Skibbies

i actually only like the finance parts now even though they are really simple. I like a lot of base concepts about this drama, but wow why is it such a mess LOL

it's actually consistent though, too consistent so I'm unsurprised about it, really annoyed that's the way they decide to take the plot

One of my biggest issues with the drama is everything done by Yizhi is spun in positive light, there's some rare moments where he admits he's wrong, but I wish that was explored more. oh well, I found all the business stuff were resolved ways too easily

Lizi is westernly educated and Yizhi is more open guy, she's more a regular lean towards conservative person, so I think it make sense.

I don't actually remember my history haha, but remember I watched bunch of CCP related dramas few months ago, so I finally have some sort of timeline/background knowledge between 1911 ~ 37, before it was just ??? uh LOL. Like the part about Cai Gongshi, I didn't know till I looked it up. The part about Manchuria I knew, but could never really tell you exactly why/when (they are also partially linked with Japanese occupation of Taiwan and Korea so those help)

Just a small note, there will be no episodes for today or tomorrow due to Oct 1st being China's national day, Hunan TV will be airing something else, the drama will finish on Oct 4th, I'll also note that the new schedule looks like there's 42 ep (due to news delaying broadcast lately making them cut off some earlier episodes' material I'm guessing), but we'll know on the day.

For people curious about the timeline, the timeline is VERY messy because the props conflict with each other, so I'm going to use stuff from dialogues mostly, I'll update after I catch up more:
Start - should be late 1926, but you could argue for 1925 too. Early meeting with Dao Qi references 1925 May 30th incident
ep 17 - around 1927 April 12th
ep 22 - Cai Gongshi got brutally killed, 1928 May 3rd
end of ep 24 - 1932 January 28th
(end of ep 28 - 1933 September 6th, this is newspaper prop though, I'm too lazy to check the props lol)
start of ep 32 - 1937 August 14th

She mentions dongbei when commenting why she dislike Japanese, so it could be after 1931, after Japanese invaded northeast China. I'd also note that even before 1931 (the timeline is iffy so it could be anywhere between 28 to 31), Japanese had control of several concession areas in various ports in China along with other countries through what's seen as unfair treaties. 1919's May Fourth movement was specifically about getting Chinese diplomats to refuse to sign over Qingdao from Germany to Japan despite China participated in WWI and was also on the winning side, to the point there were call to boycott Japanese products, this would have been the background she grew up in.

She does have very strong reaction, but I think it make sense to write her in, especially when she falls in love with someone half Japanese, so it's interesting to see how she reacts and how she comes around, dramatically speaking. I think they could have done it much more delicately, but compared to Lizi, I think she's actually written rather decently LOL.

EDIT: ep 22 references Cai Gongshi's death, which happened in 1928 May, there were conflicts between KMT and Japanese army, a lot of civilians were killed during this, so that might also explain her character's reaction. Bit further back, Japanese had effective control over parts of Manchuria (northeast China/dongbei) after first Sino-Japanese War (1895) + Russo-Japanese War (1905) + twenty one demands (1915), this could be seen as invasion even before 1931. Animosity towards Japanese just stems lot further back before Nanjing Masscare.

people got really upset at ep 18, I have lot of issues with the plot in general and that ep was definitely a low point, but I think it went up after that, better than even the first half of the drama in general, so do keep up with it! Definitely don't watch it just for the romance though lol.

they don't actually show him as a warlord though, they mention him as one, the portrait can be considered as glorification.

It airs in 11hrs, the counter is wrong, the drama didn't air on mid-autumn festival so it's off by two episodes. There's another break on Oct 1st, national day.

It's likely his father in law, who's a warlord.

he liked that girl in the beginning xD Right when Charlie and Lizi met.

Nothing comes off the romance :P There's no way to save it. I think the title is meant to be about his business and ethics + ideals. The romance is only cool on paper, I guess I could probably defend everything about it if you take out the abortion bit. *deep sigh*

Nothing comes off the romance :P There's no way to save it. I think the title is meant to be about his business and ethics + ideals. The romance is only cool on paper, I guess I could probably defend everything about it if you take out the abortion bit. *deep sigh*

I think the force parallel was to show how much of better person Yizhi is, even when it comes to his life partner encountering similar issue. I think he's propped up enough, and he stands fine as a parallel to Huang on his own.

