MyLangyaList

It's Cantonese, and the area based off Hong Kong and Macau. Many Chinese 'dialects' are effectively languages, though share a writing system.

Agreed. Though it's possible she's working her way up through better written and poplar shows, than taking just any idol drama lead role.

yes, new characters, new story.

lolololol, this is hilarious

It's completely different, and I find it much funnier.

excellent, thoughtful review

Yeah you are better off not watching idol dramas as they get so much worse than this, though I'm surprised you liked Snowy Night. For non-idol costume drama, try Longest Day in Chang'an. Or if you want something shorter, there's Ripe Town, Faithful, and Under the Microscope. Since you liked Snowy Night, there are probably quite a few costume dramas that have enough epicness and interesting character, but they are also flawed in many areas, so I can't vouch for them.

This one is a campy parody that has flaws, but also enough charm and originality for the right audience.

Also check 'Beloved', another excellent Light On drama.

While your enthusiasm to insult far outpaces the talent, I do respect the dedication. Keep working on the craft, some day you'll make my 2nd grade self cry.

Your insults are adorable, keep them coming : )

About the seal--no : ) And it's not an issue because Chinese audience have been exposed to such thing in wuxia, xianxia, and culture. His flashing ppl didn't have any major plot significance except for laughs. Also keep in mind it's adaptation of manhua/donghua--and they have plenty of farcical comedy scenes injected. We will get some more info on Baobao, but plenty of mystery remains. Also the manhua is still ongoing and apparently this S1 already brings forward some plot elements and introduce revelations not yet in manhua.

You can certainly watch this, as plenty of people do, without cultural/genre background. But given the concept of this series is wuxia, but set in modern times, so it inevitably will have ample connections to the genre. And what made this series especially enjoyable for me was how sharp the humor was and how smoothly they integrated the gags with the story without disrupting tone and rhythm. I was cracking up so much, especially in the first half. But there're a few jokes per episode where you won't fully get it without the cultural reference.

For example, when ZCL was hiding from FBB with the campus security guard. There was reference to public campaigns like 'harmonious campus', presumed S&M relations between FBB and ZCL, and the hilarious efforts of the security guard uncle to make sense of the generational divide w/ young ppl's dating habits, etc. Looking at the subtitle, many layers of the joke may have been lost, or not hit nearly as sharply as the original lines in Chinese. And there are plenty of other examples.

So the bad news is that intl audience is probably missing a lot of humor and references. The good news is the shows are even better if ppl get it (mandarin so easy). JoL is a great example where S1 is better in almost every way, especially the humor. And S2's humor was flat and awkward. But most ppl seemed to have not noticed.

Couldn't have demonstrated my point more clearly : )

Keep in mind a lot of things are deliberately left not fully explained. We don't have a complete explanation of the seal. But we do know it both seals his full power and also protects him from some types of harm. And also they are running some gag jokes about it being tied to his virginity (Baobao bringing in the ladies). There is ample cultural elements tied to this because of ying/yang etc. that while not fully explained, sets up for the jokes.

He's a big deal because everyone thinks he possess Qi Apotheosis. And part of the fun was the gap between his goofy appearance and the potential powers he may have/develop. A lot of the show is clever references and parody of the wuxia genre and ancient/modern combo, so perhaps more wuxia background would make it more enjoyable.

FYI: two thumbs up to the humor, story, acting, and production. The style is more like an indie short film, than the typical micro-drama. I hope someone can find a subbed version for intl audiences. So if you find a link, post it.

It's like they ran a reverse 华山论剑 to crown the shittiest writers in China. And the 5 finalists were each given an installment to desecrate Jin Yong.

While I am not against re-interpretations-see WKW's Ashes of Time or Nolan's Batman Trilogy (even though I only liked the first)--I just want to see it done in competent hands.

So I'm eagerly waiting for AWI (Artificial Writer Intelligence) as I'm not expecting much out of the human writers at this point.

Thanks, that makes sense. I suspect another part of it is the nature of Douban's 5 point scoring. The lack of scoring granularity at the top probably makes it noisier to differentiate between a very good and an exceptional show. For example, an 8.5 show and a 9.5 show may both get a similar amount of 5 stars. And the less exceptional, but more conventional show with wider appeal may actually win out because it will have fewer dislikes and low ratings. Conversely, if they are doing a simple average, a show's rating may be more determined by the % of low ratings. And both SaHG and TtW have very low % of 3 stars and below. I suppose if they were boosted, the simplest route would be to omit some low ratings from the calculation.

Overall, it does feel like the Douban ratings is noisier at the upper range compared to say IMDB. Since the Douban average seems lower, the 2+ stdev rating on Douban seems less predictive than 2+ stdev on IMDB.

Yeah the Gu Yu part was a bummer because so much of the character development and emotional core of the story was tied up with her. And to just expel her and not have her around for a bunch of episodes didn't make for good storytelling. It felt like episodes about Gu Yu's life when expelled got cut out.

And even though I liked it quite a bit, I would have expect a rating of around 8.5. To the Wonder's 8.9 also made no sense. Given how punishing the Douban ratings can be, it made me wonder if patriotic shows are rating boosted. But then again, Hollywood and Korean shows are also uniformly overrated on Douban.

My biggest issue is the middle where Gu Yu was expelled. Felt as if they cut out episodes and killed story's momentum. I thought it was good, but no where near the stratospheric rating.

There are like a dozen every year.

SoL: Northward, Wind Direction, Stand By Me (2023);

Romance-ish: Later I Laughed, Fake It Till You Make It, Remembrance of Things Past, Angels Fall Sometimes

Quirky / Supernatural: Link Click, I Am Nobody, Hikaru no Go