absurd

I guess, unless you are a theater major, everyone learns on the job. But c-dramas are probably the first, where I see some really unprofessional actors in some pretty big projects. Like it's actually more common to hire newbies to adapt some big IP, and professional actors mostly work on a more regular projects, that don't get as much visibility, or get visibility because of the actors or because they are very good, and not because the source material is famous.
I found one reason for XZ to return as TS, he seems like a perfectionist. Like, I noticed, that if he didn't get the song perfectly the first time or something didn't work out, he will redo it, just to show that he can. So this is an old project, and he's better now, so maybe he will want to come back just to show everyone. Idk, maybe I just want to see where this goes and look for reasons, because if they change the lead, it won't feel like a continuation for me.
You know how sometimes if you like something, you can excuse some minor flaws. Like with the Untamed, it's far from a masterpiece, but the overall effort is there, so I can ignore the horrible sfx makeup or the fact the Jin Guangyao is too theatrical, to be believable. But then, there's LOF where it's obvious they didn't put in any effort, so even though it's not all bad, it's still not enjoyable. The Guardian for me is in between, it seems like they maybe tried, but then came to the conclusion that they bit off too much and just gave up. They took out the ancient gods and reincarnation storyline, but didn't seem to put much thought into the one they replaced it with. And then the post premier censorship just finished it off. Still, there are a lot of people who loved it, so maybe I'm just being picky.
From the dramas I've seen (or tried and dropped), censorship can be pretty lenient with semantics if forbidden scenes are not in your face, up for interpretation or given some kind of explanation to "normalize" them. Like "bromance", where fans see what they want to see, but if you don't know it's an adapted gay romance, you probably won't guess. Or JOL, where "it's not reincarnation or time travel, it's a story about a guy writing a book, about a guy who ended up in ancient China in a body of a child, so we just don't call it reincarnation and we're good" LOL.

This is not historical, it's fantasy, set on imaginary Douluo continent. And the romance is mostly secondary, the focus is on adventure and friendship. The ending is open though, like in general, it's a set up for season 2. It's not bad, but I wouldn't say that romance actually goes anywhere here. The chemistry depends on a personal preference, I guess. To me it was fine either way, as in if they stayed friends I wouldn't care.

Cause they do that. There was one drama recently that was "airing" on mdl for like 3 days, with people asking "where?" in the comments, turned out fake news.
It always happens, there a lot of "it's official" dates, but in the end they announce it like 3-5 days before. This might not be wrong date, but it's definitely not official or confirmed.

Wow, chill, why don't you. I said, not official, not wrong. Maybe it's true, but it's not confirmed, even if they guess right. No one ever denies those rumors, because it's a free promotion and douban posts fake dates all the time.

I don't like to be the bringer of the bad news, but this date is not official, it's a rumor. There's nothing on any of the official channels (drama's weibo haven't been updated since December) and they don't even have a trailer out. And no, douban is not actually considered an official source.

