GOOD THINGS COME TO THOSE WHO WAIT!! 3 REAL-LIFE SCENARIOS FROM YOURS TRULY.1. When S1 of Fights Break Sphere…
BTW, when I first started using a projector, I could only do it in the evening after the sun set. Even the slightest bit of sunlight interfered with the projected image. But this is a bedroom we are talking about. After I installed blackout curtains, I could use the projector even at noon when the sun is the brightest!
The term blackout curtains is actually a misnomer. It doesn't really turn the room into a dark room suitable for something like developing photos. The effect is more like those ladies who wear veils to mask their face. Sunlight still gets thru into the bedroom. You can still tell if it's bright or dark outside. But magically it allows the projector to work as if you are using it at midnight!
1. When S1 of Fights Break Sphere (donghua) came out, I watched the entire season on a laptop with TN screen. Put this series on hold for 5 years after that. When I resumed the S2-SPresent after the 5 year hiatus, I was no longer using a laptop to watch donghua. I bought a Xiaomi projector and on my bedroom wall the image is at least 50% bigger than the biggest TV you can buy from Costco! What a difference it made. Those mid-air action scenes in Fights Break Sphere simply don't look good on tiny laptop screen. My soul knew I was not ready to consume the donghua until I could watch it with cinematic quality!
2. I started gaming Genshin Impact on my Android tablet when it first came out about 6 years ago. Then my mom's tablet broke and she needed a replacement. So off I went donating my "gaming device". I can't believe I never even finished the Prologue chapters back then before I gave my tablet to my mom. Only went back to Genshin Impact last month. Holy smokes, 6 years ago it was just me tapping my greasy fingers on the touchscreen. But TODAY, I cast the tablet (new tablet not the one I gave to my mom) screen to my projector, pair it with X-Box style BT controllers from 8bit-Do. OMG, this is the first game that makes me scared of heights! My soul knew I didn't have the technology to best experience the game, that's y it made me give my tablet to my mom. I couldn't imagine playing Genshin Impact any other way than screen cast to the same projector I now use to watch donghua paired with bluetooth controllers. At first I didn't like physical controllers and thought the motion was wonky. Now I think playing Android games with physical controllers is superior to touchscreen! I also think there is something wrong with using those gaming tablets with physical controllers attached to its sides (like Nintendo Switch1/2). Nothing compares to holding an Xbox-like controller in your hand while staring at cinematic projected image!
3. Can you believe I brushed off Fanren Xiu Xian Chuan when the donghua first came out (I'm talking about EP1 of S1 many many aeons ago)? It was GM-Team that was covering releases outside of China, and their vids never have ENG subs. Perfectly glad I never watched a single episode of it until I got the Xiaomi projector! You can't imagine the "WOW" feelings when I saw Han Li on his flying boat look down at Mo Caihuan from really high up! Or the "Superman" battles above roiling waves of the vast ocean! This Xiaomi projector also made me realize how much I would have missed out on Ling Cage S1 watching on a tiny laptop or computer monitor. You simply cannot feel the height sickness (of being on the floating lighthouse high up in the sky) on those (tiny) displays!
Shortest lived #2 movie of the year in China. Was very quickly supplanted by Once Upon a Time in the Middle East.
Twice as many ppl watched and voted the latter on Douban than KungFu Soccer. Yet KFS and the latter have almost the same box office figures. It means that half of the KFS box office was cooked/faked!
I never liked Hong Kong directed/produced movies to begin with. They have no means to compete with Mainland movies so rely on underhanded cheating tactics to sell. I might have considered watching KFS had they been honest and not cheated. Now the movie never sees the light of day from me! (I have The Mermaid on my HDD, still haven't watched it to this day. Shows how much I like watching Stephen Chow movies... Some movies like Legend of Condor Hero and The Mermaid I get the best possible version like in 4K and keep on my HDD just so I don't have to watch them!)
Some merchandise started showing up on YT if you search the individual donghua episodes by BiliBili. You can't really see them if you are viewing the episodes as a list.
Personally, I never believed in such thing. I have NEVER once topped up on a game I downloaded via Google Playstore. Similarly I don't believe in buying merchandise via YT.
The reason is simple: I don't think it's a good idea Google takes a huge chunk of the profits for doing essentially NOTHING while the Chinese workers toiled and sweated to make the game or donghua episode.
