I have finally completed the illustrated companion piece I added in Discussion section for this drama. If you are curious about :
* the author and her book ; * the remuneration of the main actors ; * where pictures were taken, and which university was used in Beijing ; * the Douban rating and the popularity posters plus the weekly standing among the most watched dramas of the week ; * where to find a live stream with English subtitles featuring the scriptwriter ; * get links to playlists of the music and songs ; * find an annotated character relationship chart, and a challenging portrait gallery (from a selection in a Chinese article) ; * why there were different colored banknotes ; * what is Jianlibao energy drink, which beverages alcohol free or not were included in product placement, how many brands were partners, and what is "Six God" ; * the cars, motorcycle, rules of the road, and map of Beijing ring roads ; * some of those high fashion dresses, bags, accessories ; * where to find and learn a phrase to wish someone success ; * the Chaoxianzhu, the ajumma hairdo, Yanbian and Yanji, the customs of Korean weddings ; * where to get private flying lessons and what sort of aircraft was used ; * some art mentioned in the drama, including a Japanese manga character, and autistic genius painters; * the symbolism of colors for roses ; * find out where roses were displayed in the episode and be spoiled (or informed) through one running commentary of episodes with Gif and pictures linked to the events ; .... and more : click on
no pb: 没事, 没关系, 没问题. let's just enjoy! Sometimes I too, need to go back to delete duplicate messages "hiccuped" by the mischievous algorithm, and since I can be long winded in my comments, it can really look like I want to insist, when I thought I'd said enough Apologies if you find one of mine that I did not weed out properly : I don't systematically check back either. MDL is fine, except for that pesky random unintended "hiccup" feature 😂
Ah, I expected like many that FSM Red moon pact would turn out to be better than it was... I admit it's still "on hold" after 30 some episodes for me, and I don't think I'll finish it soon... It was repetitive, boring, airbrushed, ... tedious. I am sorry the production made it so that it flopped. I had a quick look at the donghua which felt too childish for my taste. On the surface, it looked like indeed it was true to model, for instance on the enunciation pattern of the main antagonist. Sometimes, staying true to original is not best way to make a successful live action drama.
I usually don't care about where the drama originated from when I click on one, at least not until I like it enough on its own to go digging for the possible novel, manhua, donghua... Hidden Love was fine, the live action followed closely the manhua which could be construed as rough storyboard, as I noticed afterwards on rewatch. Eternal Brotherhood was ok from my point of view, although the color scheme was often too dark, and the story took a midway point between the novel and the ongoing donghua. Pastel hued Fox Spirit Matchmaker with its code colored characters looked at first pretty and relaxing, not too stressful, before becoming a sleeping pill. Looks like I was not the only one, from this assessment : https://www.jaynestars.com/news/fox-spirit-matchmaker-red-moon-pact-gets-dismal-ratings/
I am not sure I will give #2 and #3 a try, although I had put some info about the Zhu Ye /Love in Pavilion installment, in the Profile I built for Wu Xuanyi last summer, as companion piece annex to another drama. So I should at least have a peek once this one airs. WXY only has a supporting role there, though, but Liu Shishi and Leon Zhang in FL+ML roles could be an interesting pairing.
But I am not a yiyuan, despite I forayed temporarily into her fandom within the scope of my "fandom explorations" of some celebrities who I was curious to better understand the music and acting conception of. I was glad the resulting Profile was good enough to receive approval from her true fans, of course. Amongst WXY musical stage work, I often go back to her cover of the old Hebe song : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGlmjPsX41U (I liked the three girls from SHE back in the 2000s :) Of course, Wu Xuanyi has other interesting songs: I tried to list them all with links in the Profile I did for her which I probably ought to update before the FSM - Love in Pavilion airs (not sure it will be that soon now). There's at least one new song that I stumbled upon while trawling YouTube randomly, so I should update, yes, but I am "lazy and whimsical".
