emotionally dramatic and even a bit cheesy, because I don't think fantasy or heroic stories are a place for brutal realism.

I think this is more about personal growth of the characters, rather than politics, they are shown just enough to make the story interesting, without turning it into a documentary. MC is purposely shallow minded in the beginning, she is a sheltered princess after all, even if she knows how to fight and some military tactics. As she goes through the story she will change.

I am not very far into the story, so I have not seen a lot of him, but it seems like he does not actually understand that it's wrong, what he's doing, so it will definitely get better as he learns. It looks like there might be some bad history with his father, that made him like that. But I'm just guessing, by his violent reaction when someone mentions his dad.

While they are hugging he says he was looking for her very hard. And she asks if he traveled all the way from Grasslands to here looking. He says, "sorry, I should not have blamed you" and she replies that "she owes him a lot", he then says something like "don't worry, just slowly return that favor". The second part is too difficult for me, sorry.

I know everyone is probably much further than me, but just in case someone is waiting until it finishes airing, putting this under the spoiler.
So, while it's not exactly a complaint, but I really need to let it out. So Hao Du left a helpless princess in a remote post office (or whatever that was). Alone. And came back like a day later surprised that something happened to her? I feel like this character has a problem with some basic human concepts. Well, that usually makes for some very funny situations.
I was kind of apprehensive about Liu Yuning, but he's doing well so far, good for him.

I'm only up to ep 12 and it looks pretty good so far. I don't even have anything to complain about, now what do I do? LOL But seriously, very dynamic and interesting, I have to restrain myself to watch at a pace, instead of just dropping everything to binge watch everything that's available.
Kind of reminds me of Akatsuki no Yona (Japanese manga and anime) with it's premise, but so far this one is much better executed and more grounded in reality.
Oh, remembered the one thing that bugs me. The amount of filtering on the faces, seriously wtf, they look almost like porcelain dolls.

Hope you like it! ^_^

It's funny how reviews and comment section here are full of people saying the Legend of Yunxi was better, so after finishing this I went to try the LoY and the comment section there is full of comments saying the Ruyi is better LOL
I'm not going to compare, just going to say, I loved this one. All the characters are interesting and the story is very dynamic. I liked how their relationship progressed and have to say, so far, this is one of the healthiest relationships I've seen in c-dramas. Also their chemistry is through the roof. Yes, FL (the character) is a bit childish, but she is a child. They don't state that anywhere, but all things considered she's probably no more than 15. But even though she can be childish, she also readily admits if she's wrong and takes responsibility, I liked that about her. And she is smart, I don't see where people get that she's stupid. Just because she did not do as ML told her and did not stay out of things? Well, surprise surprise, he's not the boss of her and she was actually right in the end.
The second half does get a bit repetitive, but I don't think I've seen any over 30 ep c-dramas that don't have that problem. First... about 25 episodes just flew, they were so easy to watch. It's funny, doesn't really go deep into the "drama" part and most of the issues are resolved quickly. Very easy to watch. All in all this is now one of my favorites.

50 ep is a general placeholder put for any new drama. Until it goes through filming and editing, I don't think even they know how many episodes there will be.

I don't see why not, it's 3 -4 days a month. It's like other artists who, for example, record variety shows regularly, they just build their schedules around it.

Yeah, I saw a comment here about how this drama should be more popular with all the promotion it had. And I was like Lol, what promotion? Press conference with no actual press and a photoshoot not even in the magazine? Idk, why, maybe they decided there's no need to waste money on it since XZ fans will promote it for free?
Omg, the smile. It was exactly what made it for me. Though it was the one when they boght a rabbit lantern, it was in that video I mentioned. I could not believe a real person can literally smile like that.
I decided to check out Immortality because I saw one of the actors in another drama and thought he was good, even though I dropped the drama. That's basically my way of looking for what to watch. I didn't read the synopsis, it's based on the novel and they will probably change a lot. But, gosh, that comment section is a cesspool, definitely avoiding that. I got attacked for saying that the date on mdl is not an official one. What will happen if someone criticizes it? Scary...
I think douban is not much different from here, there are just a lot more people rating. I kind of had to get used to 7 being a low score on mdl, because on myanimelist 7 means good and 8 is either "wow, masterpiece" or "only fans of the genre rated this". And I think the same goes for douban, unless it's a big IP that did not live up to people's expectations or actor hate.
Haha, it's so hilarious when there are cries about the ratings, especially here. Production companies in China don't even care about douban scores, let alone here. It's not like high scores bring money, views do. You'd think low scores would affect views, but fans watch anyway, so no one cares. Not sure why someone would buy ratings on douban in that light, but who knows.
Oh, no, you're right. Definitely nothing to blame actors for. Entertainment industry in general doesn't seem like the healthiest of places and Chinese one looks especially toxic, whith all the "no dating, no eating" and those endless lists that have different names, but are all basically a popularity contests. They even measure endorsement sales and then compare artists based on them. Talent? Who cares? Now monetary value... *facepalm*

Nope, 2 hours it's for Chinese audiences. For us it's: "oh, sh*, it has been airing for two days already!" Lol

According to schedule it's going to be 3 day monthly performance in different cities. Though it might be that part 2 is a different story which he won't be a part of, 8 hours is a lot.
Proud of him, theater is very different from acting on camera and very demanding.

