ShortCircuit

You're already watching The Untamed (according to your list), that and Word of Honor are the best from China. Another very good Chinese BL is The Sleuth of Ming Dinasty, but as usual, it's Chinese, so the hints are all you're going to get.

From Japan, you've already watched the dorama His - watch the follow-up movie His, too, it's better than the drama. Also, No Touching at All is very good and follows the manga closely. If you can take more than just BL - that is, quite a few sex scenes, then The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese (based on the same-titled manga) is pretty good too.

From Thailand, I see you've already watched 1000 Stars and ITSAY&IPYTM, so you definitely should complete their top 3 best dramas with Theory of Love. And JUST for the campiness of it all, try YYY. The main story and the MLs are not that great, but watch it for the antics of Queen Porpla. He's a hoot.

From SK there are mostly movies to be watched, and most of them are ending in tears, so no recs there, unless you really want to become sad. But there's a short almost-BL comedy that never seems to be watched enough, that I HIGHLY recommend to everyone, called The Boy Next Door. It doesn't pretend to be BL, but the difference is so small it's measured in nanometers.

He, Aue and the woman chef - forgot her name - have a backstory. They were in a competition or something together and maybe none of them won, but Aue seems to have come on top anyway somehow.

For villains, it's not enough that they win, other people definitely must lose. So this one's motive for this time is to make Aue a laughingstock, not just randomly put him in a contest and let him try to win - and lose - again.

Thank the powers that be for small favours, the way the episode was set up AND if this was a yaoi manga, then definitely Viphob would have made Aue "pay with his body" in order to save Aek from his evil intentions, and that would have been the death strike for this series.

(Don't believe me on yaoi manga plots if you'd rather... but that, sadly, is very much a trope whenever there's talk about taking revenge. It even made its way into yaoi anime - has anyone seen "Gravitation"? Less graphic than in the manga, but still left in. So at least they didn't go THERE with it.)

I looked up Goodbye My Princess... it's a sad ending, isn't it? I'm in a bit of a down mood, I don't want angst right now, LOL. And I DO like for the characters I grow to like to be alive at the end of the story. But I'll keep an eye out for CXX for future, happy-ending dramas :D

I don't think they would have dared to make WWX darker - if they could, they would have moved closer to the novel and involved all those corpses that keep going around WWX (like the women corpses in the inn when he meets LWJ, that in the drama was switched to a meeting with LXC and no corpses LOL. Or the part with the child corpse that munched on Wen Chao's hands in the final revenge scenes... yeeesh!! I am not certain I'd have wanted to see them, though I did manage to go through them in the novel. He is definitely more gray than what could come through in the drama, and still, Xiao Zhan - and the script - did him justice. )

Xiao Zhan is definitely a gem of an actor - he's handsome, he has the acting skills needed and he's mature enough to be able to switch roles when he needs to. I've watched - so far - TU, Douluo Continent, The Wolf, parts of Joy of Life (that one needs a lot of attention, and my life's been hectic in the past few years, I can't concentrate for so long - plus, it adds the highlight of a good drama waiting for me, if no new XZ dramas come around soon), and Jade Dynasty. I haven't watched the short movies, his TV show episodes (I'm not a fan of TV shows), and Oh My Emperor (because the trailer doesn't look promising) and Fight Breaks Sphere. I'm waiting for new material from him, mainly TOOL and The Longest Promise, though it'll still be a while until they're released. I'm just happy he's still in the industry and so there WILL be dramas from time to time. I'm willing to wait.

As for Douluo Continent, I rather liked it, but more for the ensemble cast and their progress. I haven't read any of the volumes of the novel or watched the donghua (except for the first episode), and it looks like it's a whole gigantic beast slowly moving along. I don't think the donghua is finished yet, LOL. That's a huge time investment, wow. So I'm pleased with DC, and I would appreciate more seasons, but at the same time, I'd rather have him appear in something new and maybe more modern? Except for TOOL I don't think he has any modern dramas (with the exception of the military one, and that one too seems a bit strange). He should be able to get interesting plots, maybe this time he'll find something really challenging and interesting. I'm all ready for a police drama, for example, with him as a lead :D

Also, what the hell was that reaction? Is Aek homophobic?! The guy just tried his best to celebrate with him, didn't get violent, why the need to punch him? He would've understood the kiss was unwanted with words just fine.

