MadelineMaureen

tencent over iqiyi. havent watch viki yet

because he hasn't gotten a full on screen send off with flashback I figure he's still alive. and also how the smoky girl reacted to his name...makes me think he's still "alive"

he is probably also a war demon like LQQ. The play hinted at them being the same age. but he might also just be old like the dude with all the evil sons. might have been a human he grew up with that then became a cultivator.

I'm just surprised they used it at all considering they can fly.

In episode 23 all I keep thinking is...ummm...they can fly...like both of them are capable of literal flight...falling over a cliff will not kill them...because they can freaking fly. I know about the poisonous things at the bottom, but did I miss something about the air different too?

So far so good. Great chemistry with the whole cast. I'm enjoying the cryptic double speech that they use in different ways. The political double speak and social double speak are great. The social side very much reminds me of Southern politeness...it may sound sweet and innocent, but there are daggers behind every word and smile. The way Chen Yan Yun spoke to his friend knowing they were being spied on by others...very well performed.
Translations are WAY better on Tencent than they are on iQIYI as iQIYI didn't even bother to translate the name titles or the full sentences being spoken. So if you have access to both, WeTV/Tencent is the better option. I haven't checked Viki's translations yet.

The styling from my minimally Eastern fashion history point of view is great. She moves very naturally in them and does a good job depicting that her character is still a teenager.
Gu Jin Chao may be spoiled and not very nice, but she is kind. Though she seems impulsive on the surface she is extremely calculating. Loved the little nod to her intellectual mind when her grandmother swatted her had away from the abacus.

I'm interested to see how she navigates the more complicated capital now that she has come of age and has stepped into a political upheaval on accident. Her willingness to kill or be killed yet still mourn the death of an innocent pawn shows me her emotions run much deeper than she lets outsiders see. So once Chan Yan Yun and Gu Jin Chao officially team up with mutual love and respect it's going to be interesting to see them with their walls down and armor off.

Gu Jin Chao has enough self preservation and self defense skills without it bleeding into unrealistic...so far. (we have been burned before...i don't need a FL to be an assassin for her to be "strong", but I love a female lead who doesn't mind getting her hands dirty when necessary.

To end this extra long comment, it's honestly just nice to watch a drama where, though the characters have an age gap, the actors' age gap is much smaller....aka I'm not going to get the ick because acting childish, and being an actual child are two different things. (and yes this is shade, interpret this how you will😉.)

He was on his way to meet with her grandmother. He was living in the estate as the grandmother works for him. So he was also potentially patrolling for assassins as there was already a target on the Ji family at that point in his plan for implementing the tax.
He wasn't so much being shady as he was just being lowkey because people are trying to kill him to stop the tax plan from going through.

Because they are...*checks notes* ...good looking....

My guess, because both leads were in The Rise of Ning and the FL had a similar backstory in both dramas.

Expectations vs. Execution.

(Comment ended up longer than I intended. There is a lot of opinion in my comment so if you find it might sway your enjoyment/viewing experience just tap out here.)


If you think of it more like 5 being middle or average enjoyment/execution of a drama it makes sense. My overall score was 6.5 after individually rating 16 different aspects of the show. Like performances, chemistry, storyline, writing, music/ost/score, design elements, production, cinematography, stunts etc. Only stunts and one performance(blend of character and performance by the actor/actress) were a 5 out of 5. Design elements were well done but not amazing. Chemistry, storyline, writing, production(editing falls under this) all scored way lower. Cinematography scored low for me because it was repetitive and derivative of his(director's) previous work. There is truly only so many times I can take a character staring directly into the lense of the camera.
As you can tell a LOT of the rating boils down to personal preferences. So if you are a Romance Girlie, this one isnt going to necessarily make it to a 10. If you enjoy Drama Llama levels of plot progression and tragic characters it's going to be higher for you.

It just felt very...dated. Storyline/plot because of only being 40 episodes and a main character being played by someone who imo LOOKs like the teenager they are, feels rushed, incoherent, and icky at times. When the main romance is between two people, who look their ages, and one is a minor and the other is 11 years their senior...there is only so much grace i can give. Mind you, I've watched bigger aged gaps and been fine, but both actors were out of their teens and the younger of the two looked like an adult.

I have been so busy with work I didnt even know this was airing this month. when did we find out? I feel like ive been out of the loop for a minute.

This is like the 50th time you have doubled down without getting the point of the original comment you are responding to.

I am so sorry. but people defending that ending with their whole chest saying there is zero room for confusion must truly not understand editing or film language. Because there are only two options, either director purposefully left everything ambiguous, or he fucked up the edit for "artistic reasons" and failed to convey his actual meaning.
So Option A. Purposeful open interpretation
Option B. Failed translation from written to visual media adaptation.
And for the record I have never seen the OG show and had no bias toward either drama. If anything I was rooting for this show to do well...but ambiguity does not always equal good art. and the fact I have now see 4 of this director's work plus the show he was lead art director for i have come to a realization...though he has a distinct style, it isnt always good.

I finished last night and was silently confused staring off into space. Because every line of dialog said one thing and all of the film language was like, everyone died but Yan Xun who died alone on a frozen lake where he first killed his lover and his best friend. I said out loud..."what in the dementia was that ending?"

oh okay. didnt look up the pictures to see when filming started just saw they had released some clips/teaser reel.

Care to enlighten the class? Because all the dialog says they survived, but all the visual language says it was wish fulfillment of Yan Xun and a dying man's dream. They establish that everyone dying with a dead significant other sees them right before death, and then ZhuoGe Yue shows up on a white horse(death) & embraces Chu Qiao as she collapses...there are very slight differences but the editing is overly ambiguous and then bleeds into Yan Xun waking from a dream and being confused about who is alive and dead and for how long. He burns dozens of letters he wrote to ZhuoGe Yue & never sent...does that mean there was no one alive to actually send it to, or he was just too chicken to send them?

Because I-An flat-out told him that he has feelings for HuiJu and can provide something for her that JeongWoo can't. I-An also took the opportunity to remind him of his place...aka out of his relationship with HuiJu.

so that residential spy 100% poisoned something HuiJu wore on her wedding. Either clothing, make-up, possibly even her food, on behalf of the Dowager Queen. She was watching with the rest of them knowing that at any second the drug would take effect.

honestly...when I could see direct one for one shots of the director's previous works incorporated into this show...so first quarter of the show I already realized that there were some glaring weaknesses. The fact I couldnt not see the FL as a actual child when in a scene with any actor over the age of 25 was present also became a struggle. by like episode 10-13 I was starting to take back my "well lets see how it goes"
stunts stayed the best part of the entire show. so if you just enjoy stunt work you'll like it.

umm.....*disbelieving silence* I...yeah, nope I got nothing. *stares silently off in confusion*

Anyone else confused as fuck after finishing this thing? Words say one thing, film language says opposite thing...viewer confused as fuck.