she has the skin filter on lol, but it's not always on. i'm not sure why she picked this book since she's not…
I'm not overly bothered by the age if the plot doesn't keep mentioning it. Even if they do, she looks better than Qin Dynasty Epic's protag so i'll live.
I kind of wish Yang You Ning (the actor's name) wasn't here.....He really doesn't fit the role here omg.... and I think his acting is only okay. He has three drama airing at the moment so it's a lot.
Its still 上阳赋 on my Youku but China Zone and Viki are both calling it Rebel Princess in English.
rebel princess just sounds really weird and generic to me lol. oh well i don't know what i'm expecting from cdramas english title. where it's all "love this' "princess that". Monarch Industry would have worked too, even if it's technically kind of machine translated, but it sticks out!
I bet she is expensive as hell but it doesn't looks like she squander all the budget to herself, the quality looks…
she has the skin filter on lol, but it's not always on. i'm not sure why she picked this book since she's not within age range of the character at all, but it's fine, dramas do this all the time. The novel is fairly decent, but definitely doesn't last 68 ep, so i'm curious how they'll expand it, drama this long usually suffer from pacing issue so hope it'll do ok there.
Man this drama is taking rating hit every day guess viewers dont like the direction lately?
I'm not really liking the last couple of ep tbh, i think the writing tanked and I think the editing is all over the place, but there's a lot of drama coming up so hope it rounds off well. As for the rating lol, i don't think it ever helped me much, there's too little people rating it anyways.
ZAR lied time and time again and he always puts himself first. He lied to make himself look better with the booklet…
You might want the spoiler the comment.
YY is working hard by herself and she'll come to terms with herself. I don't think she needs SS's help, and I don't think SS like her much, considering the whole situation, it's nothing personal but that's how circumstances goes.
NS doesn't have a trust fund and her trip to italy, aside from trying to start a new chapter of her life + working through her grief, is her goodbye trip with her mum, her aunt specifically asked her. She will be back working to repay debts soon?
both the FL are unlikable; how can the FL blame her BF for rejecting to loan her gambling addict dad his hard…
ZAR lied time and time again and he always puts himself first. He lied to make himself look better with the booklet thing (WYZ put JNS' name there, not him, JNS knew and brushed it off because she didn't want to make a fuss). He didn't come clean about his ex. JNS specifically told him that she doesn't think it's a good idea for YY to stay over, he agreed and then he turns around and put her on the spot so she'd say yes, what the fuck? Could have argued about it? Or you know, could have actually pony up and find her a hotel? Also note that he repeatedly say he does all these things for JNS when she never asked for it and told him to ignore her dad being hella rude, he's doing a lot of things because he feels he's never good enough, that's a him issue, not her issue. This is all background stuff.
When the debt thing blew up, he didn't want them coming over, that's fair. In fact, most of his actions make sense. But he didn't want them going to the place HER MUM rented, it has nothing to do with him. So when she asked if he can loan some money, it's because he was specifically worried about himself, how he'd look, what other people would say. She was sorely disappointed that he wouldn't just say "i can't possibly shoulder that massive debt", but he used the "we have to think about us" excuse. Nobody actually expect him to shoulder the debt. You can contrast it with Suosuo, I mean normal people wouldn't try to shoulder the debt, but she considered renting a big place, she thought up excuse for them to move in with her. When shit goes down, you take care of people actually in trouble, not just yourself, yknow? and you definitely don't use "i'm doing this for you", which makes it extra gross.
All the characters are pretty flawed but they have their shining moments too.
True about him. I love LSS but I feel like her character..... Unlike Ni Ni's character who works LSS doesn't seem…
lss does get a lot of criticism, but she got them before as well. she actually got fair amount of praise for this drama because I think she fits the character. her character def was meant to be trying to hold everything together till someone else could come and handle things (she had that crying under the sheet scene). Ni Ni excel in crying scene and suosuo tends to show her emotion much more, so it's a big contrast.
True about him. I love LSS but I feel like her character..... Unlike Ni Ni's character who works LSS doesn't seem…
she's been sheltered all her life and she's still in school. I actually like nansun more than suosuo, because the scriptwriter didn't smooth out suosuo's part, so her part have all these issues even though her personality is more my type. I like the way Nansun handled the Yuan yuan situation. While she has been disappointed time and time again by ZAR, she didn't make a big deal out of things, she brushed off the little lies he said to make himself look better. Then after Yuan yuan, she tried to have pretty calm talk with him, and ended things pretty swiftly once she felt she had enough.