XZ is probably a dream guy for any drama right now: famous, good actor, with good work ethic and looks good in both historical wigs and modern settings. But it does seem weird that he's basically learning to act on set.
I heard about casting idols regardless of talent, but I think those dramas usually don't do very good, because they are relying only on fanbase and there's only so much that can do.
I don't know if I'll still be interested because I only got interested in dramas recently and I still barely watch them. I'm obsessed with everything Chinese right now: language, food, music, tv... but when I get like that, it's followed by me overdosing on everything and then loosing interest, don't know how this will go :))
Someone said in the comments that TS is selectively smart here, and I think they are not exactly wrong. It does seem that sometimes the writer chose to ignore how smart and attentive TS is supposed to be for the sake of plot development. It's not so bad, mostly, but with XW it was kinda obvious what she is from their conversation in the very beginning. Maybe it's better not to focus on it, lets just say it's easier to see clearly when you look from outside.
It looks like in c-dramas a lot depends on director (I saw bts from JOL where director basically acted out the whole scene for XZ, it was so weird) and writer, so maybe if the actress does come back they'll make some changes to the character and she will do better with more experience. But if they'll hire someone else, whatever. She would still probably be childish though, so will that help you? :))
Idk what they were thinking with the Guardian. No budget? Let's hire 20 more actors for pointless plotlines, instead of spending money on better focused script and CGI? LOL It's wrong to judge like that, because who knows how those decisions were made, but, hell, Untamed made it work didn't they, even with the changes and additions. Guess they were lucky that CGI and fights were not all that important for the plot, so they could spend money on other things.
Zhu Yilong is probably the best part of the Guardian, but I do like his co-star too. If you ignore everything aside from their interactions, it fine, but it's very difficult to ignore. I still managed for 20 episodes. It's weird that for all the problems with censorship they managed to preserve the "romance" as much as it was possible without being obvious, but the main plot suffered so much. The Guardian (the book) is a minefield for censorship though: gay relationship, ambiguous morals, reincarnation, ancient gods, Hell... the whole shebang. Don't know how they thought it was a good idea to film that at all.
You're right that censorship is unpredictable sometimes. It also depends on how they play it, like here in DC we have an explanation that when soul beasts turn into humans they're humans once and for all and... BAM... Human-Beast relationship is just fine, sorry Wolf. Or maybe it depends on the producer knowing someone on censorship board lol
I don't understand why they don't reshoot or reedit properly though. Like in the Guardian there are places where characters talk in different voices, because censorship told them to change this or that phrase. Why didn't they just invite the same voice actors to do that? And it happens in other dramas too, maybe not the voices, but them just deleting the scene without much thought or finesse. Is it the budget thing or just laziness...? Just seems weird.

I don't understand the point of focusing on the actor/actress because of popularity, considering how long dramas usually take to produce and how much can change in that time. I guess, it's understandable if it's someone with long standing success and following, but idols in China come and go, and most of them don't seem to be all that memorable.
Don't know if I will watch s2 at all. It's at last a year away (probably 2), so much can change in that time, who knows if I will still be interested. On one hand if they pull recourses and try to produce it faster it is possible to get the actors back and not loose the hype, but faster can mean lazy production, so maybe better not.
I guess, I didn't notice WXY's acting because she didn't have much emotional scenes and the rest of it was fine. That last part though... well, XW said she's leaving, so they might take her out of the s2, at least for some of it. The secret thing... it was really weird that he didn't take the Huge hint that Bi Bi Dong gave them, she basically spelled it out. XW not saying anything also bothered me, but not because he told her his secrets, but because she supposedly admired TS so much, but still didn't trust him. I guess they needed that "revelation" at the end, but it kind of fell flat, IMO.
It's not that there wasn't enough fights, it's that they were so... boring. I mean, if they didn't have a lot of budget for CGI shouldn't they have made fights more exciting without CGI? The CGI part is actually good, but people just stand around a lot, waiting... idk for what. Maybe director didn't have a lot of experience with this kind of fighting, where it's not just hand to hand or swords, but some kind of powers. Here's hoping they'll find someone who's better at this for s2.
There were some good points and some obviously biased on both sides of the "die hard XZ fans vs die hard novel fans" argument. I don't really get watching something you dislike (I would have just dropped it), but it's whatever, to each their own.
The problem I had with Guardian is not what they deleted, but what they added (absolutely useless sublots, with absolutely flat characters, that weren't even in the book). Most of the time it's obvious when it's censorship - plot gaps, weird explanations etc., but sometimes people use censorship as an excuse for sh**ty screenwriting if they like the drama a lot. Every drama goes through censorship, it does not excuse bad character development, boring plot or unmotivated actions. I mean DC made it work didn't they? Sure it strayed from the novel a lot, but by itself the script is pretty good. I think they purposely went with this wholesome censorship prof version so as not to redo or reedit a lot, maybe even for the sake of the budget.

