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!
1. Timeline for the drama (mostly death dates, but sometimes certain important events too, not all events were…
ep 1: 259 BC, Ying Zheng born, start of Battle of Handan ep 1: 257 BC, Ying Yiren/Zichu escape Handan with Lv Buwei ep 4: 256 BC, Western Zhou lost in battle against Qin, end of Zhou Dynasty ep 4: 251 BC, King Ying Ji (Qin) dies at 75 ep 6: 251 BC, Zhao Sheng/Lord Pingyuan (Zhao, four lords of Warring States) dies ep 7: 250 BC, King Ying Zhu (Qin) dies at 54 after only 3 days of reign ep 8: 249 BC, Lv Buwei becomes chancellor ep 9: 249 BC, Qin conquers Eastern Zhou ep 13: 247 BC May, King Ying Zichu (Qin) dies at 35 after 3 years of reign, Ying Zheng ascends the throne at 13 ep 15: 245 BC, General Biao Gong kills 30k people during battle, gets stripped of his title ep 16: 246 BC, start constructing Zhengguo Canal ep 20: 245 BC, King Zhao Dan (Zhao) dies
ep 22: 241 BC spring ep 24: 239 BC, completion of Master Lv's Spring & Autumn Annals ep 19 ~ 26: 248 ~ 243 BC, Lord Chunping (Zhao) was held hostage in Qin ep 27 ~ 28: 241 BC, last time of five kingdoms fighting together against Qin (Qi isn't part of it because they were attacked some decades ago by other kingdoms together, and it's also geographically most far away from Qin) ep 30: 240 BC, General Meng Ao dies, Queen Dowager Xia dies ep 33: 239 BC, Cheng Jiao's rebellion fails and dies ep 36: 239 BC, Lao Ai gets promoted to Duke Changxin ep 38: 238 BC, King Xiong Wan (Chu) dies, Huang Xie/Lord Chunshen (Chu, one of the four Lords) murdered ep 45~47: 238 BC, Lao Ai's rebellion fails and dies, King Ying Zheng gains control of the court at 22 ep 48~49: 237 BC, Lv Buwei demoted and leaves the capital
ep 50 ~ 51: 237 BC, Ying Zheng kicked all the foreigners out under pressure from all his relatives/nobles, then recalled the order after Li Si submitted a brilliant argument, 谏逐客书 (jian zhu ke shu) could be required readings for kids in Chinese schools (not at all schools though) ep 53: 237 BC, Mao Jiao risked death to ask Ying Zheng bring his mum to the capital ep 58 ~ 60: 236 BC, Zhao and Yan at war, Qin went to "help" Yan and grabbed bunch of cities ep 60: 236 BC, King Zhao Yan (Zhao) dies ep 64: 235 BC, Lv Buwei dies ep 64: 229 BC (drama says 233 BC), General Huan Yi (Qin) dies ep 65: 236 BC (roughly), Zhengguo Canal complete ep 69: 233 BC, Han Fei (Han) dies
ep 69: 230 BC, Han King surrender to Qin, Han Kingdom conquered ep 71: 229 BC, General Li Mu (Zhao) dies ep 72: 227 BC, Zhao lost its last battle against Qin, Zhao King surrenders, Zhao Kingdom conquered ep 72: 227 BC, Queen Dowager Zhao Ji dies ep 73: 228 BC, Xiong Fuchu kills King Xiong You (Chu) and replaced him as King ep 74: 227 BC, Jing Ke fails to assassinate Ying Zheng, Ji Dan (Yan) dies to stop Qin's constant attacks ep 75: 225 BC, Qin floods Wei's capital Da Liang, Wei King Jia surrenders, Wei Kingdom conquered ep 76: 225 BC, Qin lost against Chu's army led by Xiang Yan (grandpa of later King of Western Chu Xiang Yu), Mi Qi/Xiong Qi betrayed Qin ep 77: 223 BC, Qin conquered Chu's capital, captured Chu King Xiong Fuchu, Mi Qi/Xiong Qi became Chu King but dies when Qin attack again, Xiang Yan (Chu) dies, Chu Kingdom conquered ep 78: (completely skipped over lol) 222 BC, Qin captured Yan King Ji Xi, Yan Kingdom conquered ep 78: 221 BC, Qi King Tian Jian surrenders, Qi Kingdom conquered, Qin ends Warring States, starts Qin dynasty and Ying Zheng becomes an emperor at 38
1. Timeline for the drama (mostly death dates, but sometimes certain important events too, not all events were dated though, mild spoilers) 2. Warring states nobility and their two surnames + why is Ying Zheng called Ying Zheng? 3. King's first person pronouns 4. Stuff the drama doesn't tell but cnetizens might have picked up (not really spoilers, just interesting trivia) re: Lao Ai (ep 20+?) & Lord Long Yang (Wei, super minor character, he's usually talking to the Wei King, ep 30+?) 5. Pacing comparison: partial relevant timeline taken from 1, [] is Qin Shi Huang (filmed in 2001, broadcasted in 2007, 33 ep) featuring Zhang Fengyi which covers Ying Zheng's entire life, first 2/3 of the drama (ep 1~22) overlaps with ep 1~78; [[]] is Legend of Lv Buwei (2001, 29 ep) featuring Zhang Tielin and Ning Jing, last 2/3 of the drama (ep 7~29) overlaps with this drama from ep 1~64, largely fictionalised so not a lot of check points.
