Vespertyne29

I am totally hooked on this drama, from the first scene of the first episode!

I don't usually like Asian vampire dramas - I'm more into the classic Bram Stoker or more contemporary Ann Rice (who created an entire vampire mythology for her novels) vampire stories. I also have dropped every Korean and Chinese drama I've tried to watch that was set in the 1920 to 1940s.

But this drama is fantastic! I love the story - it feels like a fresh, interesting take on the classic vampire story. I love the characters, the sets, the costumes, and the cinematography. Chinese dramas set in snowy climes are always my favorites from a purely visual standpoint, and this one really delivers on the natural beauty of the snowy city.

I can't wait for the next episodes! Already paid extra for the express, but it's only a 24-hours-in-advance deal. I assume once the drama nears the end then Tencent will be happy to take more $ from me for access to the last 5 or 6 episodes.

I'm unfamiliar with the FL but she is gorgeous and is doing a very credible job at playing a young blind girl. I love WinWin, but only know him as a beautiful dancer and idol. He's doing well with his role, although I was surprised to see that his character is considered one of the 3 main ones -so far he has had far less screentime that the actor playing the main villain, Li Ying Liang, who is playing his role so well that he's already in that "I can't wait for him to die" status for me! (although the last episode at least explained why he has such a personal hatred for Shen Zhi Heng. I suppose he could be rehabilitated, but I'm not counting on it).

As for the ML, Gao Wei Guang - he has never appealed to me, although the only drama I've seen him in a significant role was Eternal Love, as Dilraba's character's love obsession. I really thought their entire relationship was ick, so didn't pay much attention to him. I think he also had a support role (one of the princes) in Sword Snow Stride, which I really liked (I love Zhang, Ruoyun). So I've never had much of an opinion of him. But he is absolutely slaying this role. And he really makes a stunning vampire figure. The last episode with him in black with a ruby red cape, against the snowy background - stunning.

It's always especially impressive to me when I read about how hard it was for a drama to pass censorship, knowing that they had to cut out parts and re-dub parts to change censored scenes and dialogue. This drama apparently had to go through the censorship process twice. Thus, we have a vampire drama in which there can be no blood-drinking, and occasionally an episode like Episode 10, which was only 30 minutes long, presumably because so much had been cut.

But despite the censorship issues, this drama is very, very good!

2024 has been a kick-ass year for Cdramas, mostly wuxia or historical pieces. It's also been a great year for strong, independent FLs. I think this drama is going to add another win in both of those categories.

Anyone else watching and loving Snow Fall?

No. In the drama we learned that the emperor (the CP) had the entire Su clan killed, but Princess begged him not to kill Su Rongqing, so he let him live but castrated him as punishment

It's fate!!

I have a question - how is this drama going to get past the censorship rules about no time travel, reincarnation, transmigration, etc? This "redo" life is IMO one of the "unrealistic" storylines that the CCP has banned. So what is the end game here?

In Joy of Life, they add a prologue of a grad student writing a sci-fi novel to convince his professor to let him write his thesis on applying 21st century values on ancient Chinese dynasties.

In Scent of Time the FL's "redo" ended up being all a dream. while she is comatose for years, and none of the prior tragedy in her life had changed. There was never a redo.

In The Double (LOVED IT!) they had to change the FL's soul transmigrating into another girl's body when both of them are killed, and created a rather awkward story about the older, married woman pretending to be the girl who died, with the people who knew (and tried to murder) her freaking out at the resemblance, but accepting that this doppelganger was really the young girl, who inexplicably looked, talked, acted EXACTLY like the dead wife.

I've noticed lately that the mini-Cdramas often have the "do over" life or a reincarnation theme, but I figured they may not have the same censorship requirements. But for the TV and web dramas, these literary devices are still banned AFAIK.

At least in Scent of Time the FL was actually still alive before she fell into a long (2 or 3 years IIRC) coma and dreamed she went back in time and "fixed things," but in this drama, both the FL and ML actually die in the first episode.

Is the ending that they wake up to find themselves early in their marriage, still together, and the long, complicated "dream" of growing old, dying, and then coming back to "redo" 20 years of their lives enables them to avoid making the same mistakes and be happy?

Or did the ban on time travel/reincarnation/transmigration get modified of lifted?

Me, too. Maybe he'll die in the drama! I am really into him dying!