If there is something I like, I usually go get in from Aliexpress. That way, the profit stays away from Google's dirty hands! It seems though the best merchandise for Fanren donghua are actually figurines. Tencent started doing them. I don't see any Fanren merchandise that interest me on YT.
On another note, Chinese game makers are doing themselves a great disservice by relying on Google/Apple to collect the money and keep a huge chunk of the profits. Ppl like me are averse to giving even a penny to West companies!!
I have collected 12 unwatched episodes of Fanren donghua in both 4K h264 8-bit and 4K h265 10-bit (I spoiled myself by watching EP176-182 early to spot any mistakes/implement fail safe in scouring Chinese file sharing resources). My projector can only do 8-bits so the 10-bit version is saved for a future projector device that supports 10-bit. Not only that 10-bit videos look god awful on 8-bit displays because TV box needs to downscale the colorspace, which is why I have both versions on my HDD.
Anyways, there are at least 14 more unwatched episodes I need to collect before I can binge watch half a year's worth of new episodes. * Sigh *
Why I don't watch donghua episodes on a weekly basis other than donghua series I don't really care for? Take the latest Renegade Immortal EP161. It only been a week since EP160 where Wang Lin acquired a butterfly that can kill an Immortal and I have no friggin clue how he got that butterfly in the first place (no time for me to rewatch EP160). This is why I prefer continuous watching high value donghua series like Fanren, I simply don't want to miss out on the important details or a disconnected viewing experience!
It's okay if you've never seen the donghua. But if you come from having seen the donghua, this drama is more like extra bonus/repetitive materials that don't really add anything new other than very funkily designed flying boat (Han Li's personal transport not the flying ship that carries a bunch of ppl to flee Yellow Maple Valley).
Tencent been going on a rampage with Wang Lin the Liberator recently with Renegade Immortal. Too bad they contracted a really sloppy studio to animate this IP for them. Renegade Immortal is so sloppy their title screen is a flat 2D monochromatic caligraphy, whereas Fanren title screen are 3D golden metallic words that move and "snap into place". (Such is the extent of the studio's sloppiness that gets revealed even before the episode gets enumerated)
Anyways, I really enjoyed the most recent EP161 of Renegade Immortal AS A STORY. I still frown upon the series as an animated result. Take Wang Lin's recently acquired puppet sidekick for example. What did he take his anger out on at the end of EP161? It wasn't made very clear to me, other than it was made of hard concrete or stones. Why I couldn't feel the force of his punch? This is what separates the mediocre studios from the really good ones like Original Force.
Another instance of sloppiness is the forced wedding scene of Li Muwan in Renegade Immortal vs Ji Ziyue in Shrouding the Heavens. In Renegade Immmortal, I couldn't feel the vastness of the wedding place they were trying to animate due to bad camera angles/movements, but in Shrouding the Heavens I was impressed by the setting decorated with wedding red things and the way they captured it "on camera".
I wish there were more studios like Original Force that really love what they do instead of just doing the bare minimum to honor contracts to earn a paycheck... It can't be that there's only one studio in all of China that does a superb and consistent work. The future looks very bleak for donghua if this one studio goes out of business!
maybe i'll give this another try really love the donghua and still watch it!! didnt really get into it when it…
Most ppl prefer the donghua over the live action drama. It's OK, you don't have to force yourself to like/watch the drama too. I didn't think the drama was all that great either (and I have watched all episodes of the live action drama in 4K). In hind sight, it didn't seemed like I would have missed anything had I skipped/dropped the drama. Not watching the drama doesn't make you any less of a true fan of this IP!!
These are Wikipedia numbers. I don't know how accurate they are or how long since they been updated. But according to me watching live box office figures on Chinese websites, Once Upon a Time in the Middle East has overtaken Kung Fu Soccer to become 2nd top movie of 2026!!
You can see just from the number of votes, there's some cheating going on with KungFu Soccer but still fails to beat Once Upon a Time in the Middle East.
By cheating, I mean they go out and buy tickets of their own movie to inflate the box office numbers. How else can we explain OUaTitME has twice as many votes as KFS on Douban?
It's either the end of today (in Beijing time) or end of next day Once Upon a Time in the Middle East officially becomes 2nd highest grossing movie of 2026 in China domestic market (1st place still belongs to Pegasus 3).
Both movies star Shen Teng so 2026 can be said to be the year of Shen Teng movies.