At the moment, I am still giving finishing touches to the companion piece for The Tale of Rose, after having finished The Double, which I liked, but was annoyed at some details (can't production make the difference between a guqin and a guzheng??? other stuff too and the AJTL reminding end, just after the "quote" from One and Only... Without the 5 minutes of "episode 40.5" that drama might also have nosedived despite the excellent FL and wonderful ML). So I gave it a 9, when I usually give a 10 to the dramas I really like.
There are a few things in Follow Your Heart first episodes that do not really enthuse me. Perhaps I'll warm up to it better along the way. I have a positive bias for Luo Yunxi, and liked FL who played Fan Ruoruo so deliciously. In a few hours, I shall see how all these performed last week, through the weekly report on Youtube from "Marcus Here!"
Actually it was not a qin but a guzheng. Different instrument. The guqin is not very loud, darker notes. The zheng…
You are welcome. Sorry about the MDL hiccup that duplicated the comment: I just deleted that "double" lol. And well, I reacted about the "qin" confusion also because I happen to play the guqin for real and know about ancient instruments. It's fine to have them feature in dramas but I do raise eyebrows when they are mislabeled or the acting instills too many "poetic licence," distortions.
Yes. I gave it 9 too. Although I'm more used to bestow 10s when I'm totally satisfied.So, there were a few things…
Yes Twinty, just for him I was tempted to up it to 10.
BUT among the trivial matters there was also the unnecessary obfuscation of the end with AJTL like bloody battle and rider ,(for those who had no access to the book, interview clarification, or afterthought 40.5 snippet. ) Not too impressed either by the suicides, esp the jump, One and Only like. They were far too bad melo drama for me, so took away my interest there, you know like in those loud "unbelieving," Huhhhh? that you can hear in some "funny" making of snippets. The "catching fish" scene relay throw was nice though, but I was wondering why we did not get the foreign princess using her deadly insect or spiders to poison some guys like she used to, in former scenes. Having her turn martial artist warrior in dark attire was too short and slightly displaced. And no, it was obvious that the fish had been stolen so the Longwu army obeying the villain despite it was clear he had no authority to wield it (besides, it could be a counterfeit?) in the midst of a clear rebellion, was not convincing. Of course, the villain deserved "death by a thousand cuts" instead of merciful suicide, if this was a justice drama.
Amongst other gripes. So not a perfect drama for me. Not enough to shoot it down below 9, precisely because I liked the ML immensely there, despite the mess he had to wade through sometimes. He almost could make me overlook the flaws. But the flaws were there. So, 9.
And the rate is 9.0 already! This one is indeed a must watch
Yes. I gave it 9 too. Although I'm more used to bestow 10s when I'm totally satisfied. So, there were a few things which had me take a point away : the unnecessary confusion instilled about the qin instrument (it was a guzheng.... ) and some other trivial matters.
I still enjoyed it enough to watch till 40.5. and recommended it as "entertaining" or "thrilling" on MDL and elsewhere. I don't regret my time overall, and was very enthused by Wang Xingyue's excellent Xiao Heng. I had indeed noticed him already in other dramas, where he played less sympathetic roles (the cruel prince in One and Only), and star-crossed in Story of Kunning Palace. He's very good, versatile, and has good skills for martial arts scenes : impressed enough to think I will be checking out more of his future work. Wu Jinyue ; she was a good fit for the role, as heralded by her past performance in Story of Yanxi Palace. I quite enjoyed the almost horror story beginning of the Double, with the arm rising up from the mud grave, lol !
40.5 is very short : little more than 5 minutes, though, but more satisfying than the "could be a dream, he's dead" ending, reminding of the riders in the end of tragic A Journey to Love, in ep40.
