Adnana

Stuck how? I'd appreciate concrete spoilers, because I'm really on the fence about watching this drama. I can have a pretty high tolerance for plot nonsense as long as the OTP romance is strong and stirring (like, say, in "Faith" which was not the greatest conceived drama, to say the least, but which I adore because of its lovely, mutually devoted OTP).

"[Yu Zheng's] favorite past time is butchering popular novels."
I know, right? He's (in)famous for it.
I can't even begin to guess what gargantuan-sized miracle it took for "Memory Lost" to escape unscathed from his grubby little hands. That's the only novel-to-drama adaptation he produced that stayed faithful to the source material and therefore never went off the rails story- and character-wise, right?

Well, in terms of faithful Chinese drama adaptations, besides "Eternal Love" and "Love O2O," I also loved "My Sunshine" and "Sound of the Desert." Which is quite a short list still, right? I thought they screwed up "Boss & Me" in its second half, once they diverged from the source material (Come & Eat, Shan Shan).
Ding Mo's drama adaptations are good with the investigative part but skimp on the romance, unlike the novels. "Memory Lost" is probably the best romance (drama-wise) yet still too brief, "Love Me If You Dare" somewhere in the middle, "When a Snail Loves" the most disappointing.
"Summer's Desire" and "Battle of Changsha" are the only other faithful adaptations I know of, and worth watching; only the former has a love triangle to end all love triangles (which is not everyone's mileage), and the latter is pretty light on the romance (it's a war drama, after all).
Last, "General and I" is a drama adaptation that is probably still watchable (with fast-forwarding) despite its deviations from the source novel. Same with "A Love So Beautiful." Still haven't watched "Lost Love in Times," so I don't know (yet) if it can be included here.
Do you know of any more? :)
P.S.: Yeah, the actor playing Rong Zhi is quite good-looking and can generate the aura that I imagine would've worked to portray novel Rong Zhi. Mysterious, aloof, dangerous yet still kinda sizzling... Really a pity.

Yep, this goes on the "never watch" list. (Thanks for the detailed reply.)
I wish they'd stop adapting good novels if all they're going to do is change (really, ruin) their story beyond all recognition. Will there ever be another worthwhile adaptation like "Eternal Love" or "Love O2O"?

I'm not a native speaker and can't watch this myself (yet; and now probably ever), so can you please tell me: did this already happen in the drama? The H marrying a concubine as well as the h, and seeming to like the concubine? Does he sleep with her? Favor her over Chu Yu? And he has a comedic(?) hate relationship with the h after marriage? I can't believe they'd tarnish the Rong Zhi from the novel this way! He's such a classic beloved character.

Ah, okay; I see. Thanks for replying. Happy drama watching!

More romance, in what way? Did the h/H spend a lot of time apart over the course of the drama, or did they become a couple very late? Did they marry by the end? Gracias. :)

I'm trying to decide if I should watch this, so may I ask--in what way is the romance annoying. Just a perceived lack of chemistry between the h/H, or more concrete stuff like stupid misunderstandings, lack of communication, betrayals, break-ups...? Thanks. :)

"Good grief, this is a foolish post, Adnana!"
Aww, and here I thought that my post was fairly well-reasoned, or that at least it didn't include gross inaccuracies and contradicting statements like yours did. Gosh, maybe I should have just used a couple of Latin phrases; with that kind of validation, I could say anything at all and it would be automatically true! Ipso facto.
"Why are you even nitpicking?"
Because a series of posts like the one you harassed Andrea McLean with (and this wasn't even a singular case here on MDL) positively invites a commensurate response. If you can dish it out, you should be able to take it. Or just word your arguments better in the future (or at least with a modicum of logic), so they can't be "nitpicked" at so easily.
"ALL of you have totally missed what I meant"
Well, "all" of us are not mind readers, so we might have missed what you "meant" because we just read what you literally wrote--not what you might, or might not, have thought. That's how written communication is supposed to work.
"My whole point was basically that this is a phenomenally successful drama."
Then you should have expressed yourself better, because that's not what you said at all. What you said, repeatedly, was that MGL's 40% ratings imply that people disappointed in the progression of MGL are "in a minority" and that "LOTS of people disagree" with them. Which is an incorrect logical progression and an asinine argument. And that's a fact, honey.
"this is a phenomenally successful drama... Why are you even arguing that?"
I never argued that MGL's viewership of over 40% isn't very high; I just pointed out that it doesn't constitute a majority, which is what you were (wrongly) claiming. Fact. Also that high viewership ratings aren't an indicator of viewership enjoyment, as you were claiming in your argument (again, wrongly). Also fact.