The introduction of a "sophisticated" villain at this late time doesn't save the show from becoming a bore fest. I had some hope when the "contest" started but if they keep Aek and introduce Aue as a contestant, then what's the eventual end? There are only three eps left, at this point I don't even

Even with playing it at 2x speed I got three episodes behind LOL. Still sticking with it for Nuna.

He's the chemist who invented the drug the Chinese mob is trying to sell in South Korea in the first few episodes. Those tattoos on him are supposed to be the drug's formula. That is, if you're referring to the old man HJH visits in the hospital after we're told he (the old man) is going through a withdrawal. He doesn't say a lot, and had a place mostly in the first few eps when HJH met the Chinese and destroyed their new lab.

There was another old man saved from a secret hospital level that YJI took out and who ended up killed by Baek Mo Sa on a bridge. That old man was an information broker and former master spy of the SK, who used to deal mainly with NK and China, and so he was involved in some schemes some ten years back (when Baek Mo Sa first went "missing" after being sold to the NK intelligence.)

So is Hyun-Jo some kind of mountain spirit? It sure seems like there's a supernatural element to this. And the marks being left even though he's currently in a coma definitely point that way too. I just hope the ghostly thing the new girl met isn't him in an astral projection, LOL.

I am a mountain lover myself. I don't know how many of the mountain rescue action scenes are CGI (probably all), but the nature wideshots look like they're real and they're amazing. I'd be watching this if only for the mountains, because "Mountains, Gandalf!!!" :D

That, and JJH looks amazing, like always. I am really interested in her character - and I definitely hope in the end there'll be some magical remedy to her injuries and that Hyun-Jo wakes up. I mean, who wouldn't like a mountain spirit who actually goes after missing people?

And maybe the villain will turn out to be a mad ranger... or a gumiho :D (after all, if Hyun-Jo can see places where people are lost, who's to say there isn't someone actively hunting down people for spiritual purposes?)

I'm all for supernatural, let's go supernatural, as long as it doesn't turn too horror or gory!

So far, so good...

I don't think they planned it that way, but maybe they had to do some last-minute changes and it turned out like this. Or at least I hope that's the explanation. I am not happy with the way the relationship between WWX and JC didn't get mended.

But the official announcement on the ban and the rumours that preceded it in the industry definitely did not coincide - another danmei donghua, "Dinghai Fusheng Records", started airing in July and then since August randomly went on hiatus, once for a full month. Even now I don't think they're releasing episodes regularly, I've no idea how many are released, I've only seen 4 or 5. So maybe the pressure was on before the donghua was released, and they had to adjust to the new demands as fast as they could, so they mangled up the story timeline.

But then, for all I know, they planned it like this from the very beginning, I have no idea...

The implied common fault of (organisation/society/some group of people/etc) is a staple trope of spy/action/police dramas. So is the large cast with each person having their own particular reasons to act like they're acting. I've seen them in better productions, I am not interested in this one in particular, as it seemed not to be certain what it wanted to be in the end (or not convincingly enough for me, that is, again, this is all a personal opinion.)

But I still expected more of this drama, particularly after the first few explosive episodes. Oh well...

I watched this drama for the same reasons I watch many other dramas - it seemed interesting, it had a good start, it looked like it was going to tell a good story.

I do not need to be lead by the hand in order to make sense of the story, if the story is logical (or not too far removed from a logical plot, I am prepared to suspend disbelief for a while).

This drama didn't manage to tell a good enough (FOR ME) story. That doesn't mean to say that it couldn't have been a good story for other people - just that it wasn't, for me.

That being said, this one sadly has not much rewatch value for me, so I won't be spending 12 more hours in trying to give it the benefit of the doubt again. I'm happy that it is very good for other people - it's just not for me.