I had hilarious hard time figuring out what Wei King's last name would be because they had two at the time. I…
Yeah I'm referring to the 2010 drama. I specifically watched the beloved 93 (?) version first because cnetizens consider it as a classic and I actually don't like it as much, partially due to me not recognising all these bearded men and they didn't label them! They refer to each other by titles or courtesy names so it was a Real Struggle. It's a closer adaptation to Romance of Three Kingdoms, so the characters are more black and white and there's some blatant dramatised bits. Anyways, I liked 2010 ver more even though some of it was paced little slower, I just love the characterisation and some of the acting. Cao Cao in both AA and Three Kingdoms were amazing so :D
As for why they don't make dramas like this, well it's huge production, that might not sell, and might not be even well received. Around 2014ish, the drama industry had a flood of internet giants investing that lead to more reliance on big data + using popular actors regardless of ability or affinity with character + messing up plot because they *think* it'd appeal to the audience more or shoving people in where they don't belong.
I have some bad news for you, the headwriter/creator of Young Blood is the scriptwriter for Joy of Life, and Snow Sword Stride and Dou Luo Da Lu. SSS and DLDL finished filming (s1, both novels are long enough for multi-season), JoL he should be done writing s2 but it's little up in the air. I'd hope he finish writing s3 soon as well since it's the one with season pre-planned and guaranteed success. There's other writers for Young Blood, but s1 he went over and edit them iirc, so he's fairly tied up atm. If he's done with s2 of JoL (filming is probably March, i heard May start date, several cast are tied up in something else), and YB have investors (they said they'll do s2 but it's mangotv, not tencent so this is more up in the air), he can probably do that now, I'd say half a year + filming, and if all goes well, we'd probably see it late 2022. His original plan for the story looks like it's tied to some historical events that might be annoying to get pass NRTA, and it looks like it might be a tragedy mhmmmmmmm.
Yeah that happens. i'm usually more wary of cdrama plagiarism issues, it's why I started peeking into douban, since popular dramas frequently have those issues (or they bomb the ending = =) They produce fair amount of xianxia every year, so you'll probably get them :D
I had hilarious hard time figuring out what Wei King's last name would be because they had two at the time. I…
They don't feel like a proper review though :( Criticisms are good if they are constructive, but I think only about half my criticisms are constructive LOL, the rest are just "well that didn't work for me and idk why". If I posted it to your review, I'd still get credit so I think it works?
I had hilarious hard time figuring out what Wei King's last name would be because they had two at the time. I…
The douban group was really really funny to follow, everyone wanted the score to drop and they kept memeing and making stickers out of screenshots. cnetizens tend to be much more critical to shows that call themselves "serious historical dramas", none of the popular semi-serious political dramas call themselves that, because a lot of them are fictional. Advisor Alliance which I LOVED and Three Kingdoms (which I liked and is half based on history half on the novel) both got fair amount criticisms for differences against history, and their pacing + casting is lot better compared to this.
JoL you can watch till like first 15mins or so of the last episode and call it a day, It wraps up the arc they are on and you don't get a cliffhanger hanging. Similar to Young Blood. The marketing for My Best Friend's Story lean towards GL that's why, even though neither the novel or movie adaptation were, and nor will this one.
As for HOB, I'll likely skip it unless it gets many many rave reviews, its donghua have some plagierism kerfuffle (with its storyboarding, from Attack on Titan no less) that I just completely sat on it. There's many promising donghua projects coming out and announced so I'm excited for that.
