KainCrisus

I believe the whole censorship started with a really famous drama called Scarlet Heart (Bu Bu Jing Xin) that came out years ago. It was about a girl in modern time transmigrating back to historical times and spoiler is that she was able to come back to modern time. Which was revealed that she had an accident and was left in a coma. The thing about this drama is that the historical facts that the drama covered was based on real history. The main girl falls in love with a prince and they have a very tragic romance. It is implied that she affected history for real.

This drama was such a hit, it lead to people (mostly girls) committing suicide cause they wanted to back in time. Afterward this drama was taken down and any drama afterward should not contain any elements of travel back in time or rebirth/reincarnation. Of course though, it’s not like all drama that are banned from these elements, it’s mainly the mainstream ones that have stricter rules since it’s being broadcasted to a much larger audience. Also, since this drama was based on real history, there was some rules, where dramas can not deviate from real history if the characters are based on real historical people. If it is planning to deviate, the drama would have to change the character names.

Lol no the colors definitely do stand out. I was fine with it, but I watched some reviewers definitely say the colors gave them the headache. This director is known for his usage of Big lights and weird/headache inducing camera angles ( refer to kunning palace) which probably contributed to the headaches. In this drama he toned it down XD.

Should also add some other XianXia dramas
Till the end of the moon (Bai Lu main lead)
Immortal Samsara
Love and redemptions
Ashes of love
Ten miles of cherry blossom

To that list - it has the same setting which is xian xia. You could also watch the related drama to moonlight mystique.

Ancient Love Poetry (Parent)
The last immortal (related)

The main characters in this story are supporting/side characters in ancient love poetry. Each drama made their own changes and can be its own standalone. For this drama specifically they made a lot of changes so back story will not connect back to ancient love poetry. Though apparently someone spoke about the novel and it seems like the drama story plot is better than the novel in my opinions. Espically in terms of ending.

Ooof hopefully we’ll be able to see more of his works. I’m not sure how much Moonlight Mystique boosted his popularity, I’m hoping it boosted it enough to give him better scripts. His previous works, it’s not that his acting is bad, just didn’t get good scripts.

Anyone knows if he has anymore work lined up? As far as I know, all his current works are done filming and waiting to pass inspection or editing phase to be aired. They just wrapped up pull string last month. However, don’t really see any future works that he has planned for this year, maybe blood of youth 2?

Ikr, but this kind of hair style is pretty rare in xian xia, they mostly do hairtie up. Though he has an upcoming modern drama (Qi Gen Xin Jian) with shoulder length here and he looks cool there.

His singing voice is good, but he be ruining people idea of him singing well XD.

LOL especially when he was acting all cute. In the novel, he was crossdressing as girl, which made total sense. However a dude saying those lines to another dude, pretty sure the censorship team wasn't gonna let that go

Lol I took a second to think whether I missed some details? Mary Sue? Didn't she lose her dad in like the most terrible way, and she realized the harsh reality of things. As far as I know she made a good number of mistakes up till episode 8. She was the only human among the demons and cultivators, no power or anything. She messed up, when she begged fan yue for the flower to save her dad. Which saved her dad momentarily, but she didn't realize the consequences and didn't under the human heart when seeing her dad recovered would cause the towns people to do. Her dad knew the consequences and took all the burden to keeps the townspeople safe and her. In a way, you can say she pushed her own dad to that outcome. With the guilt, blame, and anger, not a lot of people can keep a sane mind seeing their dad die that way. She did and she didn't kill any of towns people, but she could no longer look at them the same way.

Most importantly, she understood she's weak and strived to get stronger. She tried to get stronger the fastest way which ended up bring harm to herself. The only reason why she was still safe and healthy was because of ML (Fan Yue). The story made sure to make that was known. It even emphasized that while she had him, when he was hungry for revenge just like her he wanted to get strong, but he had no one to protect him, which is why he ended up with the curse that could kill him. Through up to episode 8, I don't think she ever really solved anything herself without ML (Fan Yue) help, and she understands that point. ML even pointed out to her that her little smarts won't really help her at all. The only reason why she was able to do what does without worry is because she knows that ML has her back. He gave her his promise to keep her safe and she trust that promise. Also, she has the emotionless stone in her, she basically has the most powerful defense out of everyone lol. Anytime anyone tried to harm her, the emotionless stone basically blast them away. ML knows she still naive and clueless to world, and while hes keeping her safe, he also make sure she knows that she is extremely weak to the point that she would get killed or get harmed if hes not there.

