Kochase

'Mistakenly'. Bless that soul.

'Mistakenly'. Bless that soul.

The official weibo finally showed some signs of life... wonder if that's how they're signaling us 🤣 Or they're just stringing us along until the next year, the next decade...

Well, firstly, to practice and uplevel my Chinese. Second, the translations still miss a lot of nuances, meaning, and poeticism. Third, I can't really stand edited MTLs. If it's just a story where I want to know what happens, I'll suffer through it. But if I want to enjoy the story, I can't read them. And given the official translations are probably going to take quite a while yet... it means I can't really rely on the English version anytime soon. I am actually reading the raws alongside the official translations. Appreciate the info share though!

I finally caved in and started reading the raws. At my skill level, it will probably take forever. But I'm still holding onto the delusion that perhaps this drama will air before I'm done.

That's true. I guess if they're 'independent', they're already planning on not touching the Zhang family history with a ten foot pole. Both disappointing and relieving.

Still would have liked to see Xiao Zhan's version of Wu Xie though, whoever Xiaoge might have been hahaha.

Lol why bother with the franchise at all then? It's not even like when they shot Time Raiders the movie, where they at least kept the characters and just did a version of events. Oh well... let's see where it goes.

Also lol at the title names and the confusion it's causing. I'm not sure what the planned official English name for this drama will be, but the Chinese just says ‘C/Zang Hai Zhuan' which should more directly translate as 'Legend of Zanghai'.

The reason for these alternative names is... Zang Hai is the main character's name, but names are composed of words as well and have meaning. And the first word can be pronounced as either 'Cang' or 'Zang' depending on context. 'Cang' would mean 'hidden', whereas 'Zang' would be commonly associated with Tibetan. 'Hai' means sea. Hence why we have all these names of 'Tibetan Sea' or 'Hidden Sea' I guess.

Whatever the official English name is, 'Legend of Zanghai' feels most contextually correct for now given Zanghai is the main character. And given the setting is in Changbai Mountains, not anywhere near Tibet or sea, I don't see intentional word play happening.

I always dreamed of XZ being a part of the DMBJ franchise... but I always envisioned him as Wu Xie (with a certain former co-star *cough cough* playing Xiaoge / Zhang Qiling hahaha). Impossible, I know, but a girl could dream.

I guess the DMBJ franchise is just totally up for grabs now as a universe. There's zero expectation to connect the works anymore, I assume? I'm so curious how this is going to work... Wang Zanghai's story revolves directly around the Ultimate (secret behind the Bronze Gate). Are they actually going to come up with a version of what the Ultimate is? Or they're going to continue to dance around it...

Agreed. Although I would still push for mainstream to have happy queer movies... I consider it an entirely separate track of progress from BL progress. BL as a genre being progressive is great, but it shouldn't be used to hold any expectation to the progress of mainstream media. And yeah... as much as I enjoy the BL genre, it's still very niche with minimal influence compared to something that's mainstream. This is still a great step for Korean media.

And tbf, I never expected anything that aims to be even remotely historically accurate to have a happy ending for mlm.

Daomubiji (the series The Lost Tomb was adapted from) started off as a fanfiction based on the book series this is adapted from.

Seems like it’s definitely queer, but might be bad ending. FL is arranged / a beard. That’s why she was so upset. She probably thought she had a shot with both but turned out surprise to be neither. Even if she might have ended up marrying one of them.

Yeah I suspect it's gonna be terrible. The original writers clearly knew their audience and leaned (faithfully) into the bromance genre. The producers want to have their cake and eat it too - i.e. milk the bromance but have no risk of associated with bromance / BL. Screw these asshats. Censorship is one thing - you gotta do what you gotta do. Voluntarily watering down bromance (not even BL) because you're risk-averse? Asshats.

This series basically won't exist to me unless somewhere on my feed people rave about the bromance being amazing. But yeah, I'm treating it like it doesn't exist for now.

Here's a good primer: https://strictlybromance.com/grave-robbers-chronicles-overview/

Honestly, this production choice and casting makes no sense to me at all. Although I'm a big DMBJ fan, the series has been notoriously disastrous as drama adaptations. There's been IP / ownership wars, constant revolving door of casts, lack of continuity / overlapping content between books, massive range in quality, and the author writing himself into a corner and incapable of finishing canon. So I'm kind of surprised XZ would sign onto this hot mess? Lol.

