Woooo, finally finished binging all 48 episodes.Quick spoiler free review:Cast: YES PLEASE. The acting was very…
The only thing, I'd probably really crtitcise: Zhang Ming'en should find his own personal acting style. He tried to copy Wang Yan Lin way too often, especially in the funny scenes. It was so obvious that it jumped up at me numerous times. His acting was much better in the scenes where he stayed true to his own performance. As for the rest, I agree with you! The cast is the spice of this series. And did I sense a slight cliffhanger???
First Impressions Express Delivery!!! I fell in love with the cast right on the spot! Even though partly well known actors and actresses, their faces are still not overused and they all appear to be well chosen for the characters they took over.
The indoor settings are a mixture of medieval and fantasy elements and even though you are able to spot that they got mainly filmed in studio, the whole thing still seems fitting for this fantasy tale. The outdoor locations are gorgeous and simplay a feast for the eye.
So far, the pace is neither too slow nor too quick and I really enjoy the way the characters get introduced out of the action and not via endless dialogues and motionless standing around.
If the performance remains the way it started off with, this will surely become an entertaining show. The chemistry amongst the cast is great and adds to the fun.
As for the CGI and for the special effects: Both are not perfect and have some flaws, but, so far, it didn't hurt or ruin the overall positive first impression.
It will be nice to watch this with subs and I really hope, the series will get picked up for subbing soon.
Who, the heck knows him as "Dylan"or "Johnny"?????? Might be, these English names popped up somewhere, but no one knows him under those names. He's Chen Long...
Nice costumes and settings. Beautiful visual effects. Some nice choreographed fight scenes. That's all that will be remembered...!
All in all one of the biggest disappointments ever released. Announced as an hommage to Ang Lee's "Tiger and Dragon" and Zhang Yimou's "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers", this is nothing, absolutely nothing like this!
A highly water-injected and overly dragged out thin storyline and actors used as hatstands for the costumes, but not used otherwise - or how do they explain that the characters look more like wax figures instead of living beings?
Qin Jin Jie as a lame copy of Hu Ge's Mei Chang Su and an expressionless and boring (or bored???) Crystal Yuan as the female lead. Did they run out of actresses able to make a character look to be alive??? This series could have become 2019's "Bloody Romance", but it's only the average drama told about a thousand times already. Best to watch if you cannot sleep: It spares you the sleeping pill...
Well, while I was willing and ready to accept the change from Arthur Chen to Dylan Wang as Ning Que for season two (and three), I'm done with "Ever Night", now, after so many characters (some of them important) got cast changes. In the beginning, I was convinced, this will be a professional project, but as they can't even make sure, the actors they cast for season one will stay and return for all seasons (or at least as long as their characters are alive), I'm out of here. If you plan a multi season series, make sure, you keep the cast together. Five seasons long "Heroes of Sui and Tang" (2012-2015) did this and even though it might not be the best or the highest quality series, they at least managed to keep their cast together for the time it lasted. Sorry to say, so, "Ever Night", but you can change the cast for minor characters, but not for important characters - even less, if you choose actors, who don't even look a bit like the one they are to replace...
"Ting Xue Lou - 听雪楼" (2019): First impression - Express Delivery Beautiful images, lovely costumes, gorgeous settings! That's - in short - all the first episodes have to offer. I don't know, where the directors of the new series study their craftsmanship, but to me it seems, the only things they learn to focus on are (1) fight choreography and (2) water injection also known as dragging scenes and stories out like chewing gum - until they taste stale... If the characters don't have to perform fight scenes, the directors obviously have no clue what else to do with them. And so it happens that they stand around motionless like perfect decorations in perfect settings, unspool their dialogues and wait for the next fight scene (which seems to be the only reasons for a character in these new series, to move). What goes for so many new series also goes for "Ting Xue Lou": The characters are so static and motionless, if they don't get involved in a sword fight, that you could easily replace them with a vase or a chair or a carpet. They talk standing around like dead trees, lifeless, listless and far from being vivid. What makes great series and movies great is that they are vivid by (1) walking around and changing places, while talking, (2) vivid gestures or facial expressions, (3) characters reacting to each other... Sadly, this kind of drama series / movies is dying under thick layers of dragged out storylines and unsinspired directors - and not even the best actors can make this impression vanish... As always, I'll give the series a chance - my obligatory 10 to 12 episodes - before I decide if I'll drop it or if I'll finish it. So far, it's the same kind of series like so many, released over the bygone two or three years...the same ingredients, the same old stew. This time in matted instead of bonbon colours... And it's far away from being the announced hommage to Zhang Yimou's "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" or Ang Lee's "Tiger and Dragon"...
