Nepeta 22

I made a review back then and got harassed in the review pages by "fans" of the drama, unable to accept a different opinion. So I've been there already...

What I found interesting is, how easily so many were easily swayed by just a pair of death-stare eyes and anti establishment personna, they were willing to forego all other flaws like demeaning comments, controlling behaviour and an ugly bullying personality. This must be appealing to some people's fantasy of what a rebellion must be. Scary.

Sorry for bombing down here but your comments got me thinking. Just recently finished "A Lonely Hero's Journey". FL and SFL suffered for the ML. And the ML was like a wooden plank. FL was like a saintly "in the time" woman... upright and also knows her place. She silently backs ML and yes he finally goes for her, but almost out of pity. Others feel she's been a doormat throughout. She suffered throughout.

SFL definitely also suffered. I won't spoil you as you may watch this, but let's put it this way. Her story line could only end that way as he can only be with one.

It would be more brave if he did because that would make the scriptwriters and directing more harder. I would say original screenwriting of A Journey to Love was brave because it didn't just rely on the tropey drag out enemy tension to prolong the episodes.

There, they made the romance instant and then had to engage us as viewers to watch their relationship grow. Which some may say boring and mundane. But, in my opinion it wasn't because they paid attention to real life relationships rather than build up on misunderstandings prior to a relationship forming.

Sadly, that's just too hard and many opt for the drag-out tension option. I suspect this would be similar.

You must be watching all the wrong dramas.

In "Who is he", the ML had to bat off a bunny boiler style FL throughout the years. She chased, begged and put herself in danger just for him.

I won't spoil you since you may watch it one day. Even with her suffering, he did not go for her because he simply didn't like her in that way. She suffered for sure, being a victim to a heinous crime. This was dressed up as real and for the good.

In "To The Wonder", the ML never changed. He did not suffer. His only suffering was firstly his family did not approve for his love for her. That's it. He even left and went missing for years because of a tragedy she had caused to his beloved horse. How OTT is that? That's hardly "simping". Even in the end, we are not even sure they will even get back together. That was dressed up as realism and pretentious.

I haven't even watched a lot of C-Dramas yet and I hit upon "Lighter & Princess." FL went through horrendous suffering throughout her quest to be with him. She ended up marrying a controlling abusive and bullying ML and even dumped her parents for him. He did not change.

BTW, that was dressed up as passionate misunderstood ML.

Next drama for Joseph Zeng. Other lead cast members rumoured to be Myolie Wu & Nicky Cheung.

In regards to the guy in the grave yard. She's scared and in a way stuck. If as you say she doesn't have any braincells, then it's even more likely she's unable to think of a way out of the mess she's in. Of course she thinks about herself and have a narrow view point. She's supposed to be a spoilt rich kid. She's not the FL, so she's not going to get the kind of plot armour a FL will have, or she'll over shadow the FL.

It's mean for me because I love her character! She's the classic silly character that will no doubt put the main leads in danger. Who doesn't like the ditzy side kick that is forever making life's wrong decision? It's not as if it's done in a way to be taken seriously. There is nothing serious or heavy-weight on any of the characters and their story line anyway. Her character is part of the mix.

You need to blame the script-writers, since it's often they who write women this way. More interesting is a lot are men writing about women. Wonder what that says..

I don't believe it's weight gain. There has been gossip that he's had fillers put in to take away his more bone structured face. There's this growing obsession with boyish smooth skinned looks brought on by endless former boy band members entering C-dramas. There could be pressure around him to move into a more idol-esk look of no broad jaw line and the flat and smoothed out face look.

Dashing Youth had residual interest and initial beginning ratings because of the brand. These passer-bys as you say which helped the early ratings are really the fandom of the author, Donghua and TBOY. You could say, this drama was made more possible with high anticipation from TBOY's unexpected success. I heard the author only wrote this after TBOY, and possibly even pestered into getting this out to ride off the success of TBOY. That's why there are gaps.

Even though that drama became much talked about and gained very high ratings here and in Douban, it's a lesson to all, it's not a given that is enough to guarantee definite success. Here, they chose the fresh meat option, and filled the drama with so-called eye candy thinking all the fan groups will converge to blindly add to the 'data'. But even that couldn't buy success.

