Frost_edelweiss

Thanks for the documents and info! Niseko also looks great. But I thought you were based in HK from your description? Myself, I am just an alien in deep space shyly keeping away from crowds or too much social media. I do agree that crowds can be reckless and dangerous.

Yes near "my mountain" (I am actually doing seasonal travels between that place and another, rather distant one, so home is a relative concept for me) it is possible to do things like those : telemark, cross country or Nordic skiing, downhill Alpine skiing, powder skiing, on easy slopes, blue and black runs, off piste and tree skiing, although there are no Super G or big snow park with jumps. It's possible to hike with snowshoes or to go sledding, even husky dog sledding, or ride snowbikes.

But I prefer to move about with caution, to avoid injuries, and these days would rather enjoy sedate horse sleigh rides with or without jingle bells, where available (remembering some special ones, long time ago, on the frozen Songhua river off Harbin - and another one spotted by Gemini 6 in 1965, heh I was not careful enough doing my alien stunts back then... I'm joking oc). Or just enjoy nice hikes on foot, or horse rides, preferably in cool autumn or early spring weather.
In fact, I am not really a ski nerd, went along to winter sports places more for the scenery and meeting different people, rather than for the sport.
And now, I watch dramas about all that !!! 💀 lol

There are closer places to go to for skiing when you live in BJ. Traveling to Altay is quite some way away!!! Of course, there must be less people around, so if they like a break from crowds, it must be a good place despite the cost and time to get there.

Btw I did not find developed skiing around Hemu per se, but I see that "The main ski areas in Altay City are the ski resorts General's Mountain – Altay and Altay Tyrol (planned). The ski resorts are located between 2.4 kilometres and 12.0 kilometres from the centre of the village. Altay City is located in Xinjiang (China). " That's where they went? Or are they into the winter sports stations development business to be there more often?

I used to often go ski in Nanshan district of BJ or once in the Changbai region because of a friend who lives in Changchun so we went two families together. At the time, Nanshan was getting very crowded; and the 2022 Winter Olympics were a goal to develop other places not too far away from BJ. Fond memories of not so long ago.
Now, alas, I have morphed into an alien sitting in front of too many screens, only occasionally sampling the fresh air, plum flower blossom rain, chirping of birds, cicadas and grasshoppers, flitting of swallows in broad day time and small bats at dusk, on "my own mountain" base. I still heave myself to watch the summer meteor showers...

Thank you! Also for sharing info and beautiful Altay snowy peaks pictures!
Your friends must be happy enjoying skiing out there !

Thanks, that was my bet too after considering a few likely places for that "Qining" (Erenhot in the book?)

Nice listening to !

Does anyone know where shooting took place and/or which remote region is the setting for "Qining"?

Beijing is well known, so 5th ring-road despite its staggering length, I visualize alright.

Rather than southern Xinjiang, which did have homegrown or infiltrated terrorism trouble, I would think the northern part in the Altay, perhaps Hemu Village?
Hemu village in Tuvas area of northern Xinjiang has lots of wooden houses, forest around and snow in winter. It is one area which is looking forward to develop winter sports too and has a reputation as "most beautiful village in China". The typical wooden houses with nailed planks are partly dug into the ground because of heavy snow and cold in winters. It is the most remote and largest of the three habitats of the Tuvas ethnic group, which are related to the Mongols (the Tuvas claim to be descended from Genghis Khan warriors), but they are not reputed as being particularly exposed to terrorist group threats. Perhaps it could be a place where thieves might steal cars. I really don't know.

I pondered whether it might be in the vicinity of Mohe in Heilongjiang, "China's Arctic Town", sitting on permafrost, close to the Siberian border? The town is not very big and has lots of forests around and more than 100 years of history in gold mining : the "Golden Path" and "Rouge River" are famous gold mining areas. There is also a highway connecting Mohe to Harbin and further all the way to Beijing, since 2019...
*
Elsewhere? Okay, the clue in the novel was "a certain gas station in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region." Further in the book, I spotted the name Erenhot.
Erenhot is "a county-level city of the Xilin Gol League, in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, located in the Gobi Desert along the Sino-Mongolian border, across from the Mongolian town of Zamyn-Üüd. There are 74,197 inhabitants". Its livelihood is derived from foreign trade traffic, since Erenhot sits on the Transmongolian railway since 1954 : it is "the only railway border entrance between the two countries, and it provides a shorter line connecting Beijing with Moscow than the one through Northeast China (Manchuria). " (Wikipedia & Britannica)
But still, this does not look like what we see in the drama, so I suppose there's been a change from book to drama?