Btw did anyone notice the parallel between the death of Shi Yi in One and Only and the death of despicable Shen Yurong? of course they were totally opposite ones, except modus operandi.
wait did anyone get the name of the music played on the qin by WJY
Actually it was not a qin but a guzheng. Different instrument. The guqin is not very loud, darker notes. The zheng is fit for a lot of different, flashy tunes. Guqin is the most ancient, with some esoteric lore to it ; zheng is almost as old but not viewed as equally refined, more like a harp or fiddle for dancing music. Here's an article about the qin : https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-qin-chinas-most-revered-musical-instrument/ And about the zheng ? "Guzheng players wear artificial fingernails . On the other hand, the Guqin does not require the player to wear artificial fingernails, but they are required to grow natural fingernails on the right hand. The Guzheng has 21 strings, whereas the Guqin has 7 strings." Guqin : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcElotwrZ8o (Liu Shui, Running waters) Guzheng : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffCKlqWOewo (Gaoshan Liu Shui) Notice the difference in instruments and the necessary talon like "nails" attached with a strip of fabric glued to the fingers of the guzheng player. So.... neither of the actresses knew how to play the guzheng and the whole music moment relied heavily on bgm and CGI. Check their fingers on episode 11 : https://kisskh.co/Drama/The-Double/Episode-11?id=9053&ep=155403&page=0&pageSize=100
Although the music was fine, I was very disappointed that the drama instilled confusion about the instruments. Wu Lei in LLTG was more honest : he really did take pains to learn basics of guqin for his very short piece at the empress' banquet, and Zhao Lusi is known to play guzheng quite well, both for relaxation and on stage. But finally, check out this piano (another "qin" in Chinese) and guzheng recent public cover of a famous Jay Chou song (Huo Yuan Jia 霍元甲) here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTjpSOy6lO4 (look at Jingxuan's fingers).
Wait so here we have another Jiang family LoL 😆 (wrt Kunning Palace and The double)
Google informs : JIANG " is the 52nd most common Chinese surname and is the 141st surname listed in the Hundred Family Surnames poem, contained in the line 江童顏郭 (Jiāng, Tóng, Yán, Guō)." 🤣 It is also the infamous (in the PRC) name of Jiang Jieshi, aka Tchang Kaichek 😩 But since it's frequent, only a few will think of that one 😆
Idk why your thread was posted on the PH reality show Follow Your Heart instead?
It happened to me on the My Precious discussions, so I added a warning in that Discussions page of mine, and those who are interested can find the way to any other "hidden" (misdirected by MDL algorithm) pages of mine, through the list to my "companion piece of dramas" page , clicking the MDL "award" (they sent a few to me!) announcer button on my home page. I put the list there as answer to a request from Cho Na, esteemed MDL user who liked some of those enough to want to find them more easily.
That "misdirections" and "hiccuping" duplicate comments : MDL could benefit from better coding, but we still like that site, don't we ?
One thing: if Discussions section looks "blank", click nonetheless on the links to it, and you will sometimes be surprised to find many "hidden" discussions there. It's a quirk...
As of today, there are two "hidden" Discussions for this Follow Your Heart page, lol.
2 
5 
1 
1 
1 
* the author and her book ;
* the remuneration of the main actors ;
* where pictures were taken, and which university was used in Beijing ;
* the Douban rating and the popularity posters plus the weekly standing among the most watched dramas of the week ;
* where to find a live stream with English subtitles featuring the scriptwriter ;
* get links to playlists of the music and songs ;
* find an annotated character relationship chart, and a challenging portrait gallery (from a selection in a Chinese article) ;
* why there were different colored banknotes ;
* what is Jianlibao energy drink, which beverages alcohol free or not were included in product placement, how many brands were partners, and what is "Six God" ;
* the cars, motorcycle, rules of the road, and map of Beijing ring roads ;
* some of those high fashion dresses, bags, accessories ;
* where to find and learn a phrase to wish someone success ;
* the Chaoxianzhu, the ajumma hairdo, Yanbian and Yanji, the customs of Korean weddings ;
* where to get private flying lessons and what sort of aircraft was used ;
* some art mentioned in the drama, including a Japanese manga character, and autistic genius painters;
* the symbolism of colors for roses ;
* find out where roses were displayed in the episode and be spoiled (or informed) through one running commentary of episodes with Gif and pictures linked to the events ;
.... and more : click on
https://kisskh.at/discussions/the-story-of-rose/126207-the-story-of-the-rose-miscellaneous-details
And if you have something to add, feel free to do so in reply 🤣
Sometimes I too, need to go back to delete duplicate messages "hiccuped" by the mischievous algorithm, and since I can be long winded in my comments, it can really look like I want to insist, when I thought I'd said enough Apologies if you find one of mine that I did not weed out properly : I don't systematically check back either.
