ShortCircuit

Honest comment? Haters? Well, that escalated quickly, LOL.

Buddy, you don't like rebirth/revenge/body swap, you think it's formula and the plot is lame (altough they're just adapting a novel, LOL), nobody's keeping you from commenting on your opinion (it's here, isn't it), but you want to watch the story's climax in the first episode even?

Ever learned about progression? About character and plot development? About setting up things to be later revealed? Things like that, you know, to make up a story worth telling in 12 hours?! Why are you so angry about it and what discussion do you want to cause?!

"Oh I read the novel" - what does have to do with what you wrote? Good for you, I say. I read the novel, too (good for me?) and didn't even like it all that much, compared to others. So what? The drama is doing very well for a first episode, and there are 11 more. I myself like rebirth stories (though this is a reincarnation story more like), and I'll keep watching, which you can also do or not, for your own reasons (even if they're quite masochistic in nature, LOL). You do you.

Have a nice life.

Ming is in love with Tong (who he mistakes for somebody else).

Tong is taking advantage of Ming's interest (Ming's family is rich) and has now weaseled his way into a relationship with Ming's sister (they eventually marry, IIRC). Tong also wants to keep Ming interested, because it also helps his career to be connected to someone so rich and well-known in the industry. Ming started out as a model (he's supposed to have a cold immortal's looks, LOL, everybody falls for him), then changed to acting, and Tong still wants to have him at his beck and call.

This isn't a story about wholesome relationships, LOL. Except Joe's relationships with his BFF and the other Joe's mother.

I know, LOL. It's not even rebirth, though - very few are actually rebirths, or at least from those I've read. This is a reincarnation story, rather.

And I do like rebirth/reincarnation stories a lot, myself. This is not my favourite (mainly because of the power dynamics between the MCs) but the drama is staying very close to the source so far, and that's very rare in dramaland. I quite like that. Here's hoping they keep doing that :D

I definitely expected someone way taller for Ming. In my mind, YMX looks a bit (very much) like Lee Jong Suk, LOL, like a long, tall, drink. Age appropriated too - I imagine him as LJS in I Can Hear Your Voice times, when he was just so, so young.

Zhou Xiang / Joe should've been older - his home shows he has (some) money, so his career is established, as in the book, and he should be very confident in his sexuality. They did have Joe being the instigator (he comes and picks up Ming, then there's zero shyness about what they both wanted, until the both-are-gongs situation, LOL). I don't think he meant a virgin completely, but more as in a virgin as a shou/bottom, which respects the novel. I don't mind him being more handsome than ZX - I mean, this IS a Thai adaptation of the novel, not a Chinese version. If Taiwan made it, they'd have someone less handsome for both leads, LOL, I imagine. It's just the usual esthetics. And Joe is supposed to be trying to break into actual roles, not just being a double, but an actor himself. So he should be handsome (even in the novel, he's not comely, just not as handsome as Ming, who definitely is a walking, talking, god, in ZX's eyes.

They already made some subtle changes in the situation (like how Joe disappears in the first life, for example), they're probably going to make a few more.

I am pretty curious if they're going to keep some of the story details - like how the BFF finds out that new Joe is still old Joe (the twin children situation), or how Joe/ZX keeps trying to break into his own (ex-) home, LOL. And if they're going to keep showing us just Joe's POV or try to embed Ming's POV too (even the author wrote Ming's side as an afterthought).

What I would like to see changed (maybe not completely, but in some way) is Ming's total coldness toward XZ/Joe. If they keep things as in the book, Ming's character will be totally unlikable, IMHO. I still don't like him after all this time, despite the author giving us his POV. I mean - what if ZX WASN'T who he was? Then Ming would have abused a poor guy as a substitute for his "actual" loved one, not once, but in both lifetimes! Bah, humbug!

Errr...

~~ Adapted from the novel "Professional Body Double" (职业替身) by Shui Qiang Cheng (水千丞).

This story (or at least the novel it's based on) is isekai. That means, there could be 1. body swaps, 2. reincarnation (after death, a different body), 3. a return to the past (to fix wrongs), 4. travelling to a different world, or to the past, or to the future even (sometimes aided by a System that controls things in that 'verse), 5. going into the world of a book, drama, animation etc and having to do something there - and so on, and so forth.

Sometimes, they return to their original body (like in The Romance of Tiger and Rose, Moon Lovers, etc), sometimes they definitely do not (like in The Untamed, or SVSSS, or this story right here). Sometimes, the original body is gone already - like in TU, or Love for Love's Sake, so there's nowhere to return to.

Joe hasn't body swapped - his own body is dead, the other Joe's body is alive but its original soul is now gone. So "our" present Joe has the body of the other and the soul and memories of his own original life. It's a reincarnation tale.

Body swap can be a lot simpler than transmigration in general, particularly if both bodies are still alive after the change - as in The Dude in Me, for example.