To lesser extent, once Lizi give up on revenge + relying on her husband (ok she was more like using, but in parallel terms, it's relying), she goes into business mode, which is way better? It's just written really clumsily. omg I can't believe I'm trying to sort out this mess of a drama.

I'm also mad they made Huang that way, the actor had such charisma and gave him fantastic Cao Cao vibe, yknow yeah technically he's a bad person doing terrible things, but he has ideals and is doing what he think it's right in rough times, too bad the writer thinks otherwise.

I'm annoyed Yizhi isn't more flawed actually, a lot of things comes too easily for him. The earlier episodes made sense cos he's the fall guy, but then he was just...favoured by Huang, very quickly. He has ambition and sense of ethics, AND seem to solve all the problems his client encounters, really? With his wife, he's patient, trusting and understanding? Oh come on.

I probably prefer that she considered/is on her way to abortion, then got miscarriage, or she lost the baby when she was doing the revenge thing, it'd make her bit more sympathetic and play up the tragedy more. I was talking to another poster here about how it seems like the writer wanted to have a force parallel with Lan Jie for some reason, not necessary thank you!!

She definitely should have, time is really wonky in this drama, but if sufficient time had passed since he said "i'll take care of it', it's slightly more reasonable that she stopped waiting.

I honestly didn't drop it because i read spoilers beforehand so i expected it lol. As for her child, she did it not as punishment to him, she did it as punishment to herself, she's said "i'm not worthy" to Charlie. i can only speculate that in her mind, she need to finish her quest for revenge + her being in love with ML enough to sleep with him makes her feel guilty. Anyways, all this should be shown and it still doesn't really excuse the abortion.

lol, I like them as business partner, but they are very much playing up the love after divorce and her trying to spend time with Yizhi again. If I could erase the terrible lead up to divorce, I'd probably buy it, since it's meant to set them on a more level play field + fresh start.

I'm super late but it's not a recent rule, it was put in place after some kids committed suicide thinking they could reincarnate or something, the rule was in place I think 2012 or 2013? PRC in general went through huge efforts to rapidly stamp out superstitions and lot of old practices from imperial times, and that's usually the reason whenever you ask "why doesn't china do modern fantasy/supernatural/ghost" etc. Reincarnation technically falls under this too.

The whole thing is very dumb, but with huge population, there's bound to be some dumb people that believe dramas and other media, and somehow they'll blame all these stuff for everything that they think went wrong and expect government to do something, the government also responds even if they are outrageous. (e.g. parents once reported cartoons for having colourful hair that made kids have unrealistic expectations or whatever, and then said cartoon had to be taken down and redone with natural colours)

Here I was thinking how we are going to do 20 years in 40 episodes, when first 20 episodes seem to be stuck in 1926 to 1927, but oh, ep 24 it's 1932, that time skip was a little unexpected.

She knows that he didn't help Huang kill her dad, but she doesn't know if he helped him do anything else, like cover up? He does have bit of issue where he doesn't share information even though he knows she's up to something, that's his way of protecting her, but it's not what she wanted. The premise is pretty sound, the execution is absolutely terrible. I quite like her after the divorce LOL.

Yeah I don't know why that parallels was necessary? I mean Cheng Yizhi and Huang Ruhong parallel is enough to stand on its own. I love Lan Jie as a character, and I love that she stands up for herself, despite technically having no backup anymore, I think setting her up as parallel reduce her tragedy + her strength.

Yeah I think it would have been better if they took the abortion part away. But I guess to the scriptwriter, Yizhi wouldn't actually divorce on just failed suicide mission + her trying to kill Huang + accidental miscarriage, so it has to be abortion. He basically agreed because he felt immensely guilty, not just due to keeping secret so she went on failed suicide mission, but he thinks she hates him and he just forced the entire thing to happen. Divorce has to happen so they would be on more level play field and actually learn to communicate, but to get that to happen yikes.