You know in the Olympics silver (OUaTitME) and bronze (KFS) are actually consolidation prizes for losers!!
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Does anyone even remembers Monster Hunt 1/2? What a forgettable movie franchise, nobody even talks about them anymore. What about The Mermaid? I still haven't watched it to this date, even though I think I have it in 4K not 1080p on home network drive.
Hong Kong (director) movies and TV dramas were good when all Mainland China could ever produce was something like Journey to the West in late 1980's. Now there's no going back!
Show me a movie made exclusively by a Hong Kong director (joint director movies like Battle of Lake Changjin don't count) or branded "HK" movie that will occupy 1st or 2nd place (annual) in the Chinese market over the next 10 years and I will eat my words!
It is comical to derive that conclusion based on actual political predicaments. Economy and humanities become…
Lots of people like me never made it past the Japanese woman in the book. They simply threw in the towel and quit because at that point in the book, it really seemed like Liu Cixin was really trying to make this woman out to be one of humanity's heroes/heroines and he was really trying to promote interacial marriage between Asian woman and White man. It didn't matter if her country was historic enemy of China. So long as it was an Asian woman married to White man, I felt disgusted. In short up to that point, it seemed like Liu Cixin really trying to follow Hollywood type sexualizing the Asian woman...
This donghua series is apparently very well respected by the donghua sharing community in China. They never skip a recent or past (4K) episode, whereas most other series, they don't care. If they experience a technical issue or glitch or maybe even national holiday off, that week's episode is gone/never shared if it didn't get shared by the time the next week's episode has aired.
This is the ONE bad thing when you source your donghua downloads directly from Chinese users. Except for Fanren donghua, all other series are never guaranteed continuous availability of each new episode.
So for the Fanren donghua, even if the sharing website got hacked/attacked and downed for a couple of weeks, the missed episodes always reappear at a later date! It's one of many reasons why Fanren is prob my fav #1 all time donghua series. Ppl just have too much respect for it, even from pirates that are citizens of the Mainland China!
10-bit H265 is back. After most Chinese anime sharing communities experienced industry-wide hacking and denial of service over the past few weeks, 10-bit H265 Fanren episodes are back!!
I have to admit, unless you got a 10bit home cinema setup. 10bit videos look worse than 8bit videos on native 8bit displays. Original Force used the Spring 2026 episodes pause to upgrade their tech to 10bit. But who atually got a 10bit TV/Projector/Monitor to experience it all? Maybe in a few years...
The other thing, Nyaa just plain sux. You can only find 1080p episodes. If you want 4K, you gotta pay those scumbags who didn't even make those episodes. So they are doing it illegal. Shiet like this is what initially drove me to source the 4K videos from Chinese sharing communities who charge zip for you to download them!
Lastly, certainly malicious users tried a pathetic attempt at hacking and denying service to all Chinese anime sharing communities over the past few weeks. I just want to say your effort done jack to stop ppl from pirating anime, I mean donghua. I still got my Fanren Ep177-192 all in 4K on my HDD undeterred by failed hacking attempts.
If you are smart, be like Microsoft who actively promoted the piracy of Windows XP. That's how they became the dominant desktop environment. Doesn't matter how many free loading pirates they had. They were smart enough to see that a bigger user base means a bigger ecosystem to squeeze even bigger corporate profits!
If I was BiliBili CEO, I would study Microsoft strategy to encourage ppl to use WIndows XP/10, etc. for free, else this company shall always remain in the shadows of Tencent in donghua animation. Basically what I'm trying to say, think MSFT got to the top during the Windows XP era (when they had multiple enemy competitors everywhere ready to steal their OS lunch) by being a grinch going after everyone that tried to pirate it?
It is comical to derive that conclusion based on actual political predicaments. Economy and humanities become…
I only read a small part of the second book, where Luo Ji misuses his "authority" and humanity's resources to look for his ideal girl. My impression was Liu Cixin sucked up to that Jap bitch and made her a protagonist (one of three wall facers). In addition to promoting interacial marriage between Asian woman and White man. That y I dropped the book at that point. To me the books 2/3 will be like the Matrix Trilogy. Only the first part was good. 2nd and 3rd movies were utter garbage!
So it doesn't matter if the Jap trash woman later turns out to be betrayer to humanity, ppl like me dropped the book early, they will most likely never make it to that point in the TV drama...
