WK1

In historical drama, great majority of the time, voices of big star actors and actresses are usually dubbed by professional voice actors/actresses. So, I am pretty sure both her voice in Song of Youth and One and Only are dubbed. Whether they are dubbed by the same voice actress, that I cannot tell, as some voice actresses are really good. They can change their pitch very effectively, and you can hardly tell it is the same person who did it.

They do this, because famous actors are usually very busy, and historical series are rather long. So it is very economical to use voice actors/actresses. At 43, Song of Youth is reasonably song. And many of the voice actors/ actresses are really good. They specialise in historical dramas and able to time their speech almost in sync with the lip movements of the actual actors/actresses. Sometimes they dub, because the actual actress/actor do not speak 'standard' Mandarin, or speak with a strong accent from certain regions of China.

But in many modern C dramas, many big stars will actually dub their own voice. Most of modern dramas are shorter (28 or at most 32).

Sometimes they do, if the FL started the series as a young person and their personality/charater changes as the FL matures in a drama. Or if the FL suffered a very traumatic event in her life. Here QJJ was already an adult when the series started. And her personality did not really change much from high school, as she did not encounter any traumatic event in her life. Even as an adult, she did not encounter any major traumatic event.

She did suffer humiliation when she was rejected the 2nd time by the ML. But, by then she is already a very successful, beautiful and famous actress. If the ML walks away from this relationship, she will have lots of suitors waiting for her.

But the story was not written like that. The ML quickly learned his mistakes and cement their relationship. Hence, her confidence and personality remained largely intact.

True. They are both narcissists. I would term them 'closet' narcissists, a special species of narcissists who knew their strengths, but never look down on others who were lacking in whatever they have.

YT has many colleagues and friends who were not really great looking. But he did not look down on any of them.

Indeed! If she did not die, the ML and FL will be locked in endless rounds of struggles with all the bad characters at the grasslands. It will be a totally different kind of drama.

The screenwriters deliberately wrote the script this way, so that, even though the pain is deep, it is quick. The ML is strong. He will overcome his grief very quickly, and when he did find the FL, he did not even blame the FL. He knew that all the bad people set a trap for the FL. She was just too young and too naive to deal with all those cunning bad characters.

But FL is smart. She learned from her mistakes. Toward the end, she outwit and outfoxed the main villain so many times.

Yes, dubbed by professional voice actors and actresses

Yes! She has a way of boasting about her beauty that is really unique. Like you, I found it more amusing than anything else. Right from E1, when she was with sister Ling and Xiao Zhu, she stated her beauty in a rather cute and amusing way, you hardly feel that she was boasting about it. Yes, it was stated only among her close friends, hardly to hurt others.

That is part of the reasons why YT was never attracted to her. Apart from her trying to change YT's career trajectory, she was a show-off, while QJJ is very down to earth, despite her wealth and fame. The only thing that QJJ always talked about is her beauty. But, that is just a reflection of her confidence in her looks, than trying to say that other women are ugly. She needs that confidence, so that she can be a successful actress. Like it not, the first hurdle that any actress must pass is the visual hurdle. Not that look is the only important thing, but it sets the minimum bar. QJJ just happened to clear that bar, with room to spare.

And YT was always proud of her look. It would be plastered all over Shanghai. Whenever he meets someone, first as her boyfriend and then as her husband, there is hardly any need for him to do too much of an intro. Her success, her fame, her look, bring glory to him, and YT's success as a top aerospare engineer brings glory to her.

They are each other's glory, reflecting on each other's brightness. A perfect match, made in heaven.

That is one thing that stayed constant throughout the entire series: Her confidence and personality.

Totally unshakable. Solid as a rock

Really appreciate this effort. Will surely be useful!

Reading all the comments in this thread makes me very sad. Even before this drama is aired, people are over-reacting to a sincere and innocuous comment by Flashtone. In her very first comment, she already made it clear, she wants TOOL to be huge, more popular than YAMG. Instead of trusting her at her word, I see a lot of mistrust and over-reactions.