I had hilarious hard time figuring out what Wei King's last name would be because they had two at the time. I…
I'll tell you my impression here then LOL. I mostly think they focused on the wrong things for the drama, and paced it wrong, 78 ep covers 38 years of his life, where first 10 covers first 10 and last 10 covers last 10? from ep 22 till ep 60, it's about 10 ep per year, 10 ~ 22 and 60 ~ 69 is only slightly better because they skipped a little and they mixed in more interesting things. Ying Zheng's 18 ~ 22 isn't that interesting that it needed 40 ep to cover, slash it by half and it'd feel lot better, but I think slash it even more and give other states more focus, or give some time to after unification (where most of his achievements actually are, but the drama did bring up some of it so i digress) and it would have been fantastic.
Zhang Luyi, even disregarding appearing too early is a miscast. I think he got better in the last 10ish episodes, because the script no longer write dumb "pls love me one more time" plot for him so he doesn't look as out of place for teenagey tantrums. That said, the way he holds himself is just not regal, it's hilariously apparent when he meets up with Zhao Yan. He seems to yell a lot too, it's not that kings can't yell, but it always pulls me out of the scene. Oh yeah what is up with the assassin bit? Why was he fighting like a samurai? Why was he rolling around on the floor? Director, did you just watch the movie and used it as inspiration and called it a day? Oh yeah i should watch that movie mhm.
We talked about some of the dialogues, I'm mostly willing to gloss over that, but it definitely could have been better. Li Si is also disappointing as discussed, I came to like Han Fei quite a bit and only wished it was the same as Li Si, the writing for the drama in general just *sigh*. The best thing about the drama is all the battle scenes, too bad that's the last thing I care about in an epic.
I posted the timeline to soompi and will probably crosspost my ramblings about surnames too, no one watches the drama on soompi though LOL. Oh maybe you or I can just post the timeline + surname stuff to your review? :D
I had hilarious hard time figuring out what Wei King's last name would be because they had two at the time. I…
I don't think I'll write a review for this, because it'd be very negative LOL. You guys wrote really nice review for it already! I'm actually watching Lv Buwei on bilibili, not sure if that's region locked? I think my fav this year oh gosh, I watched so many dramas, Joy of Life, Your Fukubukuro, We are All Alone, Cross Fire, Horizon Tower, Hikaru no Go, oh yeah I have to finish rating these dramas lol.
Direct competition with another ongoing series called Dear missy, since its also about 2 Female leads and their…
it's a loose adaptation of the novel, not the movie, the movie is also a loose adaptation. the novel is rather short so looks like scriptwriter just kept the main relationships (judging by the cast) and core theme/storyline. This drama is 38 ep while dear missy is 36 ep.
I had hilarious hard time figuring out what Wei King's last name would be because they had two at the time. I…
Ni Ni and Liu Shishi's My best friend's story started broadcasting after this, so I'm watch that now, even though the story isn't my kind of thing. I started two dramas while watching this, Legend of Lv Buwei starring Zhang Tielin and Ning Jing (2001) and Qin Shi Huang starring Zhang Fengyi (2007) which I may or may not finish, kind of want to revisit A Step into the Past but we'll see. Probably Like a Flowing River 2 at some point since I watched 1, even though it also isn't my kind of story. I think I still have Winter Begonia, Ancient Detective and Fearless Whisper in my backlog, some youth dramas too but I'll watched a couple few months ago, so maybe later. oh love so sweet and I've fallen for you (who came up with this title, it's so generic) for romcom? i think that's it for this year's drama?
Hahhahaha 七国咁乱 is so on point, I forgot that was a saying. You have so many golden one liners, I laughed for a full minute at "while Lao Ai's allegedly majestic physical attributes can never be disproven, he definitely had a peanut sized brain and his attempted coup was puny and nowhere near the scale the drama suggests. "
I had hilarious hard time figuring out what Wei King's last name would be because they had two at the time. I…
Yeah the kings use gua ren, if you check the early ep (6???) and find the Zhou King, he uses "gu" 孤 alone/lonely.
Ok I did some cursory search today, it's kind of complicated, and they are kinda fuzzy on things, and Sima Qian does not help because he gets things wrong. One of the two last names 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 and i feel like someone explained meng to me before but I might have hallucinated that. 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. 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, 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!
whew, that was way longer than I thought it'd be, hope that's helpful and not too confusing! Feel free to ask me questions if you are confused though!
This drama is pretty good at noting dates for important events, but I made a time line anyways since I wanted…
I had hilarious hard time figuring out what Wei King's last name would be because they had two at the time. I figured out the other ones because sometimes they or nobility from the same family name themselves in drama. Oh well, for interest, I'll note them down too, some of the kings share the same last names (kind of, so I guess they were related forever ago)! 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 Mhmm I guess they generally use the second one, except for Qin, I've seen Ying Zheng being called Zhao Zheng in dramas though! Wait, no Ji Dan is Ji, but Han Fei is Han, this is weird lmao.
