MadelineMaureen

Episode 28. There was a fight in front of their building around a time people are getting off work...lights and sirens would have been heard/seen from the building....not a single reporter or cameraman present when Yi Fan ran out of the building.
We've all seen how rabid reporters can be for content/stories and one happens in their front yard and not even a double take occurred. People just chillin in the lobby.
I realize that the office complex might house more that just reporters, but the building belongs to a television station. Someone would have notified the people upstairs about a story.

Once again...in front of a news station with no reporters outside reporting on the crime that took place on their property...sure Jan.

alright writer-nim....you get brownie points for her using Sang as her surname while in hiding. Still side-eyeing you....but you made me smile...so...you're still on probation, but out of writer jail.

They have his collars a bit too long(tall) for his neck length and shoulder width. It's only by like a few millimeters, but it messes with his proportions, as it sticks too high above the jacket.
Zhang Ling He specifically looks best with open collared shirts that are more blousy(loosely fitted in the chest and torso) with a taper at the waist aka tucked into pants that hit him at his hips.
In my defense I follow his Instagram and Chinese actors who do more fashion side of the entertainment industry have ample examples of different styles to look at.

men....do not wear the jackets with lapels that tip up toward your neck if your shoulders are on the narrower side. Unless you are shaped like a Dorito(insert image of Bia Jing Ting) it's going to look strange...honestly I don't even thing Bai Jing Ting's shoulders could make those two suit jackets work....Zhang Ling He can look good in almost anything....ill fitted suit jackets with weirdly proportioned lapels are apparently the only thing that looks bad on him. A sweater/cardigan over the button up and tie would have suited his shoulders better. I'm referring to the two suit jackets he wears to campus. For the thesis and first lecture.
Okay, fashion/wardrobe girlie out... 🫡

1. FL is in a relationship when they first meet(7 year relationship). Break up happens in ep2. I don't consider it a love triangle. If you want me to clarify this I will write another comment. There is an intern interested in the ML, but he doesn't "see" her really...until she steps over the line and ML firmly redraws said line and reinforces it with steel.
2. Leads get together in episode 18. (first kiss happens in episode 12)
3. No break up once they are together. Long distance relationship...solid.
4. Extremely happy

OST is is from Warm on a Cold Night. also if you are watching on something other than your phone you can use it to search the song with google or other apps.

Cameo references Bi Wen Jun's iQiYi drama Warm on a Cold Night.


Also this made me realize that the show is set in 2021(the students defending their thesis) yet every drama mentioned aired well after that. Made me laugh, because if the show starts in 2020 and they referenced My Journey to You....A it didn't exist and B Zhang Ling He hadn't debuted yet(they mention his character's name from My Journey to You) not important just making the connections

also I didn't translate the signs so it might have meant class of 2021 not set in 2021 which would make more sense.

Thank you! Snack time and also finish up a different episode of another show...perfect.

So is the express coming tomorrow or....I've refreshed the app and webpage for iQiYi multiple times but no new episodes are released yet the clock is gone from the page...so I am confused.

https://www.shushengbar.net/hard-to-deceive-first-frost-%E9%9A%BE%E5%93%84-by-%E7%AB%B9%E5%B7%B2-zhu-yi-he/

This link should have both the novel and the manhwa.

I have only watched up to episode 24 so I can only comment on up to that point. I was hoping for express to have dropped today so I could watch it all after work or tomorrow(my day off).

I thought about this a lot on and off all day. I still very much love the show and obviously love the novel. Bai Jing Ting really understood his role and dove head first and paid attention to details about Sang Yan that could have been missed. Zhang Ruo Nan perfectly displays the shyness and innocents of Yi Fan and shows the venerable sides and the feminine rage that YiFan holds in all the time so well. The things they were given to perform have all been done to perfection.

With this show there are parts that are perfect and really understand the characters...and then production makes an editing/story choice that doesn't quite fit the rest of the story. Again...production/film nerd🙋🏻‍♀️, I'm going to notice things that others may easily look over or be able to disregard because it doesn't matter to them how they get from point A to point B as long as they GET to point B at some point.

with how this show likes to show other sides and Sang Yan's POV they could have easily shown on screen him looking at a text from the intern or even just having the intern's messages at the top of his message list in a subtle tell included with the head nod. They could have had a subtle lift of Sang Yan's phone included in the head nod. The only reason we know he was texted was because it's in the source material, but they have gone so completely off book that i'm not sure by that nod that the intern in fact informed Sang Yan.
They could have shown the intern's concern and care for YiFan and worry when she got up from the table only for him to relax when he sees Sang Yan and give him a nod.
So at bare minimum the intern wasn't directed well in this scene to show a more complex subtext happening within the scene and the editors failed proper emphasis on looks and moments.

they gave a convicted felon a job as a security officer at a broadcast station that houses investigative reporters....i need you to understand that my issue is not just with them changing a story to fit a different time table. It is the fact that someone came in an hit everyone with a stupid stick for plot convenance.