My bet is on Hemu village, then. Somebody has confirmation ?

Ty, it's just a copy from the platforms, so "authorized info" to attract audience. I find it interesting to compare what two widely used platforms use. 😆

But question yo you or to other music lover : the song that the boy sang in the car in episode 2 sounds familiar to me, but I can't remember title. If someone knows and finds a YT or other recording to enjoy it in full...

I was eagerly awaiting this drama after having watched Seven Tan in Flight For You 💖! Here, after having played other business or skilled professionals, she is the investment director Gui Xiao.
(This Road Home has nothing to do with the eponymous Zhang Yimou movie of 1999 💖 which starred Zhang Ziyi . It is a very different modern story.)

Synopsis is longer on iQiyi for this new Road Home:
"Road Home is a drama directed by Yu Cuihua (Crush 💖, Eternal Love 💖), along with scriptwriter Mobaofeibao (My Sunshine 💖), starring Jing Boran (Up in the Wind, Monster Hunt) and Tan Songyun (With You).

"The drama is based on a novel of the same name by Mobaofeibao. It tells the story of investment director Gui Xiao who reunites with bomb tech police officer Lu Yan Chen after ten years. The two of them hit it off and find their way back to loyalty and faith. The two are each other's first loves, but after graduating from college, Lu Yan Chen went to another country to become a special forces police officer, and at the same time, their family went through a change, so their love ended without a hitch.
Ten years later, the two of them reunite and find that they can't repress their longing for each other again. But the news that Lu Yan Chen's parents had arranged a marriage for him detracts the couple, and Lu Yan Chen made a decisive choice, understanding that he had only Gui Xiao in his heart from the beginning.
After the wedding, Lu Yan Chen was injured during a mission and fell into a coma. The pregnant Xiao Gui rushed to Lu Yan Chen's side and gave birth to her daughter in the frontier city that Lu Yan Chen had been guarding for ten years. The family of three is reunited safely and lives a happy life. "

On Viki, here is the presentation (more or less same as MDL) :
"Gui Xiao (Tan Song Yun) and Lu Yan Chen (Jing Bo Ran) met at school – in a middle school playground. They fell in love with one another at first sight. And as they grew older, their feelings for one another grew ever stronger. They became nseparable and hoped to spend the rest of their lives together. But life has other plans for them.
Gui Xiao’s family circumstances change. And Lu Yan Chen ends up training as a special police officer – which takes him to a completely different part of the country. Lu Yan Chen’s training is tough, physical, and intense. Gui Xiao, meanwhile, ends up on a career path that will take her into the world of finance. Despite the fact that they now live in different worlds, their love is still strong – and they try to keep up a long-distance relationship. This peters out – until one day, years later, Gui Xiao finds herself with a special reason to call Lu Yan Chen once more…"

Watching on Viki & iQiyi international site iq.com lol

+@ Carli, ecstaticeratic ; all : Of course - lol, I was just testing if someone would spot my "alternate realities mixup 💀":
It is Michelle Yeoh who won the Oscar now, but joke aside, Maggie Cheung ought also be remembered for thrilling movies that also stay in memory perhaps even better than the one for which she won Best Actress award in Cannes? Maggie Cheung and Michelle Yeoh are almost same age, the first is born in 1964 in Malaysia and the second in 1962 in Hong Kong.
Let's also enjoy the work of both stars, together in not only The Soong Sisters, but also Police Story 3, and another movie which has been described as being in the same weird spirit of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” : THE HEROIC TRIO (1 & 2), in which Maggie Cheung, Michelle Yeoh and Anita Mui starred together some thirty years ago. Super heroines all three! (I ought sometime to complete the list of movies I watched and liked over the years on "my list"😂)

Well, as to TSL, I am also content with the ending which leaves room for imagining.

Reply in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJLtnUpmeOM

https://archive.org/details/spring-in-a-small-town-1948-colorized-version
(no English subtitles)

Link is down.
But try this one instead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UL5zKdFuC9A

If you are into science fiction, don't miss out on the first science fiction movie to win a bunch of top star awards (now adding 7 Oscars at the 95th Academy Awards to previous distinctions) and which is led by an impressive Maggie Cheung (who deservedly earned her own statuette) : EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE. It was my favorite movie of 2022 from the start when I saw it, last year, despite it might not completely be exempted from scissorhands censors when and if it is shown in China and some other Asian countries. That absurdist and hilarious movie playing on cosmic battle and speculative science concepts is worth the (re-)watch.