It's always interesting - and kind of weird - to me that there seem to be some people who are simply determined to go for the SML. Sometimes they are likeable characters (although SRQ isn't, and I personally do not find the actor has much screen charisma - he comes across as pretty flat to me), but what is the reason so many people want to stick the FL with someone she does not have any romantic feelings towards?
I guess maybe it's the attraction to the underdog, but I've never understood it. I've only had SML syndrome once time, and it was in a drama where the character who should have been the ML - and was actually presented as the ML when the drama started - ended up being supplanted by the guy who appeared to be the 2nd ML when the drama began. And I thought that character was completely unlikable, so I dropped the drama. However, the ML-turned-to-2nd-ML was probably the most successful 2nd ML ever, because the majority of viewers actually preferred him. I consider this an aberration, based on bad storytelling.
As for this drama, not only do I dislike the 2nd ML, but I am finding the director deciding to give him more screen time than the ML to be a detriment to my enjoyment of this drama. I've been tired of him since the beginning, and he just seems to get more and more screen time as the drama progresses.

I agree. I can see the ratings here at MDL are going steadily down the longer the drama airs. For me there is too much filler, too much SML, too much of things that don't really advance the plot. At 30 episodes this would have been much better.

I am enjoying it, but I do find it boring at times.

You will love it!
I loved the lead couple best, but I also really enjoyed side characters. My favorites were the lawyer and the FL's reporter friend. Both of their characters were very much my cup of cha!

Surprisingly, I have found the best, strongest, most likable FL characters in Cdramas in the last year or two. So many dramas in which I loved the FL.
Just finished The Double, and loved it - the FL was wonderful, and I fell in love with the ML, who was new to me (Wang Xingyue, who I can't believe is only 22! Apparently, he started college at age 15. His deep voice and natural maturity on screen is amazing for his age). You have to set aside some plot devices that stretch the imagination, but that's due to Chinese censorship that disallows things like transmigration and reincarnation of souls, so if that's part of the novel that is being adapted, like it was for The Double and for another top Cdrama of mine, Joy of Life, then the screenwriter and director just have to get creative, which limits their overall ability to present a rational (fantasy) scenario.
Loved Blossoms in Adversity, with not just the FL being strong and independent and likable, but showing a family of women, left to fend for themselves, growing and learning to be independent. Loved it. (And I was happy to finally love a drama with Hu YiTian, as I've dropped all of his prior dramas, and he's the favorite of one of my besties with whom I almost always share taste in dramas).
Enjoyed In Bloom, where the FL CHARACTER was likable, although the FL actress was not as good as she could have been.
I loved Legend of ShenLi -- a mature couple, a mature love, a good story, and I loved how the FL was actually stronger and feistier than the ML, who was more than ready to leave his lonely life as the last living god, and be a house husband! ha!
Journey to Love, despite the ending, had a great FL, and she and ML had a wonderful, equal partnership.
Loved Back from the Brink - the FL was great (I like that actress and Neo Hou is gorgeous). It was delightfully funny and charming. Even the love triangle was cute instead of annoying.
For lighter, contemporary dramas there was the older woman-younger man Cdrama Why Women Love - absolutely loved the FL and also the idol ML (singer Wang Ziyi) was well cast in that role. The Rational Life is another older woman-younger man drama featured 3 strong female characters dealing with issues women face in work, social and family life. I think it's Dylan Wang's best role before Romance of Fairy and Devil. In RL, the FL is almost 20 years older than he is (!!), but in the drama they are 35 and 22-23. The romance was less the focus, and the FL was wonderful for not being nasty or vengeful at work, but merely "getting back" at her enemies by being the most intelligent, competent, and compassionate supervisor/employee at the workplace. Her best friend had given up a successful career to enjoy married life, BUT did not want to have children as she did not like children (I totally relate to the "no children ever" attitude, but I would never give up my career, which I love!) The third female character was a young woman who was mentored by the FL, who had to navigate the workplace as a young woman whose mentor was often discriminated against, and who she was asked to help plot to discredit.
Anyway, there are just so many Cdramas with strong, independent, and interesting FLs these days. I am impressed. Now if they would only get rid of their stupid censorship issues, we'd get even better dramas from China.

I have a few moots who have taste in drama that is extremely similar to mine - we almost always love (or hate) the same dramas. But that being said, we sometimes have major disagreements on what is a good drama, or which actors are our favorites. However, because we already respect each other's overall opinions and reasoning, we just chalk it up to very personal differences in taste, and respectfully agree to disagree!