But isekai stories can make their own rules, and things might change from one story to another, even if there are some similarities.

It's based on a novel. So far they've been following the plot of the novel very closely. The novel DOES make sense, but the drama is one episode in... should they reveal everything in the first episode?~

Why force yourself to watch something if you're not enjoying it? (But maybe that's just me).

Money. And because they could.

Until - obviously - one of the villains fell in love and undermined everything.

Not really plotholes, but suddenly it switched from cutthroat corporate with a (main) side of rom-com to total rom-com and rosey HEA and too fast a solution to the corporate anything. Because seriously, while unexpected, there's ZERO chance the older son inherits, LOL.

I am SERIOUSLY mad that there's no epilogue where there really IS a raccoon living in the hothouse at Queens. I kept hoping against hope for that to happen.

The soul was willing, but the ability came a bit short.

Director: So, how many tropes should we use?
Writer-nim: Yes.

The last ep felt a little slack, after everything basically went well all throughout the series. Then they decided they don't want a future-is-in-front-of-us kind of HEA, but a completely fullfilled one. Oh well. It wasn't a total bust for me, but it sure detracted something from the rom-com part of it.

IS there a song that comes with that beautiful intro theme, or not? I don't recognise that passage in any of the released OST songs...

121 official (CN) chapters+ some extras, but in TL there's 125+1 epilogue chapters (they split some of the chapters, I think, or maybe numbered the extras as chapters).

ETA here's the complete fan TL, with thanks to the translator: https://rosyspell.wordpress.com/rebirth-the-unique-substitute/

So what I can see is that the only different thing is that the scene (you know which one) is not interrupted by flashbacks. Is there any other change?

I mean the core reveal comes after they return from saving the juniors from the trap in the Burial Mounds, not at the end. That gives Jiang Cheng time to process it and then come to WWX's side (including giving him back Chenqing) in the final confrontation at the GuanYin temple. They even have a moment of mutual understanding, and the part where JC realises he's misunderstood his own brother, and then the part where he decides to keep the secret on how he got captured by the Wen Clan (which adds a completely new layer to the story and kind of changes the chain of who did what for whom, after all).

The donghua decided to switch some scenes around, and the reveal comes after the actual ending, so that there's nothing much it could impact... TBH, I quite liked the whole donghua, even if the last season got really tamed out compared to the first two, LOL, but them deciding to make the reveal the last scene, basically, ruined it for me...

In the novel, the sequence follows the same pattern as the drama chose to use, and that makes it great IMO.

The novel is great, you'll like it a lot :) (WWX is way too shameless and flirty and poor LWJ has to cope with that :D but it's totally worth it :) ) Some parts of the story got left unexplained in the drama (and even the donghua) that ARE shown, and you'll find the explanations in the novel (for example, the story of how LWJ got the same burn scar on his chest as WWX had in his first life). It's an overall amazing work :)

AND they get to live happily ever after :)

They changed a few of the details about the manner of Joe's disappeareance, but IIRC, Ming had just realised who Joe was - his TRUE infatuation/crush that he was also using Joe to stand-in for, LOL - and wanted to make certain of that realisation / get Joe back.

In the novel, the call falls because there's no signal in the wilderness (and IIRC, Ming comes to take part in the search and is among the last to stop). In the drama, IMO, they might keep it as that or want to make it look like there's a conspiracy to commit murder against Joe (too soon to tell yet).

You mean it completely stopped at the accident, not with the aftermath?! As in... an open ending? But why T_T

Xianxia is great... but I only watch select romantic xianxia (or wuxia) LOL. I much prefer (at least) bromance, and there's only so much bromance or censored danmei adaptations to watch. *Still keeping fingers crossed for May 1st*

If you're not adverse to straight xianxia, you could check out Till the End of the Moon - because it has LYX and Bai Lu, the effects are the best I've ever seen in xianxia, the music is amazing and the plot has some great twists. And did I mention they have LYX (using his own voice, to boot)? That man is smooth like old wine.

If you're more into danmei xianxia than modern time... Do NOT miss on 2ha (obviously), Bring in the Wine (Qiang Jin Jiu - this has GOT to be the most sensual danmei I've ever read, a true enemies-to-lovers story), Copper Coins and How To Survive As A Villain :D (I'm assuming here you already read everything MXTX :D)

The donghua messed up the ending though (as the core reveal happens as in the drama, not as in the animation, where the overall effect is destroyed.)

Then again, the donghua did some things better than the drama, too. The headband scene is the canon, LOL, they changed it in the drama.

