Kochase

Lol the pingxie relationship is reaaaally hard to summarize. First, the CP is called pingxie because it's the 'Xie' in Wu Xie and 'ping' in Menyouping (what Wu Xie calls Xiaoge mostly in his first person novel, and translates to 'stuffy oil bottle' or 'poker face' or someone who just doesn't talk / express much)

TBH - and I don't really consider this a spoiler because there's nothing to spoil - it's not like there's any big secret connection between them (ish... they run in the same grave-robbing society, so certainly their families have some history but like... they're not secretly related or anything direct like that), nor do they become a romantic couple (at least.. none of these have happened *canonically* yet).

Buuuut... there's no doubt Wu Xie is quite special to Xiaoge. And again, it's really difficult to summarize, because there's so much convoluted plot with gaps that have yet to be filled, with the series in half abandoned / finished state, so fans do a lot of surmising and theorizing but nothing officially is there yet... All we know is, Xiaoge does feel a special connection to Wu Xie.

The author once spoke on Xiaoge's behalf expressing his attitude towards Wu Xie: "My lifetime, in exchange for you a decade of innocence and purity" If you want more context and actual spoilers on this, you can read this post https://strictlybromance.com/pingxie-s-most-popular-excerpts/ and this post https://kolachess.tumblr.com/post/643032569248727041/pingxie-quote-translations-analysis-ten-years

To say anything more would be getting into details of just what Xiaoge all did for Wu Xie (and vice versa of course), and that's too complicated to explain easily because it involves some crazy plot. Lol in the beginning I also wanted to just quickly know the relationship and not touch the source materials... but every explanation just begged more questions until I eventually gave up and started reading everything.

Don't get me wrong, I loved every second of it. I think every moment flowed naturally and there were no fillers or random side drama. Every moment had meaning and impact. But I think it is slow build in terms of conflict build-up. To me, the real conflict started after the Wens fell. And getting to that did take like... 20-30 episodes hahaha.

Slow-build for you and me, slow-paced for people who don't have the patience. I can see how it could be a bit too slow paced for people who are unfamiliar with the novel and don't know what's in store. I think the nuances of the build-up are better suited for... I hesitate to say mature audience for fear offending folks, but people who can appreciate more realistic development as opposed to needing checkpoint plotlines. Which, hey, I get it, sometimes we all just want a cliche, run-of-the-mill, self-indulgent story. But yeah I can see how it's a bit slow for folks more used to the typical drama development.

Like I mentioned above, I totally loved the slow build. It's natural, not checkpoint based, it brings everyone along, not just the main CP. I enjoyed my re-watch even *more* actually, especially when I paid more attention to LWJ's expressions and body language. And also analyzing JC's character more. He was jealous of LWJ, at the end of the day, did you realize? Not romantically jealous. But jealous. His character journey is also so fascinating. Omg I've veered off topic again. I can write a dissertation on JC's character study.

Anyway. That's the difference, I think. On the surface, it doesn't look like much is happening, because there's not the usual drama elements that you can measure progress against. But underneath, each interaction builds up beautifully.

It's fair... it's a different cultural norm which places lots of emphasis on how to address people. It's not just names too - Your dad's older brother is addressed differently from your dad's younger brother is addressed differently from your mom's brother which would all be 'uncle' in English hahahaha.

Maybe explain why it was boring for you? Instead of just calling it boring. Obviously, many people disagree with you, so just calling it boring is kind of... unhelpful input.

Like, the first half is definitely slow paced. I'll give you that. And depending on what you find interesting (more fighting, less politics? More romance / bromance? More mystery?) it would certainly make sense that you find this drama boring for you. And depending on the tastes of who's asking, it can also help them decide if the drama is right for them.

@Man Yao - the drama is definitely slow build. And like estrgrace7 pointed out, the first half is definitely slow. But I think this is because they decided to show, rather than tell, the story. Everything is a slow build, because they're not trying to do checkpoint plot development - hey everyone suffered one hardship together. They're all BFFs now! Check; Oh so and so encountered this one setback and resolved it after two episodes. They've leveled up now! Check.

Personally, I love the refreshing dose of realism in how a drama and characters gets built up . The genre might be xianxia, but it's honestly one of the more realistic / believable pacings of how relationships (friendship, family, romance) between people develop. I can be very patient if the story / characters are well-crafted. I fast-forward when there's a lot of extra unnecessary drama (which this one really does not have).

I just think we've become super accustomed to drama style checkpoint development. So if you're a fan of that and don't really like slow build of things, then understandably this drama may not be for you.

At the end of the day, you just gotta try it out for yourself and decide. :)

Yeah because his name is '吴邪', but the homonym would be '无邪'. Pronounced the same, but only the latter has meaning. Chinese likes its wordplay a lot hahaha.

And for more fun wordplay, his nickname is Naive / Innocent, or 'Tianzhen', which is 天真. Put it together, and you get 天真无邪, a common Chinese phrase meaning really innocent and pure.