"Over 40%
So those who don't like it are ipso facto in a minority. "
Oh, ipso facto? Well lemme hurry and check a Latin dictionary to re-learn my math, because I never knew that over 40% constitutes a majority. But maybe throwing around fancy Latin phrases means one is speaking the absolute truth? Regardless if basic math notions are trampled in the process.
As far as I know, "My Golden Life's" ratings in S.Korea still haven't surpassed 50%, so no, it's not true that a majority of domestic viewers is watching this drama. Even IF a majority of *domestic* viewers was watching MGL, this wouldn't imply or determine that a majority of *total* viewers was watching it. There does exist an international viewership to be considered additionally, you know, not at all negligible in size, and which is particularly relevant since that's where Andrea McLean (the original poster) and you, one presumes, fit in. S.Korean local TV ratings tell absolutely nothing about the size of that international viewership. Obviously.
But most importantly... you do realize it's a huge fallacy, on multiple levels, in somehow equaling "best ratings seen in Korea in years" with sufficient proof to place Andrea McLean "in a minority" because she's expressed disappointment in this drama? All that ratings tell you is how many people are watching a show. Even IF the ratings were over 50% (which they are not), and you would be justified in claiming that a majority of the audience is watching MGL (which you are not), you do realize that ratings, whether high or low, tell absolutely nothing about *how* that audience feels about what it is watching, yes? They might be disappointed, or feel that the drama is dragging--like Andrea does--and still watch, for various reasons, and thus still contribute to those vaunted high ratings you mentioned.

"Although I agree that high ratings don't necessarily mean high quality, it does mean exactly what I stated - LOTS of people disagree with YOUR opinion. "
How are you even coming to these conclusions? Where are you pulling them from? I'm genuinely fascinated. In the meantime, let's stop counting apples (ratings) and then surmising how many oranges there are in the bowl (viewers universally enjoying what they're watching. And disagreeing with poor Andrea McLean, to boot). Not to mention count wrongly.

"How this translates to an opinion on my part to the quality one way or another of the drama baffles me, but there you are."
I never conjectured anything about whatever your opinion might be about the quality of MGL (neither did Andrea McLean, for that matter), so I'm the one baffled why you'd think otherwise--repeatedly. There I am.

@TeleriFerchNyfain
Considering context and the usual implied meaning for the word "ratings" in speech, I'm going to assume you're talking about TV ratings. In which case I'm curious in what "minority" exactly you are placing Andrea McLean.