I'm so excited we are at major turning point of the story. also BYE ZHANG ANREN, good god i hate his character. I know a lot of his actions make sense, and I'm happy the writer didn't make him one dimensional but I still really really dislike him.
It's a terrible mock up of another photoshoot, Wu Junmei and Chen Chong's figaro cover shoot. I think the initial poster for this drama look better than this one tbh.
I'm aware, but that show is different because it's practically an original show despite being technically a gossip girl remake. This one has a source novel, while cdramas tend to make lot of changes when adapting, it's usually towards the other way, not towards GL. Production team is very different too, dear missy's will specifically tailor their shows to cater to certain markets. (my huckleberry friends got its ending re-edited after it was terribly received, hikaru no go‘s ending was filmed specifically for fanservice). I'm happy someone is taking a step towards it, but that's not this show is all I'm saying.
1. Timeline for the drama (mostly death dates, but sometimes certain important events too, not all events were…
1. Rumour has it Lao Ai was gifted to Zhao Ji because he had a big *ahem*. Big enough that he could put it into wheels and spin them. so u know that awkward juggling scene at his introduction, lot of people took it as euphemism for this.
2. Lord Long Yang is a lover of the previous Wei King, who died in 238 BC, so a couple years before he appeared in this drama. People remember him because one of the phrases/euphemism for gay (especially in historicals) is lit "long yang hobby/kink" (long yang zhi hao/long yang zhi pi), there's like two other phrases like this (duan xiu/fen tao)
Story has it that one day, Wei King and him went fishing, Lord Long Yang started crying after catching 10+ fish, he was really happy at first, but as he fished bigger fish, he'd throw away the smaller ones. He's afraid that the king will do the same to him since there's lots of pretty people in the world. In order to comfort him, the King ordered no one should talk about pretty people or they shall be executed.
1. Timeline for the drama (mostly death dates, but sometimes certain important events too, not all events were…
At the start of warring states (400ish BC), only Chu had a king, all the other states had dukes. Qin got their first king in Qin Empire 2, so Qin Shi Huang's great great grandpa. By the time this drama started, all the states have kings 王 (wang), their first person pronouns is this lonely person 寡人 (gua ren) in the drama, the Zhou King is a king of heaven 天王 (tian wang), pronoun is alone 孤 (gu). Qin Shi Huang later specifically created the emperor title 皇帝 (huang di), first person pronoun 朕 (zhen). Huang & Di existed before, from mythical times (and in Shang dynasty, it's Di), Ying Zheng combined the two because he thinks he's as great as "three huang & five di" from the myths, and all the emperors followed him.
1. Timeline for the drama (mostly death dates, but sometimes certain important events too, not all events were…
Qin: Ying + Zhao or Ying + Qin (debatable) Zhao: Ying + Zhao Chu: Mi + Xiong Han; Ji + Han Wei: Ji + Wei Yan: Ji + Yan Qi: Gui + Tian (Jiang + Lv in Spring & Autumn) Zhou dynasty: Ji
One of the two surnames are xing 姓, which started from matriarch society, you can sort of see it as people from the same "tribe". Widely used xing at the time such as 妫 gui, 姬 ji, 姜 jiang, 嬴 ying all have the character women 女 in its character. In Warring states, it was used to figure out who you can't marry (can't marry someone that share the same xing). It's generally not used, unless you are a woman or getting married.
Side note, apparently they could also add characters in front of xing to note you are first son, second son, third son's daughter. So Meng Jiang Nv 孟姜女's last name is Jiang, meng just means she's the first son's daughter? That's not necessary how the legend goes, because when it got to late Warring States, it was all messed up, which we'll get to. I'm just using it as an example because I always forget her last name is Jiang. Married women might have their husband's fiefdom or posthumous title added in front of their xing (I only recall Spring & Autumn ladies as example though.)
shi 氏 came into play because once population got big enough, people wanted to differentiate themselves, so they used their fiefdom, rank, position to say ok my branch is different from all those other people, thus it's to denote their nobility and heritage. Poor people don't have them. Men generally use shi + name or titles.
