PeachBlossomGoddess

That's complete nonsense - Qing dynasty lasted 270 years and was China's final and most recent dynasty - of course it is not banned. I have watched at least one airing Qing dynasty drama every year for the last few years - Heroes 2020 and Heroes 2024, Fox Volant, Master of Cheongsam, The Long River etc etc etc). They are just not popular with most MDL audiences. Its possible palace harem dramas were banned but I would not want to be quoted on even that.

The 13 Hongs is most likely held up in censorship bc it is probably quite rebellious and glorifies gangsters - yups Hongs or industry associations were basically gangs back in the day. It is why outside of The Bund, some of the most popular HK dramas of the day about gambling kings etc never got remade. It also looks like it may feature the opium trade which is a very sensitive subject. My sense is that outside of the period, it is nothing like The Legend of Magnate.

Oh absolutely, you are right - I also rolled my eyes at the whole XJ damsel in distress arc. Though if I remember correctly the final case in S1 also involved XJ getting rescued... Nonetheless I overall enjoyed the spy case and how the season ended. I think one of the repeated complaints is the romance is no good or there is not enough romance in this series and it seems like they listened but went a little bit over board this season. Though I think it was a creative decision by the production to write in more romance that is independent of who the directs it.

Yes but I think this season they deliberately toned down the cases bc they wanted to focus on the political dynamics and also move the relationships forward. There would have been too much going on if the cases were also very complex.

Is it decided yet who will shoot S5? TBH I didn’t think Ju Xingmao is that bad. He made Xijun look very pretty this season.

She was a complex character - capable of great things but restrained by the patriarchy in a way her mother was not. Tang dynasty IMO is the most interesting period of Chinese history. There were many intrigues and many great and complex emperors and powerful female figures. Too many that the backlash went on for thousands of years as subsequent dynasties Song, Ming and Qing invented new ways to restrain women. Emperor Renzong of Song is on record making rules of etiquette to restrain women saying we must never let women rise to be another evil woman like Wu Tzetian again. (I had to drop Serenade of Peaceful Joy when I heard Renzong emperor say something along those lines bc I knew I would hate the protagonist even though he was played by Wang Kai). By Ming/Qing dynasty noble women couldn't even been seen by men not related to them and they even bound their feet to make sure they couldn't run away or stray far from the bedchamber.

LLF proved to be the more objective one.
100 pct agree with this.

SWM and LLF should both be fictional characters although Di Renjie was an inspirational figure - it is not hard to imagine he had disciples like them who were just forgotten cogs in the wheels of history.

That's fair with respect to the team and characters. I just don't think the S3 cases are as good.

Princess Taiping is Wu Tzetian's daughter and LLF's mother in this story. She was her mother's only (living) daughter and favorite child and enjoyed enormous influence and power during her mother's reign. But Wu Tzetian stopped short of leaving the empire to her. She was always fond of her nephew Li Longji and they were political allies while he was Crown Prince (S1) but became his political rival when he ascended the throne. During the first year of his reign (basically S3 of this drama) she staged a failed coup to seize the throne from him. She failed, fled to a temple and was finally executed with poison wine. This arc has to play out at some point in this story, which is what I call the Princess Taiping arc. I thought it would be at the end of S3 but it seems they will push it to the start of S5 (as S4 is only 2 cases).

I can't decide if S3 is better than S1. But I definitely think S2 is still the best.

Yes I agree completely and that is also Chinese netizen reaction - why is LLF apologising and SWM not etc etc etc. The point of the story is there are good people and bad people. And they walk among both merchants and gentry. Detectives should bear that in mind and try not to jump to conclusions.

The emperor articulated a message of unity - that even the best of Tang is not greater than the best of the World. He is showing everyone that he is magnanimous in his victory and one that can unify different factions. Through diplomacy (bc he doesn't want to go to war when his power is not consolidated) he placated his enemy by giving them a Pyrrhic victory (led by him) over Tang. He was also telling LLF that he is very capable but he cannot secure a victory for his mother. Both the princess and LLF got his message. This is so well written it is clear that he is the greater leader, one that is magnanimous and with a bigger vision. This is reinforced when he recognises that his aunt whom he still affectionately calls gugu (what my nieces call me) still loves her country and did the right thing when the rubber meets the road. What happened to them is one of history's familial tragedies. It is so vividly portrayed in this story.