It's the lack chemistry and also it didn't seem like they were even trying to promote their so called CP, as in when actors play love interest there's often some kind of promotion focused on their interactions and cute couple-like behavior, but in this case there was basically nothing, so it does look like at least one of them is not coming back for S2.
OMG, I tried like 3 times with the Untamed. I've started with the anime and I've never watched any dramas in my life before that, and also live-action adaptations of my favorite anime looked terrible and ridiculous (just from the trailers). Someone told me it was a problem with Japanese live-action and China is better in that department, but I didn't know that. And in the ep one there's Wang Yibo flying over the roof like a white bat and I was just... OMG, no, this is ridiculous, I can't. It was actually XZ that made me give it a chance, I saw a comparison video of the drama and the anime, and was like "woah, real life animated character!". It was just spot on. It still looks weird to me, when they do that flying sword fist thing or honestly any flying, but I got used to it.
I think you are right, Untamed and maybe Guardian to some degree, really helped to make production companies understand that BL novel adaptations are a gold mine, even the heavily censored ones. There's even some upcoming ones that now have pretty popular and experienced actors playing leads, like Immortality.
Endings and the screenwriting in general seem to be the bane of c-dramas, maybe there are some things we as foreigners just don't understand, but Chinese audience seems to be even more harsh to their domestic entertainment. There are dramas that have very high scores here, but barely scrap 4-5 stars om douban. Sometimes douban score actually looks more reasonable to me, though sometimes they just trash something for the sake of it. And with endings, it's like screenwriters or directors just get lazy at the end, as in "you've already watched an entire drama, we don't care if the ending ruins it for you, cause we've got our money".
The whole system of Chinese entertainment is so unusual to me (idk if other East Asian countries are the same). As in, yes there are people who are just actors or just singers/musicians and they are usually amazing at what they do (OMG, Hua Chenyu, I'm obsessed, he's sooo good). And then there's a big cluster of people, who just do everything. If they started as actors, they then add singing for events, if they get popular (e.g. Zhu Yilong, Yang Zi), and practically every single one of the so called idols, absolutely has to act in a drama. And I mean, yes, Hollywood also has these actors that are not really actors, but they stick to action movies, that don't actually require any serious acting and don't pretend to be what they are not. And then there's China, that has dramas that have entire idol groups as their cast, and maybe they luck out sometimes, but most of the time those kids (cause usually they are barely in their 20-s) have no idea what they are doing. And the whole thing looks so unprofessional because of that, it's panful to watch. That's why I can't force myself through Fights Break Sphere: they hired the whole XNine as half the cast, it just screams half-a**d production to me.

About release dates that's for sure. I don't understand this policy of waiting until the last possible moment. Is it to confuse rival channels or something? Lol

Honestly, those are rumors, aimed to steer trouble. No one actually knows anything. Besides, it's not like they would have released it at the same time as Douluo. Today is the last day of DC for non VIP users, so we might expect some news about OOL later this month. To me this looks logical: TV schedules are not as easy to change and Mango probably already had something lined up, so they went with DC first. That's why there's no movement from OOL, because it would be weird to draw people's attention to another XZ drama while DC is airing.

I think, though that's just a theory, that if XZ returns for S2 they will replace the FL. For two reasons. First, brining her back would mean two expensive leads. She's of course not as popular as XZ, but still popular enough to ask for more money. And second, there wasn't much of a chemistry, even I, as a person who can ignore bad romance if the story is good, felt that romance here was really out of place. And actually, while writing I thought of another reason, it's an ML focused drama with romance being secondary, so for popular actresses it's not really attractive, because the role is basically supportive, especially now that XZ is popular and they will definitely focus on him more.
Haha, Untamed really managed to sneak in almost everything. It's amazing. And I think that's the reason why so many people loved it.
Idk, why China fails so much with it's big IPs. I don't understand why they don't get a budget if there's already a fanbase for it... Like, it's so bad sometimes and you can see that more money and more thought put into it would have made it so much better, but nope. The budget is only given for famous actors, and it seems like with so many constrains production just gets discouraged from putting more work into it.

I got the impression that the production relied a lot on the leads popularity and therefore did not put much effort into making it a solid work. I did not read the novel, so I can't say anything about the spirit of the story and, as for my, not very critical eye, the fight scenes we actually fine. But it just didn't feel like there was a point to the story, except for romance, and building a whole 50 ep martial world just to portray high-school level cute romance seems like a waste of resources. Overall, my disappointment came from the lack of essence and the obvious lack of care for the end result from the production team. Maybe it's bad to generalize like that, I'm sure there were people who tried to make it better, but they did not succeed, imo.