BUT, if you are royalty (within 3 generation of the duke/king), you don't use shi. You use kingdom + duke/king/prince/king's grandson + name. so technically Ying Zheng is Qin King Zheng (and the drama's chinese subtitles does do this). Ji Dan is Yan Crown Prince Dan. Han Fei can also be Han Prince Fei. Shang Yang from Qin Empire 1 is actually a prince from the country Wei 卫, not to be confused with 魏 Wei Kingdom, so he's called Wei Yang initially, Shang is from his fiefdom that he gets later in the drama. 卫 is a small kingdom, by the time our drama started, it's a vassal state of 魏. 卫 have two other very notable people, Jing Ke (the assassin) and Lv Buwei (also judging by his Jiang + Lv, his ancestors were from Qi I guess?)
Ji is an incredibly huge xing, apparently Zhou dynasty had 71 countries/states, and 53 of them were Ji LOL. Han + Wei + Zhao used to be one kingdom, Jin in Spring & Autumns, and basically the three families had a coup and killed royalty + other powerful families at the time which marked start of Warring States, and they just used their own shi to name their country.
Qin actually got its fiefdom not long after Zhao got theirs, so in some historical text, Ying Zheng's family have Qin as shi. By the time Zhao family got shi, Qin's branch were already 5 or 6 generation away, so totally unrelated. The reason everyone think it's Zhao is because....Sima Qian's Record of Historian (90 BC, so 100ish years later) called Ying Zheng "Zhao Zheng", thanks a lot dude! Ok granted, apparently Qin ancestors insisted their shi was Zhao for awhile, I guess Qin wasn't spiffy enough at the time. But they had a notable duke in Spring & Autumn, long before Zhao had a notable duke, so you'd think Qin would be good enough to be shi? Interestingly enough, Sima Qian doesn't call anyone else from Qin "Zhao + name", so plenty people don't think Qin's shi is Zhao. There's some speculation that Ying Zheng needed a fake name while he was still stuck in Zhao, or because he's 4th gen royalty while in Zhao, he needed shi, and they just used where he was born/living, then people sort of extrapolated his shi and backtraced his ancestors when they shouldn't have. It's all a mystery and not very clear.
As for why we call him Ying Zheng now, it's because Qin dynasty started merging xing + shi (xing shi is what surname is in modern chinese, just like ming + zi, name + courtsey name is given name in modern chinese). Of course, nobility still used shi, but by late Western Han (200 years later), people start mixing them up, so everyone is all oh yeah Qin Shi Huang is called Ying Zheng. I have NO idea what Ji Dan is about, so I'm going to handwave it. Qin Empire 2 & 3 had Qu Yuan, a well known poet, but he's named Mi Yuan in it, and I looked it up at the time, but only understood they were the same person and he had two last names. Now I get it, Mi Yuan is totally wrong for the time period! Lord Changping/Mi Qi is also wrong, drama!
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I kind of wish Yang You Ning (the actor's name) wasn't here.....He really doesn't fit the role here omg.... and I think his acting is only okay. He has three drama airing at the moment so it's a lot.
YY is working hard by herself and she'll come to terms with herself. I don't think she needs SS's help, and I don't think SS like her much, considering the whole situation, it's nothing personal but that's how circumstances goes.
NS doesn't have a trust fund and her trip to italy, aside from trying to start a new chapter of her life + working through her grief, is her goodbye trip with her mum, her aunt specifically asked her. She will be back working to repay debts soon?
When the debt thing blew up, he didn't want them coming over, that's fair. In fact, most of his actions make sense. But he didn't want them going to the place HER MUM rented, it has nothing to do with him. So when she asked if he can loan some money, it's because he was specifically worried about himself, how he'd look, what other people would say. She was sorely disappointed that he wouldn't just say "i can't possibly shoulder that massive debt", but he used the "we have to think about us" excuse. Nobody actually expect him to shoulder the debt. You can contrast it with Suosuo, I mean normal people wouldn't try to shoulder the debt, but she considered renting a big place, she thought up excuse for them to move in with her. When shit goes down, you take care of people actually in trouble, not just yourself, yknow? and you definitely don't use "i'm doing this for you", which makes it extra gross.
All the characters are pretty flawed but they have their shining moments too.
2. Lord Long Yang is a lover of the previous Wei King, who died in 238 BC, so a couple years before he appeared in this drama. People remember him because one of the phrases/euphemism for gay (especially in historicals) is lit "long yang hobby/kink" (long yang zhi hao/long yang zhi pi), there's like two other phrases like this (duan xiu/fen tao)
Story has it that one day, Wei King and him went fishing, Lord Long Yang started crying after catching 10+ fish, he was really happy at first, but as he fished bigger fish, he'd throw away the smaller ones. He's afraid that the king will do the same to him since there's lots of pretty people in the world. In order to comfort him, the King ordered no one should talk about pretty people or they shall be executed.
