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I think the reason why a lot of people feel uncomfortable with this drama is because the men are so reminiscence of irl men but you can tell the scriptwriter don't want to go there fully because you are supposed to ship these couples lol.

Like the 2nd sister + her husband. He is not "technically" a cheater, he "just" likes to look at beautiful women and likes to be around them. You just know the writer didn't go there fully with him (aka physically cheat/sleep with other women) because then who can even ship them after that.

Then you have the 3rd sister/FL + ML. It is supposed to be a push-pull relationship with them scheming against each other BUT there will always be a power dynamic difference in a M/F relationship set in historical times especially since ML's family is more well off. The FL accurately pointed out that the ML does look own on her family. He admires how "different"/smart she is but at the same time judges the nurture (aka her mom) that shaped her personality. She is "special" because he is in love with her, but it won't erase that sort of dynamic between them.

This drama then tries to "balance" out the power dynamic set in historical times between the women and the men by having the women hit men as a way to say hey! She has power too! She can get back at her husband too (when in reality, there is no way that is happening without the husband's family getting involved if she tried to lay a hand on the man).

I think this drama tries to write some realistic tropes (aka a husband who cheats/willing to have concubines, a husband who looks down on your family, a husband who is immature, etc.) but at the same time, can't commit to the full extent because this is still an idol romance drama at the end of the day so you are supposed to root for these couples.

I think this is where that uncomfortable feeling/cognitive dissonance for some viewers comes in because the tropes are not fictional to the point that you can just ignore all the flags and just ship/enjoy it 100% mindlessly. It sometimes hit too close to home which jolts you awake and go?

ML is definitely not the most toxic ML ever in C-drama land to exist, but they usually lean into the toxicity and don't try to cover it. ML in this case goes back and forth with the type of words he uses/actions he shows, and the scriptwriter sometimes expect you to agree with the ML when as a female audience, you are like ? I guess what I am trying to say is that the character writing is not smooth enough even when they are trying to go for character development.

Yup, the drama barely touched upon what the police actually did to capture them.

For example, in the irl case, the first police captain that led this case was not the same police captain that ended the case. Another was when they arrived to the crime scene, the murderers long left and cleaned up after themselves (leaving no evidence unlike the bloody scene they left in the drama with all that evidence). There was no accidental brush up between the main lead and the murderer with the main lead just letting the murderer go and the police not shutting the place down and letting anyone leave the building. Then the part with the cop getting out of their car which exposed themselves to the murderer, then in their little car blocking the murderer in his big truck causing themselves to be killed while not calling for backup? None of that happened. 💀

Then this drama also tried to make the sole woman murderer into an unwilling victim when that was not the case. One of the irl survivors even said she did way worse and would constantly abuse them. One can't have sexual relationships anymore because of the injuries and the other one can't ever have children.

They also tried to "explain" why two of the other male murderers started killing (because of the women in their lives) which again was not the truth. But you are basically supposed to almost feel "justified" because the wife was cheating, and the other woman was being "annoying".

It is a lot of focus on the murderers and giving them fictional backgrounds which is supposed to highlight them as more well-rounded people (and sure this would be more acceptable if they were fictional villains, but they were based on actual murderers). The police on the other hand had nothing going on with them.

If you ever watched 我是刑警, then you can see the big difference in how they handle an actual case with a focus on the cops breaking that case (and even the background info such as their family lives of the cops didn't take away from the momentum of the case breaking process) and the criminal not being highlighted in a "cool" way.

If they can handle it so the survivor is okay with it, then that would be the best.

iQiyi has been doing this for too long to still be so unprofessional with not double-checking the novel they are adapting. It will depend if they can suppress this enough (aka buy down trends/forums/discussions and keep on buying water armys to try to wash out all the criticisms) but they have the money for it. 💀

I just feel for all the survivors/victims of these crime cases whose trauma kept on being made without their consent and all these people are making money off of their trauma. It is not their first time and won't be their last time either but I wish a better policy could be set in place so things like this doesn't keep happening. Crime genre as a whole in China has become more and more popular and a lot easier to develop into dramas but they really need to be careful about involving irl people. This happens so much with Netflix and their crime documentaries that tend to falsify things to generate more controversies.

