Skibbies

ahh I forgot about Dreaming Back to Qing Dynasty but you started it. Under the Power is the one that should be airing on 28th, could be more your type. I really liked Young Blood (subs are still ongoing) from earlier the year, adventure-ish drama. Chinese Paladin 1 & 3 are pretty fun adventure dramas too.. Love & Destiny from same production team of TMoPB? from similar veins, Ashes of Love?

there's a lot of historical drama airing at the moment actually. Royal Nirvana, JoL, Sword Dynasty, Ming Dynasty, there should be another one coming next week, and potentially more in January. Might not be your type though.

She is biological daughter of Princess and Minister Lin. She lives with Minister Lin, but she's not officially acknowledged as part of the Lin family. She rarely see Minister Lin, but her brothers seem to adore her.

It's split into seasons because it's easier on production company, they don't have to dump massive amount of money into a project that failed. Ruyi which was a whooping 80? episodes long (original cut was even longer) did alright, but Xinli, the production company behind Ruyi and JoL didn't make back as much as they hoped because Ruyi ultimately couldn't air on tv.

If it was due to NRTA, it would be far wiser to film all of it and get it all approved then line up for airing, because the rules changes every year. The only drama that filmed it all together was Longest Day of Chang'an, which was testing how it went with NRTA right in the middle of rumoured historical drama ban (rumoured, because NRTA backed out on it, and there were historical dramas airing on TV at the time, but it had a chilling effect)

It's also far more profitable (if they can keep up the IP's popularity) by releasing them in seasons. e.g. the way Tencent have been staggering The King's Avatar's donghua and drama series. Tencent now owns the IP (by owning the platform that the webnovel was published on) and production company (JoL partially invested in it, and bought out XInli I believe). I really wouldn't be surprised to see manhua, donghua or games for JoL.

Anyways, I rambled too much. s2 & s3 have NOT been filmed. s2's script have not been written according to the scriptwriter. They filmed like half a year in early 18 for originally 52 episodes (rough cut). It's been speculated they also filmed beginning of s2 but it's hard to confirm.

lol i really dislike that moustache too. Hell I dislike it on crown prince too. I think Ni Ni's crying scenes are pretty good, although I guess compared to Chen Kun, she would come off as bit mild. I thought she heldo it pretty well though? She holds her ground against the emperor (Ni Da Hong) too.
Ahaha yeah the different accent are pretty fun, and they aren't so heavy that it pulls people out (although I've seen those complaints). I do prefer actors at the minimum dubbing themselves, since pro dubbers can end up sounding the same, or just pull you out if you've heard them too much. Perfect Mandarin is a little odd, but I think I got used to them I think the mandarin in foreign movie dubs are even worse, I cringe really hard at those and don't think I ever manage to sit through a full mando dubbed movie XD

it couldn't air on tv so it aired as webdrama, there's no time slot for it.

ofc not, even fixing machine translated subs would probably need a day per episode.

there's been pirating since on demand came on. This was just a straight up leak, it tends to happen to popular dramas (go go quid, yanxi). Unclear abou the source, the first two week was from tencent, this drama just hit too many roadblocks (couldn't air on tv, historical drama restriction, leaks, on demand) end of the year is swamped with quality historical dramas too. what braodxasting company are you talking about? :o

yeah it leaked. good god I hope this won't affect s2.

Mhmm that actually sound up my alley. Shame about the english translation, it's little rough to translate something with as many plot twists and more intricate than usual plot. I've been trying to read the book, but it's not grabbing me and not exactly fun night reading LOL. Although I know the drama is pretty different from the novel mhm, it's just the novel have been on my reading list forever oops.

