Platinum Fox

Just finished this today. At first I was intrigued by the symbolism of "beauty" and "ugly" and wondered how they were going to use this throughout the drama. Sadly, it went right back to perpetuating that beauty means having no physical flaws.

It is neither. This is a costume period piece from the Han dynasty with romance, comedy, and political intrigue.

MikaM, have you read The End of Eternity? If you haven't then how can you say there is no parallel between these stories. According to hollicx (a commenter below), this book is not mentioned in the HL novel. Yet it is shown within the first two scenes of the story and three more times in the first two episodes. She is reading it, he is reading it, and the first scenes are repeated again. You also see it when he puts his stuff away in the dorm room. This tells you the book is important to the story.

I have seen your comments under other dramas. I believe Love Like The Galaxy. That story is also about a 15 year old girl who is pursued by not 1, but 3 males 19-21 years old. In A Female Student Arrives at the Imperial College, the main character, played by Zhao Lu Si, is 14-15 years old falls in love with the head master, who is probably 21-24 and who is also her brother's best friend. Not a single commenter has said that this is wrong, why? Yet when the same story romantic wise is told in modern times, this type of relationship becomes problematic, why?

What if the screenwriters had filmed the novel the way it was written? Would it have made it past the censors? What reaction would the audience give? The male character would have been considered a pervert and there are commenters who have said this anyway. The HL novel may be a simple love story telling the story of unrequited love and then giving the main character a happy ending, but the drama, on the other hand, is something else. It is a "hidden" social commentary challenging the notion at what age is the right age for girls to begin their sexual journey. This is why the dialogues in the doorway (14), dorm room (17), and hospital (19) scenes are so important, especially the dorm room and hospital scenes. These scenes take place after a temporal node or when their relationship is put on pause.

There is so much more that the book, including the title, The End of Eternity explains about this drama and many other allusions to different dramas and fairy tales that enhance this commentary.

Thank you for the discussion on this and other posts.

Yes, the events in the novel take place when the girl is between 13 and 15. He is 7 years older than her. However, the age gap in the drama reflects the age gap in the other novel displayed in the drama itself, The End of Eternity. People have missed this important reference and feel that this is just a simple love story when in reality it is not.

5 years

You're right. Ratings are based on a lot of things the actors in the drama, feelings, etc. Also, you're right any female actress and male actor could have played the leads and it wouldn't have received as a high a rating, especially if they are just telling a story. So why would Zhao Lu Si play this role? With her present following any project would be a success. However, if you look at the roles that she has played in the past, her characters are strong, independent, witty, intelligent characters who challenge a societal belief or they grow into one (The Long Ballad).

I, too, am not a fan of modern romance dramas, but I watched this to see what societal belief or trope her character was challenging and how it would be presented. There are at least three. One is out in the open. In most historical dramas, the sins of the father get the whole family killed. Why should the whole family suffer because of the father's mistakes? Why should DJX's life be destroyed because his father killed the girl's father. DJX payed the monetary restitution. Why should he have to marry the girl he doesn't love? This also was a good way to promote therapy for mental health issues. Obviously the girl was suffering and needed counseling. The restitution money could have helped pay for that and for her education to have a career. Hasn't he already paid the price?

Secondly, it bothered me why Zhao Lu Si spoke in a childish voice for most of the drama. Other people commented on the same thing. At first it made sense since she was a child, but at 19 and a woman who had gone through military training speaking like that made me cringe. I literally turned off the sound and watched the rest of the drama without sound. Then, I had to look at the Chinese marriage laws (the whole hospital scene). According to the law she is still a minor, not a full grown adult. There is even a scene where she says to DJX, "You told me that when I got to be an adult I could do anything I wanted to, but there are still things that I can't do." One of those is get married. In most countries the age of consent is 18, why is it 21 in China? That's why I asked you at what age does a girl become a woman? At what age can women start their own exploration of love and sexual relationships?

