Nepeta 22

Sometimes, that happens. The lead title is more by rank than screen time. Her billing is more respect to her position. You will see something similar with Live Long & Prosper where Li Qin has been billed as FL but she will have probably less than 1/3 of screen time, and again, they gave that title based on rank.

I'm sorry, but isn't this the core ingredients of a lot of Xianxias? It's just a dressed-up dreamy costume drama full of morals and righteous messages.

Within that, you will always have convoluted round-about ways to tell the watchers what's good and what's bad. Love being the simplistic and purest message. It's just in a nutshell to tell you how to love intelligently. Like a lot of religions. Cliches or just part of this genre, it's going to be blurred. That 'annoying' second lead whether male of female will figure in a large percentage of these dramas because it's why these stories are made, otherwise they will run out of ways to show 'the journey'.

I was wondering. I had a quick look at the area where he was raised (Guangxi Guilin) and it's possible he's speaking a number of dialects from that area, and yes, Cantonese influence is strong there too. I hope someone knows.

She belongs to a special village not belonging to any of the country, and her father is the link to her and ML. That's why he trusts her. As the story goes on you will see the link with her father and his late mother and his father.

Yes he did but he is a follower and sees the prince as his saviour. I guess he's either low in confidence or a born follower. In many scenes, he's shown to be a loyal follower and counts the prince almost like his brother. You can see he's very emotional about the prince's plight, so in some ways, he's backed the wrong horse for the drama's concern. This happens a lot in real life. But it goes unnoticed.

We're more judgmental here because of how the storyline line is told, making us to believe ML's factions are slightly better because they don't do death camps.

So far there aren't these types of charts for international viewers. Most of these charts are going to be different, and how they measure it will be a secret.

A lot of the online communities in China know how to try and up the score by chatting more and organising fandoms to play the dramas on repeat all hours of the day. Cloud bookings are becoming more popular too to help with viewership.

OK. I heard in the novel she dies so this is probably their way of making it OK for her to return to Susha.

Exactly, we had to wait till the final part to see some moves. Only to see him being kicked about 🙄. Never mind, I guess they needed to paint him as a weasel, and I think they may have overdid it a bit!

Not mine either. But once you are outside of it, you view it as no more than a convoluted storyline designed to create conflict and misunderstanding. That normally involves elaborate reasons to lie to each other 😉

These types of dramas suit people who like spicy messy love stories. It's a round-a-bout way of dressing up stars in nice costumes, but bringing in modern day messy toxic love lives that centres around surface emotions.

A bit like gossip magazines that follow trashy young love for those that have not developed emotionally yet. That will then always involve lies upon lies. Normally, the drama will give you a valid reason for either party to do so, but step outside, it's just a complex web that is built just to build a misunderstanding to prolong agony.

If you're not into that, you will just see it as no more than glamourization of toxic relationships built on endless insecurities which often results in inward looking actions that go round and round in circles.

Good to know it was not just me that saw that scene that sort of implied that. Maybe someone may come along later to say that it's not needed. Or perhaps I was over-thinking things!

Some dramas have not learned about less is more yet.

With regards to FL and female characters in relation to the ML. This is my theory. Most drama makers are aware the larger proportion of viewers are females, so it's important that female characters are either strong, or go through some sort of growth and enlightenment whilst ML usually start of as hot-headed, harsh and cold, only to be softened by either FL's beauty or grow from or learn from the FL as seen here.

Therefore, they usually change into a softer or docile follower type character. It works for certain storylines but not all. I personally think its OK here, since he was quite brutal in the beginning.

If you'd watched it to the end with a final battle with the ML, I was squirming when he was twisting and most of the time falling backwards and those back flips. I'm sure it was challenging to film, not least for him 😁...

Yes, those are data charts from China.

I knew XJS would not need to have many fight scenes. With all those very long heavy looking dangling adornments, he'd do himself injury before he can even bust moves.

There was a scene when FL was being checked by character played by Sha Ding Ding that looked like she had diagnosed a pregnancy. I heard nothing of that afterwards. Am I being a bit sensitive?

Also, did XJS throw a life-line to FXY by stabbing her strategically? Is this the drama's way of telling us he still has a bit of heart left.

They forgot about them and assume you don't care. They were there just to highlight FL's tender side for the first part of the drama.

Depends on what you want. Have you tried Twelve Letters? What about Ripe Town?

That's true and also because there are so many dramas out and it's stiff competition within China.

Only downside to that is, with so many dramas on the go, many do get missed and fall by the side because many forget to go back and watch those dramas because something else attracts their attention. And those that are missed are quality dramas as well. So nowadays, so much emphasis is on promotions prior to airing.

I didn't watch that one. I normally avoid those types of dramas. Not keen with all the court intrigue dramas full of scheming back stabbing stuff that is just modern messy stuff wrapped in historic style costumes. This drama is fast turning into that which is not good!

As for this actor, maybe the director put too much emphasis on close ups of his face always looking half creepy and confused, making the drama feel really dated and melodramatic.