ShortCircuit

The stick is what makes me suspect him, actually. Nobody saw Monsieur's face BUT everybody noticed and remembered the stick and its distinctive head (is it a bear or something like that? It looks like a silver bear to me).

It's something magicians always use - misdirected attention is what enables one to do good magic tricks. I think Monsieur settled on that - and maybe the gloves too - to make everybody think he's partially disabled, so nobody looks twice at who he really is in real life. As he was retelling the story of 12 years back, and "remembered" he had heard about Monsieur before, Mr Xu immediately explained the stick through some wound Monsieur had in childhood or the like, while at the same time saying he didn't know much actually. Pretty suspicious if you ask me...

WJ managed to untie himself then left the room through the ceiling, but he was found out and chased through that warehouse... and juuuust as he's about to be trapped, a mysterious hooded someone (who he correctly identifies as Mr Xu) just happens to pull him into a side room and unlock a door to the outside for him to run away through.

I mean, WHERE did Mr Xu come from, and in that particular place where he had no business being?! I bet he's Monsieur setting more traps. I just jope WJ realizes it.

But aww, LJ gets into papa bear mode again after WJ comes back, all counseling him to go study, get good grades, not get into trouble, have a great life, etc. He's so cute, trying to protect WJ, I hope they work together (and neither get hurt) to bring down all the baddies. And maybe leave Cpt Su at home while this is happening, LOL.

As in, how DID Mr. Xu (the clock repairman) manage to get INSIDE Wharf 6 juuuust in time to save WenJie and let him free?! That's mighty suspicious but WenJie isn't batting an eye over it. And despite saying he'd confess everything to LJ, he didn't mention Mr. Xu.

My theory at this time is that Mr. Xu IS Monsieur. He got Li Anfu and Li ShuTing to involve WenJie in Mrs Hong's plan then he appeared in the right place at the right time with the right tools to save WJ from his kidnappers. Then he went on with the drama story of how DSH caused WJ's mom's death and how his father got dragged into stealing the painting in order to protect WJ and then - maybe - he mysteriously died... or not.

He's so fake you can see it from the Moon. I hope WJ can expose him and has a plan in place already... though him trying to verify Mr. Xu's story from small details is concerning. It's almost like he's willing to trust him and so he tells him all of his plans. I thought he's smarter than that. But it would make no sense for him to trust a complete stranger out of the blue, so if it happens, I'll blame the script writer.

There were a few hilarious moments in the eps, like...

Li Anfu: "I'm Monsieur's disciple but I still never saw his face."
Luo Jian: "So it's like a correspondence course?"

911, we need you to send the Burn Unit over, ASAP.

LJ: "Your job here is done, we're sorry to see you go, too bad there's no time for a goodbye party. Bye-bye!"
Cpt Su: "Not going anywhere."
LJ: "Dammit you're here to steal our case WTH *explodes*"
Cpt Su: "I guess I'll be leaving if you don't want me here."
LJ: "You could be staying a few more days, just sayin' (don't take me seriously though.)"
Cpt Su: "OK then I'll be staying."
LJ: "Dammit not like that!!!"

So at this moment in time... I think Mr Xu is the mastermind, which sadly might mean WJ's dad is dead after all, and there's a turf war between Monsieur and his former underling DSH (that is, if Mr Xu is to be believed). WJ is like that piece of material they both are pulling towards themselves, and it'll reach a breaking point soon...

Still not liking Cpt Su at all, and she's way too manipulative (even when it's funny) and ALWAYS talks over LJ. That's bad, Cpt Su, no cookies for you!

I want WJ to be really really smart and have a backup plan or two. As long as he doesn't get stupid... this still will end up good :D

PS I also think that the numbers on the necklace are coordinates that tell where the rest of the artefacts were hidden back in the Republican Era, and that maybe the Luoshen painting hides a map that uses thoose coordinates.

There's a massive plot hole still not addressed in 17-18, I hope it's solved smartly.

It did look like he was considering himself their king. Making them grovel, letting them wait, and they the most powerful men in the nation. Having them fight among themselves to prove their worth to HIM.

It's pretty blunt, what CTS is supposed to portrait.

But then, IF any country got THAT corrupt... we'd be in the ending times.

Oh wait...