Third, is the mother character. People have commented on the fact that the actress who played the mother in this drama also played her mother in Love Like the Galaxy. The mother character in LLTG received a great deal of criticism from the audience for her treatment of disciplining her daughter. The father and brothers didn't do any of it. In this drama its the opposite, the mother doesn't discipline her daughter at all. No criticism, yet the girl can't even cut up a watermelon, open her own sucker, or get herself a tissue. At 17, SZ even steals an ID card, buys a plane ticket, and just takes off without telling anyone where she was going. The parents and brother explain it away as going through a rebellious stage. Something audiences couldn't grasp in LLTG. The way the mother disciplined her daughter in LLTG needs to be looked at through a historical lens, not a modern lens which most of the audience did.

There is a lot more to this story and how it is told. That is why Zhao Lu Si chose this part. If you haven't watched Love Like The Galaxy you should at least the first 27 episodes.

Don't get me wrong, I love the emperor too. However, you can cover up your incompetency to run the country with laughter, just like grandma did in raising SS. Grandma and the emperor are foils for each other.

I understand. My question to you is why would Zhao Lu Si play this role? The other questions I have for you are when is a girl considered a woman in today's society and at what age is she allowed to explore her sexuality?

Zhao Lu Si is one my favorite actresses as well. At first I thought like you, but a commenter wrote about this being her second time of falling in love with her brother's friend, so I took another look and watched the drama again. I missed a whole bunch of easter eggs. I couldn't understand why they made her talk in a childish voice for most of the drama, but it has to do with the book that is shown at the very beginning The End of Eternity. See some of my spoiler posts below with hollicx. We talked about this very same thing.

hollicx, I finished The End of Eternity (TEE). It was written in 1955. I know you have moved on to other dramas, but wanted to give you the gist of the story and its relevance to Hidden Love. Here are the three main relevant topics. First is the age gap of the couple. In TEE the couple are five years apart: the male 32 and the female 27.

Second is the male's job. He is a Technician for a time-travel program called Eternity. His job is to travel through time and find places where inventions end up hurting people. Then, he figures out a reality change with the least amount of impact on the present and future people called Timers. He is good at playing the "what if" game. During one of his trips he meets a woman named Noys and falls in love with her. Their love is forbidden because no one besides the people who work at Eternity know about Eternity. It is outside the realm of reality. When a reality change writes out Noys' existence, Harlan, takes her out of her reality and places her in the hidden centuries reality (outside of Eternity's reach). DJX is a gaming programmer. If I am correct his programs deal with making interactions between the characters more realistic and providing different outcomes based on those interactions. DJX starts hiding some of his interactions with SZ (the milk bottle scene, the bike ride, the promise he makes with SZ at the museum, and getting her a stuffed animal). All things that can be interpreted as dating interactions, but are also considered brotherly affection according to most commenters.

Finally, at the end the novel, we find out that Noys is the one who is actually manipulating the present scenario. She wants Harlan to destroy Eternity, so that she and he can live happily ever after in a past reality. This includes sending a letter to a man in Italy to make sure the atomic bomb goes off in 1945. Sang Zhi is the manipulator from start to finish. She wants a happy ending just like the author of Hidden Love. She does everything she can with the limitations that she has to get the desired outcome, the paper stars. However, there is a cost for doing this.

This is a very well done story from the acting to the editing of each episode. The screenwriter(s) played the "what if" game with the characters in Hidden Love. Given the author's age at the time of major events (13-15) would the audience see DJX as a pervert? My answer is yes (see comments above). This is why they went with the brother scenario. It was the safest choice. An even safer choice would have been doing a historical drama, wait already been done. But if they go with the brother scenario at 14, how will that play out three years later when she is 17? Hence the introduction of the fox toy, TEE, and the "essay". I will let you ponder the rest and let you draw your own conclusions. For me this is more than just a simple unrequited love story (been there, seen that), it explores women's sexuality at different ages. The perceptions held by the audience at the age of the girl determine how the next stages are interpreted.

Thank you again for the synopsis of the novel and discussion. Happy pondering.