Hahaha, my mum said Chen Kun got uglier when I watched it with her. I didn't really like his long hair look (although I know fair few that love it). I do think he manage to hold it fairly well compared to others, I still prefer it up XD I hope you have lots of fun with it! Ni Ni did film this before L&D, so she was likely getting used to TV production/acting too. Her character is also really simple (and rather common) archetype in the beginning. How's the sound for you? Since this was actually recorded live, rather than dubbed, which is super rare for big budget historical like this. You are super welcome for the review, glad it helped :D

I think its biggest issue is pacing and mood for most people, everyone's acting are pretty on point IMO. Ning Yi is a phenomenal character. I largely think he's hilarious in the beginning cos Ning Yi clearly did it to annoy people and for fun. haha.

There was 50 CNY package that always get you ahead last week, and lot of people found it too expensive, but there were fair amount that bought it (judging by the viewcounts). It's just really unfortunate they started it mid-drama instead of the ending like with other dramas. I can't believe this drama have four different viewing progress (non-vip, vip, vvip, illegal). It makes discussion basically impossible, and you get spoilt left and right. (Granted I already got major spoilers from book fans, good god)

I think the drama is doing pretty darn well so it's likely to get s2 but we'll see. At least this one had ZRY sign the 5 year contract. Princess Agents is a different case, I think it deviated from the novel and the team didn't seem to care to make s2 lol.

All I know about RN is crown prince cries every episode lol, I'm waiting for it to end and then decide if I'll pick it up.

Different characterisation and plot and ending. But in the novel, he looked for zhiwei after her fake death, moves to where his adopted daughter (he picked her up in Minhai) is and teaches. In the drama, I think he just goes to where the rest of the remnants are and live.

lmao, Chen Kun's acting is really over the top in the beginning, I've definitely seen people put off by it, I found those bits hilarious though.

1 season. there should be 2 more, not filmed yet.

There's 5 notable historical dramas airing rn, I think there's one more with confirm air date, and likely more in January. what is with this drama dump.

This drama's airing schedule is little messy, it got different update rate domestic vs international, so they dumped bunch of episodes and increased the update rate 2nd week. 3rd week they introduced vvip (pay for more episodes despite being already vip) which got extra 6 episodes dump. 4th week which is this week there was a bug on monday for iqiyi so this week's update was all out on monday. So it's on accelerated track and it had less episodes than one would expect (46 ep). I'm super curious how they'll handle the last ep, since next week vvip should be 39, then 45, so that leaves one more episode? LMAO? if the finale gets leaked, this is going to be wild.

Anyways, this is different from western approach or some of the other dramas. The book it's based on is fairly long, and interesting enough for its length so I do think 3 seasons is fine. It's not endless, I largely dislike endless story and a lot of them were episodic, but I digress. Otherwise you get dramas like Martial Universe or Fight Break Sphere, popular IPs with butchered adaptations.

You could always pick it up when you are less swamped with drama, and I think you might need it after the somber tRoP and Royal Nirvana. I mostly like this one for originality, clashing of modern vs feudal values and fast pacing, and that! supporting! cast! also because I quite like this scriptwriter. I'm so tired of perfect everything and the writing tanks for various reasons. I think this season should wrap up a big arc? but I'll get back to you on that when it actually finishes.

They haven't even started the script. Probably getting to it now. This supporting cast is hard to get back though.

For people who might want something similar, check out Young Blood whose original creator and first arc (and fourth? partially at least) writer is this drama's scriptwriter, Wang Juan. Do note that JoL is more politics and Young Blood is more adventure, not to mention the scope is lot bigger for JoL due to Mao Ni's original novel. There were also 4? other scriptwriters for Young Blood so a lot of details aren't from him. It was my favourite of the year for being refreshing, original plot (idea-wise & no novel base, so I didn't get bombarded by spoilers), fairly on point acting & adorable cgaracters. Pretty underrated on MDL. The subs are at 16/42 at the moment I think.

Side note: Wang Juan wrote s1 script for Dou Luo Da Lu (Xiao Zhan's xuanhuan drama that's finished filming) and is working on adapting another popular massive wuxia/politics webnovel. He's so busy omg. He has written other original dramas (and better according to his fans) but they don't have subs.

I really rather there would be no more leaks so they can make enough money to ensure s2 & s3 are done properly.