Sure, generally speaking it might be smart to leave some mystery in the early stages of a relationship, but I don't think the 'general rules' apply in this particular case in ImnaR, with JA/MK's relationship.
1) This is not a normal relationship in its early stages, but one where the guy [technically] has already told the girl he loves her (people don't do that when a relationship is just starting out, do they?), and then the girl proceeded to blow the guy's heart to smithereens with a huge betrayal (at least, that's how MK perceives it, and going by JA's guilty conscience, she doesn't disagree). He trusted her basically without limits (as reflected in the fact that even his human contact allergy was cured because of her), but she deceived him and broke his trust. To even try to fix something like that, I think the depth and detail of JA's explanation has to be at least commensurate to the depth of her betrayal (and MK's hurt feelings): which means that JA indeed has A LOT of explaining to do. By playing it cool and keeping her cards/feelings close to the vest (as opposed to "laying them all on the table", like you said), JA won't get to fix what she broke. What use is there in keeping "a little mystery for the next steps of their relationship" if she's not able to save that relationship in the first place?
2) That level of detail in JA's admissions was needed for her to bridge the new gap between her and MK that was created by his discovery that she's human. I mean, he became so close to her when she was acting as a robot that he fell in love with her, but now he thinks that everything he believed before is wrong, and she's become a stranger to him. So it's important that, when she describes her feelings, he realizes that those feelings were mirrored in his heart; each time she tells him that her heart was fluttering because of him, he connects it to a memory of his heart fluttering for her in that same moment, or a similar moment. This way, through their shared emotion (most importantly by revealing that it was, in fact, *shared*), they're regaining their closeness and getting back together on familiar ground. That's essential for their reconciliation. He realizes that she's not a stranger to him, but the same person he's known all along, just in another guise/with another name.
3) Regarding the argument that "she could have gotten by with saying a lot less and ended with the same results," I have to ask: did you watch MK's reactions over the course of that conversation? It was a huge deal for him that he even got to the point where he was willing to hear her out, and he kept insisting that he wanted to hear the truth, that she should tell him everything, that she should tell him again from the start etc. etc. And if JA ended up oversharing, it was because he kept prompting and guiding her to do so, with his questions, and his reactions (he kept softening more and more towards her the more she talked and revealed about her feelings: he went from keeping her at a distance to asking her to come closer, to wanting to touch her but withdrawing, to allowing her to touch him and guide his touching her, to sitting with her snuggled against him, to kissing her). Just watch how, over the course of their long conversation, every few tidbits of information from JA translates to MK taking one step closer towards her (emotionally, and more-or-less physically as well). I think it's fair to say that, by reducing the number of tidbits that JA shared, one would get a proportionate reduction in MK's steps towards her, so the result could not have been the same because the steps taken wouldn't have been enough to bring him back to her.
4) Turnabout's fair play. When JA acted as a robot, MK basically kept no defenses against her, and he showed her his deepest secrets and darkest fears. And he openly expressed his feelings for her--whereas she stayed safely hidden behind her robot persona and got to keep all her secrets. Yet now that she's revealed herself as a person, doesn't she owe him an equal degree of emotional openness, to even out the scales between them? Even if you want to make the argument that she doesn't "owe" him so much (even though she didn't gain his secrets fairly, but by pretending she wasn't a human, which lowered his barriers), I'm certain that after being emotionally naked before JA, MK himself *needed* the same from her in return, in order to accept her again. I mean, it's not like he had any so-called mysteries left in her eyes, so why should she keep hers in front of him? [In my experience, once you've revealed your soul to another person in a relationship, you can't really be content if that other person is still keeping secrets and not trusting you enough to give you as much as you've given them. It's like when one person loves the other much more than they are loved in return. Discontent and resentment build up in time, and the relationship ends up failing.]
And I say this again, it was MK who essentially guided the tenor of the whole conversation. Everything that JA revealed, he asked for. He was the hurt party, and thus it was him who got to decide what and how much he needed to assuage that hurt. As long as he needed more, he kept asking for more, and JA kept giving him. When he thought he'd had enough, that's when he stopped JA's sharing. But as it turns out, even then he'd only received enough to be at peace with what had happened, and not enough to let himself love JA the way they both needed. So JA gave him still more (her "I love you") and THAT's when it was enough, finally, and he came back to her and was able to kiss her. All of this is truly beautifully written (and acted), if you think about it. It's not flashy, but it's psychologically sound and very powerful on an emotional level. At least, in my opinion.

So anyway... While I agree that 2 people just sitting next to each other and talking endlessly isn't the most *exciting* thing that could happen in a drama, I firmly believe that whole long talk and in particular JA's unvarnished "oversharing" was needed for her to win back MK's trust. If she had chosen to give him less at that "go hard or go home" moment, she would also have gotten less in return. Which means, she wouldn't have gotten him.

But the hero and heroine survive and live happily ever after together?

Bibimbap! (For now... There's still stuff I haven't tried, lol)

You'll find links to a partial EN translation of "Legend of Fu Yao" (literal title: "Empress Fu Yao") there, but not EN translation for "Rise of Phoenixes," unfortunately. Still, we might get one if the drama becomes popular enough.

Yep. The author also has another novel-to-drama adaptation airing this year: "Legend of Fu Yao" (with actress Yang Mi in the titular role). I'm super excited for both dramas, provided they stick to the source material (both novels are, by all accounts, very smart and well written).

http://ckmscans.halofight.com/t483-main-index-list-of-chapters-download

Thank you so much for replying! So the adaptation is very faithful to the novel. That's great. And I do really really want to watch this, but I don't speak Chinese so I'd need subtitles. I'm so frustrated that "Snail" is being subbed by 2 groups (Viki and DramaFever), yet no one has picked up "Memory Lost".

How faithful to the book do you find the drama adaptation overall? Did the scriptwriters translate the romance from the novel well to screen?
And what aspects of the drama adaptation do you think that author Ding Mo was feeling very regretful about? Thanks!

Which character is Boji? I'm guessing a secondary one? And does she have much screentime?