Thanks, you confirm what I thought about the twin princesses names 😆
I had also gotten the humor of 慢慢 . Interesting that you found the mythological bird's name as a near homonym. 😆
what do you find for the princes' names : Chaofeng etc ? funny that 嘲讽 = taunt, ridicule

Ah OK; I did not get further than quart in of first episode of that one before I decided it was not for me in my current mood. You know, when you have addictive stuff to watch like TFF and TSL and even toiling through last episodes of Have A Crush On You.

I liked HACOY ML from his previous role in Unexpected Falling, so spent probably too much time on that over-ambitious drama that tried to fit in too much in different genres instead of sticking to expected medical romcom - or war and aid in Africa, as the first episode had led me to think, not having read synopsis first.
That's what I do, click randomly, watch through first episode and stick longer if I find it interesting, looking into MDL presentation and comments much later... Sometimes following suit to a recom by someone who replied to me; as here, TSL, since MK916 wrote she liked it, after doing the very nice MV summary-edit of TFF.

MK916 has an unusually sharp eye for details : she only missed the touch to the ear in the beginning of TFF, choosing to keep the telling short exchange about the ML's beautiful voice and the cat . But imo words are sparks when touch is the real tinder that can rise in flames. So everything in that drama is about touch, overriding words as communication, even the songs confirm it, esp the Take The Chance song lyrics ("...There's no time for me to think through ... I can heal you, just from a brush of a hand...") which MK916 could not include in her excellent edit because there were too many good tunes to choose from. MK916 already chose 3 songs, including the one with the "... 'Cause I know that love is pain" chorus.
TFF is a very sensual drama, although many too long or explicit glimpses were cut, so it's necessary to go to the record of deleted material to fully appreciate it (there's a special section for that above the MDL comments section, together with one for shooting locations since the places are lovely). Without the cut scenes, TFF is not crossing the line too much, so PG12 is perhaps OK for the Viki rating. Those who want wild romps and lengthy greedy kisses are always going to be disappointed in C-dramas. Me, I belong to the "In The Mood For Love" crowd of admirers, so gazes and fleeting touch are enough and there was more again in TFF.

You may get how addictive TFF was for me, lol : I'm moving back and forth from TSL to the wonderful TFF playlist. Well in case you'd like to listen, here it is. The songs I mentioned above are number 6 and 9 in the playlist, but the most haunting one is nb10 which is the adaptation to English of a song from an also beautiful K drama. - songs 11 and 13 are to be found through other links provided in description of the playlist :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsPdXeF3Lcg video.

... I'm off for more TSL now ;-)
PS I also like Sa DingDing, since trying to break my voice together with listening to her and Zhou Shen singing Upwards to the Moon in Xi'an in 2020. So seeing her in the credits as Immortal Quan He + songwriter and singer also attracted me to this lovely xianxia.

TJOCY = ?? Everybody don't get those codes, yk I am sorry I did not decode that one. So please enlighten me/us like me?
HE/BE: happy end (yk : hearts and flowers and grand wedding HEA happy ever after) / Bad, tragic end (not always bad imho, to each their own, so glad to know y also preferred it stay tragic in IS)
IS = Immortal Samsara drama of 2022
SOTM = Song of the Moon, completed in January. I left it on hold at ep13, considering whether or not I will finally drop it there or be back to toil through to completion. I was too taken with some other dramas including TFF (The Forbidden Flower) which totally commandeered my attention and caused me to be late starting on LWTSF/TSL here (LWTSF = Love when the stars fall, first historic title of The Starry Love)

---- Trivia question for those who like sleuthing and codes: in which TSL episode(s) did you spot hints to “drama classics” like MG or AOL? (MG = Meteor Garden 2001 or 2018 versions, AOL = Ashes of Love)

Wishing you a good drama watching for end episode here.

Hahaha Megumi-H. We have somewhat similar tastes, about C and K dramas, L&P and more. You also were part of the comments-feast for LLTG which fascinated me too, with its in-depth analysis by some learned friends here, exploring the symbols and more.

I could watch TSL on Youku, I suppose, since I subscribed to the app, but I am plain too lazy to watch on my small screen smartphone, esp since I "came to the club" late, because of too deep infatuation with The Forbidden Flower. So I am continuing my binge watch on Viki which is updating today until ep28, whereas YT only reaches ep25. Of course, if I am swift enough, I might switch to the cool site, where it is already subtitled to ep39. Should I or not co-watch final episode today in a few hours : debating with myself. But no, I will stick to my watching it as it should be, episode after episode, and read reactions later.