I do not find "I will do whatever I want' language offensive. Not in the context of what Flashtone wrote. This is the internet. And MDL is a free space, for everyone to express their sincere opinions. Any kind of language is ok, as long as it does not incite hate. I wish people would also refrain from vulgarities, but I know some amount of that is going to happen once people get into heated debates and arguments.

Wish things were that simple. It is not. Sooner or later, people will compare. If not explicitly, at least implicitly. Once this drama is aired, lots of people will say this is the best drama of 2021. I have seen it happening to all the MDL pages of dramas that are liked by fans of those dramas.

But I sincerely doubt anyone will come here and show hate to TOOL. It just does not make sense. Unless, of course, they are 'haters'. And Flashone is hardly a hater. She already made it abundantly clear that she is a Yang Zi fan, and want all of her dramas to be sucessful, which will certainly include TOOL.

Yes, there is a big difference between a short film and a full length drama of 29 episodes. He may not be in all 29 episodes, but will be more than enough episodes to demand consistency in performance over many hours from E1 to E29. Hence, I share your excitement in watching his delivery in TOOL.

There is no 'model' answer to the question whether 8.8 is a stretch, or what should be a fairer number. 8.8 is just a statistical average of the rating of 2415 raters (at this moment). It may go up and it may down.

Like some (or many of you), I fast forward many of the game scenes. Zero interest in it. Likewise, I even fast forward many of the aerospace scenes (also very little interest). Even then, I knew what they were trying to do, in terms of story telling. After all, this is a modern drama with a relatively simple plot, with little twists and turns.

Which left me to answer the big question, since this story is about two different people from two different industries, meeting again after 10 years, falling in love despite their different situations in life, did our two big stars make it believeable that they were having those struggles, and really did fall in love? For me, the answer is: They did. I felt that individual acting and collective chemistry (both when they fell in love and what happened after that, and even prior to falling in love), were more than enough to compensate for the simple storyline. I guess that is why Tencent was willing to pay big bucks to Reba and Yang Yang. They trusted those two big stars and the view counts at more than 3B in China show that their trust was not misplaced.

I would not have given it a 10, but I did. Not because it is perfect. I was also doing a bit of compensating here. Compensating for those 'haters' who came in to rate it 1 or 2 several weeks ago, very likely not having watched a single episode of this drama. Without those haters, I may have rated it 9 or 9.5.

Those who have rated it 10 very likely did not mind those game or aerospace scenes, who felt that the drama following the novel is something very important to you, because you read the novel prior to watching this drama. You loved that novel and you do not need to make any apology for wanting the drama to follow the novel. But I did not read the novel. So it is hardly important to me whether it does or does not follow the novel. I wanted the drama to tell me their love story, and it did.

We all knew 8.8 was always going to come. Just a matter of time.

I do suspect in time to come, this sort of ranking might mean less and less in China. Because of the recent scandals involving some high profile celebrities (I know we all know who these people are), the Chinese authorities are quite about to be on the verge of having a crackdown on celebrity culture.

There is a weekly ranking of celebrities called the Power Star ranking published by Weibo. On August 6, Weibo, in responding to state media, decided to stop publishing that ranking. For people in China, I suspect the Power Star ranking is more important than the Forbes ranking.

Right before they stopped publishing this list, among female actresses, Reba was ranked number 1. For male actors, Yang Yang was ranked number 1. Most likely due to the popularity of YAMG. When all celebrities are included (singers, actors, etc,), among all celebrities, Xiao Zhan was ranked number1. Reba was the only female who made it to the top 10, coming in at 8.

Thanks so much!! Very nice summary of their sweet moments together.

That is true. It may lead others to that conclusion.

I really do not know if they would make a nice couple in real life. Drama is drama. Everything is simplified for our consumption. Real life is far more complicated. If they do become a real couple, of course, we will all be so happy for them. If they don't it is ok too.

I was hoping that they would send messages to each, congratulating each other that YAMG has hit 3B views. Guess they may be too busy to do that. Maybe they feel that the message was enough to represent all of them

Yes, I do remember that scene. Thanks again!!