Amastris Dratwka

CCP still out here trying to destroy what let Chinese culture is left that they didn't get to during the industrialization of the Chinese Red Guard Cultural Revolution. Temples, Buddhist statues, rare manuscripts, Ming Dynasty & other tombs, books, paintings, antiques... now they STILL don't want any of that traditional beauty and aesthetics that emphasizes that traditional culture either. That's the beauty of something like Pursuit of Jade and why I even want to watch any of it. The fact that novels, dramas and movies want to go back to these historical eras is a testament to the passion of the true Chinese heart. Makeup, colors and styling were all part of opera lore. It helped the audience identify the hidden aspects of a character. This is acting at its finest. Much like the Geisha of Japan. It IS meant to standout above the common folks. It is what you pay to experience.

I'm not interested in this propagandized CCP communist history denying and destroying sloosh.

Let's not get it twisted. Those who have issues/jealousy or social justice over the aspect of "unrealistic beauty standards" can't see the forest through the trees of what the CCP symposium is saying here. Please read careful because "beauty" isn't the defining point. It's traditional Chinese culture and an obsession with it the scares the crap out of the CCP in these volatile times in China.

NOTE WHAT WAS SAID:
"... television dramas, as a form of art widely enjoyed by the general public, play an important role in conveying mainstream values, inheriting China's outstanding traditional culture, and guiding aesthetic trends..."

and "...television drama sector must thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping Thought on Culture (the current cultural and ideological doctrine of the People's Republic of China), uphold a people-centered creative orientation, adhere to both integrity and innovation, and embrace the core values of truth, goodness, and beauty. It should go deep into real life and take root among the people, ensuring that television drama works reflect the beauty of simplicity, the beauty of nature, and the beauty of meaningful content..."

~ or essentially.... stop obsessing about the past... you only get to believe & worship what Xi tells you you can believe and worship... focus on industrialization and modernization's growth.. and make sure everything you produce reflects that sentiment and doesn't stir the traditional cultural emotions of the masses...

Ski into Love and Sword and Fairy were some of the most boring Chinese dramas ever made although I'm sure she can be good doing something else but please don't compare her to the amazing, unique, beautiful and talented Zhao Lusi. /sacrcasm

~Been on MDL less than a month. Add no reviews. Talk crap about others. Organic discord? I think not. Ignore the Chinese BOTS. 😏

Chinese people have nothing more to do than this kind of bullshit for them to distract themselves from the failings of Xi while waiting hours in their cars lined up onto the streets to save a few cents per gallon of gas. Scarcity all around.... even avg citizens see their wealthy actors are lacking opportunities for every achievement gained by another set of wealthy actors... and that they need to fight for them to have just 1 million more yuan in their pocket.

Have you ever thought that at around episode 18 - 32 there were valid criticisms?

I'm not a hater. Here it is => https://kisskh.at/760409-zhu-yu#comment-25534404 I expressed my POV with sincerity. Relegating my POV to simply being a "hater" as if I have some nefarious agenda to derail this drama is a bit much. Why are only positive reviews okay? That's quite domineering and totalitarian. I don't criticize positive reviews. Everyone is entitled to enjoy this drama like I wanted to do.

If you read my review of the drama at present... Let me post what I said on my personal timeline Friends Feed at EP. 14:

"..I've always seen Zhang Ling He as a pretty boy rom-com actor. He does great in those roles. He meets or exceeds expectation in that element. But I never would have called him a "serious" actor until this drama.

There are so many intricacies to Xie Zheng and he captures them all so well. His ability to seamlessly go from docile, to wretch, to noble, to infatuated, to general, to compassionate, to fatherly, to shy, to husband is masterful. Never a moment out of character for any specific scene. He fully captures what a Martial Arts Master, General & Marquis of import Xie Zheng is. It's fascinating to watch it every moment.

Tian Xi Wei is just great all around. This drama doesn't work without her acting meeting up to Zhang Ling He. To pull off masculine strength in innocent, naive girlie form is EPIC. She matches to this man 100%. Which makes it so realistic for him to fall for her. And her slow burn and realistic attitude stemming from so much familial tragedy hits just the right tone.

I honestly don't want to jinx it.... but if this keeps going at the same pace and plot texture, this will easily be added up to my top 10 Fav dramas of all time alongside Six Flying Dragons, Joy of Love & The Untamed for costume/historical dramas..."

Unfortunately, by Ep 30 I said, "..I'm sad. I think I did end up jinxing it.." Those are simply my honest evaluations of this drama.

This drama has so many integral characters that the 2nd half of this drama ends up feeling like a completely new drama. I know that the stories of the others have to be told but we end up losing Xie Zheng in the process.