You're right. I am not Asian, but I have seen many Asian dramas. The relationship between these two main characters is strange. Now we just have to ask why? Please correct me if I am wrong, but in many Asian dramas, the main character (male or female) will often have multiple people who love them. For clarity we will call them A and B. The main character likes A whom he/she has just met. However, B, who has loved the main character since childhood becomes jealous of A and says, "I saw main character first." Main character will say, "I only see B as a brother or sister". The B character will say, "But you could/can grow to love me as something else". Yet, this never happens in the drama. The main character ultimately ends up with A.

Now, what if it did happen? In what situation could B end up with the main character as a lover? The writers are playing with this trope. DJX has many girls hitting on him (even one who has known him since childhood). Yet, he has never had a girlfriend, why? He meets Sang Zhi, a 14-year-old girl who accepts him as a brother even though she likes him as something else. Why would she do that? Because she is hoping that this love will be reciprocated somewhere in the future. After the hospital scene, she feels it will never happen, so she changes his tag to brother #2. No matter what happens, she will accept him as a brother and continue to like him. There is still hope that he could change his mind.

What gets him thinking about her differently, the kiss on the forehead. This happens right before the hospital scene.

At what age is it okay for a girl to have a serious romantic relationship? A hundred years ago, it would have been weird if the girl wasn't married and had children during the years of 15-19. Now we consider that too young. What is the magical age? When do girls turn into women?

The opening scenes of the drama are her going to the university (at the age of 17) to find her brother. She narrates, "Time has its own kind of magic. It brings us closer in height and distance" (Netflix translation). She spots the car with the fox plushie and declares it is her father's car. (How she knows I will never know as the trunk lid was open). She plays with the stuffed fox and looks at the book entitled The End of Eternity (TEE) by Isaac Asimov. There is a book mark with DJX's name on it. She talks about temporal nodes (which are in the TEE novel). You told me this book is not mentioned in the novel itself, so the screenwriter added this to the drama, why? It is shown repeatedly in the first two episodes and then one other time later in the drama. This tells you the book is important to the drama. While you were reading Hidden Love, I read The End of Eternity (haven't finished it yet) and it explained almost all of my thoughts on the drama. So will wait to tell you about the book.

But her narration says it all. Zhao Lu Si has played 14/15 year olds in the past. Actually, in her last big hit Love Like the Galaxy, she played a 15 year old girl at the beginning and was chased after by, not one but three, 20/21- year- old males and audiences loved it. So why did ZLS not play the 14 year old in this drama? Because she was too tall for the part. On a side note, the girl who played the 14 year old was 11 at the time and also played a younger version of ZLS's character in Who Rules the World.

When DJX and her meet, they meet eye to eye as he is sitting down. It means at this moment they are at the same level (both minors according to Chinese marriage laws). She comments about plastic surgery. Why do people get plastic surgery, to make them look younger. Now we know age is going to play a huge role in this drama. There is more in that scene which sets up the drama. But the biggest thing is what she says to DJX when the brother makes the comment that she is an elementary student. "I will grow taller" and the next time we see her she is taller (the height of ZLS), but SZ is looking up at DJX. This is to let us know that now they are not equal (she is a minor and he is an adult).

At the times of meeting DJX has the sun shining on him, he looks like a god and is handsome (has to do with the fox motif). He does kinda make a statement about aren't I handsome when she is 14. He says something to the effect, "why don't you come over here and see if they did a good job." Meaning come take a closer look or aren't I handsome. This is to play off the scenes in the novel where he says, "Aren't I handsome," when she is 13. The messages I got from these early scenes are at what age is it okay for girls to start having sexual thoughts about boys and to act upon them? Think Little Red Riding Hood. When do girls become women? When they get their period? Is there a magical age?

There are many allusions to different dramas and literature in this drama. You can continue to think that this is a simple love story, but in reality the screenwriter and author are asking when are girls considered women?

I will write more about The End of Eternity later. Hope I have given you food for thought. There is more to this drama than a simple love story.

Thank you for the novel description. I have just two questions. Then, I will tell what I am talking about. In the novel did the book The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov come up? What occupation did DJX hold in the novel? Also, take what you just told me and apply it to modern times and our perceptions of childhood. Why would the screenwriters make those changes? You say they followed the novel, but did they?