You need to make up your mind. One minute he is not a traffic star, but then in your last post you seem to be happy to compare/measuring him against top traffic stars. I suspect to show that he is as good if not better than their stats because there had been a lull in Q3?

There's 2 things going on. You don't seem to want him to be marred by this drama's performance, conveniently blaming others (director or other actors), but happy to say he's the best of a bad bunch in this drama, to support your views based on so-called data and netizens' chats online in China. That's a bit cruel and disrespectful to the many actors in this drama.

I stand by my original view. This drama is lazy and lacks any originality. Not only is the casting of Hu Lanxin a mistake because she made BLDJ look like her annoying little brother, due to her mature looks. HMH's portrayal was also underwhelming. The data drop may not have anything to do with BLDJ not being around, but the whole drama does not live up to the initial hype.

The drama I mentioned is probably a sleeper hit, and previous well known international actors working in China did not gain that level of heat index. I doubt it was due to the ML's background. If the acting is solid, the drama's storylines are original and convincing, these things happen from time to time.

I replied because of fandoms' obsession with data, which you prove. I'm not interested in all that, but am interested in your view of why the viewing dipped. It seemed a bit naive. Of course, your view could be valid, but unfortunately, China's online views or opinions are not solid. I would take views of HMH's performance as a pinch of salt.

Weibo for a start is filled with marketing accounts creating fan fights, attacking rival/competitors and often, most comments are filled with obvious bots. Views online there should be taken cautiously where traffic actors are concerned. Beyond all the comments, this drama would be forgotten in a year's time.

As for hitting 10,000 popularity ratings in Youku, I suspect, if even a small drama like Escape From The Trilateral Slopes with hardly any fanfare can top that, it's fair to say, DY is very much average.

I never said it's all HMH's fault. But I said it could be possible some dropped it due to the poor pacing and HMH's portrayal of BLDJ. These are my opinions and what I think may have caused a drop from mid-way. Not because he was barely in it after that.

I dropped it around ep 18 and could not take it anymore. Many of the characters were cardboard cut-outs. The direction offered no real twists. Then HMH tries to play a larking happy-go-lucky young man unconvincingly. He was lethargic had no strong screen presence, and most of the time his eyes looked spaced out rather than convey any emotions.

I get this is an adaptation, but it looks like with even the writer on-board, they could not get the pacing right. I was overwhelmed with so many characters and the strong emphasis on trying to be witty but often ended up looking dated and childish. With all this, I'm not surprised audiences dropped it at midway. You of course can have your opinion on why. I just disagree with it.

Also, not all actors' motivation or directors' motivation are geared towards current data to work out the ranking and whether the next job will be better or worse. Some actually are more interested in the storylines over data and ranking. Those few in the industry will pick up talent regardless of just numbers.

Sorry but, you posted a foot-long post just to conclude that data is the most important thing and all the noise outside of the drama seems to be "the drama", and not the drama itself.

In a round-about way, you are saying the drama has a lot of shortcomings like what I wrote earlier, but whatever HMH does, his fandom would blindly say it's great when to the average passerby, it's just mediocre. That goes back to what I said about fandoms. The Doyin hustle and Olympics are just more excusing the dodgy performance, and HMH (outside of the drama) is a hero for salvaging a below par drama.

High ratings at the beginning of a drama is normal for "anticipated" dramas. If they don't engage the audience, only the hard-core fandoms stick around no matter what, which is why certain drama makers hire them. It's not like slow burn barely promoted dramas that go by word-of-mouth.

What "fandoms" say are predictable because they're already blinkered. They all seem to be obsessed with data, so they're not the ones dropping it. To me, that means it's the passer-bys dropping it. Like me. Just another opinion.

BTW, I have no issue with him swigging the stuff. There's no hidden message. He just look too boyish to even look convincing.

I read it. An alternative viewpoint is the drop in ratings might be due to the fact that some people got tired of the poor story pacing and HMH's version of an alcohol swigging boy that barely looks legal to even drink the stuff. Your opinions are just your opinions.

I'm only on ep 4. So far it's so bad it's actually good. But we'll see. Slow mo for the ML just glancing and turning his head. His top lip has more deep plum lip stick than the FL. What more can I ask for.

What do you mean? I noticed his wig is different from others. He's has side-burns?