While I hoped for a more experience cast, at least the young cast are decently trained and more professional than…
Being 40+ seems to be enough for the editors to remove an actor or actress from the "main character" status. And, honestly, how can these "old people" still think they have a right to play main characters??? - sarcasm mode end -
Well, I can't wait to see him in a new project. I love Huang Hai Bing so much, ever since I first came across him. Maybe it's true and "Swire God" really starts in June...that will help shortening the wait for "One Inch of Yearning".
Five of Li Yi Tong's six dramas have finished filming already and are in postproduction or wait for release: "Zhao…
All the drama series are waiting for their release. Due to different reasons, I guess. Post-production, censorship, number of episodes etc. There are so many series filmed between 2015-2017 which are not released, yet, but show up in the lists as"new". They are new, of course, as no one's seen them, yet, but the truth is, they're waiting in line.
I don't think there will be a season 2. If there is they would have to replace the cast. Li Yi Tong is already…
Five of Li Yi Tong's six dramas have finished filming already and are in postproduction or wait for release: "Zhao Ge", "Hai Tang", "Royal Nirvana", "Just to see You" and "Sword Dynasty". So, she would surely agree to a season two, if she'd get asked and I think, the same goes for Wang Duo and Qu Chu Xiao...
While I hoped for a more experience cast, at least the young cast are decently trained and more professional than…
Well, Huang Hai Bing isn't a nobody either, I'd say. A wonderfully intense actor with an amazing feeling for the characters he portrays and still better looking in his fourties than most of the idols I know. Not to forget Lu Xing Yu, who's a fine "veteran", too, having played in numerous leading and supporting roles over the bygone years.
Lol, what? Smiling Proud Wanderer was one of the absolute worse dramas I've ever seen. That drama was so low budget…
I thoght of dropping the show several times, but as some acotrs are aboard, I'll stay tuned. Being able to pick some screencaps, is something to enjoy as well.
As for nitpicking over details: Well, I think, it's the details that make a movie or a drama series interesting. The gaze of an extra or a supporting character in the background, for example: He or she can stand around there motionless and totally uninvilved or he or she can follow the discussions taking place between main characters attentively, add a nod or exchange a look with someone next to them. It makes an enormous difference and adds to make a series look alive. Fight or battle scenes, another example: A director can ensure that everyone looks like being involved in a battle scene or he can show the main characters engaged in a fight while in the background, the extras move their sowrd around. Details spice up a movie or series as they spice up life.
And a last thought on the cloned sect members (male and female): I know, you don't like the "Swordsman" (2018) adaptation, but just for fun, have a look at the nuns in the series and at the lads of Linghu Chong's school. They share the same clothes, but the casting team took care of making them still look like individuals. The series might probably not have the best fight scenes, but the casting team did a great job, caring for the details and not just for the surface.
Lol, what? Smiling Proud Wanderer was one of the absolute worse dramas I've ever seen. That drama was so low budget…
I'm not a newbie to Chinese and Taiwanese movies and drama series as I grew up in the 1970s and 1980s watching the movies of King Hu and Joseph Kuo and later the movies of Zhang Yimou, Tsui Hark and Ang Lee, just to name a few.
My childhood idols were Tien Peng, Hsu Feng, Pai Ying, Polly Shang Guan and Shih Chun as well as the cast of 1973s Japanese Water Margin and the amazing Toshiro Mifune.
Of course, wirework does help to improve (sword-)fighting scenes and offeres many possibilities to film stunning scenes. I totally agree on that, but, honestly, what the 2019 adaptation of "Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre" offers is far from making it interesting in any way thinkable: - boring slow--mo in almost every fight scene and beyond ( it's a wuxia tale with many swordfights, they don't happen in slow-mo) - listless performance, there is no passion in acting at all - listless cut, filming and character development - uninspired costume and make-up design (the mustaches,most of the males got glued to their upper lips look as if they got bought at a cheep carnival shop round the next corner or at a 1-dollar-store) - uninspired casting (the girls of Emei-Sect and the guys from Wudang-Sect look like cloned, as if the casting department didn't even waste a thought on individual looks) - dragging story development (did they really have a big part of the cast just sitting around for about three episodes???)
Honestly, if this would be the first adaptation of a Loius Cha novel a newbie to his tales and their adaptations would watch, he or she would question everyone who thinks he's a genius writer. If this adaptation is the first to celebrate the master's 95th birthday in 2019, it failed and I really hope, "Handsome Siblings", "Demi Gods and Semi Devils" and "Return of the Condor Heroes" will do more justice to Louis Cha and his work than this uninspired and boring to death slow motion festival...