I thought you meant LBH the actor and he was going to have a cameo in AML :D

I just read a rumour somewhere that LJG was/is in talks to replace Song Joong Ki in the second season of Arthdal Chronicles, if it ever gets made (and it's not just a feeler sent out by the press to see if it'll stick LOL). If so, LJG probably picked AML to make a change from the heavy and emotional Flower of Evil and prepare physically for AC. Again, I'm taking it with a huge grain of salt, but it would explain how the drama is not too deep or engaging, and a bit "phoned in" from some charas. They just made the hero and the villain both overpowered and it's just a game of see-saw between them right now. I wish there was more so far in the episodes...

Also, it seems this year's trend in kdramas is webtoon adaptations. Everyone and their momma are doing webtoons and nary an original script to be found in prime-time :(

I don't know what people in China are assuming about the actors, but the actors are spot on (with a few who are a bit rough, like the actress playing LZY in the episode with the suicide of her friend from college.) But KW's acting suspicious and reserved in the first few eps was amazing, and actually it's what got me hooked. He's supposed to be reclusive, suspicious of everyone, expecting to be attacked, particularly from the police, as he's his father's son. And a smart guy to boot, so he's always calculating what he should do so he gets away. It takes time for Luo Jian to get close to him, and even less to cut that smallest thread that linked them, when he's expressing his exasperation with WenJie being not too forthcoming with info. They've both been great so far.

At least that's how I see the character.

Ah, Ryung-Gu, you broke my heart.

I guess we're left with the story of Ms Koo and PJG and then the waking of Jun Woong. I have this impression something's going to happen and it won't go smoothly (if it happens at all, in case there's a second season planned.)

It feels like they keep setting things up, again and again and again. And then nothing. It's moving too fast and at the same time it's too slow - there's not a lot of build up against the villains and whatever there is gets swept away really fast under political power.

We're way past the halfway point and it still feels like it's only just beginning. I hope it's actually going somewhere soon (and not to a second season either.)

Also, I don't like HeeAh and I don't care about her fight with her brothers for the company. Her secretary that she calls Director Park looks like a more polished Frankenstein's monster, though. He at least is interesting in a strange kind of way.

I watched a few of these and I have just two small questions LOL.

First, how on EARTH did the producers of Masquerade manage not to get sued into oblivion by the producers of The King and the Clown? That's basically the same movie poster, LOL. Unless of course it's the same production team or they got permission.

And second, is that an official poster for Along With the Gods 3? 'Cause the movie's thread doesn't have any, yet. Are there more where it came from? I loved the first two movies, this is on my anticipated movies list.

Thank you for the article :D

You haven't watched many of the good ones (or they're not on your watched list at least) - things like The Untamed, Word of Honor, The Sleuth of Ming Dynasty - but whatever.

Good bromances (most include police stories, because some countries are afraid of men being bromancey if they're not in law enforcement LOL): The Devil Judge, Beyond Evil, Nobody Knows, D. P., Hunter (CN), I Don't Want To Be Brothers With You, Mad Dog, My Country, Tale of the Nine-Tailed, The Good Detective, Tunnel, Wok of Love. For starters :D

Yeah that red painting at the end was a mawwige setting and no one can convince me otherwise.

Also, I really hope there's going to be a second season, because I want more.

Not done with it yet, but I have THINGS to say.

Like...

Episode 9 - LOL, the gun training. Shen Yi is so smol. Du Cheng dwarfs him. (That was on my chest for SO long, glad I managed to spill it LOL).

All the episodes: OMG Shen Yi is basically suicidal. Or has no sense of survival. Whatever. Protecc the baby!!!

Ep 17 (where I'm at right now): OMG DU CHENG WTF ARE YOU EVEN DOING DON'T YOU DARE BE THAT WAY SHEN YI WILL BE DEVASTATED! (Not to mention I'll be devastated too).

Also, this drama has cats. I approve. Though Shen Yi's habit of gathering people's pets was kind of intriguing in the beginning, LOL, I thought he would end up with a whole menagerie. I wonder if he gets the black cat too LOL.

If this wasn't supposed to send so many confusingly bromance signals, they should've picked actors who aren't so much different physically. I mean, at this point in time, I can hardly wait for Winner is King, because of how petite Tan Jian Ci is (and I haven't even read the novel yet) :D

LJ has good reason to trust WenJie - I mean, he was even the first to come to the police to tell them the painting had been stolen, when the gallery itself didn't realize it. And when Ding ShengHuo's men made contact, they (LJ and WenJie) had an implicit, mutual trust relationship where they very smoothly worked together to catch them all in the act, even going as far as WJ's life being put in serious danger.