I had some wariness about the beginning of TSL, fearing that it could be too close to Ashes of Love or Immortal Samsara/Agarwood-like crumbs (I also came late to watch that not wholly satisfying one, watching IS even later than trying LBFAD, because of LLTG addiction). But my holding back from TSL was lifted quickly, when I found that despite some clear hints to the "undying classics" (including MG!!), these were not too numerous and the story still felt fresh and engaging.

Of course, since I like "scoundrels" (in the past I rooted for AoL "arowana" Runyu instead of the "charred crow" XuFeng!!) I am happy to see how the Void princes fare and also that lovely Beast prince (although the puppy pee thing was limits), and the Soul shards, and the secondary characters (ManMan did not annoy me, I was admiring the red line of her eye makeup and the few down-feathers added to her short dress pink outfit: also liked that she could transform into not only a small, fast, twitting bird but also into a large people-carrying fabulous winged one). The Human World emperor is of course delightfully hatable, as are some other ones.
Although juggling with different story lines for the separated characters, I think the drama does not feel disjointed. I am already sold to it!

Anyway, I hope some in the club will take time to answer my query.

Could someone enlighten us about symbolism and humor contained in the Chinese names in this drama (cursed flower origin, flower names of Qing Kui and Ye Tan, names of Chao Feng and Man Man etc) ? Not sure it's been covered already in conversation, since I caught up late and focused on binge watching till episode 23 on YouTube...

Don't hesitate to signal when it's complete, episode by episode is fine. I (and I hope others) will surely be back then ! Thanks for your dedication !

Yes, LLTG, L&P, but also LBFAD, SSOFV, were among my favorite, last year, which started with a bang (Reset). Hi Venus, Meet Yourself, TBOY this year and TFF were a good start and there so much promise to come.

I am both leaning to 罗狮粉 and 鹿茸 fandom (among other ones) so am also looking forward to Till The End Of The Moon. Hoping LYX will not appear as emaciated as in Light Chaser Rescue, which I still enjoyed. Since Ashes of Love, I have watched near to all of his available filmography, learned the Chengdu song from his MV and listened to all the other songs, + watched miscellaneous stuff such as his showing how to cook some dishes, exploring places etc.

Bai Lu first really caught my attention in Arsenal Military Academy, but it was so sweet to hear her wish to do another drama with LYX when they were interviewed about Love is Sweet. Besides, she is from Changzhou, Jiangsu, which is a city I know well.

And there are also the new Zhao Lusi dramas : HouLang (Gen Z) rumored to be broadcast on Apr 19th, and Hidden Love which should air "very soon" probably this month.

The months of March and April will surely go very quickly... And the list of dramas that could be nice to watch seems to be growing exponentially. Hard choices will have to be made !

At present, I am vastly enjoying The Starry Love which I am binge watching for hours almost non stop - except for coffee and the necessary stretching. The humor and the action make it a wonderful watch, up till episode 21, but I see that I may have to switch platforms or watch on the Youku app on my phone (small screen...) for the last episodes.

I have tried several platforms starting with Viki but turning to YouTube because of double subtitles which sometimes enlighten an approximate translation. It also caused me much mirth when Ye Tan (posing as Qingkui) was trying a transformation spell by repeating "Bian!" (Change!) many times. That's a good snippet for learners of the basic Chinese character table! And also a fun reminder of that ganoderma mushroom sequence in Ashes of Love which ended on a fabulous kiss.

I don't mind sad endings, if they are logical and well pictured (like in One and Only and TFF) so I am open to whatever will happen and I don't really crave for a grand wedding finale with hearts and flowers and everybody miraculously brought back to life and dubious "happy ever after". In fact I thought the ending of Ashes of Love dragged a bit and was somewhat too sanctimonious after the cosmic clash where Jinmi self sacrificed. Also, having the AOL story end on the little boy fishing for a wife (while his cousin went hunting for a handsome guy in the mountains), felt like unfinished business, taunting us with a continuation and depriving watchers of the promise implicitly made.

Of course I am not adverse to romance on the way to get to goal. Or action, like in The Condor Heroes, Side Story of Fox Volant, Light Chaser Rescue, Ordinary Greatness etc. It is nice too when the story engages the watchers enough to feel strongly about a villain, too. There was the "mad" emperor Di Xu in Novoland Pearl Eclipse who finally saw the light, too late. In The Starry Love, the emperor also looks very much like the unlikable one that Runyu struck asunder before Xu Feng got stabbed. Flamboyant deaths and betrayals... Open endings are fine too. The TFF one was rather like that: one could stick to whatever one wanted to believe, that's not bad.