That's because neither one wanted the title of empress. However, in behavior and actions, Consort Yue is the empress. First, the emperor loves/favors her more than Shen'en. Second, whenever the emperor has a problem, it is Consort Yue who calms him down or talks sense to him. Consort Yue is the first person the emperor goes to if he has an issue. If she is busy, then he goes to Shen'en. Why would Consort Yue need to backstab anyone? She is already the favorite and the empress. Shen'en is too timid to stand up for herself. In the end, she gets what she wants out of the palace limelight. This is all due to Shao Shang.

There is also a scene where the two are talking and both say, "I just want you to know that I never blamed you for the death of my son...." This lets you know that they did actually suspect each other. Otherwise why mention it.

There is more going on with the "wives" than people realize. It only appears that they are happy.

Eu não li o romance. Através de postagens eu li que ele contém viagens no tempo, onde você pode obter o lado da transmigração de Shao Shang. Foi retirado devido à censura.

A personagem mãe do drama tem recebido muitas críticas pelo tratamento dispensado a NaioNaio. Quando vista através de lentes históricas, a mãe está muito à frente de seu tempo no que diz respeito a disciplinar Shao Shang. A mãe tenta de tudo, desde fazer cópias de textos da SS até mantê-la em seu quarto antes que a mãe a reme. Após NaioNaio encontrar a imperatriz, ela tem um relacionamento muito melhor com sua mãe.

Quanto a Lou Yao e família, estou feliz que o noivado tenha sido rompido. Ela teria ficado presa em uma casa ainda mais opressiva que a dela (assim ela pensa). Lou Yao nunca teria se tornado oficial e Shao Shang acabaria não conseguindo realizar seus sonhos.

Ling Bu Yi, antes de sua vingança, é uma pessoa que precisa ser cuidada. Você pode ver o lado obsessivo dele, mesmo com ela.

Obrigado pelos detalhes do romance. Posso ler partes dele, mas não tudo. Obrigado pela discussão.

Exactly, Jenai stated the story was bland, and then went on to talk about the female actors. Two totally different topics. I commented on the first part because that was the part I agree with and stated why from the story.

Even though Jenai wrote about the appearance of the female lead, the person did not say which one. The costume department and makeup people are responsible for how actors look in a drama. In the first part, the female character is not meant to look beautiful or look like a girl. The actress was required to wear a head piece that pulls her hair up making her have the appearance of a large forehead. These are worn in many dramas and many other actors and actresses have the same problem when they wear these types of hats. This should be looked at by the costume and hair departments. That is if you are more into appearances which Jenai seems to be. Jenai expects beauty from a drama.

Also, Jenai commented on why was the female lead, the female lead out of all the other ones. For starters, the other girls looked too feminine to appear as a male. Yang Mi has a face that could more easily pass for male with the right amount of makeup. This is not saying she is not beautiful. We can see from when she is portrayed as a female that she is very pretty. The part required that kind of face. Jenai hadn't even reached that far.

The critique was not very well stated, but even I have to question some of the hat choices that they make in these dramas. Many people comment how beautiful the costumes and how intricately detailed the hair can be. These details can add or detract from the telling of the story. Again, only if you are into appearances.

I have to agree with Jenai. This was one of my first cdramas. I liked it. Since then, I have watched other cdramas and have to say that this one falls flat in comparison to Love Like the Galaxy. Here is why. There is no character development with any of the characters. They act the same from beginning to end, in particular the main female character. She remains a whiny drunk. She does more damage than she does good, due to her own selfishness. Two of the most powerful males fall in love with her. What does that say about their characters? If I had been the males, I would have told her to get lost. There are plenty of other fish in the sea.

She is under the supporting role and yes, she plays an evil concubine and does it well. She is the only redeemable part in this drama.

I had that same thought. That was the part where I skipped to the end. Otherwise I loved the story. My favorite scene is her saying, "Floor (ground) or wall you choose!"