Skibbies

The book is a lot of fun as well, book otp is at each other's throat half the time, they have really fun dynamic. but yeah, book zhiwei doesn't really blame herself as much for all the deaths between them.

Very late but for political dramas (minimal romance), Advisor Alliance and its direct second half Growling Tiger & Roaring Dragon for retelling of three kingdoms period from an unconventional pov, it should be Nirvana in Fire-ish level seriousness. Three Kingdom (2010) would be the more well known Romance of Three Kingdoms adaptation.

Palace of Desire should be subbed on youtube too, it's about Princess Taiping, daughter of Wu Zetian, the drama is somewhat play-like with the dialogues and events, it creates a very distinct feel. It has some of my favourite dialogues about power and women in it. The drama is from 2000 though so IDK if you are okay with that.

If you can handle drier politics, I loved Qin Empire 2 (Qin Empire: Alliance?), which should be on Netflix. It's my favourite of the installments because it focus on the more diplomatic side during Warring States and rise of Qin. 1 & 3 are good too but they had bits I didn't like as much. 1 is much more serious in tone and war mongering, and it took forever for me to get into it. 3 is same tonal wise as 2 and it was shot back to back with 2, the pacing slowed down in second half though.

Definitely dry politics but no.1 political drama rec from chinese audience would be Ming Dynasty 1566, I believe it's on youtube subbed now. It's entirely fictional but depict engaging story about corruption in Ming, with many factions and different agendas, filled with subtle dialogue and schemes.

while I really like the book ending and just the book in general, book zhiwei is a completely different person from drama zhiwei, much more vicious and less righteous, book zhiwei just wanted a peaceful quiet life.

awww, well hope the second time work bit better for you, if not, there's slew of dramas anyways :D

Did you watch killer is also romantic!! it has the same director, and I like the gimmick more

Just a note, 5th is weasel grave which is a prequel, the drama adaptation was badly received domestically, I haven't read the novels and watched it so I can't comment on it. 6th is being filmed right now, 7th is wrath of time and another prequel (set in republican times, I think circa 1920s to 30s-ish, while this series' main timeline is around 80s I think?), 8th is the last book but idk if they'll adapt it.

The 2015 movie remix elements from 1 - 4 or something like that and is fairly decent too.

Oh oh that make sense, I liked Groundhog Day and Source Code. 15 ep is way too much repetition if movie is too much for you. For Samsara, wasn't it cos she ends up with book!SML in the end? It'd be odd to switch ML midway in dramas, I get they gave drama ML lot more scenes so the audience will like him, but does he really have to vomit blood? Huan Rui (production company + ML's agency), you don't need to repeat L&R for people to like him!

I haven't really seen Samsara's book fans, they must have been drown out by other complaints (the plot is mediocre or something). I think Heart of Genius' book fans wanted a Hikaru no Go adaptation, which I really loved, but it had really limited audience. This drama clearly went for a pretty wide audience, like I think lot of parents with kids might be interested in this. Hope your friend likes it too, and hope the plot means that lot of people will pick it up in the remaining months.

What's your issue with Reset lol? I have issues with its pacing, but it works fine for me if I look at it as "daylight drama focus on supporting characters", cos that's what they excelled at. It's probably for the best they skipped over the why, since it'd probably get nitpicked by audience familiar with the genre, so it'd drop the rating critically and more importantly, NRTA would probably throw it back at them and force them a dream ending which would tank it more.

There were so many people mad about stealing source code + uploading then getting the police called plot, so it was soooo weird when they just made up and even had a date an ep later??? I guess they saw it like a game/competition, so everything is fair game?

ZZF got lot of criticism for her portryal (they thought her acting was worse than they thought it'd be?) and it definitely took me quite few episodes to get used to her, I'm not huge fan but she did serviceable job for me, and I did like her scenes with Lei Jiayin. The production team actually made a lot of the maths bits lot more interesting than I thought, so applause to them.