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2 
1 
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!
ep 1: 257 BC, Ying Yiren/Zichu escape Handan with Lv Buwei
ep 4: 256 BC, Western Zhou lost in battle against Qin, end of Zhou Dynasty
ep 4: 251 BC, King Ying Ji (Qin) dies at 75
ep 6: 251 BC, Zhao Sheng/Lord Pingyuan (Zhao, four lords of Warring States) dies
ep 7: 250 BC, King Ying Zhu (Qin) dies at 54 after only 3 days of reign
ep 8: 249 BC, Lv Buwei becomes chancellor
ep 9: 249 BC, Qin conquers Eastern Zhou
ep 13: 247 BC May, King Ying Zichu (Qin) dies at 35 after 3 years of reign, Ying Zheng ascends the throne at 13
ep 15: 245 BC, General Biao Gong kills 30k people during battle, gets stripped of his title
ep 16: 246 BC, start constructing Zhengguo Canal
ep 20: 245 BC, King Zhao Dan (Zhao) dies
ep 22: 241 BC spring
ep 24: 239 BC, completion of Master Lv's Spring & Autumn Annals
ep 19 ~ 26: 248 ~ 243 BC, Lord Chunping (Zhao) was held hostage in Qin
ep 27 ~ 28: 241 BC, last time of five kingdoms fighting together against Qin (Qi isn't part of it because they were attacked some decades ago by other kingdoms together, and it's also geographically most far away from Qin)
ep 30: 240 BC, General Meng Ao dies, Queen Dowager Xia dies
ep 33: 239 BC, Cheng Jiao's rebellion fails and dies
ep 36: 239 BC, Lao Ai gets promoted to Duke Changxin
ep 38: 238 BC, King Xiong Wan (Chu) dies, Huang Xie/Lord Chunshen (Chu, one of the four Lords) murdered
ep 45~47: 238 BC, Lao Ai's rebellion fails and dies, King Ying Zheng gains control of the court at 22
ep 48~49: 237 BC, Lv Buwei demoted and leaves the capital
ep 50 ~ 51: 237 BC, Ying Zheng kicked all the foreigners out under pressure from all his relatives/nobles, then recalled the order after Li Si submitted a brilliant argument, 谏逐客书 (jian zhu ke shu) could be required readings for kids in Chinese schools (not at all schools though)
ep 53: 237 BC, Mao Jiao risked death to ask Ying Zheng bring his mum to the capital
ep 58 ~ 60: 236 BC, Zhao and Yan at war, Qin went to "help" Yan and grabbed bunch of cities
ep 60: 236 BC, King Zhao Yan (Zhao) dies
ep 64: 235 BC, Lv Buwei dies
ep 64: 229 BC (drama says 233 BC), General Huan Yi (Qin) dies
ep 65: 236 BC (roughly), Zhengguo Canal complete
ep 69: 233 BC, Han Fei (Han) dies
ep 69: 230 BC, Han King surrender to Qin, Han Kingdom conquered
ep 71: 229 BC, General Li Mu (Zhao) dies
ep 72: 227 BC, Zhao lost its last battle against Qin, Zhao King surrenders, Zhao Kingdom conquered
ep 72: 227 BC, Queen Dowager Zhao Ji dies
ep 73: 228 BC, Xiong Fuchu kills King Xiong You (Chu) and replaced him as King
ep 74: 227 BC, Jing Ke fails to assassinate Ying Zheng, Ji Dan (Yan) dies to stop Qin's constant attacks
ep 75: 225 BC, Qin floods Wei's capital Da Liang, Wei King Jia surrenders, Wei Kingdom conquered
ep 76: 225 BC, Qin lost against Chu's army led by Xiang Yan (grandpa of later King of Western Chu Xiang Yu), Mi Qi/Xiong Qi betrayed Qin
ep 77: 223 BC, Qin conquered Chu's capital, captured Chu King Xiong Fuchu, Mi Qi/Xiong Qi became Chu King but dies when Qin attack again, Xiang Yan (Chu) dies, Chu Kingdom conquered
ep 78: (completely skipped over lol) 222 BC, Qin captured Yan King Ji Xi, Yan Kingdom conquered
ep 78: 221 BC, Qi King Tian Jian surrenders, Qi Kingdom conquered, Qin ends Warring States, starts Qin dynasty and Ying Zheng becomes an emperor at 38
2. Warring states nobility and their two surnames + why is Ying Zheng called Ying Zheng?
3. King's first person pronouns
4. Stuff the drama doesn't tell but cnetizens might have picked up (not really spoilers, just interesting trivia) re: Lao Ai (ep 20+?) & Lord Long Yang (Wei, super minor character, he's usually talking to the Wei King, ep 30+?)