I already agreed with you about Lovely Runner, which I couldn't even watch beyond about 4 episodes, for the same reasons.

However, I have to also add that SWDBS - which is #1 on my list of worst Kdramas ever made - has MANY other issues than just an intolerable FL. (I'm not talking about the new recently aired one, in which I had zero interest and did not watch, but the first one).

The offensive homophobic running joke about gay men is a cause to drop in and of itself. NOT funny. At all. Just super offensive.

And the FL's horrible mother constantly beating on her husband. DV is NOT funny.

And finally, the drama is LITERALLY about sh*t. This type of cheap, juvenile, scatological humor is really scraping the bottom of the barrel, and is not, and never will be, something I find even remotely amusing.

I will never, ever, ever understand the high rating SWDBS has on Viki. It's offensive to me that people think that drama is worth watching. I can only assume its inflated ratings are due to the juveniles with juvenile humor who comprise an astonishingly large number of Viki viewers, and the fans of the ML (who is very pretty, but who proves, over and over again, including in his most recent 2024 drama, that he has an extremely limited talent for acting).

It's June 29th, and my Neflix (USA) is only showing 5 episodes.

Usually if I look at "episodes" for a drama, it will show a list with all of the episodes, both available and unavailable. You can watch the available ones, which have a synopsis of the episode. The non-aired future episodes are listed with a placeholder photo and the date that the episode will be available to watch.

However, for this drama, I can only see the 5 available episodes. There are no placeholders with future airing dates for any additional episodes. This is not the norm.

I will be super pissed if it ends at Episode 5, which is literally in the middle of the story, with nothing resolved.

I didn't even get as far as you did before I had to drop it. I really tried, but I just did not like the FL character.
Also, I was watching Will Love in Spring at the same time, and it was actually a believable, realistic story about a man loving a physically handicapped woman. Both characters were flawed, and at times were annoying, but the story always gave us some background info to explain and put the flaw in context. Plus, the two leads always explained themselves to th e other fairly quickly, and "talked it out," so they were able to move forward together. I loved that maturity and realism.
It may be unfair to compare a slice-of-life, serious drama like Will Love in Spring with a fantasy rom-com like LR, but in addition to disliking the FL character so much that the drama was unwatchable for me, I also thought it was just so obvious that the FL was going to end up being physically intact, and the ML was going to be saved. It was never a story about a young man falling in love and having a relationship with a young woman in a wheelchair. OTOH, WLiS showed justhat - a man falling for a woman who was strong, independent and intelligent, but who also had a permanent handicap. that wasn't going to magically go away.
As for LR, I thought the 2nd ML and the ML had good chemistry. After feeling a bit sad it couldn't be a BL drama with them as the OTP (hahaha!) I just dropped it and feel no regrets.
Sadly, I often do not like FL characters in Kdramas and Cdramas, and this particular super perky, childish acting/dressing/talking character is exactly the one type I can't tolerate. That stereotype reduces the enjoyment of watching dramas far more frequently than I'd like, but that "type" seems to appeal to a lot of the young women who watch these dramas. (I'm always shocked by the ratings on the streaming service for Asian dramas that I mostly use, but when I check out the "real time comments," I understand - so many of the commenters talk about being in high school and MIDDLE school, and/or are watching the dramas during their classes, or at night while trying to hide the fact from their parents. I'm an adult with a career, so I guess there's no surprise that I have different taste in FL characters.

I feel the same. I loved it.

As for the ending, I also was not at all disappointed, and thought it was perfect.
In these dramas that deal with curses, there has to be something that breaks the curse. Without that, the couple can never be together in that lifetime, and in dramas like this, where there is a multi-reincarnation, eternal curse, they can never be happy in any lifetime as long as the curse continues. So it has to be broken.

Much like in Goblin, where the FL had a birth curse - she was not supposed to be born, but Goblin interfered and saved her pregnant mother. So the Grim Reapers were tasked with taking her undocumented, not-supposed-to-be life, especially every 9 years, as 10 was a perfect number (so 9, 19, 29, etc) In order to have a happy, "documented" life, she had to die and be reborn as a "documented" soul.

In Moon in the Day, there also had to be new lives, unaffected by the curse, for the FL, and - like Goblin - for the ML to move on from his cursed ghostly existence. To see them meet back up as teenagers, with a fresh slate without their cursed history, was perfect.

