PeachBlossomGoddess

All good points. However, the poison and Poison Valley is core to the plot. I dislike poison tropes in romances. This does not fit into that category.

As we get into the final episodes, please hide your spoilers. Not everyone watches at the same pace.

Its either that or its Yesha. I would prefer Kongyun but at this point its a coin toss.

Ah ok. I guess you could argue it both ways. I don't think it is bc I wouldn't consider something a jianghu story just because there is a ghost market. Its also not a feature of most classic wuxias.

Jiang Qilin was indeed awesome! I will remember him most from that drama. I guess these awards are all somewhat political.

Yes, Horizon Tower was superb.

Her only two dramas I watched were Horizon Tower and Longxi. The first bc she played a corpse and the second bc she was a supporting role.

Yeah I care the most about plot and writing as well. So I have made exceptions and tried dramas by directors/screenwriters with actors on my NO list, including Angelababy who is right at the very top of my NO list. Actors usually get to read the script before signing. But the script can change quite a bit during filming, sometimes with actor input (usually with bad outcomes).

Ah yes, its exactly like that, I can only understand maybe ~80pct of the Bahasa that is spoken in Indonesia.

I enjoyed NLB but I didn't like her portrayal at all - it was so smug I wanted to sock her in the face. I put her on my NO list after that and have skipped all her dramas since.

It was just a casual comment he made that set them up to run into... monsters.

I will check it this one out but I don't love the xianxia genre. The other one is a hard no for me. I won't watch Tian Xiwei I find her super irritating.

Well most people in China don't speak standard Mandarin that cleanly, there are always traces of local dialects. But some regional accents are super strong, making their Mandarin quite incomprehensible. It won't make sense when they are playing a character set in the North when they have a strong Southern accent. It would be like Robin Hood speaking American English. In recent years, there are too many idol actors (i.e. ARP) who never even went to drama school and has no clue how to voice act or deliver lines properly. WXY is a graduate of the very prestigious Central Academy. XHZ is American, her Mandarin is not bad for simple colloquial stuff but she can't pull off anything complicated and if you listen to her for awhile you immediately know she is not native level of fluency.

I like ARP too but they are not in the same league. The guy can’t even dub himself he has a long way to go before I take him seriously. He is at about XHZ’s level. As for WXY the only criticism I saw was that his line delivery is very pretentious, which there is a smidgeon of truth to.

The main problem is WXY is a much better, more natural actor than XHZ. And he is dubbing himself and his lines are really good. XHZ's dubber by comparison sucks and that makes her look even more mismatched with him. She is American Chinese and not the Mainland Chinese beauty standard and is getting shamed for having an aunty (round) face. I don't think she is a particularly good actress but I have seen a lot worse. So its quite disturbing to see the same people constantly picking on her character and her performance (which has improved as the drama progresses).

😂😂😂

The ghost market by itself is not enough to make this a wuxia. Wuxias are about Jianghu (江湖), or the martial world which lives by its own code of conduct, a parallel society with its own rules, honor codes, and conflicts, that don't recognize imperial law. The main protagonists here work for the government and the core of this story is about rule of law and whether the ends justify the means. That was the final argument between Beiming and his master and the main question the drama is focused on asking.

I don't consider it a wuxia. There are no jianghu elements at all so far.

I am a huge fan of Jiang Qiming but I feel his role in Trilateral Slopes is neither exceptional nor memorable. I am happy for him, but his winning left me scratching my head. As for Song Jia, she portrayed Zhang Guimei as someone dedicated to a cause with no life outside of it. I don't consider such people inspirations or great mentors. The humorous moments came at the cost of also making her seem super annoying. It has left a lasting not that positive impression on me of her. So of all people not deserving of an award, IMO it is Song Jia. As for Nie Yuan, I actually even forgot he was in the drama that is how unexceptional he was. I just think Magnolia awards are super political and not all that.

The officials were the original Yeshas. The current Yesha is probably someone who became a monster after he looked into the abyss.