Skibbies

Hahahhahaha I love the way you write! I saw someone else describe Li Yitong's characters as always radiating Mother Teresa energy even in dark stories (like this one or Bloody Romance), so she can be bland and uninteresting. I think she might have had to be because gray characters aren't really ok by NRTA, but she definitely could show bit more conflict or they could have kept her quirk somehow.

The drama is definitely messy messy lives of inner court through eyes of FL, much like Held in Lonely Castle (Serenade in Peaceful Joy's book) was looking at tragedy of imperialism through eyes of a eunuch. I feel like this drama on paper could have so much better. If Feng Nong/scriptwriter could bring her writing in the beginning or her passion when writing Crown Prince's arc to other arcs, if the plot wasn't so weirdly misogynistic (?), if they could have kept the rebellion plot (I'm not sure if they got deleted due to trying to air on TV or is it just big budget drama gets more scruitinisation, Imperial Coroner's entire plot is technically related to rebellion but it got away unscathed, yay for small budget dramas?)

Wasn't Li Zefeng amazing in Winter Begonia too? :P I first noticed him in Go Go Squid, his character was one of the more complicated ones of the drama and he played it pretty well. He got more popular with Nothing but Thirty, where he played a terrible character but was very charismatic, I skipped out on that drama though cos it had too much that would sent me raging. He was supporting in fair few big dramas, and will be in few more slated to air dramas, He's lead in one of the celebratory dramas airing at the moment, but it's not being watched by many so I don't even know how he did there. The only thing i heard about the drama was criticism of Zhou Ye's acting (Word of Honor's Ah Xiang) so oof.

yeah that's what i mean! fandom doesn't like it cos ML doesn't have enough screen time and the romance is terribly written (?). I wanted to watch it cos i heard good things about the crown prince plot + i like that actor, but.....at the same time I think i'd be really annoy at the story if i watch it LOL.

court lady is also weirdly historically accurate apparently, which is kind of hilarious considering how outrageous it is. (i still haven't seen it and likely won't now, but knowing this amuses me.) it's also the drama that's getting the most view count despite its messy messy story and characters + not very good feedback in fandom, so there's a lot of people that's just watching and popcorning at the show.

in my experience both iqiyi and tencent usually do dramas in count of 6 because of the release schedule. they dump 8 ep on the first day to attract the audience, update for 2 days/2 ep, so it's 12 ep first week. so your 36 ep have 4 weeks for vvip, 5 for vip, maybe 6 for non vip. it's not overly short but not too long either.

they'll experiment with the release schedule every now and then. like several dramas this year had more update days in the first week to attract maximum amount of audience. and they have changed schedule from 3 to 4 days sometime to make sure enthusiasm for the drama doesn't go down too much. (but that's usually for dramas that's 40+)

iqiyi's thriller series last year was 12 ep and had like 2/2/2 and then 6 ep vvip/on demand on third day, vip wait till next week to finish, so its schedule was super short and pirate videos were everywhere. 24 ep dramas that i watched last year were like 2 update days/week, but vvip wasn't as wide spread.

youku is bit different because they are bit smaller than the other big two, and have wonkier schedule. their non vip is usually much longer to attract more sub members. i think their webdramas are also in count of 6 though lol.

Oooh I see why you were feeling mix about the ending and big bad. I did find it somewhat anticlimatic, but it was still satisfactory for me. I guess because the drama felt like it was focused on the how and why, and not who? So while I was surprised that they revealed the big bad so early, I wasn't disappointed. The mystery never invited me to really guess who and how and why, or maybe I'm just used to being an audience in mysterys series LOL.

You guys are all more elaborate than me and wrote fantastic reviews, so I don't think I'll write one, feel free to dump my simplified explanation of the background :D For those that might want to learn bit more and understand Chinese, there's:
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/226319758/
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/225733640/
https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Mq4y1E7jb (video explaining historical background and major characters' rather complicated relationship. quite a bit of SPOILERs!! Video spoils up till ep 24, danmu spoils the ending.)

the episode length is actually shorter than your usual dramas, so that's kind of curious. longer might scare off lot of audience actually. i thought it was a budget reason too tbh.

Lurk is def gold standard for its genre. I need to watch it sometime.

Q4 i know they have light on thriller series, i remember seeing some dramas slated for it too but they were like....dramas that haven't finished fllming/just did, don't remember anything big.

