RSMasterfade

After the tournament arc the manhua basically turned into an ensemble cast. Later on there are very long story arcs that took place before ZCL was even born.

I think WeTV has the rights to subsequent seasons.

The MC and his temp worker friends? If they were fighting a war, they would have committed war crimes. But we the audience wouldn't care because we like them. This is actually the theme of this arc.

I would caution against placing much hope on romantic developments between ML and FL. Feng Bao Bao is not a normal person with a full range of emotions. I don't think she would even grieve for ML if he was to die because I don't think she's capable of feeling grief.

Apparently the plan was to make a 24 episodes show but Tencent decided to pad it to 30.

WKW wasn't done with editing when it was aired but I guess the chance to be CCTV's flagship channel's first prime time show in 2024 was too good to pass up.

Anyway one of the show's assistant directors just revealed that shorter cuts are being worked on and he has watched a 6 episodes cut and a 12 episodes cut. The Longest Day in Chang'an had a heavily padded 40 episodes original release followed by a 20 something episodes director's cut, so this is not new in cdrama land. It's a good compromise - first a long version to make the investors and sponsors happy, followed by a shorter cut for people who was turned off by the dragginess. I think that's going to happen again with the new Cao Dun/Ma Boyong/Lei Jiayin project (The Lychee Road).

Anyway WKW is reportedly making a feature film cut for premiering at one of the big European film festivals (probably Cannes), and sell the distribution rights there. Perhaps they will offer multiple cuts of various lengths and let the broadcaster/streamer choose. I think the 30 episodes cut is definitely draggy, especially at the beginning. 24 episodes could work, but honestly I think 12 episodes would be the best compromise between telling the whole story and avoiding repetitiveness.

It's very high contrast with the inkiest black I've seen in a TV show. And lots of neon lights at night scenes too. Very demanding scenarios for any TV.

Let's not call Xue Zhi 'Betty'. Betty was Ah Bao's childhood friend (who committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution in the novel), and in the show Ah Bao was clearly upset that Xue Zhi used 'Betty' as her English name.

One more thing: Blossoms Shanghai has the most exquisite lighting works in Chinese shows since Reign of Zhenguan/贞观之治, which was also a first (and only) TV work of an established film director. I strongly recommend to watch it on an OLED or at least a mini LED screen with good local dimming, if possible.

Depends on what you mean by 'romance'. If you mean going on dates, having an established relationship, having physical intimacy, then no (except in flashbacks). But some characters do have romantic feelings for other characters, which may or may not be reciprocated.

Mr A was another actor according to the credits, but yeah in that particular sense he did look like Ah Bao. Li Li hinted before that Ah Bao and Mr A were the same type of person.

If I remember correctly the last scene shows Ah Bao standing on the land he bought for himself and one of his friends? It's never explicitly stated in the show, but that piece of land would 20+ years later become the site of Shanghai Disneyland.

What a crowd pleaser! My mom thought it's the best show she had watched in years. She gave up the Long Season half-way though - I'm bringing this up not to diss the Long Season, but to say that prestige TV can be more or less approachable, and Blossoms Shanghai is definitely of the most approachable kind.

It takes a few episodes to build up but once it does there's no stopping it.

Can't take this show seriously after the super fake dead body in the first episode. What were they thinking? If for any reason they can't shoot a floating dead body without making it completely obvious it's a mannequin, just hire an actor to lay on the river bank and use a fake arm or something. Mr Feng Xiao Gang, even though you're a pathetic harasser I would still expect more professionalism from someone who was at one point China's most commercially successful filmmaker.

It's unspecified in the drama but some interprets the timeline as the FL being 14. In the source novel the FL is 5 or 6 when she first meets Chu Bufu and 10 when she becomes ML's disciple.
Here's the manhua's chapter on Chong Zi becoming ML's disciple (which is faithful to the novel re FL's age):
https://www.bilibilicomics.com/mc1954/212896

If Yetan is tired of having YQ around and doesn't care about her friendship with YQ's two siblings, then sure go ahead and kill HE.

I'm sure that there are people who can stay in a relationship with someone who has killed one of their parents - otherwise there would be no need for China to historically have a law requiring local government to legally dissolve a marriage if someone kills a parent of his/her spouse. However I very much doubt YQ is such a person.

In the novel Sima Miaoyuan doesn't appear until the second arc. Wen Lingzhi is the girl who gets accepted along with Qin Ke and the first Chong Zi. She comes from an upper class background but is not a princess. Like Sima Miaoyuan in the show, Wen Lingzhi has a crush on Qin Ke, is jealous of Chong Zi (for having Luo Yinfan as her master) and often acts mean to her.

But unlike Sima Yaoyuan and a lot of popular alpha girl type characters Wen Lingzhi is also principled and have never done anything to serious hurt Chong Zi. Qin Ke, however, thinks (without evidence) that Wen Lingzhi is the mastermind behind the first Chong Zi's suffering and her death, which leads to a confrontation between the two. After Qin Ke accuses her of being responsible for Chong Zi's death, Wen Lingzhi breaks her own sword and makes an oath to never set her eyes on Qin Ke again. Later in the story she goes on to help the second Chong Zi on multiple occasions but, in line with her oath, treats Qin Ke very coldly.

Wen Lingzhi is easily the female character in the novel with most character growth, and the rare female character in the novel who's neither a passive victim nor a scheming villain. She's also the rare woman in the novel who's not controlled by her hormones and knows when to give up her love. Really if I get the chance to befriend one of the female characters in the novel it's definitely going to be Wen Lingzhi.

Furthermore, Wen Lingzhi's story adds a much needed dimension to both the novel's premise and Qin Ke's character. Qin Ke is almost universally recognized by the fandom as the best among Chong Zi's suitors, but Qin Ke is not perfect. Just because someone is trusting and not clouded by prejudice when it comes to the MC doesn't mean that person is free from prejudice. While rails against the injustice of people's prejudice against Chong Zi, Qin Ke also let his own prejudice deeply wounds a woman who loves him. It's a basic law of human relationship: someone who's an angel to you is often also a devil to someone else.

But of course the show has to remove a strong, flawed but ultimately good and principled female character with the cupboard jealous woman villain Sima Miaoyuan and the new character Ting Xue who's just like Sima Miaoyuan except her story makes even less sense. At the end there are just two types of women in the show: passive victims and scheming villains.

This is relatively minor given the mess this show is, but I find it really regrettable that they've removed Wen Lingzhi from the story, whom for me is the most memorable character from the novel.

It's really not that simple. Actors can and often do require changes to the script as a condition for taking the role. Scripts often have to go through multiple rounds of revisions to make everyone happy. Even then some actors would still demand script changes while filming is already underway.

I'm not saying that's what has happened in this case, but the possibility is too real to just say it's all scriptwriter/directors/censors fault.

Mandarin is actually an exceedingly simple language to learn once you master the tones. Written Chinese on the other hand is very difficult.

No, the men's free-flowing hairstyle had zero historical basis (any man leaving home with undressed hair would be considered a savage in historical China), it was purely an invention of the Hong Kong wuxia cinema which later became a genre convention.