Generally, I don't think this is a good idea. I used to go to WeTV.VIP (official Tencent streaming site for international viewers) to get all my donghua fix. This was before 4K became a thing in the pirate community and before I discovered there are other Chinese companies besides Tencent that made good quality donghuas.
At first most series were free to watch. Paying members get higher resolution vids and the latest episodes first. Then they tried something sneaky. The most recent episodes after the members only period expired, you only had 48 hrs after that to watch for free before it became past episode members only. What if someone was busy with work and couldn't make it till the weekend to watch? They'd be outta luck.
The final nail in the coffin, I had been following Perfect World since initial launch of the very first few episodes on WeTV (that was like aeons ago). I been following it up to episode 180's from the very beginning. Then you couldn't even watch any episodes for free after that. From Ep 1-180+ all became members only. I stopped going to WeTV.VIP after that.
Doesn't matter if someone is willing to subscribe or top up. You always need that critical mass of audience. If they don't pay they will recommend their friends who will pay. If you don't even have people who pull other people to your service, your business in trouble...
Same with online games, where player killing is allowed. In these games I always play as a free to play female character. Then I love going around PK-ing people. Know the end result? Most guy players can't emotionally take a "female" beating them up. Maybe they can take a "guy" beating them, but a "female" always triggers a stronger emotional response. It always triggers the urge to top up to become stronger, lest they be the weakling that got bullied by a "girl". Me being the evil non-paying/freeloader "female" PK artist in the game actually brought economic benefits to the game company. I made people, especially the guy players, feel the urge to top up and make the company income!
Now imagine if these games never had free (but dedicated) players like me. Can you imagine how much income they'd potentially lost because the guy players didn't feel the "necessity" to top up out of shame of a "female" beating them?
BTW, not that I have anything to complain. I don't watch my Fanren on YT. The quality is not 4K. I do however need their ENG subs. That's not the only place I can get ENG subs, but it's the most convenient place!
China lacks any movies to compete with Hollywood Marvel/DC movies. So everytime they are shown in China, they always score big office, even the most recent Spiderman (which I think is shiet).
They should put an X-men angle on a live action Fanren movie, then can compete head-on with Hollywood superpower movies on their own home turf...
BASICALLY I PROPOSE THE FOLLOWING FOR THE (hypothetical) MOVIE:
1. You must make it so ppl who have watched the donghua or read the novel or seen the live action TV walk out of the theater puking becoz of 2. 2. It must be the "for dummies" version for ppl who never experienced the work in any form before. 3. The focus should be on X-men type action sequence after action sequence. Think Nezha 2. What story did it have? Of course there should be a unifying story thread to link all the action scenes together, but this is the ez part because the story been played out in both donghua and TV live action so EZ for any noobie screenwriter to pick up.
Bilibili is going global to take on YouTube, Crunchyroll, and more
Bilibili has spent years building its audience in China. Now, it is setting its eyes on the rest of the world, and with over 5 million downloads on Google Play in mere days, the start looks promising.
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This makes sense. They already have a lot of donghua series dubbed in ENG: To Be Hero X, Link Click, etc. I wonder if we will eventually get an ENG dub of Fanren too...
What I really want though is a continuation S2 of that backup Fanren donghua. It was getting good, then there is no news they will even make the next season. Of course dubbed in ENG would be icing on the cake!
This info comes from a Deepseek chat:Here is a list of the top 20 most-watched donghua:1. Renegade Immortal (Xian…
You can see 9/10 top series are Tencent series. This donghua is BiliBili's one and only contender for Top 10!
May explain why BiliBili bent over backwards and remade episodes 177-178 because fans complained. That becoz this donghua is their bread and butter.
So Fanren is not just any donghua, but the one making the most money for BiliBili which means it also the one they pour the most money into it to maintain top quality!!
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BTW, I am surprised Ling Cage/Incarnation (another BiliBili donghua) is not among the Top20. Because I watch(ed) it (Season 3 upcoming) on a projector that almost fills up my entire bedroom wall, those lighthouse scenes really give me goosebumps how high up in the sky it is. It's the only donghua I would rate as Top BiliBili #2 after Fanren. The distant #3 would be that new donghua that BiliBili makes as a backup to their Top #1 (see my other posts to find out which one it is).
