TaraVerde

The darkest parts almost already passed. You'll have more sunny moments intertwined with the heavy ones, if it helps. Two eps a day is a perfect pace

Really difficult. This drama is powerful and I can't recall many thrillers in this line. Thrillers usually don't have romance but they also don't have the emotional impact as The Hunt. You have The Long Season (this is really something unusual), Thirteen Years if Dark or The First Shot, but very different. I don't know if you'll like it.

The details! Not only they bring Chinese references, but they´re reading Don Quijote - perfect allegory for this War of Resitance.

Sorry for my mistakes in the previous comment. Already fixed most of them :)

You´re welcome! If you have that background, you´ll enjoy it - I hope! (Also because of that, my guess for the forth arc has already changed lol). Keep it mind you won´t find great scale battles or big generals, the focus never leaves the grassroots people, whether soldiers or citizens. This war drama is different from the previous ones I guess.

Uhuu! Zhang Tong and Wang Yang in the same screen frames finally! I can´t wait for eps 27 and 28!

Already in the third arc and my former guess seems to be right - balancing focus between the characters among the two first arcs, and in this third they are all even, focusing in the transition to the CPC. Don´t worry, because when Wang Yang screen time reduces in the second arc, Cao Lei increses. lol. - plus Wan Qian, Huang ChengCheng and Bi Yan Jun are outstanding. I´m still in the drak about the forth arc, have to watch more to see where the clues of the story are pointing. For know, my guess is guerrilla war in the battle front with one big battle at least. In Shanghai, all I can think of is the intensify of the spy arc - nope, new guess: Shanghai will be out of the story.
You have to know the details of the War of Resistance though to appreciate the details, such as the things about the refugeess, the rice, jobs, the difference between the French Consession and the areas ocupied by the Japanese, the conditions of the armies, the German trained divisions, the warlords fights that happened before. You can watch it without knowing them, but much get lost without it - the drama does an excellent job embeding all these things in the story and storytelling.

I think Wang Yang will have more screen time in this third act, as he is going to Wuhan where there are already more characters, but let´s see . I don´t know if it wil be as much as in the first one, but I´m confident that it will be more even than in this second arc, focused on refugees in Shanghai - my hope at least.
As the arcs are following the main battles, my bet is this one will be around their transitioning/start transitioning to the CCP - all the set up leads to that - through to the fall of Wuhan? But if so, we´ll still be in 1938, letting the last and four arc for the rest years until the starting point of the drama in 1944, during the Cheqiao Battle in Jiangsu Province (subs are wrong as they say it´s "Marco Polo Bridge", but this was in 1931 - the incident that started the war).
Cast is superb, all powerhouse names.

I love your review and the topics you bring to the analysis. I believe this kind of fantasy dramas, when done well and with this type of meaningful content, are awesome to help us discuss greater subjects - sometimes better than the grounded and realistic ones. It applies also for the phylosophycal aspects it has,.too.

How come historical facts and a war were 20 million Chinese people - mostly civilians - died is preachy? How do you expect a nation who suffered so much from an invasion deal with it? Praising the enemy and the war crimes it committed? Ridiculous.

Yeap, I'll have to pace myself too.

Totally binge-watching it although I'm tearing up in every episode lol

Amazing first episode! Directing, cinematography, soundtrack, acting, pacing, and how the story is set up — and this is just the beginning. I think I’ll rewatch this first episode; it seems to be a series to savor every moment.

Bringing Real Stories to life: Tales of Wumeng in the Newsc
https://www.reddit.com/r/CDramasBeyondIdols/comments/1rsq9xs/tales_of_wumeng_in_the_news/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

Sorry, Born to be Alive

You can try Born to Be The one. Excellent and one of the best production from recent years overall from every genre; the story is told in a linear way.

I also dropped it within the first episode - very bad storytelling and average director, but this is his trademark. The Truth Within is the most close to what you want. The story is in the present all through out, don´t get mislead asumming there will be a trope competition between the two main leads. It won´t.

I´m trying The Devil Between us at the moment, after dropping all your first four somewhere along the first episode. We´ll see how it goes.
I even tried The Hidden Truth but too many out of place things for a seasoned watcher - but it seems quite good for newer in the genre.
So far, the only one that I ended was The Truth Within, because it has a distinctive cinematography, it was stilized, tense, acting on point, used flashbacks at its minimun - just when needed and they were justified -. and mostly and more importante: coherent, logic and believable - don´t know how to stress wnough these three words. Not a groundbreaking thriller, just a good one to enjoy.

The punishment was another average show, but I was missing a large scale cop thriller. I watched it for a while because of this but Idropped it around 20 eps, and I reached that episode already bored. Pace, production and storytelling was better than in this one, imo. Anyway, I definetely don't like this director, and I'll continue waiting for my next drama with QJJ

Same team from The Punishment: director, actors and you can tell in the way of filming, camera and even soundtrack and how it is used. Outdated style for me, quite generic overall - perhaps those that haven't seen so many thrillers and are in the right mood will enjoy it. I'm not conviced and not the tone/vibe I was looking for.
It's a shame because I was hoping for a Qin JunJie drama. Will see with Abyss, that has a different team.