I am Chinese. I have been keeping up the promotion of this drama since it was released so I have first-hand access to what this drama has been posting on Weibo, what the F4 actors/actresses have been posting, etc. I have also read what the journalists have posted.

It is "beautifying the F4" by having them in photoshoots that are meant to glamorize them. It is beautifying them by adding in fictional reasons as to why they started murdering in the first place. It is beautifying them because the actual survivor of this case watched the first 2 episodes and said it glamorized them.

Just because a drama has "good data" doesn't mean it is not controversial. There have been many dramas that have tons of views and heat (especially when heavily promoted and expected to have good data) but just as much discussion on the problematic elements of it. There were also people who watched this drama who didn't know about this irl case until more recently.

All this praise and heat means nothing at the end of the day when the actual survivor of the case is not happy with this drama and this drama existing. These actors/actresses will be fine. No one is putting down their acting skills. If anything, more people thought that the script wasn't on par with their acting skills. But all this doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things now that it is involving actual people who suffered.

Yes, those two just switch up their names to some other names when pushing our their dramas, especially GJM but everyone knows it is their dramas lol (nothing happens because too many people in the industry benefit from them still being around, even actors/actresses because as much as those two gets dragged, their dramas get attention and at the end of the day especially for newer actors/actresses, they want that attention to push their popularity).

But this case is more serious since it involves a irl serial murder case and the survivor + victim's family are still alive to witness this. The journalist for sure is unhappy and has been going back and forth with the novel writer + iQiyi and the journalist is in contact with the survivor so we will have to see if it escalates to a lawsuit.

Yeah, Weibo will have you hating on every single celeb if you are there long enough so it is best to just get news from there but don't engage and don't get too invested on there since there are too many marketing accounts on there too.

Yup, plus the way this drama has been promoting this drama by using the "women torture" scene as the main attraction. They also created fictional excuses as to why 2 of the male murderers in this irl case murdered. In reality, there were no specific reasons, they just wanted to. In the drama, one was because of an "annoying woman who was traveling" and another was because of his wife. Both of their reasons were women (aka women were the ones at fault now apparently). So people have been analyzing certain messages this drama has been pushing too.

Yes, I like ZJM in more "serious" dramas and not the idol-romance ones because tbh, I don't think those are her strong suits. It could be because she is still young, so she comes off awkward in some of those romantic scenes IMO (but as she does more of them and gets older, she might become better at them).

If it is not crime dramas, she can still other serious topic ones like family, career-centric, etc.

ZJM will be fine career-wise. Her team will probably just need to be extra careful in the future with taking these "crime" genre dramas and do better research to make sure it had approval from all sides (especially the victims involved) and won't get her into trouble. Because it can get into the legal area.

I think at this point, it is better for the cast to wash off their hands from these roles. It is already tainted by the public knowledge now that the survivor is extremely upset about this. Not many people will be able to go into this drama with knowing that now. iQiyi should come out and take the main responsibility but I don't see them doing that at this time.

Honestly everyone on C-side gets dragged, the more popular you are, the more heat you will get. Not that she or any celebs deserve hate. ZJM is a good actress for this type of realistic leaning drama so she will be fine in turns of future gigs and this won't hurt her long-term.

It seems the criticisms is with these actors/actresses not doing their own research before accepting these roles (though I don't see this as entirely on them but it is still their careers on the line, so it is always better to do their own research and not rely on the production/platform). The truth is, the actors/actresses will always get praise first when a drama does well and they are the ones receiving the awards, but when a drama is in hot waters, people then try to say well, the actors/actresses don't know anything (it is the director, the producer, the scriptwriter's fault, etc.). You can't have your cake and eat it too basically.

There are definitely people that is taking this chance to join in on the hate since this is just what fanbases do on Weibo. I would say avoid Weibo when your fav celeb is in some controversy for your own mental heath. I have experienced this with my own fav celebs and sometimes you just got to disconnect.

Well, at this moment, it is involving now the irl survivor. For these actors/actresses, it is getting dragged for a period of time and not getting nominated for a potential award, but for the survivor, this is reopening her trauma once again for entertainment.

The main criticism is definitely directed at the novel writer with the way they denied the plagiarism and disregard for the survivor, victims, and the victims' family. iQiyi's handling of this has been really bad (example: silently changing the characters of the victim character's dad's name once it was revealed he was named after the irl murderer to try to brush it under the rug, etc.) too since it shows they didn't do enough research into this before adapting the novel.

