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I knew I heard it before. Thanks for the info. It was recently covered by Amy Chen in the other airing retro drama Wonderful Times. But I think that song had not been released in the late seventies.

Thanks for the links, I am a bit surprised the The Untamed would be regarded as Wuxia. It was modern for its time but with all those over stylised spins and very limited fight scenes, it is not like a Wuxia drama to me. I must admit, there doesn't seem to be many made in China. Instead an over abundance of court intrigue stuff instead.

The recent Tales of the Dark River for me is the closest and after watching that, I am thinking, it's sort of setting the benchmark for other makers to think in that direction. It's a bit over flashy, but that is the way it's going now. But I like it a lot. Instead of slow motion, they sped up the fight sequence to create a more punchy interaction.

The other drama I can remember is Love In Between, which for me a big tribute to Wuxia, and one of my favourite dramas.

As for this drama, a very good start and just the right amount of action and I like the very matter-of-fact style of filming of the 1980s instead of falling into the trap of over-doing the tribute. It makes it more natural and just so. For viewers, you don't feel like it's the past, but quite like the present, if you know what I mean!

To your last paragraph, maybe so, as each episode is titled, and it usually starts with the modern version of her before fully starting back into the 80s version. Hopefully it may be less when the drama moves on. I suspect they did this to contrast between her original life with the 'Dream' version. It's pretty obvious her modern life was miserable. That taser could be some strange link somewhere as when ML gave it to her, it sort of came from nowhere.

Thanks for the links, very informative. Did you mean Word of Honour rather than The Untamed? I struggled with Word of Honour myself and still haven't finished The Untamed yet.

I can see where you are going with that.... But I actually think she looks more like Janice Wu.

Ok thanks for clearing this up as I never understood why some go through, but I then keep reading censorship for rebirth or transmigration.

I don't get that. If you watched An Ancient Love Song, explain how the ML readily forces himself to go back to a certain time period? He does this on numerous periods to try and force a change, this also happened in Triple Echo of time. I don't think it's what you mentioned.

There is no ban on it. It's only questioned if they try to change history when it's clear the drama has used real life figures, but since many are not I'm not seeing any bans. In fact the hashtag rebirth seems to be a top listed hashtag on Chinese dramas!

Could be she may have a mild advantage coming from a modern background and then utilising her knowledge of the future to move things along in regards to the business side.

There has been an appetite for retro dramas lately with Romance in the Alley coming back for a second season, and with The Wonderful Times still airing right now, they too tackle similar themes, but focussed more on stigma or remarrying and how children of the time felt and reacted but set in a factory town and goes into extreme detail of real life events of the time and weighs more heavily on past antics of dobbing people in for personal gain or petty jealousy.

Although I haven't seen enough on this one but I think the theme will be more growth of heroine through learning through others that she may have overlooked in her modern life. It's also a chance to re-live these years that saw a big change in a short period, and also for the younger audience, they can watch the changes happening.

The cast more or less stays the same which leads me to think they will go through the eighties finishing up around the early nineties at a stretch, otherwise the actors would need to be aged up too much.

I suspect Fan Cheng Cheng & Lu Yuxiao's characters will be a bigger focus this time. Because these alley houses are the centre of the story they will most likely witness a regeneration of their own homes.

Whilst it's great to hear this, but I heard Shi Yun Peng's role is going to be replaced by Deng Kai.

I have nothing to add on that! Let's not turn this place into a big depressing read ....I just hope through sharing cultures and being more open to all, this can somehow filter through to those in position of power.

But somehow I fear those that sit at the top didn't get there by being all nice. They probably trampled on others, used others to get to their post. They're more likely narcissistic people that like to build their name through a culture of fear and hatred. Funny how they are the same ones to call China that. As the saying goes, it must takes one to know one! 😉

I doubt the western education system will educate about China and its history. There's a lot to not be proud about. Opium war and how Hong Kong was lost. They already have to deal with slavery and the empires of the past. There were a lot of concessions to Germany & France. Of course it's best to not add that into the education system.

I don't know how many countries have banned Huawei but no doubt the narrative is to tell their citizens it's a security issue when it's most likely they are threatened and worried they can't compete. The electric car market is already giving them a headache. China is opened for business and the former coloniser countries are unable control it!

Anyway, soft power from China is their next step of trying to shut out. That should be interesting😉

I'm all for openness and accepting everyone regardless of racial background or regional accents. You are right. China has grown and changed dramatically, especially in the entertainment industry and past beauty standards are fading and making way for many looks and skin tones.