Their romance is very equal as @Padakiki said, they are both willing to sacrifice for each other. They both understand that point and try to hide informations from each other, because they know what the other side is going to choose. The chemistry was insane and I definitely developed a huge rush on the ML actor (Ao Rui Peng). I think his character was really what brought out this story, his love was so pure, so selfless. I would definitely recommend watching beyond episode 8

Sorry went on bit too much in details, but thats my take on it. However, I do agree with the take on Bai Lu characters, this really doesn't feel much different from the other characters Bai Lu had taken on, and while there are some minor differences, but not really anything that stands out immediately to me. However it is also because of this, I can say she acted Bai Shuo/Xing Yue extremely well.

Damn he sooooo fine. I don’t know how I slept on this gem. I watched a few dramas where he was in (a female student arrives at the imperial palace, blood of youth and when he starred as a guest in as beautiful as you) and he never stood out to me. MM really brought out all his good qualities.

Now I’m going back in his previous dramas and it seemed like they were experimenting with what he looked good with, and it seems in MM they finally found what fits him and they went hard. He looks so ethereal in MM. I liked him in blood of youth, but when watching MM, idk how I didn’t noticed it was him XD.

His acting is not bad either, I hope he keeps getting good scripts and I’m looking forward to his upcoming dramas. His upcoming drama roles are looking very interesting! I also look forward to him dubbing his own characters in the future, I watched him say the lines during the behind the scenes and it sounds good. I think it was better than the dubber, his voice is very versatile and he can manipulate it, plus when he was speaking he added his interpretation of the tone the character has, which differed from the dubber in my opinion.

Yeah from what it seems, they are pretty much done with historical roles, at least the ML Li Geng Xin is, when he acted in Legend of Shen Li, he said that will probably be his last one and he’s getting too old for this.

Like even if they do act in historical role, probably less heavy in martial arts and more restriction

This should be the sequel for princess agent, so there should be romance. I am saying this based on the novel plot, the remaining half of the story is very heavy on politics/war but also on romance. Like compared to princess agent, there was more, which is why there was more anticipation for it, cause we finally get to see chu qiao and ML romance have more progress. Though for real this FL is too young, this drama is very hyped up and chu qiao is not easy character to act out, I wonder if they are using her as young chu qiao again, cause I don’t really have high hopes that their acting is comparable to Zhao Li Ying. She has a pretty high bar to beat.

The ZXY was definitely a damsel in distress saving. But I don’t think the second bro marriage was, JYY (FL) was voluntary willing to marriage ML second bro. Though there were circumstances behind it, latest preview revealed FL needed something from Yan Fam to save her mom, she made a conscious decision as an woman to use her marriage in exchange for what Yan Fam has to offer. Hence there was the scene where she said she was willing to marry second bro. What YJL saved her out of was a loveless and uncomfortable marriage as a “concubine”. I’m not too sure of the wording during the scene but there is a difference between concubine and wife, and I’m pretty sure it was concubine. He couldn’t offer what Yan family is offering, so he offered himself as a groom. It was also to save her reputation. Though It was still her decision whether to marry his bro or him.

There’s probably a comprised later where her deal with Yan family is still holds up even if she marries YJL, and she’ll end up working for yan fam. While Yan fam would use her to keep YJL under control/tied to the fam. So in a way they didn’t really get anything out of it, what FL got was YJL by her side supporting her. And not some dude who’s only using her.

I believe they did actually married when she gets kidnapped. In some spoiler scenes you can see her hairstyle changed. In Ancient China, there a different hair styles used to indicate whether your single woman versus married. I’m not an expert on those hair styling, but judging by how the hair styling changed, she probably did marry him. Probably not a glamorous wedding, which might be at the end to make up for it. There is a spoiler scene of him in a wedding outfit, I think.

The scene was ZXY was in the novel, this scene the script writers kept. Though idk how it happens in the drama. In the novel, it showed how much ZXY slowly got up to that point of obsession. The novel and drama are like totally different plots so don’t know what they kept and what they didn’t keep. Like I think ZXY novel really focused on maniac ZXY a lot and in went into his inner working. But they changed a lot of plot, so dk what to expect. The scene of ML brother marry FL was a new addition, which definitely made it interesting.