Soo Yeon's character is meaningless. I have no idea why she's main cast.

The whole plot was random - first they're fighting the Chinese mob, then NIS moles, then a secret organisation of FORMER agents (but in the end they're very much present-day agents), the organisation wanted to get a foothold in the drug, weapons and prostitution business, no wait, they wanted to fix elections in SK, HJH was fiercely hunting down anyone he found suspicious only to turn peaceful and (parental) love-conquers-all in the end (like seriously, he TRUSTED Baek Mo Sa just because YJI said she FELT there's still good in him? What's this, Return of the Jedi? The heck!

In the last episode, everybody started speaking in patriotic and people-loving little brave speeches, like they weren't backstabbing each other every chance they got, before, and oh, ethics and morals became all-important out of the blue. Like, what?!

And then the plot armours. Dammit. HJH should've been dead a dozen times if the NIS snipers or even the mob had any leeway from the script writer. Episode 11, the factory blow-out, should have been another good action scene, instead, it felt like it was a live-action CS reunion with one MC and the rest, cannon-fodder. Even the shootout sequences sounded fake. (Also, everybody went in fully armoured, but HJH went with not a lot on him, not even head gear because he's the ML and nothing can hurt him, the heck! It was probably meant to look cool but it was not.) And then, all those top-level terrorists BMS brought with him to the bank, what, none of them held a gun before, or if they did, they never shot it?! HJH and YJI went there and just started blasting and killing off enemies, with not a scratch on them until the final dramatic moment.

The first third of the drama looked way better than the last parts. Oh well. I had hopes. A lot of people seem to have liked it in the end, so I guess it did work out for more people. It's just that it really looked to be promising but then... didn't fulfill that promise. Or at least, not for me.

Had so much potential, didn't confirm it in the end, for me.

They had the extreme bad luck to be releasing while the ban on pretty much everything danmei came into force. It's a donghua, but I guess it's one of the most sucessful IPs, so it got a lot of attention. That's what I imagine happened to it, anyway - they toned down everything that would lead to an emotional upsurge while still keeping in some parts that would have made the fandom go crazy if they were missing - like LJ getting drunk and frisky, and the WangXian title.

I hope this doesn't bode ill for the next season of Scum Villain's Self-Saving System, when and if it comes... I want to keep watching that so badly, it's my second-favourite MXTX story.

Wait what, the bromance partner dies instead?! NOOO! :(

Edit, wait, Bai Lu's in it. Dammit. This is getting harder to resist...

Thank you for the rec! I actually wanted to watch it after finishing Handsome Siblings, because I felt Hu Yi Tian got short-changed with his character's plotline in that drama, but somehow I mixed it up with Ancient Detective (I think... I'm pretty bad with remembering drama titles, LOL) and that one turned me off anything detective for a while. Then other dramas got in the way :D I'll just have to give it another try :)

If you pinky promise they don't die, then I'll try at least the one with Xu Kai (just because it's him :D) Thanks for the rec!

You wouldn't have heard of it, because it might be a Freudian slip, LOL. I obviously meant You Are My Hero (I'll go correct it now). I feel so guilty now, LOL, like I've betrayed all the other actors I like :D

Zhan-ge, I didn't mean it!!! But Bai-ge is also so good looking, I couldn't help myself :D

There are main female characters, though they're not the main leads of the story (they are credited as support characters, but they're definitely very important to the plot). If by the end you've not empathised with YanLi and Wen Qing's storylines, then there's no help for it, LOL.

The BL is toned down due to censorship to just great bromance, so if you're not into actual BL, you could just ignore the 'ship and pretend they're just really good friends.

This is one drama that actually is worth the hype that surrounds it, so you could just give the first few episodes a try. Don't let the first two stop you - they're introducing a storyline that will follow the first half of the drama, and you need to give it time to get to where it's going to.

If you still decide to drop it, but still want to watch a nice historical/wuxia/xianxia cdrama...