If XZ does return, they will probably focus on his character. Maybe they didn't this time because it was introductory, flesh out every character, who knows. I don't really see how season 2 will survive if he's not there, a lot of his fans would probably ignore it on principle :)) Novel readers said that next season probably will be "5 years later", but they've already changed so much, it might not be...
I didn't have as much feelings about XW as you, but that last episode... the ending fell flat for me because of her. She's fine with childishness, but serious emotion... Idk, maybe she was trying to portray being in shock? It didn't work. And also that romance in the end felt out of place. Honestly the whole last part of the last episode seemed... kind of lazy. There's so much they could have done with it and all we got was sappy flashbacks and an unnecessary creepy kiss. I liked the full circle to the ep 1, with the wake up part, but the rest of what happened after Tang Hao showed up was boring.
I agree with you, they could have added the fight or at last him fleeing with TS and XW, maybe showed what happened to everyone else. Someone in the reviews suggested a pretty good version based on the anime. That was probably the second time I agreed with novel readers - they really f up the ending. The other one is fight scenes, they need to work on those in s2, considering how big of a role fights play here, they need to be more action packed.
For the other negativity... I mean, I get where the disappointment is coming from, but it's like sometimes if something is not as how you wanted it to be, then you find reasons to hate it, but if you like something then you find excuses for every fault it has. I had the same situation with the Guardian, I think that drama is terrible and disappointing, even without comparison with the novel (it's only saving grace being to MLs), but people who love it say that censoring is to blame.

I only decided to watch Untamed after seeing side by side comparison of XZ Wei Wuxian and anime one, he really bought me with that smile. I agree with you about WYB, he did take me some time to get used to, there were places where he looked kind of weird (I think those were the scenes that they shoot first), but it got better. For me the whole style of people flying horizontally sword first was the most weird part, I got used to it now, but at first it was... "What are they doing? Why? No, I can't watch this!".
AOT is not everyone's cup of tea, I can only binge watch it, can't watch episode by episode. IMO, season 3 is better than 2, but this last one... so far I don't like the direction, that's why I'm waiting.

My purpose in watching Chinese anime is language practice so Japanese dubbing is useless for me, but so far the only one I liked is MDZS - that's how I found The Untamed, because anime made no sense without background knowledge and while googling I found there's a drama. I still had to try 2-3 times before I actually watched the drama after the anime, it was so weird looking to me.
The others I tried... maybe just the themes were not for me, dropped after couple of episodes. For me Chinese are better with live adaptations, but when it comes to anime I prefer Japanese.
I agree with you, that Japanese anime lately is either boobs or chiby girls, but there are some good ones. I like Jujutsu kaisen and will probably watch the last AOT when it's finished.

Maybe you're right and Japanese adaptations suck in general, I haven't actually watched any, aside from couple of trailers.
Chinese... I think it depends. I think this one is pretty good in terms of quality, but I have not read the novel, so it's just a drama for me. Also for me, personally, Chinese anime so far is kind of so so. I can't stand 3d at all, and 2d most of them are just sooo weird and sometimes make no sense at all.

Oh, God... Attack on titan... I have nothing against gore, but anime was already graphic enough for me, I don't think I can watch live action.
I also tried watching Bleach live action trailer, but the orange wig... omg, I can't... it was so funny.
If they made Psycho pass live adaptation though, I might check that out.

I think, Yang Zi almost always wears those kind of dresses, cause she wears sneakers under them instead of heels LOL

That's what I was thinking. I saw some comments about the OST being disneyish, and then this picture... best kind of promotion and I don't think they were even trying

The first picture is like straight out if Disney

I think, sometimes it's just about what you've seen first and got used to. I don't even want to try watching live adaptations of some of my favorite anime, I've checked out the trailers and they looked sooo weird to me. But with this one it's the other way around.

I watched couple of scenes from animation, not even the beginning,
somewhere where TS is already an adult and I couldn't even take it seriously, because of the whole 3d thing. After fluid 2d anime, that I used to watch a lot of, 3d looks stiff and robotic, like a cheap video game. And the colors... it's really not for me, I prefer something more muted and natural. And also what you said about the ML being to OP, that seems kinda boring, not sure if it's worth it to even force myself.

This is actually pretty good, wouldn't say it's binge watch material, but very interesting and cinematography is amazing.

His dad didn't tell him to participate in the contest. Shi Nian did, pretending that it was Tang San's dad who was behind the conspiracy, but he actually wasn't

They said there will be (the production company), but no one is filming anything yet and with the speed of c-dramas it might be another two years before it comes out.