This plot is centered around Changyu so she is the focal point in almost every aspect of this drama. But once Xie Zheng leaves Changyu after their fight Xie Zheng gets relegated to a supporting character until the last few episodes, with only a scene or 2 in each episode. After all the build up and chemistry generated in the first 16 episodes, this feels deflating, especially when episode after episode focus on death and destruction done by 2 psychotic brothers. It weighs down the drama for me.

The romance between the leads is epic. I wished they would have showed more interactions in the military camp but everything seemed disjointed and rushed. Trying to capture all of the multitude of substories that connect to the CP just completely overshadowed them and it made those intimate scenes between them fleeting and not as satisfying. I spent most of my energy watching hoping for their next interactions. In this way, all the other parts that were important made me more impatient with the drama instead.

This drama was not 'bad'. It just suffered from the censorship board and control outside of the hands of the production team. Forcing them to fit this story in a confined box didn't do it justice.

Kudos to all the actors though, not just our CP. They all did a wonderful job in their roles. I wished I could have enjoyed them more. I probably will when I calm down and rewatch it without all the expectations. I say that because, for me, this drama is a solid 8.5/10 right now with the value of rewatching for the acting and cinematography alone. Now that I know how this is going to play out, rewatching may make me revise it higher, despite my current disappointments.

This has the best intro opening music and theme I've ever seen. I love it every time I see it.

The drama is an incomplete telling of the novel.

As the ending suggests, Noa changes his name to a Japanese to shrug off all his Korean roots and fake being native Japanese and runaway from his family, especially his biological father. He hated the fact that he was born of a Korean father with Yakuza ties. He was raised religious and idolized his step-father and believed he was his real dad. He never completely got over the fact that this wasn't true.

Noa passes as Japanese. Ironically he also ends up running a pachinko parlor in Nagano, like his little brother, and marries a Japanese woman, Risa Iwamura. He ends up having 2 twin girls, a son & another daughter.

In the novel Hansu locates Noa after 16 years of him hiding in Nagano. It's 1979. Noa was still unable to reconcile his new identity with his past and his Korean heritage, so he kills himself shortly after meeting with Sunja, who comes to meet him with Hansu. He can't stand the thought of being discovered to not be Japanese.

After Noa's death, Sunja confronts Hansu and blames him for everything. For ruining her life and causing Noa to kill himself. She expresses her anger and resentment for Hansu interfering and controlling her life for decades even if it was due to his connection with Noa. He misdirects her anger by telling her he has prostate cancer but he'll likely survive it. Hansu is still obsessed with Sunja even several years after Noa dies and continues to try to be a part of her and her family's life. He even asks her to marry him after his wife dies but Sunja refuses. And this is the last time they see each other. It's not a happy ending for them.

Holy smokes the dang start of episode 38. Anyone thirsty? That's a whole lot of man. And a whole lot of woman. lul.

Gemini says differently:

Key Rankings and Achievements:

Netflix Global: Entered the Top 10 Global Non-English TV series list, peaking around #6.

Domestic (China): Achieved the highest daily viewership with 98.93 million views and broke the 30% market share on the Yunhe Hot List, making it the highest-rated period drama since 2025.

Popularity: Reached #1 on the Guduo Popularity Index and secured a 31,000 heat index on Tencent Video.

Dang. Haters already rating episodes that haven't even been released to downrate this drama and it's STILL this high?

I'm taking my time watching this. So far, this drama is a masterpiece of OST, theme, color & style texture, costuming, cinematography, plot and acting. It's a total vibe. I think it was epic to have it set during winter. Same costuming styling aura as Love Like the Galaxy. Overall the feel of this drama reminds me of Story of Yanxi Palace that made Wu Jinyan & Xu Kai household names. It's no wonder this drama is produced by iQIYI who also produced SOYP

This coming from a perpetual drama dropping, I'm not surprised you'd say something like this. Negativity follows you.

Oh wow, I just started watching My Fated Boy and I was thinking this FL looks like all those Chinese cellphone beautiful filters but in real life. I think I've only watched 1 of her dramas -- First Love with Wang Xing Yue and it was a solid 7 for me.

Tencent is really great at promoting their stuff.

I think I'm tainted by reading the novel and watching the original American drama series.

This version is much more Japanese-centric, as opposed to centered around John Blackthorne. He's not as central to this version at all.

Diverting from the book, this drama does 2 things differently. 1) It provides the supposed background of what was being said and done behind Blackthorne's back that he and the reader of the novel is unaware of at the time & 2) modernizes the women to be less subservient and more outspoken while still trying to portray the situation as if you say something wrong, disrespectful or sideways, you'll get killed. Something that doesn't really match up to the era of the 1600s.

Let's not forget that this story is the back drop to the start of the Edo Shogunate and kicking out Catholics and foreigners from Japan until the Meiji Era. So, yeah, things were a bit chaotic, stressful and civil war abounded.

