Chim Yen Nho

With the anticipation so high for this drama, I’m surprised at how low the rating is. Plus I’m already digging this drama a lot more than Mirror Twin City.
Btw, is BXL Bai Ying’s mother?

In ancient times people tend to marry their cousins. I think ancient China is not exempt from this.

Same! I’d like to know too!

Actually I think that’s accurate information. I believe it’s nearing 60M views as of right now.

Wang He Run

Missing the grey one when he was in Heavenly Realm

Precisely 🤣

Lol it’s very unfortunate that PoCA was filmed before L&R and yet released after L&R so it’s unavoidable viewers will have a biased view regarding the female lead (Sarah Zhao) who played an antagonist in L&R. As for the drama itself it seems Cheng Yi’s character in there is even worse off than SBM, and yes, he dies in there too 😅

Yes, Cheng Yi dies in here and it will shattered your heart to pieces like Immortal Samara. STB has its own brand of tragic and sad but I think in comparison, IS is still the more tragic of the two despite the happy epilogue. But it’s just my own perspective. I wouldn’t recommend going into this straight after IS as that’s what I did and it not end well for me 😆, but you should definitely give this a try one day, it’s worth at least a one-time watch :)

I went into this right after Immortal Samara, thinking it can’t be any worse. But of course, Cheng Yi is dubbed as king of tragedies so I couldn’t be anymore wrong.
While it doesn’t actually broke my heart like IS, his character in here is no less tragic and sad. And yes, if you can’t take it, watching him suffer in here will likely not sit well with you. It killed me for sure, because even as his characters Ying Yuan in IS or Yu Si Feng in L&R suffered, it doesn’t make you feel tortured and broken. But with Qi Yan, you literally see him slowly deteriorate and fade away, and that sense of prolonged suffering just makes it that much worse. But seriously, he makes suffering looks so beautiful that I’m highly addicted 😅
I think this drama is well-made and well-written despite the faulty editing (the usual in c-dramaland) and though it does end on a tragic note, it’s very much worth watching. But you’re not wrong to caution yourself from watching this, as I underestimated Cheng Yi’s prowess and came out shattered again. I hope you’ll be in a right frame of mind to try watching this one day, as it’s worth your time IMO.
Also, despite my love for Cheng Yi, there is one drama of his that I vehemently refused to watch and it’s Promise of Chang’ An. I would advise you not to touch that either 😅. If you think SBM is bad, PoCA is even worse.

The story has always been there, but it’s not a straightforward path. Besides the main plot, it’s also about the characters growth and relationships. The thing about this drama is that it will give you plot hints and clues very subtly and if you don’t catch it right away, it’ll all just become meaningless drivel to you. And then the drama won’t come back to said hints and clues until way later (because you know, they gotta do some characters growth and the unfortunate truth of focusing on too many secondary characters that we don’t really care about) when the story hits its climax and things begin unraveling.
I think as a viewer we’d have to be in a certain state of mind in order to really enjoy and pay attention to what we watch sometimes. I actually dropped at episode 8 the first time due to the somewhat cliché storytelling and the fact my mind just can’t get invested into all that’s happening. But I really liked Cheng Yi so I resolved to give it another try. The second time was better and IS quickly became one of my favorite dramas ever. Everyone has different tastes and IS is definitely not for everyone :)

Lol but to be fair the ‘mystery’ has always been there in the plot line, it’s just you’ve reached the climax of it at that point when the party is trying to solve what happened during ‘that event’ from centuries ago, that’s why everything seems to be happening simultaneously. While all of it may seem to come out of nowhere, I think it actually makes a lot of sense in hindsight as all the things that happened are orchestrated by the one character that not even Ying Yuan could’ve anticipated. It’s a pretty big conspiracy that’s why so many things unraveled when the party started investigating.

They affirmed their love but never consummated it unfortunately, either due to timing or Qi Yan’s injury.