I am guessing that Princess Taiping will launch a coup - it is already hinted at the end. It is a fact of history that she failed and committed suicide. All her supporters were executed except one son (LLF?) who was faithful to the emperor. But LLF was most likely demoted to a commoner, like SWM and banished to Sichuan. Sichuan is Southwest of Changan. I doubt he will be able to return to the capital for a long time so he will likely spend most of his career traveling the furthest reaches of the Tang empire.

The first layer suggests to me that the next season they will leave the capital for Shǔ 蜀- which is the ancient word for Sichuan. This is also the next destination many netizens have indicated they would like to see the team venture to. I am personally excited about that bc that is the site of Sanxingdui, where the vestiges of a very strange and mysterious Egyptian or other distinctly not Chinese like kingdom was discovered.

The other hint is that Shǔ 蜀 is also a word pun on Shù 庶 / commoner. It suggests that LLF is demoted to the status of a commoner in the coming season and banished from the capital. Whether he can rise from his beginnings as his name suggests remains to be seen.

I enjoyed the final arc. I thought it was the right mix of politics and intrigue. And the polo was thrilling as was the emperor's hidden message to his aunt. I really like how they are written as having familial affection with differing although not completely incompatible ideologies. I am glad this season didn't end on the dark note I expected it to although the seeds of discord are sown.

This is the season that highlights the sophisticated and nuanced word pun in 苏无名 Su Wuming's name, which is a word play that suggests he is a commoner who is nameless - '苏' (Sū) is a wordplay on '庶' (Shù) or a commoner. And 无名 (Wúmíng) means "nameless," "unknown," or "without fame." SWM is the perfect symbolic embodiment of the anonymous everyman. In this narrative he represents the faceless multitude of common people throughout history—the "nameless" ones who built the world but were never recorded in official histories.

As for the epilogue:
辞京就途 蜀道危难 Beyond the capital on the perilous road to Shu
降诡除凶 江山无限 Subduing treachery and purging the wicked across the far reaches of the realm,

Seems to me they have put off Princess Taiping's arc to the next season. I think that makes sense bc there is going to be a lot to unpack wrt LLF and his emotions.

I understood Wei wanted to protect and avenge his sister. But Du's motive always seemed a bit more questionable to me as his motive seemed to be the destruction of the merit pillar. While the merchants were pretty reprehensible, I wasn't sure whether Du in particular was just committing hate crimes bc these lower class people had the audacity to desecrate his clan's merit pillar. Nonetheless the case does highlight LLF's perspective in some ways. The merchants, especially those with money are also instigating hate crimes against the gentry - destroying their merit pillars and raping their women. This is possibly because they were not educated in the moral and virtuous principles of the day that the gentry like LLF were.

I actually wouldn't have minded to see spin-offs where SWM investigated with either Wei or Du. I thought they had their own interesting methods of investigation. I think it was a pity they were killed off. But I do think there is potential for other spin-offs featuring different investigative teams with different methods. For our original team, yeah I would like to see them stick together but at the same time, I think YXW deserves to move on to other roles as well.

Both Wei and Du are sheriffs, it is their job to know and enforce the law. Instead they took the law into their own hands, committed serial murders and used the power of their office to cover it up. As a disciple of Judge Di who spent a lifetime upholding and improving the Tang Code, LLF could not ask the Princess to let them go. That would be a betrayal of everything he stood for.

The poet and his lover are different - the poet did nothing wrong. And his lover claims she never went through with any assassination. LLF may not have had enough evidence to convict her even if she stood trial. And he didn't exactly let them go, he just didn't pursue them. Which arguably by then they were so long gone it would have been a waste of resources. If they show up back in Chang'an, quite sure he would arrest them immediately.

That said, I didn't like how Wei and Du were written to be so completely irredeemable. It'd have been a better case if what at least one of them did was a bit more grey and then LLF would have had a real ethical conflict on his hands. This however to me, was quite black and white even though it was a very sad situation where the letter of the law and justice are not the same thing.

I think they are making spin-offs. It’s quite clear that SWM will do cases with Yingtao and the girl coroner going forward that don’t include LLF.

They are all connected.😅 Enjoy!!!