ShortCircuit

Asian dramas for me include Thai, Chinese, Japanese, South Korean and even a few Philippines dramas, so there's plenty of variety and a large offer whenever the cliche alarm sounds :D And I even watched a few Indian dramas on and off (though they're mostly the Asian equivalent of telenovelas - which I also watched quite a lot in the back years, LOL) and Turkish dramas, too. One or two Vietnamese dramas, also. (Now I seriously wonder what a Mongolian drama would look like, I bet they'd at the very least have awesome cinematography/scenery).

I've been into dramas since forever, about 25+ years by now, so yes, the tropes and cliches are pretty obvious. What I can tell you though, is that there's always a few very good and original dramas in the lot - though they're getting really scarce in the last few years. And what's been changing is not just the themes and the way they're treated, but mostly the kind of actors they're using (generally either big names OR good-looking idols, and if they have the talent remains to be seen) and there's this not really subtle addition to the story that is obviously aimed at an international audience, or what the producers THINK the international audience wants,

And they've been missing the target a lot, TBH. You'll see a lot of PR - including on MDL - on this or that drama that's produced by NF or D+ or any other streamer, and how great its ratings are, or what the (idol) ML or FL think about the price of rice in China and anything to create some buzz on them... I might not be their target audience, but if that's what they're trying to raise as an audience for future productions, LOL, then definitely CLOY remade will be a hot mess.

Oh well, whatever :D For now there's still some good ones getting through, so I'm happy so far. When they dry up, there are always books so all's good :D

You haven't watched any BLs (or not on your list anyway), don't start with The Untamed (though it's absolutely awesome). Start with The Oath of Love, it's more like romcoms. Also, Sunshine by my Side is pretty romantic (and looking very modern). The Youth Memories is heavier (though also worth it!)

If you're willing to try a (censored) adaptation of a famous danmei novel (that became famous on its own might, too), then try The Untamed.

Physics will tell you there's always diffusion happening. It'll happen to the movie (or drama) industry. It already started. When you have different types of movie or drama-making (not in the tech of it, but in the ideas and their execution) intermingling, they will EVENTUALLY become pretty similar.

And that's the thing most people here don't want happening. We all come to find Asian media because we tired of the Western media. Yes, they should get their financing where they can get it. Yes they should try being innovative in getting their ROI. But if they're basically just going to eventually turn into the type of media we've all been fleeing from... what's the point?

But case in point - why CLOY? That's pretty country-specific. If they're remaking it with Korean setting and Korean actors, it's too soon IMHO. It's not an old series. If they're adapting it to a more Western setting... it's kind of hard to imagine where could they put it and keep what made it CLOY.

Went to watch PotC5 - full hall, everybody on their phones, some were talking loudly among them and with people in calls, it smelled (mall cinema), it was pretty messy (popcorn everywhere, spilled drinks etc). Half an hour commercials before (not even trailers). The movie wasn't even worth it. Big thumbs down.

Then went to watch Legend of the Sword (surprisingly interesting for such a told and re-told story). Hall half-full, some people on their phones, the same smell, the same messy place, at least it was less loud.

Went to watch Thor Ragnarok (I think that, Iron Man aside, that's about the only other superhero movie I actually enjoyed in cinema.) Kids and teens everywhere, the same smell and mess, people on phones, LOUD, lots of loud people, and so on, and so forth.

I think you see where this is going, LOL.

The very last movie I actually loved going to see in theater was The Martian, forever ago (opening night, first midnight show, not a lot of people and all of them were there to watch the movie, not ~experience~ going to the movies. It's been way too long since and yes, streaming covers the need for movies, but it's not the same. I used to love movie-going, but lately there's nothing worth going for.

I was hoping some Asian media could escape the straight-to-streaming trend, but I guess all movies are doomed to it in the end... Given how much streamers are investing in the industry, it was inevitable it would turn to this.

Still, IMHO, going the road to re-making successful stories is definitely not the way they're going to keep going. And particularly not the remake of a drama that works exactly because it's happening where it's happening.

Oh well, we'll see.

What I'm saying is that those kind of movies do not even come up in cinemas I am close to. At all. Not even those who are well-known or have built up some expectations. So it's not really on the watchers, if they don't even know the movies exist, because cinema operators do not bring the movies to them.

PS And even IF they brought them, have you been to a cinema fairly recently? The kind of people who DO show up in theater don't make good companion watchers in my recent experience. The only time I really loved it in the past ten years, LOL, was when I went to watch Bohemian Rhapsody and I was the only one inside. I could sing along (and then discovered the attendant had snuck in and did the same as me :D)

They already have all the evidence. They were going to arrest the doctor, they had the video of him killing DaEun, then SuOh has the body hidden in his secret hidey hole, MinSu is all done and confessing to everything, ByeongMu's dad doesn't have anything more to lose now HGT fell and would spill everything just to get his son a shorter sentence - etc.

The polician herself only manipulated HGT into hiding the murder done by her husband - but if HGT hadn't needed a scapegoat for GeonOh, he might've done it anyway just to get ahead and be promoted...