- Joy of Life - very smart characters, plot comes first, good actors, pretty good development. There's some romance, and it's all straight.

- The Romance of Tiger and Rose - historical rom-com. It's not supposed to be too deep, but it's still highly entertaining. Also straight romance, and female-centered in more than one way.

- Ashes of Love - melodrama, love triangle (straight), very beautiful actors, excellent cinematography, great music.

But you could still give The Untamed a go - as a person who really digs wuxia/xianxia, there's still a huge difference between how this drama was shot and presented to most all of the rest of them, particularly in regards to how women are expected to act and speak, come to think of it. Have a go at it :)

I wanted to try a Republican era cdrama, but they have this bad habit of killing off MCs. I can't stand to fall for a great chara only for them to be wiped out in a blaze of glory, dammit. I've yet to read a spoiler that says this or that RE cdrama hero actually survives!!

My top ten... Well, I like romantic stories, good plot, character development, nice cinematography if they can have it, good music. So...

1. The Untamed (nothing compares). The story is amazing, the OST is extraordinary, I've never wanted to visit China more than when watching this drama - except for when watching The Wolf. I swear The Wolf's cinematography and filming locations are a whole character in and of themselves LOL. The MCs of TU are complex, lots of character development, and it doesn't hurt at all that Xiao Zhan has a killer smile and is a great actor (though TBH, WWX's story is so interesting, I think nobody could have failed to make him unforgettable.)

2. Love and Redemption. I didn't even like it in the beginning, and I still don't like parts of it (like the whole plotline of the sister and her lover. Though the bad guy involved with the sister did have a nice development in the end.) But it eventually won me over, mostly with the ML's story and with the soundtrack. It is a grander story than most other xianxia, and I still revisit it from time to time despite some problems I have with the last arc of the story, LOL.

3. Ashes of Love. This, mainly because of the Run Yu plotline. I like the MLs in the beginning, and even cared that they should end up together, but for me, in the end, it's all about Run Yu's story - that, and the soundtrack. "Upwards to the Moon" is a magnificent song.

4. Ever Night. I didn't expect to like it so much, in fact, I almost dropped it at first. But then... it grew on me. And I still remember the whole hilarious debacle of the Chicken Soup Letter, does anyone else? :D The soundtrack is also amazing, I really like the chemistry of the whole cast, and I definitely didn't expect for it to have such an impact on me.

5. The Sleuth of Ming Dinasty. It killed me dead with the cuteness. Imagine me flailing my hands around trying to find words to describe how cute it can get at times. Other than the cute, it's a good story (still waiting for the novel to be completely translated, not long now), and has extremely lovable characters. Even the genius/lecherous doctor gets extra points for being a nice guy. But my love is definitely reserved for Wang Zhi, Tang Fan and Sui Zhou, in that order. (One can never sing Wang Zhi's praises enough.)

6. The Romance of Tiger and Rose. Because it actually is funny, despite everything. The theatre of fruits is to die for!

7. You Are My Hero (Oops!). I like Bai Jing Ting. And the drama is pretty good, too. It tended to look too much like Descendants of the Sun from time to time, but it managed to be its own beast in the end.

8. Word of Honor. The censors were all asleep LOL. And Gong Jun really did his everything, and it shows. I've yet to read a Priest novel, but Faraway Wanderers would probably be the first, if I do... but now I'm scared the WKX in the novel is not the WKX I've come to like :D

9. The Legends. Because Bai Lu and Xu Kai have amazing chemistry (she tends to have amazing chemistry with her ML in all the dramas I've seen her in). The ending is a bit of an editing mess, but I did like the drama a lot.

10. Love is Sweet. Well, Bai Lu AND Luo YunXi, what's not to like? And everybody likes a good rom-com.

The Wolf and Douluo Continent should be in that list, too, but I've sweat tears of grief over them and left them out this time, LOL.

So looking at the top 10, I'm definitely a wuxia/xianxia lover more than a watcher of modern cdramas. Can't help it, the most interesting stories are historical fantasy ones :D