But for me, this Blackthorne was a bit awkward and a pansy. This version isn't so much about his quick thinking as he is a pawn for the rise of a Shogun. And if Blackthorne was falling in love and romancing anyone, by episode 8, I still wasn't seeing it. What I was seeing was all the mechanics and maneuvering that happens during a Civil War where everyone is looking for power and control.

First off, why shouldn't the English man be portrayed in a very positive light? Maybe you need to understand 3 things.

1) FACT: In the mid 1500s PORTUGUESE came with their "Black Ships" to trade & brought CATHOLICS to convert Japanese to Christianity. This is AFTER England removed itself from Rome and established the Church of ENGLAND, a Protestant religion. There is NO historical account of English trying to "COLONIZE" Japan during this Era.

2) This is based on a NOVEL by the same title: SHOGUN.
This version differs from the novel, in that it is Japanese-centric instead of centered around the main character in the Novel, John Blackthrone, an English pilot on a Dutch vessel that, 'fictionally' discovered the route that the Portuguese took to get to Japan.

3) This is based on historical FACT of the establishment of the 1600s Tokugawa Shogunate in Edo. You can research it.

In 1600, an English sailor, Wm. Adams & a Dutchman, Jan Joosten came to Japan & disclosed to the Japanese about the conflicts between Protestant and Portuguese & Spanish Catholics. The man who would be Shogun took a liking to them and TRUSTED what they told him... It's this information that lead to the Shogun eventually PERSECUTING Christians, then banning Catholicism completely and begin it's ISOLATIONIST FOREIGN POLICY until the Japanese Meiji Era.

So, YEAH, they WOULD portray an ENGLISHMAN in a good light for this drama.

I honestly do not understand this new false historical outlook to justify racism.

Your review is still bad because it based on your own personal wishes and fantasy of how thing life was for women in a harem, forgetting that this is a freaking historical. Empress Xiaoyichun was the mother of the next emperor. Once a woman because a consort of the emperor, she's never leaving the Forbidden City and his harem unless her body is cold & stiff. That's just the facts. Just because you don't approve of how things were historical has nothing to do with the portrayal of it in modern times. What, did you expect they were going to have her marry Fuheng?? Only if it was a Sci-Fi fantasy alternative reality was that EVER going to happen.

The synopsis on the wikipedia says, "...Climax unfolds against the backdrop of South Korea's powerful conglomerates and entertainment industry, following a couple driven by boundless ambition who'll stop at nothing – including betraying each other – to reach the pinnacle of success..."

I've also read synopsis that he marries her as a top female actress for her power but at some point she loses her appeal etc in her age and she accuse him of not wanting her anymore because of it....

There's a "revenge" tagline here, so, I suspect the relationship is complicated on all sides. Maybe they both cheat. lul

Based on what he and she say at the end, I feel like it's the other way around.

Having not read any of the literary material, watching First Frost makes me understand this version of Sang Yan and why he seems so "fatherly" and controlling.

I get now that it's not honestly due to his need to control his sister. If anything, she's often an afterthought and a tool for him. He's cringeworthily devoted to a non-family member. It's having to face his painful past that makes him so upset & angry about where she is and then how her own romantic relationship unfolds.

I find it interesting how this pair of siblings are so devoted to another human yet still maintain their unique vibe of closeness that allows for much distance but ultimate compatibility and synchronicity. To the point that the person they each romantically choose, in some form & fashion, have no other "family" but them.

Korea is looking more and more like China everyday.
This is how they control entertainment by using taxes to tear a celebrities' lives apart.

Just like in China, they're just going after folks with money that they can manipulate and extort because they'll cave due to their public image. Government is looking for its money grab and regular citizens who are into the Cancel Culture will just take the govt's word for it, as if the govt itself isn't corrupt.

Look, the way things went down and a CCP loving candidate got put into the Leadership position isn't an accident. What's sad is that Koreans are getting so manipulated that don't see what's happen before their eyes.

Better hope that the Princelings take down Xi after his antics. Otherwise, when Xi because Emperor of China, Korea will go back to be a vassal state doing Beijing's bidding.

"hit and run" is SPECIFIC terminology for 2 party accidents....

At MOST this can be called "leave the scene of an accident".

As it stands, the police are telling 🫵to stop spreading rumors and getting everyone up in a riot. The issue was resolved in APRIL 2025, when she corrected the insurance claim and she paid all provincial damages and to anyone affect by it.

God forbid you try not to kill an animal then go quickly to protect your face, the very thing you make a living on... WOW... to those who find ANYTHING wrong with the way this was handled when the police don't.

WHO SUFFERED?
🫵
Get over yourself and look for a life of your own.