Agree 100%!! That was my introduction to Kim Young Dae, and it was instant love.
I had seen the FL in Dr. Romantic 2, and while that drama made me a huge fan of Ahn Hyo Seop, I did not particularly like the FL character played by Lee Sung-Kyung. But I LOVED her in Sh**ting Stars! She and KYD had the BEST chemistry, and were both just adorable characters! I was smitten with KDY, and loved the way he, as an actor, was able to show such a contrast between his mature, super-confident actor personality, and the shy, boyish vulnerability that he felt when he was trying to woo Oh Han-Byeol. I particularly loved the scene where he kisses her for the first time, and she asks him why he is shaking, and he says it's because he's so nervous. That was an absolutely perfect portrayal of his real personality, and not the actor who so confidently handled the kiss scenes with his co-lead in the drama they were filming.
There are a few dramas that I enjoy so much, and love the characters and story so much, that I rewatch them.. I have watched Sh**ting Stars three times, and writing about it makes me want to rewatch it yet again!

Thank you. I don’t want to know too much. I just wanted to know if Duke Su and Li Jiang were both
alive - and hopefully together , but mainly alive! - at the end.

Thank you. Hopefully the drama will be the same

I agree with most of what you say, but for your praise of the FL role. IMO she started out with all the positive attributes you mention, but then turned into a weepy victim, who silently followed her father’s instructions with little to no fight, and completely forgot about her physical strength and martial arts skills. She stood silently weeping at her almost- marriage to the GP, she got held captive. She kept quiet she should have spoken up. It was like a completely different personality took over between around episode 4 or 5, and then she reverted back to herself in the last 5 minutes of the show.

The entire prophesy business was meaningless babble, just thrown in to set up the initial kidnapping. It was inconsistent and not one thing the so-called prophet said came true. The most believable thing he said - that CP was born/fated to be a great leader - turned into fiction with the unbelievable ending. (And for those who want to argue that he passed 2 major law reforms - the guilt by association and the marriage ban during the crown princess selection, those were to benefit the FL and himself (as he had no intention of marrying so did not want to ban all marriages for years). And also, it would have taken more than a few months to gain support to pass those. )

Anyway, the ending was just bad. I already struggled with the constant repetition of this 10-episodes of story drama stretched out to 20 episodes, but the ending made me sorry I didn’t drop it when I first started getting bored.

If you don’t mind multiple repetitions of the same scenario, a substantial amount of screen time given to a middle-aged fornicating and murdering couple, zero character continuity (except for the young Grand Prince), and an absolutely absurd ending that sacrificed the character and storyline of the Crown Prince to “fan service,” then by all means, go for it. You’ll love it.

The ending was ridiculous. Ruined the already mediocre drama for me.

Character continuity is a major factor for me when following a story, via novel or drama. I can deal with some loose ends and unrealistic scenarios, but I hate when characters do a 180.

This drama had two huge problems with character continuity. First was with the FL, who started the story as a strong, smart, independent minded young woman who was also skilled in martial arts. For the last 2/3rds of the drama she became a silent, weepy, physically weak, subservient character, who acted as if she had no control over her fate or the machinations of her father.

Second was the CP. - the ending was just jaw droppingly unbelievable and ridiculous. CP is a natural born fated leader. His father chose him as CP because of his intelligence, rational thinking, calm temperament, and ability to remain calm/think in a crisis. He was raised and educated as a future king. The idea that he would flout the Confucian values that permeated every aspect of Joseon social, political and familial life, to leave the rule and fate of the country to his unqualified and unwilling and unchosen brother, is patently ABSURD.

Additionally, in the last 5 minutes of the drama he undergoes a major personality change and basically starts acting like his younger brother (who is the ONLY of the 3 main characters who stayed “in character” for the entire drama. I hated the ending.

The drama was hovering around a 7 for me I am not someone who gives a 10 to every drama I watch. I rarely award a perfect score to a drama, and consider an 7 to be good, snd an 8 and above to be very good and above average) but the ending dropped it to a 6, maybe 6.5 solely for the acting, which was quite good. Cant fault the actors for the tiresomely repetitive storyline, which could have/should have been told in 10 to 12 max episodes, the lack of character continuity, or the ridiculous ending.

The only thing I appreciated about the ending was the final shot of everyone breaking character and retuning to their real life selves when the PD yells “cut,” and showing the PD - in Joseon gear - stepping up to stand with the actors and thank the audience . It emphasized how completely ridiculous that last scene was. Ugh.