I would add - women don't make women loud or spoilt or dumb or dependent on men. đ
Wah, after a rather dry period in cdramaland, really pleasantly surprised to find this. Canât believe how great the script is so far - the two leads are consistently smart and talk to each other like full equals. More power to women directors and scriptwriters!
IKR? just like in Longest Day - after all that running and running and chasing and chasing and then the bad guy was that disregarded scholar/official? And his motives were soooo lame. I was like huh? what? him? What do you think Ababy's role is here? Is her turning up right at that juncture suspicious?
Yes. Chen Kun and Bai Yu are great. All the protagonists & their opponents are intelligent and quite deadly. It can seem a bit dialogue heavy, but then suddenly it will be punctuated by intense action. The vibe is very greyly moody, many many characters in beards in same same colour clothes so it's kinda difficult to tell them apart - but there's a summary at the end of every ep which helps viewers keep track of the story.
Because theyâre the strongest couple and they havenât fought the strongest villain yet. đ€Ł
I kinda get the impression he's still relying on his looks more than honing his acting skills. Altho to be fair he's not as stiff as I thought he would be here.
Let's be honest Wei Wuxian, Ashile Sun, Fan Xian and Xu Fengnian aren't that dark and they get toned down alot…
With domestic cdrama fans, (who are the main fandom that count for the chinese streaming platforms and the chinese stars), I feel one never knows - could go either way. They can sometimes fixate on the strangest things and their ratings on douban can be way harsh .
Because theyâre the strongest couple and they havenât fought the strongest villain yet. đ€Ł
Oh and I just remembered Han Pu in the novel was given a choice as to whether to follow BFX of HFX and he immediately chose BFX cos he seriously felt HFX would sell him out/off at some point. They only included the latter half of that conversation in the drama, not the choosing - but it's another telling sign of HFX's moral ambiguity at that point in the story.
So rewatch should be on Netflix then. "Black Foxy" and "Four Gentry" make me cringe everytime.đ
Haha - me too! I mean ok maybe they wanted to highlight the seductiveness of HFX, but really it just starts off too early in the drama when they are still the bickering rivals. On the other hand if she were to progress from Black Fox to Black Foxy as she falls in love with him, that might have worked.
Because theyâre the strongest couple and they havenât fought the strongest villain yet. đ€Ł
HFX/FLX is certainly more grey in the novel. I'm only part way thru' but BFX in the novel has a lot of misgivings about wholeheartedly allying with him because she knows how ruthless and machiavellian he can be. For eg he got all his irritating schemy siblings executed as well as his father injured more or less fatally and thus everyone exits quickly and cleanly for him to take over the throne. Definitely don't think they would want to portray this in a cdrama - would probably get backlash from the fan legions, not to mention just too dark for the censors.
I don't think its just that. He is in good health still and just doesn't want to name a successor in case the…
He's narrow-minded in the sense they use/translate in cdramas - as in he only cares about his little sphere of influence and the balancing of power politics within his realm and does not have a breadth of vision. Perhaps better to say he's narrowly focused....... he does not have greatness in him and I don't see him in the same league as Huang Chao for eg. This is not to say that he isn't smart or vicious - but just in a dog-eat-dog way. As a parent he's more or less the usual stereotypical calculating/ruthless royal parent, altho there are other parenting models in the story. In the novel at least, BFX's royal family is portrayed very differently and the opposite of HFX's imperial family. So there are other possible ways for HFX's father to behave. The novel also explores this a tiny bit as it has him reflecting that his life of grasping for power at the expense of personal ties and affection has led to him having nothing of value at the end of his life. Will be interesting to see if they will give him the same opportunity to add some depth and self-awareness to his character in the drama.
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What do you think Ababy's role is here? Is her turning up right at that juncture suspicious?
As a parent he's more or less the usual stereotypical calculating/ruthless royal parent, altho there are other parenting models in the story. In the novel at least, BFX's royal family is portrayed very differently and the opposite of HFX's imperial family. So there are other possible ways for HFX's father to behave. The novel also explores this a tiny bit as it has him reflecting that his life of grasping for power at the expense of personal ties and affection has led to him having nothing of value at the end of his life. Will be interesting to see if they will give him the same opportunity to add some depth and self-awareness to his character in the drama.