Skibbies

Ni Ni (female lead) debuted in Zhang YiMou's 2011 film, which is probably why you find she has similar aura as Zhang ZiYi. The director is good at picking his actresses. It's first time Ni Ni starring in a drama, and Chen Kun (male lead) had been focusing on movies in recent years too. He has acted in number of dramas before but they were pre-2010 and probably not subbed.

He has gotten hotter over the years, must be a better stylist lol. iirc he had pimples while playing as Doumyoji and he wasn't tall enough so he always had to walk first when they did group entrance. I think I went on to watch quite a number of Matsujun dramas just because how much I loved him in HYD though.

No. I'm indicating which version the videos are, I can't get the subs to show up lol so I don't know what subs they are. If they are completely different then someone have been subbing the tv version, but I think it's more likely one version is mistimed or something?

Kseries is DVD/netflix version at the moment. The easiest way to tell is they are usually consistently 45mins per episode, whereas the TV version will vary from 16, 2x, 3x, 4x, 5xmins with about half the episodes settling around 50mins episodes. The initial few episodes cut aren't too noticeable but sometimes they swap around order of the scenes.

I don't remember too well tbh because the situation is different in the book. I think he did wish at some point she'd just give up her plans but knew she wouldn't. She was Queen of her own country for awhile before they hit stalemate and she surrendered on condition that he'd treat her friends well. She made him think she poisoned him and "died".

That's actually true to her character even in the book. she did similar thing in the book, got everyone settled and planned for, and died to end all the ambition. She was really really tired at that point, since she found out she did lot of things due to a lie. it's just that was a fake death. The happy ending is actually slightly forced in the book, I largely just didn't care at that point. But I totally can see why the drama decide to go with tragedy because themes + characterisation wouldn't pop out as much with a happy end.

Ahhh HYD. I think MG worked because it was the start of idol dramas for TWdramas, the manga popularity helped a bit. HYD worked because of its production values + popularity of manga, again (it's best selling shoujo manga for a reason), then BoF was due to production values. It's the kind of story that's easy to draw in new fans, especially younger ones. Rich hot guys as love interest is perfect, but Tsukushi being a no nonsense protagonist definitely help to keep the audience engaged. I'm pretty sure that's how it stood out from its 90s shoujo peers anyways.

I first stumble upon its anime as an 8? year old, and I really liked its premise, but I only ever saw the beginning, while she was still crushing on Rui. I was reasonably excited about MG but weren't around to catch it (and made the mistake f watching the sequel in full), and later I never really liked Da S's Shan Cai, so I never watched it in full. I have no idea why I don't like her but it seems like she doesn't like the character much either so whatever.

HYD's jdrama was a damn godsend though, it was rapidly paced which made a lot of the bullshit the original plot had lot more tolerateable. (I had watched the anime in full by then and despite all my love for the characters, definitely sorely tempted to drop the series few times.) Matsujun have enough acting chops for me to overlook his image doesn't necessarily fit Doumyoji that well or the fact he isn't hot (I swear I'm a Matsujun fan!), but the original manga isn't necessarily pretty either, and that damn hair.

I love it a ton and would recommend it but I also feel like I have to list all of its faults that might put off a lot of people, which is...a lot. I could never fault it for a lot of the gimmicks because it helped popularised those tropes, but I get it when people say they don't want to watch old tropes.

BoF I was super angry about because I liked F4's looks, but I absolutely detested JanDee (character + acting). I can't handle this story when I hate the protagonist because she the soul of the story for me. I think I got through due to uhh best friend's romance subplot. I don't have the heart to try Chinese version anymore, since there's more changes and it's too long for my taste.

Unrelated mumble, I hate Itazura na Kiss's premise. It took me several tries and multitasking to get through It Started with a Kiss and that was because I loved the main actor/actress a hell lot. I can handle not book-smart protagonist, but I can't handle utterly dumb one, ok? I think it's popular because it's relateable-ish and nice to dream about smart guy that would love you and help you no matter what, even if he's tsundere about it.

The novel end is happy end, Ning Yi's brother ends up as the emperor and they were advisors for awhile, then later ran off to travel.

i don't know if the novel end would help you.......? because the drama only used part of the book as framework. I'd say you should try few episodes and see if you like it tbh.