Zhao: Ying + Zhao
Chu: Mi + Xiong
Han; Ji + Han
Wei: Ji + Wei
Yan: Ji + Yan
Qi: Gui + Tian (Jiang + Lv in Spring & Autumn)
Zhou dynasty: Ji
One of the two surnames are xing 姓, which started from matriarch society, you can sort of see it as people from the same "tribe". Widely used xing at the time such as 妫 gui, 姬 ji, 姜 jiang, 嬴 ying all have the character women 女 in its character. In Warring states, it was used to figure out who you can't marry (can't marry someone that share the same xing). It's generally not used, unless you are a woman or getting married.
Side note, apparently they could also add characters in front of xing to note you are first son, second son, third son's daughter. So Meng Jiang Nv 孟姜女's last name is Jiang, meng just means she's the first son's daughter? That's not necessary how the legend goes, because when it got to late Warring States, it was all messed up, which we'll get to. I'm just using it as an example because I always forget her last name is Jiang. Married women might have their husband's fiefdom or posthumous title added in front of their xing (I only recall Spring & Autumn ladies as example though.)
shi 氏 came into play because once population got big enough, people wanted to differentiate themselves, so they used their fiefdom, rank, position to say ok my branch is different from all those other people, thus it's to denote their nobility and heritage. Poor people don't have them. Men generally use shi + name or titles.
BUT, if you are royalty (within 3 generation of the duke/king), you don't use shi. You use kingdom + duke/king/prince/king's grandson + name. so technically Ying Zheng is Qin King Zheng (and the drama's chinese subtitles does do this). Ji Dan is Yan Crown Prince Dan. Han Fei can also be Han Prince Fei. Shang Yang from Qin Empire 1 is actually a prince from the country Wei 卫, not to be confused with 魏 Wei Kingdom, so he's called Wei Yang initially, Shang is from his fiefdom that he gets later in the drama. 卫 is a small kingdom, by the time our drama started, it's a vassal state of 魏. 卫 have two other very notable people, Jing Ke (the assassin) and Lv Buwei (also judging by his Jiang + Lv, his ancestors were from Qi I guess?)
Ji is an incredibly huge xing, apparently Zhou dynasty had 71 countries/states, and 53 of them were Ji LOL. Han + Wei + Zhao used to be one kingdom, Jin in Spring & Autumns, and basically the three families had a coup and killed royalty + other powerful families at the time which marked start of Warring States, and they just used their own shi to name their country.
Qin actually got its fiefdom not long after Zhao got theirs, so in some historical text, Ying Zheng's family have Qin as shi. By the time Zhao family got shi, Qin's branch were already 5 or 6 generation away, so totally unrelated. The reason everyone think it's Zhao is because....Sima Qian's Record of Historian (90 BC, so 100ish years later) called Ying Zheng "Zhao Zheng", thanks a lot dude! Ok granted, apparently Qin ancestors insisted their shi was Zhao for awhile, I guess Qin wasn't spiffy enough at the time. But they had a notable duke in Spring & Autumn, long before Zhao had a notable duke, so you'd think Qin would be good enough to be shi? Interestingly enough, Sima Qian doesn't call anyone else from Qin "Zhao + name", so plenty people don't think Qin's shi is Zhao. There's some speculation that Ying Zheng needed a fake name while he was still stuck in Zhao, or because he's 4th gen royalty while in Zhao, he needed shi, and they just used where he was born/living, then people sort of extrapolated his shi and backtraced his ancestors when they shouldn't have. It's all a mystery and not very clear.
As for why we call him Ying Zheng now, it's because Qin dynasty started merging xing + shi (xing shi is what surname is in modern chinese, just like ming + zi, name + courtsey name is given name in modern chinese). Of course, nobility still used shi, but by late Western Han (200 years later), people start mixing them up, so everyone is all oh yeah Qin Shi Huang is called Ying Zheng. I have NO idea what Ji Dan is about, so I'm going to handwave it. Qin Empire 2 & 3 had Qu Yuan, a well known poet, but he's named Mi Yuan in it, and I looked it up at the time, but only understood they were the same person and he had two last names. Now I get it, Mi Yuan is totally wrong for the time period! Lord Changping/Mi Qi is also wrong, drama!