Lol, what? Smiling Proud Wanderer was one of the absolute worse dramas I've ever seen. That drama was so low budget…
Well, some like the wirework, some don't. You like it, I don't. Some like the new "Heaven Sword, Dragon Sabre" and I like "Swordsman" 2018. Perhaps it's exactly, because "Swordsman" didn't use wirework what makes me like it. Much better to have no wires than to see the wires like it happens in several of the slow-mo scenes in the New HSDS... So much money spent on High Definition and the slow motion experience that they can even show the wires to the audience. Boah! I'm stunned...
A first episode that opens with a ten minutes "entertainment"-session of slaughtering animals? Disgusting, even if they are animated... Sorry, but, I'm out of here...
What is all the slow-motion about??? A new way to fill a series with a bigger number of episodes??? It's tiring, annoying and boring and it makes the episodes feel draggy!!! So far, I find it a let-down and no match for "Legend of the Condor Heroes" (2017) and "Smiling Proud Wanderer" (2018). Both were much better.
Zhang Ming'en should find his own personal acting style. He tried to copy Wang Yan Lin way too often, especially in the funny scenes. It was so obvious that it jumped up at me numerous times.
His acting was much better in the scenes where he stayed true to his own performance.
As for the rest, I agree with you! The cast is the spice of this series.
And did I sense a slight cliffhanger???
I fell in love with the cast right on the spot!
Even though partly well known actors and actresses, their faces are still not overused and they all appear to be well chosen for the characters they took over.
The indoor settings are a mixture of medieval and fantasy elements and even though you are able to spot that they got mainly filmed in studio, the whole thing still seems fitting for this fantasy tale.
The outdoor locations are gorgeous and simplay a feast for the eye.
So far, the pace is neither too slow nor too quick and I really enjoy the way the characters get introduced out of the action and not via endless dialogues and motionless standing around.
If the performance remains the way it started off with, this will surely become an entertaining show. The chemistry amongst the cast is great and adds to the fun.
As for the CGI and for the special effects: Both are not perfect and have some flaws, but, so far, it didn't hurt or ruin the overall positive first impression.
It will be nice to watch this with subs and I really hope, the series will get picked up for subbing soon.
Might be, these English names popped up somewhere, but no one knows him under those names.
He's Chen Long...
Nice costumes and settings. Beautiful visual effects. Some nice choreographed fight scenes. That's all that will be remembered...!
All in all one of the biggest disappointments ever released.
Announced as an hommage to Ang Lee's "Tiger and Dragon" and Zhang Yimou's "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers", this is nothing, absolutely nothing like this!
A highly water-injected and overly dragged out thin storyline and actors used as hatstands for the costumes, but not used otherwise - or how do they explain that the characters look more like wax figures instead of living beings?
Qin Jin Jie as a lame copy of Hu Ge's Mei Chang Su and an expressionless and boring (or bored???) Crystal Yuan as the female lead. Did they run out of actresses able to make a character look to be alive???
This series could have become 2019's "Bloody Romance", but it's only the average drama told about a thousand times already.
Best to watch if you cannot sleep: It spares you the sleeping pill...
In the beginning, I was convinced, this will be a professional project, but as they can't even make sure, the actors they cast for season one will stay and return for all seasons (or at least as long as their characters are alive), I'm out of here.
If you plan a multi season series, make sure, you keep the cast together.
Five seasons long "Heroes of Sui and Tang" (2012-2015) did this and even though it might not be the best or the highest quality series, they at least managed to keep their cast together for the time it lasted.
Sorry to say, so, "Ever Night", but you can change the cast for minor characters, but not for important characters - even less, if you choose actors, who don't even look a bit like the one they are to replace...
Beautiful images, lovely costumes, gorgeous settings!
That's - in short - all the first episodes have to offer.
I don't know, where the directors of the new series study their craftsmanship, but to me it seems, the only things they learn to focus on are (1) fight choreography and (2) water injection also known as dragging scenes and stories out like chewing gum - until they taste stale...
If the characters don't have to perform fight scenes, the directors obviously have no clue what else to do with them. And so it happens that they stand around motionless like perfect decorations in perfect settings, unspool their dialogues and wait for the next fight scene (which seems to be the only reasons for a character in these new series, to move).
What goes for so many new series also goes for "Ting Xue Lou":
The characters are so static and motionless, if they don't get involved in a sword fight, that you could easily replace them with a vase or a chair or a carpet.
They talk standing around like dead trees, lifeless, listless and far from being vivid.
What makes great series and movies great is that they are vivid by (1) walking around and changing places, while talking, (2) vivid gestures or facial expressions, (3) characters reacting to each other...
Sadly, this kind of drama series / movies is dying under thick layers of dragged out storylines and unsinspired directors - and not even the best actors can make this impression vanish...
As always, I'll give the series a chance - my obligatory 10 to 12 episodes - before I decide if I'll drop it or if I'll finish it.