MDL is fine, except for that pesky random unintended "hiccup" feature 😂
I had a quick look at the donghua which felt too childish for my taste. On the surface, it looked like indeed it was true to model, for instance on the enunciation pattern of the main antagonist. Sometimes, staying true to original is not best way to make a successful live action drama.
I usually don't care about where the drama originated from when I click on one, at least not until I like it enough on its own to go digging for the possible novel, manhua, donghua... Hidden Love was fine, the live action followed closely the manhua which could be construed as rough storyboard, as I noticed afterwards on rewatch. Eternal Brotherhood was ok from my point of view, although the color scheme was often too dark, and the story took a midway point between the novel and the ongoing donghua. Pastel hued Fox Spirit Matchmaker with its code colored characters looked at first pretty and relaxing, not too stressful, before becoming a sleeping pill.
Looks like I was not the only one, from this assessment : https://www.jaynestars.com/news/fox-spirit-matchmaker-red-moon-pact-gets-dismal-ratings/
I am not sure I will give #2 and #3 a try, although I had put some info about the Zhu Ye /Love in Pavilion installment, in the Profile I built for Wu Xuanyi last summer, as companion piece annex to another drama. So I should at least have a peek once this one airs. WXY only has a supporting role there, though, but Liu Shishi and Leon Zhang in FL+ML roles could be an interesting pairing.
But I am not a yiyuan, despite I forayed temporarily into her fandom within the scope of my "fandom explorations" of some celebrities who I was curious to better understand the music and acting conception of.
I was glad the resulting Profile was good enough to receive approval from her true fans, of course. Amongst WXY musical stage work, I often go back to her cover of the old Hebe song : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGlmjPsX41U (I liked the three girls from SHE back in the 2000s :) Of course, Wu Xuanyi has other interesting songs: I tried to list them all with links in the Profile I did for her which I probably ought to update before the FSM - Love in Pavilion airs (not sure it will be that soon now). There's at least one new song that I stumbled upon while trawling YouTube randomly, so I should update, yes, but I am "lazy and whimsical".
At the moment, I am still giving finishing touches to the companion piece for The Tale of Rose, after having finished The Double, which I liked, but was annoyed at some details (can't production make the difference between a guqin and a guzheng??? other stuff too and the AJTL reminding end, just after the "quote" from One and Only... Without the 5 minutes of "episode 40.5" that drama might also have nosedived despite the excellent FL and wonderful ML). So I gave it a 9, when I usually give a 10 to the dramas I really like.
There are a few things in Follow Your Heart first episodes that do not really enthuse me. Perhaps I'll warm up to it better along the way. I have a positive bias for Luo Yunxi, and liked FL who played Fan Ruoruo so deliciously.
In a few hours, I shall see how all these performed last week, through the weekly report on Youtube from "Marcus Here!"
And well, I reacted about the "qin" confusion also because I happen to play the guqin for real and know about ancient instruments. It's fine to have them feature in dramas but I do raise eyebrows when they are mislabeled or the acting instills too many "poetic licence," distortions.
BUT among the trivial matters there was also the unnecessary obfuscation of the end with AJTL like bloody battle and rider ,(for those who had no access to the book, interview clarification, or afterthought 40.5 snippet. )
Not too impressed either by the suicides, esp the jump, One and Only like. They were far too bad melo drama for me, so took away my interest there, you know like in those loud "unbelieving," Huhhhh? that you can hear in some "funny" making of snippets.