Here is a list of the top 20 most-watched donghua:
1. Renegade Immortal (Xian Ni) – The undisputed #1 in 2025/H1 2026. It earned 3.46 billion effective views in 2025, and 1.89 billion in H1 2026. 2. Battle Through the Heavens (Dou Po Cang Qiong) – A consistent top performer with 2.83 billion effective views in 2025 and over 1 billion in H1 2026. 3. Sword of Coming (Jian Lai) – Season 2 was a massive hit in early 2026, amassing over 1 billion effective views. 4. Perfect World (Wan Mei Shi Jie) – Ranked 4th in H1 2026; collected 2.28 billion effective views in 2025. 5. Swallowed Star (Tun Shi Xing Kong) – Ranked 5th in H1 2026; had 1.67 billion effective views in 2025. 6. Soul Land II: Peerless Tang Sect – A strong 2025 performer with 1.78 billion effective views. 7. A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality (Fan Ren Xiu Xian Chuan) – Ranked 9th in H1 2026; had 1.47 billion effective views in 2025. 8. Against the Sky Supreme (Ni Tian Zhi Zun) – Noted for steady popularity with 1.40 billion effective views in 2025. 9. Throne of Seal (Shen Yin Wang Zuo) – Registered 1.36 billion effective views in 2025. 10. Soul Land (Dou Luo Da Lu) – A legendary title with over 11 billion cumulative views.
The remainder of the top 20 are also highly popular, including Stellar Transformation, Immortality (Yong Sheng), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi), Heaven Official's Blessing (Tian Guan Ci Fu), Lord of the Mysteries (Guì Mì Zhī Zhǔ), The King's Avatar (Quan Zhi Gao Shou), Link Click (Shi Guang Dai Li Ren), The Daily Life of the Immortal King (Xian Wang De Ri Chang Sheng Huo), Rakshasa Street (Zhen Hun Jie), and Non-Human (Fei Ren Zai).
K-Drama 
The term blackout curtains is actually a misnomer. It doesn't really turn the room into a dark room suitable for something like developing photos. The effect is more like those ladies who wear veils to mask their face. Sunlight still gets thru into the bedroom. You can still tell if it's bright or dark outside. But magically it allows the projector to work as if you are using it at midnight!
3 REAL-LIFE SCENARIOS FROM YOURS TRULY.
1. When S1 of Fights Break Sphere (donghua) came out, I watched the entire season on a laptop with TN screen. Put this series on hold for 5 years after that. When I resumed the S2-SPresent after the 5 year hiatus, I was no longer using a laptop to watch donghua. I bought a Xiaomi projector and on my bedroom wall the image is at least 50% bigger than the biggest TV you can buy from Costco! What a difference it made. Those mid-air action scenes in Fights Break Sphere simply don't look good on tiny laptop screen. My soul knew I was not ready to consume the donghua until I could watch it with cinematic quality!
2. I started gaming Genshin Impact on my Android tablet when it first came out about 6 years ago. Then my mom's tablet broke and she needed a replacement. So off I went donating my "gaming device". I can't believe I never even finished the Prologue chapters back then before I gave my tablet to my mom. Only went back to Genshin Impact last month. Holy smokes, 6 years ago it was just me tapping my greasy fingers on the touchscreen. But TODAY, I cast the tablet (new tablet not the one I gave to my mom) screen to my projector, pair it with X-Box style BT controllers from 8bit-Do. OMG, this is the first game that makes me scared of heights! My soul knew I didn't have the technology to best experience the game, that's y it made me give my tablet to my mom. I couldn't imagine playing Genshin Impact any other way than screen cast to the same projector I now use to watch donghua paired with bluetooth controllers. At first I didn't like physical controllers and thought the motion was wonky. Now I think playing Android games with physical controllers is superior to touchscreen! I also think there is something wrong with using those gaming tablets with physical controllers attached to its sides (like Nintendo Switch1/2). Nothing compares to holding an Xbox-like controller in your hand while staring at cinematic projected image!
3. Can you believe I brushed off Fanren Xiu Xian Chuan when the donghua first came out (I'm talking about EP1 of S1 many many aeons ago)? It was GM-Team that was covering releases outside of China, and their vids never have ENG subs. Perfectly glad I never watched a single episode of it until I got the Xiaomi projector! You can't imagine the "WOW" feelings when I saw Han Li on his flying boat look down at Mo Caihuan from really high up! Or the "Superman" battles above roiling waves of the vast ocean! This Xiaomi projector also made me realize how much I would have missed out on Ling Cage S1 watching on a tiny laptop or computer monitor. You simply cannot feel the height sickness (of being on the floating lighthouse high up in the sky) on those (tiny) displays!
