WK1

I did not see things from this angle. Maybe this person does have an unhappy love life and become really frustrated to see two people so deeply in love in a drama.

I think there is wide variety of taste for novels in China. There is no doubt that Gun Man pioneered the gaming genre (with Love020), cause many other writers in China started to use video games as a plot device.

But we can see that a drama like 'You are my hero' also did very well in China. That drama relies on a slightly more complicated plot.

The problem with having a simple plot (no angst, no break up, no crazy exes, etc) is that you really need top class actors/actresses to pull it off. Like what Reba and Yang Yang did for YAMG.

For "You are my hero" because the script is more complex, they don't really need high traffic actors. As such, directors and producers have greater flexibility in choosing actors/actresses.

For a drama that needs high traffic actors, the producer is really at the mercy of the actors. If high traffic actors cannot fit their filming schedule or somehow cannot make up their decision fast enough, filming is delayed.

I think it is coming up real soon. Keep watching. I think the scriptwriter wants to write that part as the grand finale to this drama.

Samd here too. I rarely watch reviews myself, knowing that we all have different tastes. I would rather catch the first few episodes of a drama. If it sticks, it sticks. If it does not, I just move on. There are so many nice dramas out there.

I watch reviews just to see if I might have missed something that a reviewer did not.

She needs to more unbiased then, if she wants to be taken seriously by would-be viewers of the dramas that she is reviewing. At the very least, she will need to watch the entire series of a particular drama.

Ok. I think I understand what you are saying. It is just that in TLB, she picked on a scene that lasted only about 10 second, to basically put down the drama. She really lost a lot of credibility. I don't even know if she managed to watch the entire drama. I will go hunt for her end review, if she has done one.

The one she did for TLB brought lots of unhappiness for TLB lovers.

I know. When she did her review for The Long Ballad, many people felt that she was biased, basing her review on just one or two scenes. At least for YAMG, we know that she is basing her views on the entire drama.

Yes, there are some gangsters movies around. I think in the past, there were quite a few of those in Kdrama or Jdrama. Lots of violence. The plot in those dramas usually involves turf wars between rival gangs. Or people fighting over positions in a gang. I think public opinion has turned against those kinds of dramas that either glorifies or justifies violence.

For me, even for Wuxia type of dramas, my taste has also gradually changed over the years. I used to love seeing lots of blood oozing out from pierced bodies. These days, I am quite contented seeing a nice slit, with just enough blood to show that a person was indeed killed in a battle or a fight. After all, we all know that all those blood used a drama is fake. They are just there to create more realism. If a director wishes to show more blood, so be it. But I am quite happy with less blood.

Yes, Reba is an interesting paradox. The more they dig about her supposed 'bad' past, the more they discover truth about her and lead others to appreciate her even more. If I remember correctly, Reba used to be a sales lady, before she got into acting. They must have found that she was a very capable and hard working sales lady, before she went into acting.

I suspect Yang Yang is the same. That not only does he have a clean image, in real life he stays away from scandals, and avoids putting himself into the kind of situations that got so many big celebrities into trouble recently.

I am not unmindful of the fact that for a drama to be a success, the entire team ought to be praised. It is just the degree of attribution for where success lies that we differ in our opinions. And next year, that question will be settled by all the awards.

We can also read or listen to independent drama critics or reviewers, to see what they think of YAMG.

Ah, that one! I remember going to the MDL page of that drama in the early days when it was first aired. And many comments were negative, saying they did not portray the work of a cost engineer realistically. I know the leading actress there is a very good actress. Maybe it is getting better now, or maybe people are able to overlook that aspect of the drama and focus on other aspects.

There is currently a drama that has lots of violence that is doing quite well. I am not sure it has any central storyline. But I think it is doing well because, supposedly, it is inspired by true events that happened in China. As international viewers, we may not understand what those true events are. But viewers in China do. So, they can relate to those events and do not seem to mind the high level of violence. I think they also needed the level of violence to be realistic, because when those events did happen in China, they must have made headlines in China and they were indeed extremely violent events.

For many of us here, but perhaps not all, we are driven by the non-violent genre. At least for modern dramas. Violence in historical dramas is very common, but we can take comfort in the fact that they happened long ago, when people still use violence to resolve conflict.

Is hers the best review for YAMG?? I know there are several reviewers on YouTube

Her voice is not too bad, actually. Certainly better another reviewer that I watched on YouTube.

They usually have lots of awards for dramas and acting. Next year, I think they will announce some of the results for the various categories. Top drama award should go to the best written or best overall drama. Gu Man will be receiving that award, if YAMG wins. I believe there will an award for the best director as well. And then best actress and best actor.

One step at a time, YAMG will get there. First we need to hit 8.9. Hopefully in a couple of weeks.

We will definitely get to 3.5B by this weekend. From the morning till now, it already added 10M views. No new episodes. Just driven by existing episodes. If it keeps doing this, we might even reach 3.5B by this evening.

Thanks so much!! This is the 2nd time I watched this review. Quite an insightful one.

Are you envious that this drama is doing so much better than the dramas you love??