Freefoxx

Lol true! Also it cracked me up how Lu Lingfeng tasted the vegetable ball to make sure you-know-what wasn't in it!

I also think it's a good portrayal for this character. Like you said, he comes from a lot of privilege and has gotten very far very young, so he just goes swaggering about without a lot of regard for the consequences. He's definitely starting to mature but I agree, his behavior is true to the character that's written and likely how a young and powerful aristocrat at that time would have behaved.

They tied it up very nicely. I was a bit confused by Su Wuming basically saying "this place seems haunted, let's get out of here," but now it makes total sense (he knew something was wrong with the local authorities and that they needed to get out of there fast). I couldn't quite figure out the ending scene of the Liu brothers, though? Did the snake eat the cannibal brother and they couldn't show that on-screen? Which would be weird because the snakes apparently raised him, but maybe he's fair game because he's down and out?!

I'm at episode 10 and her development has still been slow, but without spoiling things, she definitely shows more depth and contributes more in the upcoming episodes.

The acting is very good. I was expecting this to be a solely plot-driven drama but the characterization is quite well-done. Love the back-and-forth as well.

Seems to have jumped up quite a bit today.

Four episodes in, this is seeming like a fun AND high-quality drama. It's an unusual blend of fantasy/quasi-horror elements and a surprisingly detailed and plausible historical setting. The plot is very tight, the lead and main supporting performances are all solid, and the dialogue is great. The CGI involved in the fantastical elements is not top-notch, which is to be expected, but it's certainly not horrible by C-drama standards, and thus far it's been kept understated enough that it doesn't detract from the drama.

So far only a hint of one, involving the younger lead.

First episode exceeded expectations. Visuals and sets are impressive and it jumps right into the action. Only a bit of CGI yet, I suspect that might turn out to be a weak spot but so far it hasn't been bad.

This looks so good. Super disappointed that it is not streaming legally in the US. Seems to be an unfortunate trend this year with well-reviewed dramas (Bloody Heart, Big Mouth).

Yes, he is a real eunuch. His family sold him to the palace to be castrated when they fell on hard times.

This is a really good movie and I'm surprised that the ratings aren't higher. The lead performance is outstanding, hitting all the right emotional notes, and the plot is very straightforward and never gets bogged down in unnecessary details or side drama. There is simplicity but also real artistry in this film and it's a standout in my view.

This is definitely a fair take even though the pacing works for me. It's only mentioned in passing but it seems like a fair amount of time goes by between episodes. In the last one it's mentioned that WYW's been working at the firm for several months. I assume the parts that are skipped are meant to imply the time spent on "boring" legal stuff outside the scope of the drama.

I agree. I like how the (early) romance here is pretty much separate from WYW's ASD. Like Junho isn't going from being a "mentor" to a love interest, he's clearly intrigued by her from the outset and sees her as a whole person.

I might be reading too much into his characterization so far, but I get the sense that MW does not come from a privileged background and had to scrap his way into the high-level law firm. So I think he's quick to be suspicious of anything that smacks of privilege or favoritism. Notice how he was the one in the first episode to recognize that CEO Han was the one who wrote the note introducing YW - he's very attentive to how authority operates in the workplace. It doesn't excuse his unfriendly treatment of YW but I think he's more motivated by this than by discrimination toward her disability. He doesn't seem well-educated about ASD, and went from assuming that YW is a goofball undeserving of her job to assuming that because of her obvious intelligence, she is undeserving of accommodations.

I sense that he's going to grow more sympathetic as the drama goes on. I can't imagine that Junho would be roommates with someone totally without redeeming qualities!

Yep, Lou Yao is from a wealthy noble family. Yuan Shen is a scholar who studies at a prestigious school, and it's implied during the housewarming party scene that his family is important as well. Ling Buyi is a young and successful general who is also the emperor's adopted son. It seems like his biological father is the nobleman whose feast he crashed earlier in the drama.

CSS's family seems comfortable but not rich. I think her parents start out as mid-level military officers but her father gets promoted to a general at the start of the drama.

Is it possible to watch this drama in the US? It looks very good but doesn't seem like it's available anywhere online.

Just finished Ep 24. This was probably one of the best historical dramas (i.e. set in a period of "real" history) I've watched, and certainly one of the most tightly plotted and written. The acting, visuals, and narrative pacing are all excellent. As far as performances are concerned, the level of emotion in both Chen Kun's and Bai Yu's performance really makes the drama and I thought the supporting performances were very solid. And the plotline rarely, if ever, became contrived: even the layers-on-layers of spying and counter-spying ultimately made logical sense. I also really liked the tone, which landed somewhere between earthy/gritty, tense, and peaceful, with dimly lit intrigue scenes juxtaposed against shots of beautiful rural vistas. The setting felt like a realistic depiction of war-torn ancient China.

As an overall work of television, I think this drama is a cut above thematic/Ma Boyong adaptation predecessors Longest Day in Chang'an and Luoyang, both of which are great dramas in their own right and have a more traditionally "epic" feel than Longxi does. But everything in this drama just felt carefully planned, polished, and executed from start to finish in a way that seems to elude even some of the best historical/costume dramas, especially in the final stretches.

I will definitely say that this drama is geared toward a very patient audience with an interest in the subject matter. Even the underlying "stakes" of the action are fairly complicated and tied in with historical details from the period. I suspect that for this reason, the drama (understandably) may not end up with incredibly broad exposure. But it is a truly excellent production and I enjoyed it a lot.

Yeah I agree. Haven't read the novel but I feel like the drama might be going in a different direction. I mean they've really played up the angle of XFN needing to become king to keep the peace that all the soldiers died for. And XFN is set up as saying he can basically get both the things he wants at once (marrying JN and ruling Beiliang in a different way than Xu Xiao). Plus the overall tone of this drama doesn't seem heavy enough to go that dark with the ending. Maybe I'm just being optimistic but I think it might go a different way.

I haven't read the novel, but judging from the drama, it looks like the Liyang royal family and Beimang teamed up to kill her. I'm assuming it's because she was such a powerful martial artist and commanded so much loyalty from others that she and Xu Xiao together would have been pretty much unstoppable.