Everyone had always thought Qi Yan became the emperor because he usurped the throne from his uncle (Prince Guang) and was put there by the eunuch Qiu Ziliang. For a while Qi Yan’s attitude does make the viewers also believe his enthronement was due to shady maneuverings (despite the flashbacks). Due to this, everyone is looking for the imperial edict which proves the throne was passed to Prince Guang from the previous emperor (various people wants Prince Guang on the throne for their own purposes and not because they really support him). Even Prince Guang himself comes off very ambiguous regarding his intentions to the throne, however he ultimately proved himself to be a good guy at the end. Because of this, when the imperial edict was finally found, Qi Yan revealed that while the edict was indeed written to passed the throne to Prince Guang on the surface, but because of the special ink when placed in water, it’s revealed that the throne has always been intended for Qi Yan by the previous emperor. Prince Guang was only used as a scapegoat to protect Qi Yan from Qiu Ziliang and his factions during his reign. But in the end, Qi Yan choose to pass the throne to his uncle as Qi Yan had no heirs and was dying from his illness/injury.

Yes she really is a good actress and I was definitely taken by surprise by her performance in SBM. I hope her reunion with Cheng Yi in South Wind will prove fruitful and they’ll finally get their happy ending ❤️

Who’s the snotty YouTuber? I’m curious?

Then you should check him out in Love and Redemption where he also sports similar eyeshadow makeup when he supposedly ‘turned evil”. He looked even more gorgeous in there!

I read a very good explanation of this elsewhere regarding YY’s proclivity. Apparently in Mandarin Chinese , this is a pun : “fan qui” which means “flip the turtle” is also a homophone for “breaking rules” (if you pay close attention to the beginning, YD also refers to YY as ‘fan qui jun’ or lord flipping turtle). In hindsight this makes a lot of sense as YY’s role and position allows him no freedom and I believe deep down it chafes him even as he’s unwilling to let go of those responsibilities. So I suppose his inner rebelliousness manifest through naughty behaviors like flipping the turtle.

Finished watching this in 3 days after binging Immortal Samsara and because I couldn’t get out the Cheng Yi obsession mode. But god this drama is so ungodly depressing, even more so than L&R and IS. At least in L&R and IS there’s a sense of hope, but this is just pure tragic. The main plot of this drama is actually quite straightforward, however it’s all the intertwined plotting and scheming that gives me aneurysms. If it weren’t for the main casts’ amazing acting, don’t think I could ever finish it. As usual Cheng Yi gave a killer heart-wrenching performance, full of angst and bittersweetness. It killed me to see Qi Yan suffer and slowly deteriorate. I initially pitied Qi Yan so much because he was a one man against the world and there was no one he could trust. He was so powerless despite being an emperor, yet he never gave up no matter what people thought of him. However, all the while everyone is scheming and plotting, unbeknownst to them Qi Yan plays the biggest chess game of all, by playing everyone. That little twist at the last episode was something I definitely hadn’t foreseen. Everything was basically within his control even as it took years of plotting to finally checkmate.
Cheng Yi is just incredible in here and surprisingly his chemistry with Zhang Yuxi actually hit the right note for me. She may not have perfected (or suited to) playing innocent and naive, but she’s quite adept at playing a level-headed and mature sword-bearer who will always love and be loyal to Qi Yan. In fact, I initially thought it would be awkward to see them in here after L&R, but it turned out I dig their chemistry and dynamic much better than Cheng Yi with Crystal Yuan. If there’s one thing ZYX is better than YBY it is emotional scenes. ZYX is surprisingly very good at conveying heavy emotions even if at times there are a few hiccups. Watching her last goodbyes with Yanzhi (Xuan Lu) and Qi Yan were extremely heart-wrenching. I can’t decide if his death in here is more painful or IS, but either way he destroyed me - again 😭
But as they have promised to be together again in their next lives, I shall look forward to their reunion in South Wind.

There’s news LLTG will probably get a re-edited extra 10 episodes and might even air again sometimes the end if this year. I sincerely hope IS will get that same treatment, not the re-airing part, just re-release the drama in its whole glory. I hate the fact this amazing drama got butchered so badly towards the end 😔

Netflix has almost all of the Chinese blockbuster dramas licensed except strangely for L&R and now IS (or if they do I guess it’s regional which is a shame 😕)