Skibbies

Fantastic review as always :D Now I feel less guilty for not writing a review haha. i think they were trying to do what Horizon Tower was doing in the beginning, intentionally misleading the audience for gotcha moment, some of it is flipping the situation again and again to draw in audience, some of it i think might have been attempt for some people to realise their presumptions?

Qiao Wei can definitely be frustrating, but she's also depressingly real in, so many ladies have appalling taste in men and keep excusing their absymal behaviour LOL. I'm glad she learnt to stand up for herself and be independent. The supportive female friendship is definitely my favourite part of the drama, it's fairly rare in cdrama so I'm always super happy to see it, especially when it's central part of the drama.

On me being a drama encyclopedia, hahaha that's such huge shoes to fill in, I only started regularly watch cdrama after NiF. I basically stroll douban's recent cdrama section every now and then, for 7+ dramas, and I have a backlog of 8+ ones. Qin Empire was recced to me by my mum & cos it's 9+ & because I always found the period really confusing LOL.

@WandereR: I actually only watched...let me see, three new historical this year? LOL I watched a handful of old ones (some are rewatch), which is continuation of me watching serious historical to familiarise myself with certain period of history. I watched SO many modern dramas this year (probably 20+)! My preference is a little weird though, my higher rated dramas tend to have romance as a side thing, which is opposite of MDL's preference, so it's all srs historical + mystery + youth dramas. which reminds me I need to update my list, I was going to write reviews for some....now I can't be bother to even do short comment reviews on douban oops.

I have no idea why they didn't license it for hk, utterly bizzare, and it's too old/too little demand for pirate upload too. By the way, if you can't get into 1, you can try 2, it took me ages to get into 1, and I was super taken back by the huge change in 2 LOL.

i don't think 1 is subbed either? i guess they thought there's not much demand for it? 3 is easier to translate compared to 2, 1 is probably the hardest.

i didn't know they made a series for three musketeers, thanks! I watched a movie adaptation I think? I watched an rather interesting anime version of monte cristo too. Both books were too long and intimidating for me to start lol, they've been sitting in my kindle since forever. thank you for the rec :D

Yeah it's set up. he's been yelling about unification for most of the drama though, and he mentioned some of the things he'd do once he unify. but i specify the date because i really dislike the pacing of the drama, that's a third of the drama left, and they just started, and there's bunch of other things i know they'll spend their time on, AND it's nowhere close to 230 BC is just real rough. there's leaked synopsis for rest of the episodes, and it doesn't seem like we'd get much after the unification, which is really disappointing.

Shi Ji is primary source a lot of times regardless, zhihu or certain circles will have people debate how bias Sima Qian or whatever source is, most people are looking for just quick info rather than indepth discussion though.

:D I'm glad someone read the review and liked it! I have gazillion complaints about this drama (...and most other dramas), but I'm glad it's probably going to get some people to check out other installments of Qin Empire.

ahhahahah, i'm even more unfamiliar with european history, but i'd totally be the same as you. you should tell me all the gossip sometime ;D

Yeah his plot was to get Lao Ai to rebel so he could strip Lv Buwei's power, but the entire arc lasted too long and isn't as cleverly written as the writer seem to think, so just killing him would have been easier.

Hanging a bloody sword over him is a weird way to terrify him though, I thought the scene when he first find out about the kids and he pulled out his own sword was effective enough. The sword over the bed just made him seem little deranged. Usually to push people, you just hire assassins or something.

I'm the opposite, I usually want as little romance as possible unless it's a romance drama, because dramas tend to be better written that way LOL. A lot of writers end up really soapy when they start writing women or romance.

The casting is bane of my existence, but casting in cdrama is bane of my existence half the time, the scriptwriters bombing themselves is the other half. I really think they could have kept the teenager till ep 20, even then protag is too old looking for his age, but at least he's not THIERTEEN!

oh yeah one of his achievement (at the time) is consolidating power to the king. I guess because it was early stages of reform, peasants could still grab whatever they have (they don't have proper weapons unless they were given them i think?) to defend? it does seem kind of two step forward, one step backward?

they are trying to glorify him, and show him as benevolent and probably justify the more problematic bits, but it feels wrong to me. I don't need Ying Zheng to be nice and beloved, even if you show his reign as a tyranny, it doesn't diminish his achievements. also i think the writers are overestimating their ability. OR well, the original script was decent (the first part was published years ago) at getting benevolent message across, but the adapted version we have now isn't quite working for me as the writers intended.

I was waiting for the kids bit to drop, but didn't fully expect them to show onscreen tbh, just at most, Ying Zheng ordering someone or gesturing and got them taken away, totally fine we didn't get it though. I watch with danmu (danmuku, rolling comments?? what do you call them in english?), and it's all "are we dropping kids today?' every ep, which sounds terrifying out of context LOL.

but didn't Liu Bang started as a peasant? there's fair few peasant revolutions I think? idk what's up with the peasants defending him, it was just weird, i guess it's to show he's beloved or something? but he's not known as a beloved king???

it's actually a battle from 238 BC, and the first kingdom conquered will take another 8 years. god this pacing worries me. i'm sure times will fly when they start conquering......but i was hoping that'd be focus instead of.....lao ai.

my chinese history is super basic, i agree after this, it's all *side eyes*. he's the primary source for basically everything pre-Han though, since there's not much other comprehensive record that survived through the ages. You only gets bits and pieces here and there not that's not influenced by him.

omg no!! oh you reminded me, i saw some terracotta army themed room, and it had like....mini figurines lined on bottom of the bed, and you have big ones staring at you as well, it seemed really terrifying???

omg i didn't know about the thumb snapping news! ouch, 2000 year old priceless artifact, damn.

it's getting slammed and mocked on c!net/douban lol. ratings have been going up really slowly for some reason, either people belatedly realised this was a thing, or all the stuff netizens hate are drawing tv audience in.

omg there's even a comic, i'm dying. also sima qian, you are a professional, pls be serious. I get the skeptics, I'm skeptical too, but the fact that this made it to proper serious records of history makes it so much funnier, i thought it was 野史, lots of rumours and lies mixed in with bit of truth, but no, it's part of proper history.

they totally sell them, i think there's even chibi version of terracotta lol, you can even buy them online i'm sure. but the point of memorabilia is bringing back memories so XD

Your casual cnetizen that likes history tend to just bring out Sima Qian's Shi Ji LOL, sometimes they'll bring up other texts to supplement, but it's rarely anything modern. I saw bunch of people pull them out when they were arguing in Qin Empire 2 if Zhang Yi (Qin's chancellor) and Su Qin were the same age (the novels assume so, actual historical records are more debatable, Su Qin appears in 3 for this series)

i think i remember someone zhihu saying this drama is bizzarely western at its core, i guess it's all the manufactured drama for "underdog" going against all odds, when ying zheng and qin isn't quite an underdog, at least not the way the drama is going at it. I don't really agree, since china have those stories too, but bits of it seems to make sense.

LMAO first gigolo of china is SUCH a great title. for the other states, you have to watch the previous two installments, the first one had a powerful wei which is kind of neat, since wei is a so wimpy here. This Han is different from the later Han! Liu Bang is was born in in Xuzhou, so mhm Chu? Qi? idk. For Liu Bang to play a central role, it has to be one of those end of Qin/start of Chu dramas 楚汉争霸 or something. The climax is probably still unifying, but I'm doubting this drama a lot.

omg i didn't know that, that's horrifying!