LJ could easily see this kid has a solid set of values and knows what's right and what's wrong, and he can realize how hard it is for him to make friends and place his trust in someone (I mean, he's a good looking kid and that quiet personality would get him lots of normal friends, usually, but he's only friends with the kid who he caught stealing a laptop - and then forced him to return it! - and a girl who knew him from childhood and didn't really take his part actively as a child either). He's starving for affection, after his father's death, and LJ is initially starting to fill that need... until he slipped and told him the distrust ran in the family. It's obvious how quickly WenJie slammed the doors into LJ's face at that. Add to that the taunting DSH does, baiting him with the "truth" of his father's death, and it's a recipe for disaster when combined with not having the police on his side any more, all because Cpt. Su doesn't trust him for being the son of a robber.

I'd rather have Luo Jian's trust be misplaced (though it won't be!) than Cpt. Su's distrust based on circumstances outside WenJie's control. Now he's a hostage with a good chance of being killed (though I know he probably will escape), just because she thinks he's in cahoots with the band of robbers. He has a good set of "interesting" skills, but that doesn't mean he practiced them or is the best there ever was and could easily escape any dangerous situation... She should allow him the benefit of the doubt.

And then, she should definitely extend the benefit of the doubt to her colleague, Luo Jian. They know each other and don't despise each other obviously, why doesn't she trust his judgement? It's not like he did a very big blunder anywhere since this whole story started, he's pretty efficient. So where does all this aggression and distrust come from, in her case?...

I'm starting to really dislike Cpt. Su - I get where she's coming from, but she's way too aggressive. She just doesn't take a second to listen to Luo Jian's explanation before deciding he's "driven by his feelings" so she won't consider what he has to tell her at all.

If LJ coordinated this op, he'd have had WenJie safe already, and his friends too, and the thieves already arrested.

And now we have to wait another 4 days before the next ep, there is no justice LOL

But then who's the guy in the clock repair shop? (WenJie goes there to see the house he grew up in and there's that shop in its place). He also seemed quite interested in the young guy coming to visit.

It's still unclear, though I won't be surprised if the mastermind with the walking stick IS WenJie's dad. But if he set everything in motion, why would he pick Ding ShengHuo, or not stop everything when DSH involved WenJie?

And with so many questions, the series is going to take long breaks even for the VIP watchers, LOL. Aaargh! :D

Is it the same character? The MDL character list calls him a different name, even if it's the same actor. It does look interesting, though, so I guess that's what I'll be watching while BR goes into its 4-days hiatuses before it's over T_T

It's always about surrounding noise when filming, though, isn't it? As in, if they can't film on a sound stage, (and sometimes even IF they film on a sound stage, particularly for costume dramas), the ambiental noise is way too much to be filtered out, so they re-do the sound in the studio later.

In modern dramas, the actors themselves usually re-do their own lines in voice-dub, if they're good enough in Mandarin and have no particularly strange accent, but I guess sometimes the producers want a certain voice/range etc, so the VA takes over.

It's not a big deal usually, it's just how the industry works.

It's more like it's "unpossible" grammar and some words are always mistranslated (even Gao Yang's name keeps coming up as Levin, no idea why, or the very regular "xia*/okay comes up as "row" LOL, Mr. Gao becomes Miss Gao etc.) It is a major headache to try and re-order the sentences or phrases so that they make sense, but it's not impossible in the end.

I guess it's all about if you do want to go to that trouble. Some parts of the TL can be very hard to make sense of. It took me a few months to go through the series, when I usually take much less, particularly for a shorter one, but for me yes, it was worth the trouble. I have to say that by now I do recognize some common Mandarin words or phrases already though, so some meaning was clear to me even without the subs.

I don't know why MangoTV does this... I still hope a proper fansub appears, at least, for some of their dramas that are not as popular as the major IP ones, but pretty good themselves.

And just when WenJie was all ready to own it all up. Now the other cop is just throwing accusations around and being suspicious based on WJ's background, and LJ can't even go back to their easy friendship and just ask WJ to just trust him on this one...

It's going to become an ugly mess if they follow WJ to the exchange and he gets caught in the whole ring thing. His friends are both involved too, now, and he'll have more pressure points to offer the bad guys to push on :(

I have a bad feeling about where it's all heading...