It's not doing as well international cos all three main leads are relatively new faces to lot of international cdrama watchers, cos they don't really do historical romcoms, or even modern romcom (ZXC did a few good job). Domestically, the TV ratings actually bombed hahaha, but cctv 8 okay the project (they didn't just buy it, I think iqiyi had semi long term plan with cctv 8 with the big dramas), I guess to draw some younger audience? Oh well it always seemed like a webdrama kind of series, it did ok viewcount wise I think? But I'm sure they expected more. TV ratings and viewcounts all continue to nosedive due to short video format.

Oh oh, novel fans hated all the change, starting from changing E=MC^2 to a^2+b^2=c^2?, oh come on it's not like the first formula trigger time travel or parallel world *rolls eyes*. I sort of get why they are upset the drama is vastly different, since core focus is different, and there's abrupt plot points *cough* what's with Ji Jiang's sudden one sided crush? But it got really ridiculous, the drama was criticised from director to scriptwriter to three main leads, wow. I'm used to book fans complaining, but it's usually only in the beginning then they ignore you, but this one persisted after the drama? They even go to drama's douban discussion group or like drama fans saying they like it to yell about how "If you think the drama is good, you've never read the book and have no taste." it's wild.

I guess it depends how much you like parallel world + time travel and focus on familial love + picking up your life from somewhat of a mess? Skipping and speed watching might help. I personally feel 2 - 9 and rest of the drama could feel very different, thus my encouragement.

Strawberry Pei Zhi's character is very restrained, so I think that's why, heck I think Cheese (adult) Pei Zhi seem better since he's more outward with his emotions? I think ZXC did decently in the latter ep (29 to 32?). I dislike the questionable plot during 19 to 20, it's just way over the top? I get the reasoning but I think they didn't need to be so extreme? But lol the otp have no issues with it, so I was all "ok i don't get it but u genius do u". That said, I do like that they seem to sync in thoughts? I wish there's more bits about that. For the chemistry between the actors, they seem to have more chemistry in behind the scenes than in the drama, so I can only assume director did it on purpose????

Overall it's largely the parallel universe and how they round things off that intrigued me the most, then familial love and alzheimer's, it'd be great if I liked the otp more but romance have relatively little time, I sort of handwaved it. The kids arc feel almost like a different drama cos it's the closest to the novel lol, the rest have lot of drama original setup that makes it vastly different and it shift the focus to suspense and intrigue instead of maths! inspirational! Sometimes I wonder if they should have shorten the arc/change it more so the different tone isn't so apparent mhm.

Oh oh, I love Wang Shengdi, but she felt like a different person from Zhang Zifeng, she was more go getter and inspirational-y. I guess you could say in cheese world, she could change to a more ideal future + she rediscover love for maths, while strawberry's had lot to deal with, but it was jarring sometimes. I love little Hua Juan but he look so tiny next to Wang Shengdi who's going through growth spurt. Boy is 2 years younger and it's really apparent, it's bit weird his adult actor tower over everyone tbh.

i think it's family > suspense > romance. The otp do spend fair amount of time together but a lot of it is plot/studying, actual romantic bits amount to total of maybe 1 ep?

Do keep going, the kids finish at ep 9, I do find parts of 11 to 14 slow though since it's getting used to adult actors and establishing their relationship then.

it's actually a watch tower looking out for fire hazard apparently, built 100 years ago, so they replicated it for filming purpose.

Mostly, I think it goes against the drama's theme of "not cheating".

yeah it's a shame she distanced herself from dad. it looks like she's too busy for friends as well, which is little strange since i think Qi Qi and Zheng Tianming are her efforts, not strawberry lzx's.

ahhahaha yeah everyone are always surprised by his age, in drama he's 44 to 45.

iirc, it was some kids mimicked "time travelling" in early transmigration dramas and died, so there was an uproar and they banned it, then a while later, writers start to think of ways to bypass it.

I think Reset is a more well told story with the focus on supporting cast, there are minor complaints about "why" they time travel that the drama decide not dwell on, which is fair since that's not its focus.

This drama have more elements to it, its main focus is on I think family and suspense, the central focus is on time travel/parallel world, which I think they rounded off decently well. Do note the starting quarter (2 - 9) are played by child actors and is more inspirational than the rest of the drama, so there's bit of story focus change.

I think it's time travel + parallel world. I'm happy to see cheese lzx and she lived like a boss.