Msfi

The novel was dumb but the changes made to add Yi Yang have completely messed it up.

Yes. And he has a glasses endorsement.

Both leads also brought their endorsements, it seems

Zheng Shuyi episode 16: where is the bottom half of your outfit 🤣

Yes, he did

Hahaha thank you excellent motivation 😂😂😂

I love that so many shows have an academic character or two but yes. Some of the timelines are a bit all over the place in terms of career progression and age. And errr… I should be working on my PhD instead of watching these shows but they are such a good distraction…

He’s not going to rush into dating her?

For any shows made since 2022 dubbing is quickly becoming the past due to new policy. Get used to their real voices.

Classic issue where she spends extensive time talking to herself in the book, so they have to expand another character to do the exposition on screen instead. It's annoying yes.

All modern dramas have references to various government priorities. You can summarise all the jargon down to: attracting educated people back to China, domestic chipmaking to build digital sovereignty.

This show was so satisfying on so many levels. Stop caring about is there romance/type of ending etc. Watch it for the characters and the story in its entirety. Zero skips, none!

Her interactions with Lisa were hilarious!

If you like a tightly woven plot that doesn't insult the audience's intelligence and tickles your capacity to enjoy genuine mystery, this is the show for you! So far, halfway in, it's exceptional. It's incredibly well shot too.

The reveals from the main couple feel extremely subtle to me, like you can't look away for a second or you miss something very important. Fascinating. When she asks, "weren't you taught to lie?" the rest of the episode unfolds from there. But this show is so well crafted that there's not a single character I'm not intrigued by, they are all incredible.

He’s throwing in more English phrases lately. Very cute 😊

That was the same last season too, from memory. Love this show. Just watching a bunch of people having fun.

Exactly right. It is a war drama that happens to also have some romance. I really missed Runming’s character in later episodes.

A couple of resources to check out after finishing the show: Wen Yiduo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Yiduo, Lianda A Chinese University in War and Revolution https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=1016

I have to confess I had less than zero expectations going into this drama. I started watching as a Dylan fan, but continued as someone that studied Chinese history long ago and was curious about how a perspective we don't often see onscreen in any country - education in wartime - would be presented. It's a very challenging and at times flawed show but fascinating to reflect on what can and cannot be presented. I really have to applaud the creativity of the entire production team to bring a story like this to the screen, despite the compromises (and collaborations) that must be made. A recent book, "The Subplot" covers similar terrain in terms of what can and cannot be said. As for Douban, their rating system is a mess but I have found some of the discussions to be insightful.