CKDramaddicts

yeah, I could totally see that happening to me as well. It's hard to connect or empathize with her character because of the way she is being portrayed, even though I want to because she's clearly going through serious and scary crap! I had the same issue with Healer. I get it's totally personal preference, but PMY's portrayal didn't work for me and as much as I enjoyed Healer overall, I wasn't as emotionally invested as I wanted to be. I'm not automatically adverse to the cute-naive thing either, but it somehow does take away from the gravitas of the circumstances - I agree she already looks it, no need to do more. And one or two tantrums is enough to get the message across too, doing multiple times an episode becomes tiresome, dilutes the moment and packs less emotional punch.

I am liking this so far .... except I wish the FL would stop screaming so much and play the character a little differently. A little is fine and makes sense obviously, but there's been so many extended scenes of screaming tears in the first three episodes that I'm finding it extremely grating, unfortunately. 😬😅 (To be clear, obviously she's going through a lot of serious trauma from her medical diagnosis to being legit kidnapped, but there are many ways to convey the heightened emotions.)

Even knowing how things are going to end, I can't believe they dragged this out an extra 8 episodes to make sure **nobody** is spared! Who greenlit the final script, lol?

Oh no! Fangs of Fortune was on my to-watch list as well...

I was waiting for your review when I started watching (I went in with eyes wide open since I simply wanted to watch LXY in an angsty meaty role) and I generally agree with your take! When Luo Mei finally accepted Xuanlie, I thought, surely, this was some scheme to get closer so she could gather evidence and foil any future nefarious plans! I kept waiting and waiting. Baron Chen was great, but his character did get tiresome.

When that arc ended, I thought, 24 episodes would have been a great length to wrap things up! Every other subsequent episode that followed was set up as yet another opportunity to finally give everyone a flawed, but at least happy ending. But Nah! Why do anything sensible at this point, lol?

When I finally got to the scene with the stupid Xiyan King, I literally laughed out loud and thought "flower chomping, superstitious old fool" indeed!🤣🤣🥀🤣🤣 (At this point, I also thought cynically that the censors must love how the story is demonstrating the terrible consequences of religious/superstitious beliefs, lol.)

Anyway, I just started ep 29 and can't fathom how there is still 4 episodes worth of story to tell. At the same time, I honestly have no regrets about watching this since I went in knowing exactly what awaited and probably enjoyed it a lot more as a result.

In Western productions, they might have a team of writers, with a different lead writer for each episode, but in general, the overall story direction is already set and everyone is on the same page with showrunners typically having the final say. In China, you might have a combo team who always work together as partners on scripts. But shows with multiple writers are usually situations where writers are brought to "fix" a script, or writers who are on hand to make changes to the show as it is being filmed to add scenes for certain characters (for example, an agency or big investor wants to push their particular talent and give them a bigger role and more lines than was originally intended and is demanding those changes) or to work around difficult filming situations that might arise. My understanding is these writers that come in after aren't necessarily working with the original scriptwriters or even the director. They may be taking direction from higher up -- the people putting money into the production. Sometimes original writers quit because of unreasonable demands or are fired. In any case, unlike Hollywood, where the overall story is already established and the writing and directing is simply split up by episodes between half a dozen or more people, in China, productions that usually have more than 3 writers usually end up with messier scripts.

I now see what you mean. I guess like real life, even when the truth is revealed to the world, people often refuse to believe it. (Also, I find it hard to believe that after a decade, the street where her mom ran her shop has not been cleaned up yet, lol)

after I posted this, it occurred to me (duh!) that the same applies to LXY, who has played the villain and ambiguous supporting grey characters so well too.

Unless more happens later, by the end of 23, they did make it official with the imperial edict that spelled out in detail that the Crown Prince was behind everything and redeeming Jinghe and offering three years tax exception to the people of Qingzhou.

Also, he honestly got off way too easy.

Okay, I'm now at end of 23 and how are there still so many more episodes left?! I guess this is where it all begins to unravel? 🤣🫣

With all the focus on other aspects of this drama, I just wanted say how good Baron Chen is here playing a really hateful, evil villain. I've seen him play the romantic ML, a heroic ML, etc. so it's always interesting to see actors stretch their range to play something so different. I'm not sure I can see him as a good guy again for a very long while, lol.

I say I'm ready, but I am probably not, since I'm enjoying it too much right now, lol. I know roughly what happens to key characters, but I did want to know, do we at least get the satisfaction of having the ML redeemed in everyone's eyes and that everyone finds out who really committed the massacre? (yes or no is fine :))

At ep 15 where the Crown Prince is trying to make everyone think that's Jinghe, and come on! He's not my childhood friend nor my son, but I do notice people's hands, and I would have known instantly it's not him. Especially with the ring on a thumb that looks completely different! lol

Just started this and loving it even more than S1. That showdown at the brothel was completely ridiculous in the best way --- truly phenomenal story telling and acting.

My only "complaint" so far is Wu Xingjian, the new Yan Bingyun. As much as I enjoyed his previous roles, he is no match for the caliber of acting around him, unfortunately. Xiao Zhan also set the tone and the bar for the character, and WXJ is unable to capture the character's aura of stoicism and high intelligence. Still, it does not detract at all from the overall drama, which is off to an excellent -- and surprisingly hilarious -- start. Let's just hope we don't have to wait another five years for S3!

I'm watching this with eyes wide open -- started after all the comments on the ending came out -- and so glad I did! LXY is so compelling here. The story is imperfect, but still interesting so far (almost halfway). I'm really enjoying the cinematography too.

I'm totally ready for whatever garbage ending is coming my way! 🤣

While it's true there are multiple writers in Western dramas and writers rooms, there is a lot of work put into make it cohesive across different writers. The way shows are done in China is very different, and not really comparable to Hollywood on many levels. Apples and oranges.

You totally dodged a bullet. Yes, normally I wait until a drama finishes as well, but all my friends were watching it and it was a basically a fluffy rom com that was just really nice - total comfort watch! So how bad could the ending be? Unsatisfying at most, right? Certainly they wouldn't actually murder the wonderful ML off screen in a random senseless crime in the second last episode and then mislead viewers with a wedding that turned out to be a dream! 😂 I knew about the novel for KMLM and given the premise and characters, a SE/BE here would not have been a complete surprise at least. In any case, I've started this one despite all warnings and will expect the worst! 😂

I think most viewers would agree that this may be the absolute worst drama ending ever among bad endings, lol. They randomly decided to murder the ML off-screen in the second last episode, tease viewers with a wedding that was only a dream, and then end with the suggestion that the FL becomes afflicted with the same mental illness that the ML struggled with and they were trying to fix (hallucinating a dead person).

The first 30 episodes of this series were really nice and enjoyable - a wonderful and heartwarming romcom/comfort healing drama. All the couples are interesting and likable, no one is really annoying, and all the kids are just freaking adorable. It starts going down hill in the last 6 episodes with a story arc that was completely unnecessary. Spoiler in next post.