PeachBlossomGoddess

I am sensing that the gist of it is that cultivators are not necessarily good people. Indeed to level up, they need to be calculating and ruthless. I like that Han Li doesn't have super talent, he needs to be strategic and maximize his resources to survive. It makes it more interesting that talent in and of itself does not equate to rapid ascension.

Sadly this happens too often. Many actors get overly aware of how good looking they are and are almost too afraid to let themselves be natural in front of the camera. He is not the worse by far, I just sigh bc he did really have potential but after Red Chamber I have never seen him really immersed in his characters again. But as @Soocrafty points out, just sit back and enjoy the view.

Yes, it was remiss of me not to underscore how enjoyable the view is. 😅😂 This needs to be a safe place for all opinions. 👍

Amita's arc was probably was cut short bc of her controversy.

I don't expect him to cry. In fact I detest crybaby MLs its my pet peeve. But I did expect to see some form of grief or anger, just more emotion from him - after all that was his best and only friend. He just seemed to shrug off his disappearance. I do expect him to become more detached as he levels up but he is already starting out at a super detached level.

I felt kind of bad for the poor leaf that had to carry the chubby disciple.

Yes Yang Yang is dubbing himself as Han Li.

When Zhang Tie died I expected more emotion from him but I got nothing bc he seemed more pre-occupied with his grown up appearance or whatever. That scene left me baffled. Similarly, his homecoming seemed blank emotionally. Its these little things that bother me. But overall he is alright. He just could be a lot better if he were more in character. I think he did all the action scenes himself and they are very well done and hard to do.

He is very talented, I watched part of his first drama, when he was still a teenager and debuted as the ML in the classic Hongloumeng. But he has regressed or remained stagnant over time. In most scenes he is fine but there is no sense of immersion. He is always still Yang Yang and he always looks immaculate from every angle.

Yes I wish they took more time with the world building but not bad, very different from the gaggle of romance xianxias.

He was just a poor peasant whose family couldn't even afford flour. I guess he didn't really have many worldly attachments besides his family to give up. And as he became cultivated, I guess his world opened up and became a lot larger - he probably grew beyond them and there is no putting the genie back in the bottle. But yes it did make me feel very sad bc they just became transitory to him.

Well it was probably one one Baidu or Tencent's early bots bc Deepseek only launched this January, long after the script was written.😅
In all seriousness, the big problem is most scriptwriters in China get paid diddly squat. Esp when they think they are adapting a known IP. They probably hired summer interns to write it.

LOL - the 4/10 caught my eye.
"If you combined Chen Duling's perpetually tranquilized look and MZY's perpetually stare-eyed look"
You killed two birds with one stone there. When MZY was in support roles I thought maybe she should be in lead roles. After she got lead roles I realized she can't act at all. I thought she was the weak link in Blossom and after Princess Gambit, I put her on my NO list, right next to Angelababy. I decided to pass on Duel on Mount Hua although Cao Dun shot it.

I think you are being quite harsh though. On Deepseek.

Yeah its kind of ironic. In order to live forever you have to kill all the best parts of being mortal. He is turning into an AI Bot.

I think Yang Yang is very gorgeous and well cast in this role. But I won’t lie - for me his acting is not consistently good there seems to be quite a bit of focus on his best angles. But I don’t think he is terrible and so far he is doing a decent job here. Being so ethereal and almost impossibly good looking does make him look the part of someone on their way to immortality which definitely helps. Idk about Fireworks I didn’t watch it but I know his acting is a few roles were panned in China - so much so it was hard to market this drama. But I don’t follow actors or fandoms I really couldn’t care less about that stuff so I don’t know the details

Thank you all for the very helpful
color - the drama world building is very fast it’s easy to miss the deeper nuances. 😍

I wouldn’t like to be an immortal. Imagine watching everyone you love grow old and die around you and leave you behind…

It was limited to 40 episodes by the govt a few years ago to improve quality. In recent years it was further self adjusted down for financial reasons as platforms struggle to compete with short form dramas. People in China work long hours - 9 to 9 6 days a week. So it’s hard to do subscription model the platforms have finely on ads for half their revenues. Ads have been terrible for the last few years due to the economy. It’s hard to sell 40 episode dramas to them anymore bc it costs a lot more.

It’s a scene that illustrates the youth of the character.

Yes indeed this has gotten out of control lately. If you can’t hide your spoilers, people will hide (block) you. If you don’t know what is a spoiler, see @fatema’s guidelines:
https://kisskh.at/profile/toomz/feeds/8yQerS6