I'm actually surprised the regulation period started this early. May Fourth is good time to start, sure, but I thought it'd only affect tv dramas (omg tv drama ratings look horrible rn). I expected June ~ July then mid Sept to mid Oct. Oh well. You're right about flare ups of covid, at least it's encouraging reluctant people to get vaccinated.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts on it :D

I mostly like espionage dramas from the period tbh, and there's quite a few classics on cnet. 潜伏，悬崖，暗算，黎明之前，more recently 风筝, last year's 风声 was apprently good too (and finally two excellent FL front and centre!) Imperial Coroner's director's 面具 was pretty well received too. (I haven't watched them! My mum watches them tho, the list is general rec list I gathered from cnet, oh wait I've seen Zhang Luyi's 红色 and Wallace Chung's 一触即发, but they are little different)

iQiyi is kidding themselves if they want to dump all their dramas in Q3. Isn't July still celebatory period, and are they sure September and October isn't? XD

winter begonia is def one that might cause you heartache, but also pretty worth it. *patpatpats*

China actually make these kind of dramas every year, they usually don't have young or popular actors in them though.

ok I like both of those well enough, but I also don't think they are good fit for NiF3 honestly? hahaha Ode to Joy isn't good enough to add to your list tbh, it has good points but plenty of flaws. If I'd rec female centric modern drama that's well written, it'd be Qin Lan's We Are All Alone and recently finished Rational Life. but leave that till you run out of stuff to watch :P

The Rebel had been in rumour mills for cctv8 since like....February, now it's pretty good time to release it, wait till the current one finish I guess hahaha.

That's my estimate anyways, 6 months to a year is regular time for historical dramas, more if it's planning for tv release but I doubt they are shooting for that with Luoyang. IDK what's up with Zhao Ge honestly.

Blossom Shanghai idk if it even finished filming, if it's Wong Kar Wai directing, see you in 5 years I guess. Shen Yan (My Best Friend's Story) was going to direct the drama version but the schedule clashed so I think he dropped out, HE films dramas really fast.

Dreams & Glory is Dragon TV's celebatory drama, I don't have lot of hopes for it because uhhh Huang Xiao Ming. Like I liked him in NiF2 and Winter Begonia (do rec btw, republican tho), but uhhh still hesitant. People also have specific image of historical figures, and HXM's public persona might make it hard for people to get into the story.

I haven't heard anything! mhm I know they have plans for it, even though I don't think they should make another sequel. NiF2 didn't do that well commercially mhm. I've only ever see Ode to Joy's casting rumours (3 season, new cast new story). I'm actually interested in a project Madhouse's director was involved in but it looks like it's in development hell.

rumour has it JoL s2 script had to be rewritten rip, ML's actor is busying filming police drama atm.
Jin Dong, you haven't watched Disguiser, try that! Jin Dong's popularity is from that and it's his best performance IMO + best character.

Luoyang just finished filming so it'll be in post production for at least half a year. Ancient love poetry and Golden Hairpin both seem to be stuck on vying for banners and promo stuff so that's they haven't been released (rumour has it anyways, Golden Hairpin def passed NRTA)

I have real low hopes for big dramas these days tbh, it doesn't stop the small budget dramas airing, all three platforms just dumped some, so it's ok.

p.s. oh oh you've seen advisor alliance, that director directed awakening age! idk if that's a plus for you because it was for me, I think he's my favourite cdrama director *gushes forever*

I was huge fan of Daylight Ent after Nirvana in Fire for few years, not as much anymore, since they keep making dramas on topic I'm ambivalent towards + disappointing dramas (for me), but I still watched i think most of their dramas lol. Come poke me if you need more recs :D I don't have good historical from this year though lol, they are either old historical or they are modern dramas. Have fun drama watching :)

Going Rural was a sister drama to a 2014 rural drama, so that should tell you how long the drama was stuck in production.. Jin Dong fans didn't have too much hope for it tbh. Oh just heads up, Joy of Life s2 still haven't started filming yet, so if that worries you, you can sit on it bit more lol.

The latter, mystery front and center and romance is a side thing :) So no worries, keep watching.

it's mostly a detective drama, the comedy is sprinkled and more natural type than slapstick. Romance is also a side thing and mostly slow burn (although when they want, they could progress pretty quickly). So I guess depends how you much you like the main group solving mysteries? I don't find the mysteries super impressive, but I do like how stuff are connected

Do check out Minning Town if you like Daylight Entertainment. *waves flag for Awakening Age too* I know the sypnosis scares people off, but I swear it's 10/10 in terms of directing, script and acting, it's more interesting than it sounds ;___;

For the three you have, I'd say Joy of Life then Longest Day in Chang'an, haven't seen Secrets of Three Kingdoms. iqiyi and tencent's dramas have been bombing Q2 so lol.

ever night 1 had the most hilarious product replacement I've seen! they had pizza hut, some cosmetic thing and zi hai guo/self heating hot pot. they tried really hard to incorporate it into the drama and it works for the most part, but it still makes me laugh every single time.

I didn't find it rushed to be honest? They resolved the main plot and everything pretty well? maybe 5mins epilogue would be better but in the land of rushed and bad endings of cdrama, this drama is a pretty good ending IMO.

oh yeah that has 100 ep, i watched like two ep and quickly forgot about it oops. Will pick it again, one day (TM)

I haven't read the book but you might want to lower your expectation, since this script is work of director + scriptwriter + author (who's also scriptwriter) after 3 years. I get the impression that the director's attention to detail and work in filming serious dramas/cctv dramas have lot of influence on its historical basis.