So far, it's the same kind of series like so many, released over the bygone two or three years...the same ingredients, the same old stew. This time in matted instead of bonbon colours...
And it's far away from being the announced hommage to Zhang Yimou's "Hero" and "House of Flying Daggers" or Ang Lee's "Tiger and Dragon"...
And, honestly, how can these "old people" still think they have a right to play main characters???
- sarcasm mode end -
Well, I can't wait to see him in a new project. I love Huang Hai Bing so much, ever since I first came across him. Maybe it's true and "Swire God" really starts in June...that will help shortening the wait for "One Inch of Yearning".
Post-production, censorship, number of episodes etc.
There are so many series filmed between 2015-2017 which are not released, yet, but show up in the lists as"new". They are new, of course, as no one's seen them, yet, but the truth is, they're waiting in line.
So, she would surely agree to a season two, if she'd get asked and I think, the same goes for Wang Duo and Qu Chu Xiao...
A wonderfully intense actor with an amazing feeling for the characters he portrays and still better looking in his fourties than most of the idols I know.
Not to forget Lu Xing Yu, who's a fine "veteran", too, having played in numerous leading and supporting roles over the bygone years.
WM 2011 is available onYT (partly subbed): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrNMYDxYPuyE-8u2wILOvmM-rO0ZvswOT
RAW on Tencent: https://v.qq.com/x/cover/lth99s5zzjf0lyd/m0021ukvtop.html?ptag=sogou.tv.free&fromvsogou=1
RAW on Youku:
https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjQyODM1NTIw.html?from=s1.8-3-3.1
As for nitpicking over details:
Well, I think, it's the details that make a movie or a drama series interesting.
The gaze of an extra or a supporting character in the background, for example:
He or she can stand around there motionless and totally uninvilved or he or she can follow the discussions taking place between main characters attentively, add a nod or exchange a look with someone next to them. It makes an enormous difference and adds to make a series look alive.
Fight or battle scenes, another example:
A director can ensure that everyone looks like being involved in a battle scene or he can show the main characters engaged in a fight while in the background, the extras move their sowrd around.
Details spice up a movie or series as they spice up life.
And a last thought on the cloned sect members (male and female):
I know, you don't like the "Swordsman" (2018) adaptation, but just for fun, have a look at the nuns in the series and at the lads of Linghu Chong's school. They share the same clothes, but the casting team took care of making them still look like individuals. The series might probably not have the best fight scenes, but the casting team did a great job, caring for the details and not just for the surface.
My childhood idols were Tien Peng, Hsu Feng, Pai Ying, Polly Shang Guan and Shih Chun as well as the cast of 1973s Japanese Water Margin and the amazing Toshiro Mifune.
Of course, wirework does help to improve (sword-)fighting scenes and offeres many possibilities to film stunning scenes.
I totally agree on that, but, honestly, what the 2019 adaptation of "Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre" offers is far from making it interesting in any way thinkable:
- boring slow--mo in almost every fight scene and beyond ( it's a wuxia tale with many swordfights, they don't happen in slow-mo)
- listless performance, there is no passion in acting at all
- listless cut, filming and character development
- uninspired costume and make-up design (the mustaches,most of the males got glued to their upper lips look as if they got bought at a cheep carnival shop round the next corner or at a 1-dollar-store)
- uninspired casting (the girls of Emei-Sect and the guys from Wudang-Sect look like cloned, as if the casting department didn't even waste a thought on individual looks)
- dragging story development (did they really have a big part of the cast just sitting around for about three episodes???)
Honestly, if this would be the first adaptation of a Loius Cha novel a newbie to his tales and their adaptations would watch, he or she would question everyone who thinks he's a genius writer.
If this adaptation is the first to celebrate the master's 95th birthday in 2019, it failed and I really hope, "Handsome Siblings", "Demi Gods and Semi Devils" and "Return of the Condor Heroes" will do more justice to Louis Cha and his work than this uninspired and boring to death slow motion festival...
You like it, I don't.
Some like the new "Heaven Sword, Dragon Sabre" and I like "Swordsman" 2018. Perhaps it's exactly, because "Swordsman" didn't use wirework what makes me like it.
Much better to have no wires than to see the wires like it happens in several of the slow-mo scenes in the New HSDS...
So much money spent on High Definition and the slow motion experience that they can even show the wires to the audience.
Boah! I'm stunned...
Disgusting, even if they are animated...
Sorry, but, I'm out of here...
A new way to fill a series with a bigger number of episodes???
It's tiring, annoying and boring and it makes the episodes feel draggy!!!
So far, I find it a let-down and no match for "Legend of the Condor Heroes" (2017) and "Smiling Proud Wanderer" (2018). Both were much better.