Thecla

Or perhaps Fatty Tang will give up his money-making ambitions and stay in the pass with A He. (Or, since he's unlikely to undergo a complete transformation even for love, he'll set up a business trading antiquities out of the pass and profitable goods back into the pass...)

Seems like LZ did something to CD's heart with the wire bracelet when she "rescued" him , as when his heart stopped in the camp. I'm not sure if she believes that holding CD's life in her hands is sufficient leverage to get him to kill YLX --- if so, she's wrong. I'd worry more about her manipulating his memories.

I only came across this show by accident, and it seems like it's not getting the publicity it deserves. I started late, but sadly I already watched it up to the most recent Ep 26.

Maybe it's because the show doesn't fit into a standard cdrama category, even if it has all the elements (mystery, romance, action, modern fantasy, palace-intrique..). Maybe because the initial buildup is slow, but I loved the unusual real-world setting (I guess, at least for the non cgi bits, in the Gobi desert?).

Cast is great (though I have some trouble with the ML's chin) and some genuinely creepy bits with what the exotic monsters in the other world can do.

Anyway, highly recommended for anyone who likes anything in the scifi/fantasy realm.

Actually, I was j/k about the amnesia/childhood friends bit. But it feels like this drama started out fresh and interesting and it's ending with a bunch of kdrama tropes.

Sorry, Ep. 14 jumped the shark for me (sort of like Jinxed at First, though not as badly as way that show went all over the place after an interesting start...)

-- KDH insists on not bringing MSH along whenever he's talking to just about anyone who's a key person in the murder case
-- Police inspector LKM forms secret plans with a main suspect (KDH) and his girlfriend (MSH), who is former girlfriend of LKM. Sure this is norm police procedure.
-- Following these plans, MSH gets crucial info from imprisoned suspect, and immediately jumps into a car and drives off without saying anything to LKM who is like 10 meters away.
--MSH then searches office of JDC for needed physical evidence. Yes, that will be really admissible.
....

Anyway, guess that the explosion at the end of Ep. 14 will give MSH amnesia, and when she regains her memory in Ep. 16, she'll remember that MSH and KDH first met when they were children.

Could Lee Kang Min end up with Syaon? (He did more or less just rescue her.)

Somewhere it's mentioned that the Emperor only elevated three of his sons to Lords (Chong Chuhe, Yu), and they would be the only ones in line for the succession. The 9th son is in town helping one of the brothers, and I guess any other sons are hanging out in their country estates enjoying the good life.

So far, I'm enjoying "The Blood of Youth" on Viki. It's a fast paced Wuxia drama about a rather impulsive younger generation entering the martial art world, with so many sword deities and martial arts experts that it's hard to keep track of all of them.

Just started this drama. Ep 6, 6:30 -- 7:50 (on viki) really one of the best moments ever.

Hopefully the rest is just as good.

What do you mean? It has an 8.8/10 rating on IMDB and 9.1/10 on MDL.

Strictly speaking, AoS2 doesn't fit the criteria since it didn't finish airing in 2022. But far be it from me to say how anyone should vote :)

Yes way too many stupid mis/non communications to drag out the plot. At least there are no amnesia tropes ;)

I just love how often magical turtles appear in asian fantasy dramas. Not so many in western stories.

It makes perfect sense that the fake Bu-Yeon will become the real Bu-Yeon. (And possibly marry Seo Yul.)

Yup, but not a twist in a good way :) I think HIMYM is just behind the Game of Thrones as the most outrageous and perverse ending of any TV series, so not good company for AoS.

I really like Jang Uk/JBY in Part 2 (as I really liked Jang Uk/Mudeok in Part 1), but it feels like the entire plot is collapsing around them. I hope I'm proved wrong in the last 3 epsiodes, but there's very little time left to recover.

Man, I really hope this show doesn't turn into a "How I Met Your Mother" sort of ending with Jang Uk losing Naksu and getting JBY.

Totally agree, and skipped most of it. It's like the show turned into an imitation of a heist movie.

Or wait a couple of weeks. I'm actually starting to get a bit worried about how the final episodes will go.

Personally, I've long since given up on expecting any consistent, logical development about how AoS works, and I'm just going along with the wild ride.

The show started off making a big deal about recognizing soul-shifters by their blue shoulder marks, but that seems almost irrelevant now. Who knew about cursed soul-ejectors or a soul's energy transforming the body of its host into its own likeness before they got thrown in?

Nothing anyone says, even Master Lee, about AoS is to be believed with certainty because something-or-other will likely come in from left field and totally upend everything we supposed we knew.

In the English subtitles (no idea how accurate they are), Master Lee says fairly definitively that once Naksu retrieves her memories she will eventually be rejected by that body. (Does leave how long that would take open.)

Of course, no statement about how AoS works should be believed, since it's infinitely fungible. Who knew until recently that souls could terraform bodies into their own likeness?