The actors/actresses did their jobs, but this is now involving a potential lawsuit, so it is better for them to just keep quiet at this point.

Well, I did be surprised at this point if this drama is not taken down on the C-side. It has been revealed by the journalist that the survivor of the irl case watched 2 episodes of this drama (and saw the beautifying of the F4 ) and was not happy. People are now asking for this drama to be taken down as it is now considered a second assault on the survivor to witness this drama and the praise of the F4 actors (aka treated as entertainment).

This drama is in hot waters. From plagiarism of the journalist's report of the actual case without permission/credit, naming the victim character's dad's name as the irl murderer's name, to not having permission from irl victims' families to adapt this case into a drama. It is no wonder the Douban score opened with a 6.0. There is also the issue of this drama dumbing down the police, plot logic issues, and the promotion of the "F4" (aka the criminals) as some cool gang (beautifying them).

It definitely got its heat/views, but these actors/actresses will not be bringing up this drama as a representative work with the mess it is now. It is unfortunate since this cast can all act.

This drama is being super lowkey so I will just share some info I found. They didn't even have a public opening ceremony.

This drama is about the Wu family centered around the 3 Wu siblings. Li Landi is playing as Wu Bu Wei (the youngest sibling of the Wu family). Jiang Xin should be playing as Wu Bu Lao (second oldest sibling and Wu Bu Yu's twins). Currently unknown who is playing as Wu Bu Yu (the oldest male sibling and Wu Bu Lao's twins). The Wu parents had Wu Bu Wei when they were well into their 40s so WBW's twin siblings are older than her by around 10+ years. This drama is about them going back home as their father is falling ill and talks about the ongoing conflicts within the family.

Ci Sha /might/ be playing as Yu Zhongyi (a caretaker who takes care of the Wu father), but it is still unknown what his role is. His character seems to have a crush on LLD's character.

This is supposedly set to film for 120 days so it should wrap up by April 2025.

Edit: Yay, they finally had the opening ceremony on Jan 15th.

I tried making an edit to add the 3 main cast but there technically isn't an official announcement with the cast on Weibo yet so the admin rejected the edit.

Main pair doesn't have any love triangles. ML's cousin likes him but there was no interest from ML. Another male character had a crush on FL but he ended up with someone else.

Second pair doesn't really have a deep love triangle either. The 2nd ML's brother also likes 2nd FL but it didn't go anywhere, and he ended up having his own ship too.

Rewatched it recently just to see if it hits the same and yes... it still does. The comedic scenes are still funny, and the emotional scenes are still emotional. Definitely a xianxia drama that is aging well.

Yes, from what I have seen his fans say, this dubber dubbed him before in a previous drama (forgot which one though).

I just want to mention here for anyone who is planning to go into this drama thinking and expecting it to be a pure romance drama, it is not. This drama is very CHARACTER-DRIVEN and plot-driven and the characters all have their own independent arcs. These characters have very established sense of self so you will not see these characters "giving up the world" for their love interests.

Even if you remove love from the equation, these characters are fully fleshed out. And this might not be everyone's cup of tea if you want to see more of the "characters risk the world for their love" or "characters can't move on from who they fell in love with".

Love is an important theme in this drama, but these characters do not give up their sense of self, values, and justice just because they fell in love. Love is part of their lives, but it does not consume them nor define them. They have other important things going on in their lives besides love. Love is more like a companion in this drama, but it is not the end goal.

1) Not really a love triangle as 2nd ML's feeling is one-sided. His "love" is also very tangled in with his plots/obsession, so it is not really a healthy type of "love". One of his character arc points is realizing that love is to let go, and not to hold on.

2) I think it depends on your definition of leads "getting together". They fall for each other slowly but never truly "confessed" to each other in a typical sense. They are an established couple though and there is a scene towards the end that fully acknowledges that.

3) There is a "break-up" in the sense that there is something bigger going on than their relationship. This is a very plot heavy drama and all of the characters' relationships are tied to these plots so there is "separation" but not due to them stop loving each other.

4) Well, happy ending in the sense that goals were achieved and the world is at peace. Relationship wise, it depends on your POV tbh.