No matter how short or long his sentence (I mean he himself didn't kill anybody OR hide the body, either), it won't give JeongWoo his youth back...

Nah, HGT needed to burn for it.

Dammit, NaGyeom got away by reason of being insane. And I don't really like how they allow her a phone, because even insane she has star power and there's no way to tell if she can't escape and go look for him again.

The PERFECT ending scene though was the one in the little diner - just mom, SuOh helping out and sneaking undesirable bits of food to JeongWoo and JeongWoo trying hard to set his life back on its original track.

...But dammit, JeongWoo should've left that door closed. HGT deserved to fry.

I sure hope Byun YoHan, Go Joon and Lee GaSub get lots of offers after this - each of them can lead any kind of drama (but I hope they do another thriller sometime soon.)

.... I'm going to poison myself with romance cdramas for now, because what else is there to watch now this one's ended?...

I'm going into withdrawal :(

But I liked how they ended. Still, IMHO, JeongWoo shouldn't have messed with that door, just sayin'.

And awwww, puppy NSC is still the best puppy around :D

TBH even if the costs weren't already way too high for anything in cinema, there is absolutely nothing (running close enough to me) to get me in the door and there hasn't been for the past 7-8 years, either. Not to mention the experience of a theater itself has gone down the drain (was going down way before the pandemic too).

I don't go for superhero movies and that's all that seems to still get people to come watch (in my part of Europe anyway). Movies I would go and watch in cinema don't come (for example I would've liked to be able to go see The Boy and the Heron in a movie theater - nope, nowhere close and I don't know if it ran anywhere in Europe - maybe in the UK?) Not even the two-part Three Musketeers movie made it over, but oh you bet any and all DC and Marvel movies were present everywhere. I don't want to see those, I am not going (and paying a lot) to watch that drek (though YMMV).

I was really hoping the Asian scene was different, but I guess not so much. In the age of fast-to-streaming movies, nobody's going to invest a lot in a maybe-maybe not story... and the cycle will get shorter and shorter until we're left with only "blockbusters" nobody watches or something's going to give.

The story isn't complete. For now it's a non-decided ending.

Ah, one last thing! The TLs can be tricky at times - the Jianghu could be TLed at times as "the pugilistic world", meaning the fighters/cultivators' world. But if you knew the term "pugilism" before, it is used in Europe at least, to refer to boxing. A pugilist is a boxer, LOL. So if you see that kind of TL, they just mean Cultivator's World / Jianghu and nobody's going to start throwing punches :D

And yes I meant Prince Jing.

And if you ever watch the second season (they're separate and unrelated, don't worry), you'll see "Xiao PingZhang" (Huang XiaoMing), he looks basically like Li Shang from the animated Mulan :D, an extremely handsome (and manly) man. These dramas knew how to pick them :D

Oh sh*t, HONDA?! I thought it was someone else. Okay then, we'll have to watch this, for one more reason :D

Why don't they find some roles for "Pasin" and "MinHye"?! Pretty please!

No midichlorians, I promise! :D

So, a high-enough level of cultivation helps creating a core of qi (around the pubic region of the body, so at times it kind of looks strange when they're "gathering" the qi to make their attack stronger, LOL). Usually, the talented cultivators start very young, and it's supposed to take a few years (and a good master obviously) before one could form a core. Then you can only keep cultivating and add to it. In xianxia, there are levels split into more levels of cultivation, and one can even try to reach immortality by cultivation. In wuxia, they're mostly aiming at just fighting way better than the regular person, including fighting whole mobs at the same time and winning. It always looks extremely anti-scientific LOL (no gravity found), but that's just esthethics - less about looking like a superhero and more about stunning choreography.

Wuxia is way tamer (which doesn't mean it IS actually too tame) than xianxia, LOL. (And NiF only includes some elements of wuxia - xianxia is a lot more fantastical).

Then again - TBH, actual, real-world martial arts already look like they're meant for superheroes. Even the sport-regulated kinds - in this Summer's Olympics I kind of watched a lot of the Judo and Taekwando and other types of fighting and they were damned AWESOME!! So I imagine if one wanted and needed to impress the audience, they'd make the fights look out of this world cool :D

The one thing he (MCS) has to make sure of, is that JingYan DOESN'T KNOW. That's the cruelest part of his self-appointed mission.

Because the Emperor already had one of his sons, the actual Crown Prince at the time, put to death for an imagined reason, with his whole family, to boot, and a whole border army too! His own, best son by blood, the closest relative and the best prince that could have followed in his steps and keep the empire. The stakes are too high for any slip ups.

Yup, MCS's strategies and mind play are the best - and what do you mean they aren't gorgeous, LOL, have you seen JingYan?! :D

The best scenes of the first half land around ep 23, IIRC, that is still one of my favourite parts of the plot (won't spoil you, you'll see soon enough). But have you noticed the subtle and not so subtle harem game? That part was just as awesome as the men's strategies, and just as deadly.