Also, this particular character is one of those mysterious background characters (not even side, but background / historical) whose story is still not fully unveiled. And the mention of the bronze door? Lol that's the BIG mystery that the entire series builds up to... and has yet to reveal because the author got stuck. So I'm really not sure what this drama is about lol. Nothing about this production makes sense. I have so many questions.

Ok since so many folks are unhappy with the drama.... DO NOT watch this drama if you're expecting typical kdrama romance or typical heavy mystery / action revenge sequence. It's not a whodunnit. I mean, these elements are there, but it's not the focus.

The financial details *are* important here. It's not just hand-waved away as a backdrop for the drama. It *is* the drama. So if you don't like or are not in the mood for a more intellectual drama... don't bother with it. You'll probably be disappointed. Or just be comfortable with skipping / fast-forwarding through most of the series.

It might not be the most amazing drama ever, but I think it's unfair to ding it on not having good romance or tons of action drama when that wasn't its goal in the first place. Personally, I like that it's different from the usual kdrama and it gets down into the financial weeds. As much as I love the usual kdrama, I don't think we need every drama to be like that.

I actually really liked all the accounting details / nuance. Although I'm not in business, having only studied the very basics in school, it was fun to keep up with the financial details here. Definitely a bit rapid-paced, so you have to keep your thinking hat on tight. It's not a drama for those just looking for something simple.

It's also certainly quite dramaticized... Ho Woo having these crazy insights that experienced accountants don't have? Uh-huh ok. Also the involvement of murder. The VP was painted as rather one-dimensional evil figure too. But I do appreciate that the dramaticization was limited to those areas and not like... romantic melodrama, or tedious back-and-forths about loyalties and betrayals between the mains, or ridiculous amounts of action sequences that make you forget this was an accounting drama in the first place.

The ending definitely felt a bit quick as well, with everything just all coming together. But that's the nature of dramas.

Not sure why folks are so harsh on this drama. Maybe accounting is too hard to follow? :P Admittedly the comparisons might be unfair.... other professional dramas like medical or law might seem challenging to comprehend, but they're actually relatively easy to explain in scoped context. If you get a medical diagnosis, there's a clear problem, a set of potential approaches with different costs and risks... and the drama is always in making the choice between them. The cause and effects are easy to follow. Law drama is also easy to depict because there's clear defense and burden of proof. Accounting and financials actually is quite challenging to explain to the non-professional, because there's a lot of complicated math and economics involved. It's an abstraction and all the drama doesn't come from direct interactions but the implications of reports.

I thought they actually did surprisingly well with the explanations, all things considered. Because this field really isn't easy to explain. Like ok... if you struggle to understand things like federal reserve rates and why they get raised or lowered, and thinking about it just makes your head explode, for example... this drama is going to be exhausting for you. If you enjoy learning and understanding that sort of stuff, it'll be fun.

The Taiwanese film / drama industry doesn't have the same budget or capabilities. Only production companies capable of rivaling would probably be Netflix / HBO and the like. It's hella expensive to shoot non-modern setting dramas haha. China is only able to do it in spades because they collectively built Hengdian / have all these other collective investments to make it marginally less expensive.

It's systemic failure. A poor analogy might be gun laws in America. Sure, technically the person committing the wrong is the gunholder... but it's moot to conclude it all at just that and make no move to improve policy. As long as the weapon is available, like it or not, it will be used. (Just look at all of the Cultural Revolution) The CCP clearly doesn't care that such a 'weapon' can be heavily used for selfish purposes, so long as it remains king of the hill. In fact... probably encourages it. Let them all fight each other, and we shall retain control.

The CCP is to blame for policy of what's allowed to air, the CCP is also to blame for promoting such an environment of high stakes with such an accessible form of underhanded tactic. Now, I definitely think Youku was dumb, screwing up navigation of the political dynamics both with WoH and JiTD... but to blame all of c-ent... eh. That's not really the main issue.

Yeah obviously I'm talking about less ideal circumstances, but supposing Netflix can produce it with, say for example, Taiwanese actors.... could be decent.

Basically, at some point, the reliability / ROI of Chinese BL drama might be so terrible that IP holders might actually consider it a sounder investment to invest overseas as well.

The IP holder. I hadn't looked it up. But yeah, that's my take too. I wouldn't want to watch a version that isn't this particular cast.

That's why I think there's only potential discussion for uncasted productions because we're not as invested yet. I wonder if they'd sell to overseas companies.