Meari21

That's even worse! Not wanting to change is rejecting progress. It's one of the reasons why they're getting left behind by their East Asian counterparts and they have difficulty importing their dramas and making them more palatable to western audiences. Even the filmmaking styles are so outdated. It's like I'm still watching J-dramas from 2004. I only watch J-dramas that are produced by giant streaming services like Netflix and Prime Video these days because I can't get past the production quality of their network TV dramas.

Where? The episodes available on YouTube have horrible subs. I stopped watching after one episode. I'm still looking for better subs.

Rumor has it, Moonlight Mystique will be released this December.

He is so dreamy in Dashing Youth. That drama has the best looking cast of male actors I've ever seen! Even the older actors are quite handsome.

Ye Dingzhi lived a life of woe indeed. He lost his family and social standing because of politics. He wanted a woman who was married to another man, the future emperor at that, and conceived a bastard son with her who was abandoned by his mother and grew up with the shame of that coupling. He was a victim of politics and his desire to take back what was once his. He cursed his life by nurturing his hate and pining for a woman he could never really have, and he let people use him to destroy an empire, which also led to the demise of innocent people, including the ones he cared about. He made one mistake after another, never thinking about the consequences of his actions. A life like that could only end one way.

Her role is basically just to be Wuxin's mom and one of the main reasons why all went to hell. She's a political tool used by those around her and her stubborn and rebellious nature makes her more easily manipulable.

🤣🤣🤣 She looks like a little kid to me even though the actress is actually the same age as He Yu. I thought she was a lot younger. He Yu actually looks at Hou Minghao with more fondness. They look more like the romantic pair. She absolutely has zero chemistry with He Yu! I wish this was a BL drama instead. 😅

I read somewhere that she's the Helen of Troy of this story. I am inclined to agree. She caused so much chaos simply because she refused to accept her fate. If she really didn't want to marry Ruojin, she could've killed herself way before the wedding. But no, she wanted to be saved by a knight in shining armor so she waited for him even though she knew he would die trying. If she really cared for Dingzhi, she wouldn't have encouraged him, she would've sacrificed herself for his safety. Some say her father was in the wrong for setting up that marriage alliance, but there was a legit reason for that alliance and Ruofeng explained that to Dingzhi. Political alliances were the norm. In fact, noble people very rarely married for love in those days. They just refused to understand the validity of that marriage because they wanted to be together and couldn't care less about the consequences and the lives they would destroy. Ah, the carelessness and stupidity of youth. lol

I'm glad there are other people who can't stand her character. I thought I was the only one stressing out because of her. lol There are so many who ship her with Dingzhi and think she made the right decision by leaving Xiao Yu and her duties behind. And then after living with Dingzhi for a time, she decides to go back to her husband and eldest son whom she abandoned, abandoning Wuxin and Dingzhi in the process. What a horrible horrible woman!

She destroyed four lives including her own. Xiao Yu grew up to be a real dirtbag because she abandoned him and he felt unloved by her, while Wuxin grew up thinking he was abandoned by his own mother because she left him in the care of someone else. I think at some point he suspected her of causing his father's death. Yes, she was raped, but then again most women who married for political alliances at that time were raped because they were forced into marriage. That is the fate that most women had at that time. She could've been happy if she had doted on Xiao Yu and allowed herself to be loved by Ruojin instead. He's a complete prick but he genuinely cared for her, she was his favorite consort, after all. Dingzhi could've lived to old age if she had let him go. He would've found someone else and could've been happy if she had told him to move on. Xiao Yu could've grown up to become a decent human being if she had been there for him since the beginning. But these things needed to happen in order for Wuxin to be born. I just can't condone her behavior.

Any chance of this getting re-released on iQIYI any time soon?

I actually just thought about this! I guess I'm not the only one who want to see them in a drama together. But I'm not sure if I'll like their pairing as much as I like her pairing with Hou Minghao. I fell in love with them in Back From The Brink. They had such a palpable chemistry and I rarely say that about CPs.

That's just how they do it. Only Netflix releases all episodes for the season at once. Prime Video, Disney+, Hulu, Apple TV, and a host of other streaming services release episodes weekly. Chinese streaming platforms like Youku, iQIYI, and WeTV typically release two episodes per day. But even Netflix does not release all the episodes at once anymore, they sometimes divide them into two parts.

Oh for sure! But I've read a lot of complaints from non-fans of TBOY that they have a hard time keeping up with the number of characters being introduced in Dashing Youth and getting bored with the plot progression, and that is a valid criticism imho. Baili Dongjun was my favorite among the older characters in TBOY, though. He was this cool drunken master type who could wipe the floor with anyone. Everything he did in TBOY makes so much more sense now. I was looking forward to Dashing Youth because he's the protagonist and his relationships with the other martial arts masters when they were young is going to be explored in the drama.

Maybe most of them don't really read manga/manhua or watch anime/donghua? I'm an avid manga and anime fan myself so it's easy for me to see the tropes, familiar story beats, and how story arcs typically unfold and progress. But maybe some are not as familiar and they are more used to typical storytelling from dramas so they're finding it difficult to follow. Some people complain about the lack of fight choreography in this drama but although I wish to see more fight scenes similar to those in TBOY, I am also enjoying the CGI-heavy fight scenes in this because it gives me an idea what proper live action adaptations of my favorite shonen manga would look like. I imagine that if they make a really good live action adaptation of Demon Slayer, the fight scenes would look similar.

Dashing Youth introduces far more characters, though and many of them have significant roles in The Blood of Youth. So if you have seen TBOY, you will have a better understanding of those characters. If you haven't, you'll most likely dismiss them as insignificant and even forget them. TBOY at least made a real effort to build up the main characters first so you become attached to them more.

Probably because you don't have specific expectations and you have nothing to compare it with. Most of those who criticize the drama are those who went into this expecting it to be like The Blood of Youth. But some of the criticisms are valid, too. The Blood of Youth's plot progression is much faster and you can tell from the get-go that it's politically driven, whereas Dashing Youth doesn't really start to pick up until several episodes in. But it's a different drama, it's more lighthearted in tone and the main character has a more boyish and cheerful personality. Also, if you've seen TBOY first, you'd more likely to pay more attention to the characters in Dashing Youth because you know they'll play significant roles in the sequel. That's why I would recommend watching the sequel first. It's like the OG Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings, you know. You watch them before the prequels.

I understand that The Blood of Youth is the standard and that many fans of the drama are comparing it to its prequel. I also get the tendency to compare the two. But the truth is nothing will ever beat TBOY, not the prequel or even its future sequel. Recreating that magic is not easy or even possible sometimes. How many sequels/prequels have you seen that are actually as good or even better than the original? Just few and far between. I think the reason I'm enjoying this prequel is I came into it not expecting it to be like The Blood of Youth but to find out what happened to the older generation and what started the whole mess. My only real complaint is that the writers of this show wrote it expecting the viewers to already know these characters. So, I wouldn't recommend this show if you haven't seen TBOY yet. That should come first even though it's a sequel.

And Dashing Youth's director is basically a newbie. He hasn't done anything notable yet. This is his biggest break if I'm not mistaken.

Finally, proper subs!