Maybe... but without the pretense of religious elements, LOL. And some of them are definitely a lot more like the Storm Troopers - the cannon fodder, that is, LOL.

There's no innate sense of good or evil in cultivation - that falls to the cultivator's reasons and actions. And they also don't have any kind of special same-same sabers (though famous and named swords exist).

...And in xianxia, they use their swords to fly on, as long as they have cultivated to a high enough level. Never seen Luke Skywalker riding his Jedi saber, right? :D

Jianghu is the whole setup - basically the paralel world of fighters who either try to do good, or try to live lawlessly (and were suprimed by the first class, LOL). ETA It's not a different realm, though some clans might live in seclusion and have secret cultivation places. They're right among the regular people, usually, or very close by, though there are some settings where they're elusive and little seen LOL.

I doubt there was ever an actual Jianghu as they present it in the wuxia/xianxia stories and dramas, but they're supposed to have lived in a world they themselves governed and where they were usually left alone to manage (unless they became either way too raucous and disrupted the regular world's affairs, and then maybe some Emperor would take measures to curb their enthusiasm or strategically ignored them because he couldn't beat them hahaha~). But the Jianghu is now more of a cultural term - the underworld, or the world outside of rules, where might is right as long as you can wield a sword and aim to be the top cultivator in the world.

The cultivators are the martial artists living in the Jianghu and always trying to face out with other cultivators and see who was better. A cultivator is another term for the "follower of the way" or daoist/taoist (dao is "the way" to make sense of the world and maybe conquer it or at least try to understand as much of it as possible.) Now daoism is more of a philosophical concept, but in the Jianghu, it's the only way one can grow (cultivate) into someone always better. A daoist / cultivator would aim to grow his inner energy / qi and get more and more powerful.

Xianxia and Wuxia stories can get quite larger than life with the concepts of cultivation LOL, but that's generally the main idea. Those guys you see flexing and sending invisible waves to topple their adversaries have cultivated lots and lots of qi, therefore they're dangerous and awesome (but it's hard so most of the NPCs of the Jianghu are just disciples / beginners / cannon fodder.)

In NiF, everybody (but MCS) has at least a bit of cultivated qi and are at least a tiny bit of good fighters. Some are way better than others - like Liu Fei, Xia Dong and Meng Zhi. Some, while good soldiers, aren't as good at cultivation itself - like Xiao JingYan for example.

NiF is not really about the Jianghu and cultivation, anyway... I hope you're enjoying it! :D

(And if you want to watch something with lots of Jianghu involvement and great and famous fictional cultivators - then maybe The Blood of Youth and Mysterious Lotus Casebook could start to show you how it goes :D)

IMHO wherever they set these kind of things up, it was always political. Some clans would be richer, some would be more military-inclined. And if the Emperor wanted money flowing his way and/or his borders guarded, he'd have to use political marriages. Those are kind of cheap and useful (unless one gets thrown out by his relatives, eventually, LOL).

Oh yes the tag is deserved. But it's ALWAYS a good hurt. (This has been on my rewatch list for years. It always hurts so good.)

This has one of the best endings of a drama I've seen - yes, it's hopeful.

Nihuang is his daughter (I'm presuming adopted, in order to get her clan closer to the throne). BUT she's also a Commandery Princess, which means she's a soldier, too. Her clan is usually on the border, fighting invaders. She's not a pretty flower sitting calmly in a palace waiting for marriage. Quite a lot of Imperial sons and daughters weren't, LOL, but it also depends on the dynasty and what happened at the time.

You have to keep in mind that an Emperor had a whole harem of wives, some more important than others. Usually there's an Empress (not always), some Noble Consorts, then the regular Consorts, then the Concubines of several ranks (IIRC about 5 ranks, but I could be wrong) and even officially married persons who never visited the Emperor's bed, usually come through some political alliance. An Emperor could have dozens of children, ALL of different ranks and importance in the succession, and then they could adopt whomever they wanted and was needed at the time. Their mothers and their mothers' respective clans were of paramount importance to the royal children. Depending on who was up and who was down, some could grow up basically in noble poverty, while others could become Crown Princes and inherit the empire.

Jianghu is the world of martial artists/fighters. Someone in the Jianghu is usually bound either by his clan's rules (and only marginally by the official non-Jianghu's world order) or clanless, in which case he could be a rogue / bandit or someone who's a loner.

MCS is not a cultivator / martial artist anymore, since he had to give up everything just to survive. But he is the one everyone in the Jianghu is listening to, because of who he is, first, and then because of what he can do.

The Langya Clan / Sect is part of the Jianghu and is supporting MCS. Xia Dong (and basically all the Xia Clan) are also part of the cultivation world, but on the outside, since they chose to serve the Emperor. Fei Liu is definitely a cultivator, too, and one of great talent, too - and he's following MCS. All the hidden agents and masters who help MCS are part of the Jianghu too - including the guy who loses the fight to the three kids, LOL.

This is a plan that's been brewing since forever.