The book is indeed pretty fast paced because that's how WN are written, zhi wei was also kickass and amazing from the get go and had all kinds of luck. the drama toned that down a lot and made her different so yeah. not to mention they only used half the book as framework for most part. It's just most people severely overestimate ratio of novel fans and general audience.

Yeah it's the DVD version.

Bad TV ratings =/= it's bad. Douban ratings is pretty good. 7+ are all pretty good.

@Moochi: book fans doesn't think it's too slow, book fans would give it more chance if they decide to watch it (they would have dropped it once it's clear that significant changes were made if that bothered them, so wouldn't have watched it). It's general audience who think it's slow, because it's edited to have no hook in the beginning besides main characters.

cdrama producers first and foremost audience are Chinese audience, do they care about international audience? Kind of, in a very distant low priority way. Netflix let it recoup some cost, I don't know when they enter into agreement, I would think it's before it aired though.

The streaming channels you mentioned are different companies, they have conflicting interests and again, tend to focus their energy on competing for guarantee profit in domestic profit rather than unknown and possibly insignificant amount of profit for international audience. There's also copyright issues, even if you speak Chinese, you need VPN to bypass the region lock to watch them on those sites.

A lot of the supernatural stuff are explained away by mental problems, and sci-fi is fine, it's why the weird superpower protag has has a "scientific" explanation. Also why a lot of fans (and the director) doesn't want the drama to be too popular that it'd get noticed because then it'd get taken down and recut. (Tienstin Mystic got taken down for example. A number of mystery dramas were taken down for gorey or unsuitable themes or something.)

They've been doing massive cuts since 20 something (there were minor cuts before). Partially because that's how the terrible broadcasting schedule worked out (it's right after CCTV news and that sometimes get extended so this show straight up didn't air on Aug 31st. and it gets cut into variable length to fit its weekend schedule.) Hunan TV have always had notorious editing for primetime slot but this show is very much anti-arbitary editing, slow low tension beginning made a lot of people drop the show too. It actually started doing better in last week or so but it bottomed out for a station that's used to being Rating King. (other dramas haven't been performing as well as expected but this one tanked really hard. rip)

There wasn't that much fuss about other shows because they weren't bought by netflix. Netflix is the kind of company that have the money and time to crack down on illegal streams, something Viki and Dramafever doesn't. A month after it start its broadcast and would have originally been 3/4 through its broadcast really isn't a long wait. You should see Netflix doing batch release for weekly animeshows after it finished airing for several months. FYI, the show was slated for broadcasting without too much warning in China too.

You also really overestimate the amount of cdrama fans who actively want shows to simulcast. (comparatively I mean. for cdrama producers to invest in subbers. cdrama producers haven't really paid attention tbh? Netflix only started buying cdramas like last year? The Chinese anime industry sort of noticed and I've still only seen 2 series do it, they were more likely to be dubbed in Japanese and then subbed or straight up fansubbed.

This show is also pretty hard to sub tbh. RIP subbers. The production team in general weren't very good at online promoting tbh, utilising weibo and stuff. Netflix also rarely does promotions for shows because streaming companies just don't really do that for foreign shows???

Sorry I watched it raw.

DVD ver beginning of ep 28, middle of ep 30, TV ver end of ep 25, ep 27 I think. He talks a bit in the first scene, second scene he's more of a background character in court, he talks more when he gets out of the court scene which should be in 30/27 or the episode after. I almost forgot his first scene orz.

they split the kingdom actually, both of them became respective rulers of their kingdom. ning yi abdicated to go have peaceful lives with zhi wei. it was a lot of pain and suffering before that though.

I think they kept more than 10% of the plot tbh, a lot of the scenes with zhi wei are from the book.

Re: the parts that confused you. technically yeah the crown prince ordered the shooting of the baby (and therefore for Gu Heng to jump). Ning Yi feels incredibly guilty about it because he thinks he could have saved them, he PROMISED to save them but then his brother killed them.

As for why Zhi Wei's mum seem to think so, because no one knows the specificity of the situation that night, if they marry, she marries into the FAMILY that killed her dad. It's technically not Ning Yi's fault but to them a) he was involved somehow b) Gu Heng died. and that's all you really need to be sworn enemies yknow.

She also probably doesn't want her to marry him because in his current position, he will likely die one way or another, and Zhi Wei would die because she's his wife. It's just a bad idea to marry a prince who doesn't have power and the emperor doesn't like. (it's also bad idea to be TOO GOOD and have too much power as a prince, hard life being royalties)