Twice as many ppl watched and voted the latter on Douban than KungFu Soccer. Yet KFS and the latter have almost the same box office figures. It means that half of the KFS box office was cooked/faked!
I never liked Hong Kong directed/produced movies to begin with. They have no means to compete with Mainland movies so rely on underhanded cheating tactics to sell. I might have considered watching KFS had they been honest and not cheated. Now the movie never sees the light of day from me! (I have The Mermaid on my HDD, still haven't watched it to this day. Shows how much I like watching Stephen Chow movies... Some movies like Legend of Condor Hero and The Mermaid I get the best possible version like in 4K and keep on my HDD just so I don't have to watch them!)
Personally, I never believed in such thing. I have NEVER once topped up on a game I downloaded via Google Playstore. Similarly I don't believe in buying merchandise via YT.
The reason is simple: I don't think it's a good idea Google takes a huge chunk of the profits for doing essentially NOTHING while the Chinese workers toiled and sweated to make the game or donghua episode.
If there is something I like, I usually go get in from Aliexpress. That way, the profit stays away from Google's dirty hands! It seems though the best merchandise for Fanren donghua are actually figurines. Tencent started doing them. I don't see any Fanren merchandise that interest me on YT.
On another note, Chinese game makers are doing themselves a great disservice by relying on Google/Apple to collect the money and keep a huge chunk of the profits. Ppl like me are averse to giving even a penny to West companies!!
Anyways, there are at least 14 more unwatched episodes I need to collect before I can binge watch half a year's worth of new episodes. * Sigh *
Why I don't watch donghua episodes on a weekly basis other than donghua series I don't really care for? Take the latest Renegade Immortal EP161. It only been a week since EP160 where Wang Lin acquired a butterfly that can kill an Immortal and I have no friggin clue how he got that butterfly in the first place (no time for me to rewatch EP160). This is why I prefer continuous watching high value donghua series like Fanren, I simply don't want to miss out on the important details or a disconnected viewing experience!
Anyways, I really enjoyed the most recent EP161 of Renegade Immortal AS A STORY. I still frown upon the series as an animated result. Take Wang Lin's recently acquired puppet sidekick for example. What did he take his anger out on at the end of EP161? It wasn't made very clear to me, other than it was made of hard concrete or stones. Why I couldn't feel the force of his punch? This is what separates the mediocre studios from the really good ones like Original Force.
Another instance of sloppiness is the forced wedding scene of Li Muwan in Renegade Immortal vs Ji Ziyue in Shrouding the Heavens. In Renegade Immmortal, I couldn't feel the vastness of the wedding place they were trying to animate due to bad camera angles/movements, but in Shrouding the Heavens I was impressed by the setting decorated with wedding red things and the way they captured it "on camera".
I wish there were more studios like Original Force that really love what they do instead of just doing the bare minimum to honor contracts to earn a paycheck... It can't be that there's only one studio in all of China that does a superb and consistent work. The future looks very bleak for donghua if this one studio goes out of business!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kung_Fu_Soccer_(film)
Box office $321 million
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Once_Upon_a_Time_in_the_Middle_East
Box office CN¥2.192 billion ($340 million)
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Not only that Douban scores:
https://movie.douban.com/subject/36452545/
KungFu Soccer: 6.3/10 (340K votes)
https://movie.douban.com/subject/35811064/
Once Upon a Time in the Middle East: 8.7/10 (750K votes)
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You can see just from the number of votes, there's some cheating going on with KungFu Soccer but still fails to beat Once Upon a Time in the Middle East.
By cheating, I mean they go out and buy tickets of their own movie to inflate the box office numbers. How else can we explain OUaTitME has twice as many votes as KFS on Douban?
It's either the end of today (in Beijing time) or end of next day Once Upon a Time in the Middle East officially becomes 2nd highest grossing movie of 2026 in China domestic market (1st place still belongs to Pegasus 3).
Both movies star Shen Teng so 2026 can be said to be the year of Shen Teng movies.
You know in the Olympics silver (OUaTitME) and bronze (KFS) are actually consolidation prizes for losers!!
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Does anyone even remembers Monster Hunt 1/2? What a forgettable movie franchise, nobody even talks about them anymore. What about The Mermaid? I still haven't watched it to this date, even though I think I have it in 4K not 1080p on home network drive.