LOL @ Incense Burner, my favourite is always From Dusk Til Dawn, even if less... energetic ;)

The SE on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SlpEVsKiYCU&list=PLMX26aiIvX5q6hl3s418u7x47mIwLL4GK

I didn't watch SWM, I had watched Addicted til they pulled the plug (and then tried to read the novel. But then my HDD decided its time was nigh and died on me LOL and so I lost my books and never picked Addicted Heroin back up *shrug*) So even after censoring the hell out of it (which was deserved for some scenes, TBH) the story is not complete? Should there be a second season?! (Or if there were a second season, it would be based on the second volume?)

I am waiting for 1.05 myself, LOL, but I don't put much faith into it... I think it's a melon that looks good but won't taste of anything on the day. It's too far ahead to announce both the dramas, if they really wanted to release them they'd do it KoD style (I mean The Spirealm), all at once, out of the blue. I'd LOVE it to be true though, I want to see LYX as CWN so badly, he's perfect for it! (CWN is one of my favourite charas in danmei, along with WWX and SZC from Qiang Jin Jiu). And Chen FeiYu is also perfect for MoRan! As for Winner is King... I'd watch that for Tan JianCi :D

I'm highly recc'ing Rebirth of a Movie Star :D The shou is the cutest and the gong has the fluffiest son (from a former relationship) that ever graced a danmei novel. Both guys are amazing, apart and together, the TL is pretty good, and the story itself flows very nicely :)

(I might be a bit biased for rebirth stories. But in my defense, there are so many isekai involving transmigration of body and soul, AND also reincarnation, that one can't avoid them if they tried :D I mean, even MDZS is one of them, and if there's one common ground for danmei readers, is that 99% of us like MDZS :D)

Professional Body Double is VERY dogblood, be warned. The main romantic story is painful to read, and you might get tired of Zhou Xiang's continued interest in Yan MingXiu. But love isn't always clear-cut for those involved, so read the story for the sake of ZX being such a good guy and just hate YMX along with the rest of us :D The TL might be a bit wonky in some parts, but not too bad, either (I mean the fan TL, I am not sure if there's an official English version yet.)

I'm not bothered at all, LOL, I am (or used to be) mainly a reader, and since TU aired, I've been binging danmei like there's no tomorrow :D I like talking about such stories with people who are interested in them, too :)

Unknown is the one I was talking about - it's based on Priest's novel Da Ge (Big Brother) :D

So if they made an unapologetically BL drama based on a danmei by a famous author, like Da Ge, why not more? I mean - just imagine someone gets the courage (and the c/right) to make an uncensored drama based on Sa Ye! (one can dream).

And definitely a drama based on my favourite modern-times danmei, Rebirth of a Movie Star. And a drama based on Indulging in Wine. Or on Accidental Mark (because why not a drama based on an ABO 'verse? It's not like it's an ancient setting :D) And First-Class Lawyer... There are way too many that would be great if made into dramas... *sigh*

It's because Ming uses Joe as a replacement in both lives (first for the person he mistook as Joe, and then for for Joe in his first life, himself, LOL). And by "uses" yes, he just uses. He doesn't like or trust or love Joe in either life (until it's too late - or almost too late, the second time around), he just has sex with him while imagining the other man in his place (and he's not even too good at it, since he's a virgin gong in the beginning, and then he doesn't care enough about Joe to treat him kindly.)

There were moments in the novel where I'd ask myself why the heck was I reading it, it got bad. But I read it for Joe/Zhou Xiang. I never liked Ming (Yan Ming Xiu) til the end, not even after he mended his ways and declared his undying (and kind of obsessive) love for Zhou Xiang (he's the creepy stalkerish type, IMHO). But Zhou Xiang is actually a good guy, so there's that. I hope they keep it that way in the drama, and don't make him come out as over-naive (because he's not, he knows what he's doing... but love's love.)

Still... the fact that they took an actual modern-times danmei and made an actual BL drama out of it is amazing on itself, and if they do stick with the novel and don't make big mistakes I hope it'll just break the dam. There are so many modern danmei I'd LOVE to see in drama, and I don't mind if they transfer to Thai BL or Taiwanese BL, as long as they DO get made. For xianxia danmei there's less hope, since a lot of the plot would entangle actual Ancient China (or Ancient China-like) settings and background that it couldn't translate well to Thai BL, and I wonder if Taiwan would want to invest the kind of budgets those drama would need... Even for Da Ge, they didn't invest all that much, IMHO, and it still looked amazing - but it was easier to do with a modern setting.

Here's hoping this one remains true to the end and that it emboldens others to follow :D

They don't part ways.

The Special Edition has the original ending that the production team intended for the drama - the final scene is in the OP sequence, LOL (they tend to do that in cdramas). The original edition introduced a final twist... and TBH, as I already know the ending in the novel (and allll the extras :D), I quite like the twist.

If you want to watch them end up together with no twists... watch the donghua.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsA1hKfRqtQ

Also... do try out WoH, they've managed to slip so many less censored moments past the censors, LOL, they caused almost an absolute ban on danmei for years now :D

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWX998-PMig