No, because instead of a victim telling her truth and showing strength and conviction in her choice to stand up against the people who hurt her to her lover with her own words....what we get is a man digging into his lovers past traumas without her consent and him being oblivious to what is happening around him until she is just gone.
They took a mature relationship that quickly fixes misunderstandings into something unrecognizable.

So many changes. She never hurts him to this extent again in the novel. she pursues him and repeatedly shows him that she is 100% committed to growing WITH Sang Yan and standing on her own, but with him present and in the know.
I watched both 23 and 24 at 2x speed once they deviated from the actual storyline. (I can read very fast) because when they deviated from what already existed it became eyerolling because they dropped actual logic out the window.
I can understand a character isolating themselves as a trauma response. But that is not Yi Fan's character at this point in the story...so stupid legal logic (a broadcasting organization hiring a convicted felon as security) plus character regression(both Yi Fan, and her bestie seemed to lack all agency in episode 24) in a story that already exists is unpleasant to watch.

I watch a LOT of media. I watch a LOT of adapted media.
When I say this is done poorly I mean that there are other ways to get the antagonist closer to her without dumbing things down. He could have used a fake name. They could have stuck to Sang Yan showing her how hurt he was by her not telling him that she was being followed by someone who hurt her in the past, and STILL had the separation. everyone keeps saying watch episode 27...but it's not going to erase the mistakes already made by production. Having her bestie be the one to go into her apartment and be like...huh seems a little weird, and not check the fucking closet? there is a years worth of cat food on the table and her bedding is bundled up into a pile...they removed the brain from her head. She is the most emotionally intelligent of all of the characters in the show and repeatedly shown that only for her to act out of character so she can relay news to Sang Yan, instead of Sang Yan being the one to realize that she wasn't communicating and confronting her, they made him a passive character in his own story. they made him into an investigative journalist instead of having Yi Fan show that skill. again I have not watched past 24. and people telling me what happens in the next episodes is not making me want to watch them any quicker.

she never left in the novel because she had already grown as a character by that point in the story that she was able to use her knowledge as a reporter and trust in her relationship enough to run after him within 2 business days.
Also people with criminal records don't typically get jobs in security of a broadcast company that run background checks.

I have to go to bed and I have work tomorrow. I think by the time I get off work all the episodes might be released. But 2 more episodes of separation is not something i'm looking forward to when I've already had numerous issues with this writer-director and his dumbing down of characters and added, imo, useless storylines.

6 fucking months....6 MONTHS!????????

Straight to adaptation jail.

I need to just start viewing this show as something not related to The First Frost at all and it just happens to use the same names of things. because...no...I can't even articulate how not okay I am about that big of a regression in character development.
my neuro spicy is not liking the artistic license taken😭💔

Glad this was the last thing I'll watch before bed...cause the character assassination happening on what was supposed to be a comfort watch put me in the worst mood...okay looks like I need to have episode 22 playing again in the background cause I'm apparently still salty AF about the other show(that I am not caught up on) iykyk, if you don't, stay in blissful ignorance by injecting the pure serotonin boost that is The Best Thing into your veins.

I'd like to state for the record...(in the source material)they are separated for maybe 48 hours 72 at most, before she rushes to him in YiHe to explain everything that has been happening and has happened in the past. Clearing up all their misunderstandings and showing him that she is now able to ask for help and trusts that he can handle all of her mess and scars. Trusting that she will not dirty him or dim his shine.
SHE FINDS HIM. SHE TELLS HIM. This director sure knows how to suck all the romance out of a romance novel.
(I have not watched past episode 24, but I feel it's safe to say they have completely taken a u-turn in the opposite direction the characters were actually headed.)

Also please just let me bitch about my favorite IP getting botched. I love the actors and their performances...but you have to admit that at episode 24 all characters are back to square 1, undoing all character development previously shown. They were a mature but innocent couple in the novel. I don't want to call them dumb in this, but oh boy does the director take away their agency in big ways with this move.