Hong Kong (director) movies and TV dramas were good when all Mainland China could ever produce was something like Journey to the West in late 1980's. Now there's no going back!
Show me a movie made exclusively by a Hong Kong director (joint director movies like Battle of Lake Changjin don't count) or branded "HK" movie that will occupy 1st or 2nd place (annual) in the Chinese market over the next 10 years and I will eat my words!
This is the ONE bad thing when you source your donghua downloads directly from Chinese users. Except for Fanren donghua, all other series are never guaranteed continuous availability of each new episode.
So for the Fanren donghua, even if the sharing website got hacked/attacked and downed for a couple of weeks, the missed episodes always reappear at a later date! It's one of many reasons why Fanren is prob my fav #1 all time donghua series. Ppl just have too much respect for it, even from pirates that are citizens of the Mainland China!
I have to admit, unless you got a 10bit home cinema setup. 10bit videos look worse than 8bit videos on native 8bit displays. Original Force used the Spring 2026 episodes pause to upgrade their tech to 10bit. But who atually got a 10bit TV/Projector/Monitor to experience it all? Maybe in a few years...
The other thing, Nyaa just plain sux. You can only find 1080p episodes. If you want 4K, you gotta pay those scumbags who didn't even make those episodes. So they are doing it illegal. Shiet like this is what initially drove me to source the 4K videos from Chinese sharing communities who charge zip for you to download them!
Lastly, certainly malicious users tried a pathetic attempt at hacking and denying service to all Chinese anime sharing communities over the past few weeks. I just want to say your effort done jack to stop ppl from pirating anime, I mean donghua. I still got my Fanren Ep177-192 all in 4K on my HDD undeterred by failed hacking attempts.
If you are smart, be like Microsoft who actively promoted the piracy of Windows XP. That's how they became the dominant desktop environment. Doesn't matter how many free loading pirates they had. They were smart enough to see that a bigger user base means a bigger ecosystem to squeeze even bigger corporate profits!
If I was BiliBili CEO, I would study Microsoft strategy to encourage ppl to use WIndows XP/10, etc. for free, else this company shall always remain in the shadows of Tencent in donghua animation. Basically what I'm trying to say, think MSFT got to the top during the Windows XP era (when they had multiple enemy competitors everywhere ready to steal their OS lunch) by being a grinch going after everyone that tried to pirate it?
So it doesn't matter if the Jap trash woman later turns out to be betrayer to humanity, ppl like me dropped the book early, they will most likely never make it to that point in the TV drama...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=npX4WiRW43w&list=PLBakWosU0sfhr6k1-ldCYx05AYZ8HwslC
Must now be a member to watch past episodes.
Generally, I don't think this is a good idea. I used to go to WeTV.VIP (official Tencent streaming site for international viewers) to get all my donghua fix. This was before 4K became a thing in the pirate community and before I discovered there are other Chinese companies besides Tencent that made good quality donghuas.
At first most series were free to watch. Paying members get higher resolution vids and the latest episodes first. Then they tried something sneaky. The most recent episodes after the members only period expired, you only had 48 hrs after that to watch for free before it became past episode members only. What if someone was busy with work and couldn't make it till the weekend to watch? They'd be outta luck.
The final nail in the coffin, I had been following Perfect World since initial launch of the very first few episodes on WeTV (that was like aeons ago). I been following it up to episode 180's from the very beginning. Then you couldn't even watch any episodes for free after that. From Ep 1-180+ all became members only. I stopped going to WeTV.VIP after that.
Doesn't matter if someone is willing to subscribe or top up. You always need that critical mass of audience. If they don't pay they will recommend their friends who will pay. If you don't even have people who pull other people to your service, your business in trouble...
Same with online games, where player killing is allowed. In these games I always play as a free to play female character. Then I love going around PK-ing people. Know the end result? Most guy players can't emotionally take a "female" beating them up. Maybe they can take a "guy" beating them, but a "female" always triggers a stronger emotional response. It always triggers the urge to top up to become stronger, lest they be the weakling that got bullied by a "girl". Me being the evil non-paying/freeloader "female" PK artist in the game actually brought economic benefits to the game company. I made people, especially the guy players, feel the urge to top up and make the company income!