Yeah definitely agree with you on that. This is how I think of it, you ever had a drama you really like and it got like less attention than you believe it deserves? Yet some other drama you didn’t like as much got more attention than it did. In a way these douban, heat index serves as publicity to the drama. Like when you search for drama, the most popular is what shows first. Like when you search up a drama, what do you first see, the rating. Some people get deterred by low rating.

There are tiers for how much funding a Chinese drama has and there a probability some dramas you watched that was a low budget funding. Which usually means people that worked on the drama don’t get paid as much and the promotion for the drama is gonna pale in comparison to those that have s tier funding. This drama specifically had almost no promotion, so it’s basically like an achievement for it to even get that high index. It mean much more publicity for the drama and actors, which also means better scripts for actors/actresses in future and means their effort for filming this drama paid off.


As for America - I think it’s rotten tomatoe, st least that’s what I see is referenced all the time

lol so apparently the Duoban rating came out as a 6. People on weibo are complaining about how ridiculously low it is and when they check the reviews, it’s basically a bunch of antis complaining about how ugly ZYC and TSY are. Some people questioning whether these people even watched the drama, cause the drama definitely deserves higher. They like heat index is 9k and rating is 6, make that make sense. Well most people are expecting a reversal, they say the story is interesting, and clearly these people didn’t even watch the drama before giving it a rating.

So recent preview clip shows the scene where ML (YJL) goes to FL wedding to take her away. OMG was so cool and some pretty good lines out of it.

Originally was only gonna translate a snippet, but went for the whole segment. Please excuse the elementary school level translation here. The translation should be aligned with the subs.

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8N2Ckah/

Starting from sword scene:
ML: Hold up
ML: I’m back
ML Dad: Today is your second brothers wedding day
ML: If I don’t agree who dares to marry her
ML Brother: Yan Jing Lan, what does it matter to you who I marry
ML: Ying Ying (FL nickname), Let’s Leave
ML Brother: 3rd Brother, where do you think your going?
~ML Brother gets push to the ground~
ML Step Mother: Even if you don’t care about Yan Family’s reputation, what about Ji Niang Zi (FL) reputation?
FL: Yan Jung Lan, I was willing to marry him

ML: fine, since you already made the decision to marry into a Tiger den. Then if we change the groom, is that fine?
FL: What do you mean
ML: Marry me
ML: Are you willing or not?

ML dad: This woman is to be married as your 2nd brother concubine.
ML: The ceremony has not been completed
ML: So she still isn’t my 2nd brothers
ML: You threaten her with her family
ML: The people forcing her to marry
ML: ARE YOU GUYS!!!!
ML: You treat her as chip (tool)
ML: I regard her as a treasure
ML: I, Yan Jing Lan
ML: Must marry her

Someone: this?

ML: Marry Me
ML: Are you willing?
FL: I’m willing

It’s not in the TikTok but the next scene:
ML: Good, I’ll marry you

The original actor Zhang Hao Wei is currently being investigated for solicitation of prostitution and tax evasion. Originally this drama was suppose to air much earlier, but China censorship and his scandal, so they had to change his face with another actor via AI in order to pass the screening.

That’s episode 18 preview. It was part of a condensed preview between 14-18. However judging by the order it I should be around ep 17-18

Yeah usually around the end. But there are previews indicating that there was some issue with FL marriage. Like she was about to marry someone else and ML comes steal her. He asked if she was willing to marry him or not. So it might happen around the middle , as there were scenes where it seemed like they slept separately on what looked like a wedding room. So prediction that they might pretend to marry to help FL get out of being forced to marrry someone else. And judging by YJL personality he probably used that time to the extreme and flirted/seduced her.

Omg it was a wrong choice to start this early!!! Looking at all these preview of JYY and YJL 😖😖😖😖😖, they’re so cute. But the wait… I usually wait until a drama ends before starting but couldn’t resist since it’s TSY and ZYC, two of my favorite actor/actresses.

I wasted time reading the novel and it’s totally different so idk what to expect. Like besides some character names, almost everything plot wise is very different.