Hopefully! Just that the leap of uniqueness from classic lit to wuxia was way more novel than the leap from wuxia to BL adaptations. They literally had nothing else to follow back then lol.

But I'm all for more well-done adaptations in the future!

Also check this out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a8KuxhSE-E Sound familiar? ;) How fitting that the song is a love song about how the other person doesn't understand his heart, the other person thinks he's a cloud, a mystery, a dream, and how the other person is leaving for somewhere far away... the director is so brill for sneaking this in.

Join the dark side :)

We're all going to tell you to watch it. :)

You should expect a really good story / plotline. It is a rather complex story with a lot of well-crafted characters, so if simple and light-hearted is what you enjoy, this may not be for you. But if you love moral-ambiguity, well-rounded villains and flawed heroes, it's definitely a masterpiece.

I'm going to assume you're asking about 'malexmale' scenes, and if so, maybe refrain from calling it 'weird' in the future? Bromance / malexmale may not be your cup of tea, but calling it weird can make those who are queer in real life hurt or uncomfortable. :) But to your question - the relationship does not ever cross into physical or labeled romance. They do care a lot for each other, very deeply, but the interpretation is still up to you. And no, their relationship, whatever it is, does not at all detract from the storyline. There is no drama for the sake of drama or unnecessary skinship (which me as a BL lover also hate).

It's because it's his full name. 'Wu' is homonymous with the word for 'no' or 'without'. So together, his name is 'Wu Xie' or 'No Evil'

Yeah it always happens. People try to qualify it with 'that's not what I meant, it's just not a good story, blah blah' but like... the real reason they're upset is because they think it's undeserving of the praise / popularity.

Otherwise, do you bother leaving bad comments on all the dramas you get bored of and just drop. I sure as hell don't. I just drop it and move on lol. Why waste time. I'll maybe write a negative review explaining what I found lacking if I originally had different expectations for it, but not go venting about my upset in the comment section lol. Or sometimes, commenting a dislike about one particular element of the drama is also understandable. Like, 'oh the xyz scene was a little disappointing. I was hoping to see abc'. You might get some discussion that way. But just dropping a blanket, "I did not like the drama for xyz reasons"? Go write a review lol. Don't drop it in the comment section and expect a fun outcome.

PSA: If you're looking to drop a purely negative statement about the drama as a whole in the comment section - you're probably butthurt about the drama's popularity lol.

Hmm.... not super likely? Or if so, way later into the future. The reason why Jin Yong's works get repeatedly remade is because he really was the father of the wuxia genre. And in a post-communism era where this kind of stuff was so utterly novel, it has a special place in a whole generation's hearts.

The generations now grow up with way too much content. Even though The Untamed is highly popular, I doubt it'll settle like a classic like Jin Yong's novels. Buuuuut certainly, I hope so! And with less censorship. :)

Actually yeah that was my initial thought as well, that he was way over-acting. But then I realized Jiang Cheng was just such a drama king...

Ah, there it is. The core 'I hate that it's so popular / highly rated' sentiment so highly prevalent in fandom. Look, I get it. I feel that way about other works as well. But you gotta learn that the world does not cater to you, entertainment doesn't cater to you. At the end of the day, you need to learn to just shut out the stuff you don't like. Which, if censored adaptations aren't your thing because it insults you, then just don't watch it. It's not exactly a spoiler that it's bromance only.

Also, you should understand that, while opinions are technically all valid, the way you deliver it is going to invoke drastically different responses. Tone matters. The way you delivered your opinion - all negative, in absolutes, imposing your opinion as fact, is bound to invoke responses like what you got. If you don't want others to jump out in hot defense based on their opinions, offer some concessions, use a neutral-ish tone, don't make generic statements like 'it insults the readers of the novel', which is kind of not even true because most of the reception was pretty damn good.

Well, that's kind of an understandable adaptation trade-off. I mean, text and animation gets by on visual continuity by hand-waving it (MXY and WWX honestly don't look that different in the animation TBH. Sure, MXY is 'shorter' by a lot, but otherwise their styles and face look pretty similar.) But imagine cheering for a person as the MC and then having them switch it out halfway... it'd be visually jarring in live action.

Milking the pingxie cash cow for all it's worth lol. As much as I appreciate them adding more bromance... it does come off a bit cringeworthy lol. And yeah, like you said, at this point in the story he's not that close to Wu Xie yet / all that expressive.

He means that he is someone who is on Wu Xie's side of any (potential) conflict, that he is someone trustworthy.

And also why there's so much *ahem ahem* references by fans on how to make Xiaoge's tattoo visible ;)

Do you mean Wen Qing? Aren't they great? The drama definitely included more of them to help balance out the male / female ratio and pass censorship, but the way they're included was awesome. They were WWX's support system when no one else would / could be (LWJ you better thank those two sister-in-laws of yours :P)

I'm stuck in the bts hole and never coming out T_T. I don't know if it's for the better or for the worse that I missed the yizhan hype when this all first came out... good in that there's been so much more bts since, and I didn't have to live through the stress of 227. Bad in that there are way less people hyped about their backstage shenanigans now!