Now imagine if these games never had free (but dedicated) players like me. Can you imagine how much income they'd potentially lost because the guy players didn't feel the "necessity" to top up out of shame of a "female" beating them?
BTW, not that I have anything to complain. I don't watch my Fanren on YT. The quality is not 4K. I do however need their ENG subs. That's not the only place I can get ENG subs, but it's the most convenient place!
I LIKE IT ALOT!!
China lacks any movies to compete with Hollywood Marvel/DC movies. So everytime they are shown in China, they always score big office, even the most recent Spiderman (which I think is shiet).
They should put an X-men angle on a live action Fanren movie, then can compete head-on with Hollywood superpower movies on their own home turf...
BASICALLY I PROPOSE THE FOLLOWING FOR THE (hypothetical) MOVIE:
1. You must make it so ppl who have watched the donghua or read the novel or seen the live action TV walk out of the theater puking becoz of 2.
2. It must be the "for dummies" version for ppl who never experienced the work in any form before.
3. The focus should be on X-men type action sequence after action sequence. Think Nezha 2. What story did it have? Of course there should be a unifying story thread to link all the action scenes together, but this is the ez part because the story been played out in both donghua and TV live action so EZ for any noobie screenwriter to pick up.
Bilibili is going global to take on YouTube, Crunchyroll, and more
Bilibili has spent years building its audience in China. Now, it is setting its eyes on the rest of the world, and with over 5 million downloads on Google Play in mere days, the start looks promising.
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This makes sense. They already have a lot of donghua series dubbed in ENG: To Be Hero X, Link Click, etc. I wonder if we will eventually get an ENG dub of Fanren too...
What I really want though is a continuation S2 of that backup Fanren donghua. It was getting good, then there is no news they will even make the next season. Of course dubbed in ENG would be icing on the cake!
May explain why BiliBili bent over backwards and remade episodes 177-178 because fans complained. That becoz this donghua is their bread and butter.
So Fanren is not just any donghua, but the one making the most money for BiliBili which means it also the one they pour the most money into it to maintain top quality!!
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BTW, I am surprised Ling Cage/Incarnation (another BiliBili donghua) is not among the Top20. Because I watch(ed) it (Season 3 upcoming) on a projector that almost fills up my entire bedroom wall, those lighthouse scenes really give me goosebumps how high up in the sky it is. It's the only donghua I would rate as Top BiliBili #2 after Fanren. The distant #3 would be that new donghua that BiliBili makes as a backup to their Top #1 (see my other posts to find out which one it is).
Here is a list of the top 20 most-watched donghua:
1. Renegade Immortal (Xian Ni) – The undisputed #1 in 2025/H1 2026. It earned 3.46 billion effective views in 2025, and 1.89 billion in H1 2026.
2. Battle Through the Heavens (Dou Po Cang Qiong) – A consistent top performer with 2.83 billion effective views in 2025 and over 1 billion in H1 2026.
3. Sword of Coming (Jian Lai) – Season 2 was a massive hit in early 2026, amassing over 1 billion effective views.
4. Perfect World (Wan Mei Shi Jie) – Ranked 4th in H1 2026; collected 2.28 billion effective views in 2025.
5. Swallowed Star (Tun Shi Xing Kong) – Ranked 5th in H1 2026; had 1.67 billion effective views in 2025.
6. Soul Land II: Peerless Tang Sect – A strong 2025 performer with 1.78 billion effective views.
7. A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality (Fan Ren Xiu Xian Chuan) – Ranked 9th in H1 2026; had 1.47 billion effective views in 2025.
8. Against the Sky Supreme (Ni Tian Zhi Zun) – Noted for steady popularity with 1.40 billion effective views in 2025.
9. Throne of Seal (Shen Yin Wang Zuo) – Registered 1.36 billion effective views in 2025.
10. Soul Land (Dou Luo Da Lu) – A legendary title with over 11 billion cumulative views.
The remainder of the top 20 are also highly popular, including Stellar Transformation, Immortality (Yong Sheng), Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi), Heaven Official's Blessing (Tian Guan Ci Fu), Lord of the Mysteries (Guì Mì Zhī Zhǔ), The King's Avatar (Quan Zhi Gao Shou), Link Click (Shi Guang Dai Li Ren), The Daily Life of the Immortal King (Xian Wang De Ri Chang Sheng Huo), Rakshasa Street (Zhen Hun Jie), and Non-Human (Fei Ren Zai).