The "catching fish" scene relay throw was nice though, but I was wondering why we did not get the foreign princess using her deadly insect or spiders to poison some guys like she used to, in former scenes. Having her turn martial artist warrior in dark attire was too short and slightly displaced. And no, it was obvious that the fish had been stolen so the Longwu army obeying the villain despite it was clear he had no authority to wield it (besides, it could be a counterfeit?) in the midst of a clear rebellion, was not convincing.
Of course, the villain deserved "death by a thousand cuts" instead of merciful suicide, if this was a justice drama.
Amongst other gripes. So not a perfect drama for me. Not enough to shoot it down below 9, precisely because I liked the ML immensely there, despite the mess he had to wade through sometimes. He almost could make me overlook the flaws. But the flaws were there. So, 9.
So, there were a few things which had me take a point away : the unnecessary confusion instilled about the qin instrument (it was a guzheng.... ) and some other trivial matters.
I still enjoyed it enough to watch till 40.5.
and recommended it as "entertaining" or "thrilling" on MDL and elsewhere.
I don't regret my time overall, and was very enthused by Wang Xingyue's excellent Xiao Heng. I had indeed noticed him already in other dramas, where he played less sympathetic roles (the cruel prince in One and Only), and star-crossed in Story of Kunning Palace. He's very good, versatile, and has good skills for martial arts scenes : impressed enough to think I will be checking out more of his future work.
Wu Jinyue ; she was a good fit for the role, as heralded by her past performance in Story of Yanxi Palace. I quite enjoyed the almost horror story beginning of the Double, with the arm rising up from the mud grave, lol !
Btw did anyone notice the parallel between the death of Shi Yi in One and Only and the death of despicable Shen Yurong? of course they were totally opposite ones, except modus operandi.
Here's an article about the qin : https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/the-qin-chinas-most-revered-musical-instrument/
And about the zheng ? "Guzheng players wear artificial fingernails . On the other hand, the Guqin does not require the player to wear artificial fingernails, but they are required to grow natural fingernails on the right hand. The Guzheng has 21 strings, whereas the Guqin has 7 strings."
Guqin : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcElotwrZ8o (Liu Shui, Running waters)
Guzheng : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffCKlqWOewo (Gaoshan Liu Shui)
Notice the difference in instruments and the necessary talon like "nails" attached with a strip of fabric glued to the fingers of the guzheng player.
So.... neither of the actresses knew how to play the guzheng and the whole music moment relied heavily on bgm and CGI.
Check their fingers on episode 11 : https://kisskh.co/Drama/The-Double/Episode-11?id=9053&ep=155403&page=0&pageSize=100
Although the music was fine, I was very disappointed that the drama instilled confusion about the instruments. Wu Lei in LLTG was more honest : he really did take pains to learn basics of guqin for his very short piece at the empress' banquet, and Zhao Lusi is known to play guzheng quite well, both for relaxation and on stage. But finally, check out this piano (another "qin" in Chinese) and guzheng recent public cover of a famous Jay Chou song (Huo Yuan Jia 霍元甲) here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTjpSOy6lO4 (look at Jingxuan's fingers).
37 minutes to remember best moments of his roles in One and Only and Story of Kunning Palace, both alongside Bai Lu !
It is also the infamous (in the PRC) name of Jiang Jieshi, aka Tchang Kaichek 😩 But since it's frequent, only a few will think of that one 😆
https://kisskh.at/749325-follow-your-heart#comment-17780679
That "misdirections" and "hiccuping" duplicate comments : MDL could benefit from better coding, but we still like that site, don't we ?
One thing: if Discussions section looks "blank", click nonetheless on the links to it, and you will sometimes be surprised to find many "hidden" discussions there. It's a quirk...
As of today, there are two "hidden" Discussions for this Follow Your Heart page, lol.