5. Pacing comparison: partial relevant timeline taken from 1, [] is Qin Shi Huang (filmed in 2001, broadcasted in 2007, 33 ep) featuring Zhang Fengyi which covers Ying Zheng's entire life, first 2/3 of the drama (ep 1~22) overlaps with ep 1~78; [[]] is Legend of Lv Buwei (2001, 29 ep) featuring Zhang Tielin and Ning Jing, last 2/3 of the drama (ep 7~29) overlaps with this drama from ep 1~64, largely fictionalised so not a lot of check points.
As for why they don't make dramas like this, well it's huge production, that might not sell, and might not be even well received. Around 2014ish, the drama industry had a flood of internet giants investing that lead to more reliance on big data + using popular actors regardless of ability or affinity with character + messing up plot because they *think* it'd appeal to the audience more or shoving people in where they don't belong.
I have some bad news for you, the headwriter/creator of Young Blood is the scriptwriter for Joy of Life, and Snow Sword Stride and Dou Luo Da Lu. SSS and DLDL finished filming (s1, both novels are long enough for multi-season), JoL he should be done writing s2 but it's little up in the air. I'd hope he finish writing s3 soon as well since it's the one with season pre-planned and guaranteed success. There's other writers for Young Blood, but s1 he went over and edit them iirc, so he's fairly tied up atm. If he's done with s2 of JoL (filming is probably March, i heard May start date, several cast are tied up in something else), and YB have investors (they said they'll do s2 but it's mangotv, not tencent so this is more up in the air), he can probably do that now, I'd say half a year + filming, and if all goes well, we'd probably see it late 2022. His original plan for the story looks like it's tied to some historical events that might be annoying to get pass NRTA, and it looks like it might be a tragedy mhmmmmmmm.
Yeah that happens. i'm usually more wary of cdrama plagiarism issues, it's why I started peeking into douban, since popular dramas frequently have those issues (or they bomb the ending = =) They produce fair amount of xianxia every year, so you'll probably get them :D
JoL you can watch till like first 15mins or so of the last episode and call it a day, It wraps up the arc they are on and you don't get a cliffhanger hanging. Similar to Young Blood. The marketing for My Best Friend's Story lean towards GL that's why, even though neither the novel or movie adaptation were, and nor will this one.
As for HOB, I'll likely skip it unless it gets many many rave reviews, its donghua have some plagierism kerfuffle (with its storyboarding, from Attack on Titan no less) that I just completely sat on it. There's many promising donghua projects coming out and announced so I'm excited for that.
Zhang Luyi, even disregarding appearing too early is a miscast. I think he got better in the last 10ish episodes, because the script no longer write dumb "pls love me one more time" plot for him so he doesn't look as out of place for teenagey tantrums. That said, the way he holds himself is just not regal, it's hilariously apparent when he meets up with Zhao Yan. He seems to yell a lot too, it's not that kings can't yell, but it always pulls me out of the scene. Oh yeah what is up with the assassin bit? Why was he fighting like a samurai? Why was he rolling around on the floor? Director, did you just watch the movie and used it as inspiration and called it a day? Oh yeah i should watch that movie mhm.
We talked about some of the dialogues, I'm mostly willing to gloss over that, but it definitely could have been better. Li Si is also disappointing as discussed, I came to like Han Fei quite a bit and only wished it was the same as Li Si, the writing for the drama in general just *sigh*. The best thing about the drama is all the battle scenes, too bad that's the last thing I care about in an epic.
I posted the timeline to soompi and will probably crosspost my ramblings about surnames too, no one watches the drama on soompi though LOL. Oh maybe you or I can just post the timeline + surname stuff to your review? :D
Ok I did some cursory search today, it's kind of complicated, and they are kinda fuzzy on things, and Sima Qian does not help because he gets things wrong. One of the two last names 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 and i feel like someone explained meng to me before but I might have hallucinated that. 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. 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, 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!
whew, that was way longer than I thought it'd be, hope that's helpful and not too confusing! Feel free to ask me questions if you are confused though!
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
Mhmm I guess they generally use the second one, except for Qin, I've seen Ying Zheng being called Zhao Zheng in dramas though! Wait, no Ji Dan is Ji, but Han Fei is Han, this is weird lmao.