They are also making much more drama content that includes smaller ethnic groups like To The Wonder and very recently aired Born to be Alive. There are also many in the pipeline like Bloom Life.

Regarding laws in China they have been doing this for a long while and I think their fruits of labour is starting to show. During the one child policy period, it excluded ethnic minority groups. The education system especially into the university level, the threshold is lowered to accommodate these small ethnic groups. So positive discrimination wasn't necessarily invented in the west.

The drawing was from a photo where the wind blew his hair upright. He made the comment to suggest the picture looked more like a SEA.

I took that as messy unkempt men from the whole region. That sounds negative to me.

Secondly he must have a closed mindset to mention whole countries ' image based on a cartoon drawing. That's just a no no. That is ignorant and racist stereotyping.

No problem, how a person receives the information is personal. But I can tell you, even in China, the majority felt this was a 'below the belt' comment that never should have been said. It's good people are discussing it because it also allows others to know what casual racism looks like. It's not words, derogatory ones, it's stereotyping through slurs on past ignorance.

Yes I have been there before too. It's all good seeing nice adornments & creative shot making, but if the plot drags or repeats itself over and over on a 50 plus episode drama it's not going to go far for me anyway.

I didn't mean to make it seem all international viewers come for romance. It's just I noticed a larger portion tend to. I should have been more careful with how I worded my previous post.

In regards to your last paragraph, I am stating my opinion of what I've seen in some idol style dramas, and that is my opinion. I don't claim all 'idol' dramas are same as I said before, I watch quite a fair bit of idol style dramas.

What I was saying is these types of dramas tend to focus more on shots to make the main couple very attractive and side characters tend to be fillers rather than form a consistent, coherent and bonded storyline. I also said that this drama is most likely more well constructed than some of its competition.

I didn't say The Knock Out is superior to idol style drama, but I am saying is in China the chatter online is not "outside the circle" in regards to organic interest. The chat is like a typical day in Weibo-land that consists of hair, make up, swooning over male characters and constant comparisons with past stars. There aren't many chat on plot twists, guesswork predictions, or chat about more dramas that should be made around common trade in historical dramas focusing more on the daily grind of peasant class over the excessive interest in royalty and noble class.

As for all this Hollywood stuff, I don't watch or can stomach that kind of stuff. Sugar coated fake gestures that keep trying to re-write history to suit today's narrative. Always using love to make it all good.

Sorry if I offend on my comments. I have watched a lot of 'idol style' dramas and know a type of format. I cannot claim this is exactly that and no doubt it is above average for an idol style drama or why else would international viewers like this, as they tend to like stylised shot and cinematic experience. Some on here are even mocking past cardboard looking sets and cheap looking sets.

In China, the younger generation tend to like this as it mimics the western style of aping a film rather than a drama, with massive overlay of music, wind machines and slow-mo shots. The plot is secondary and in many cases, I have seen inconsistent character building and usual stereotyping of older men and women casted in evil roles and they make a lot of mistakes whilst the leads tend to land on their feet too many times and support casts tend to be uninteresting and not layered and most of all, only there to serve the two leads.

Finally, I did not mention Speed and Love at all. I wouldn't want to watch a drama that tries to blur sister/brother relationships and turn it into a love story. I only mentioned Guo Jing Ming who is famous for making brilliant looking images which helps to highlight any actor's beauty. He has single handedly made future stars in China. That's not necessarily a bad thing.

I was merely responding to someone asking why this article is pointless. It is not from my point of view. It is newsworthy. If that isn't normal behaviour, then so be it...

Have you read the article? They are not watching it but the hashtag trended because a glitch at Tencent had been exposed.

This article is not pointless. It states clearly trending on data being inaccurate due to a glitch which was shown, a view count can include someone pressing play for 2 seconds? The company response owns up to this so-called glitch. In China, they would know what real buzz is compared to just data charts. Also most of these charts never show how they arrived at their figures and are all private businesses so it's not transparent at all.

The article also states that chit chat online does not look interesting nor have they seen outside the circle buzz which includes sales of certain products or places to visit. In short, the chatter is the usual idol fare of looks, make up and CP. I have to agree as I have been following data charts for a long while and there is something wrong.

I also understand that international watchers would like this because the filming style is stylish and very GJM. People coming to watch a drama like this are more interested in love than the padded storylines so if they're not well constructed they overlook that because the core focus is on the couple and how they are filmed.