WK1

She is indeed a frightening woman. This episode clearly shows to us her intelligence. Forming of the alliance with Tang was her plan. And she was also the one who put the plan into action by writing that letter to Li Si Min. And then she went to Tang to form the alliance between Tang and all the desert tribes, to fight against Yicheng. She was the brain behind many things in the drama. And she has the courage to carry out many of these plans.

She set a very high standard for Female Leads. After watching TLB, many other female leads cannot be compared to her. What an amazing character.

Although you have just joined us, your comments just made us feel that you have been with us for months. They are exactly the same feeling of a great majority of us here.

You described it very well. Because all the end of the drama, we knew that Changge was still the central focus. The ML will share in that limelight, but never over shadow it. The screenwriters made sure of it. And director very capably directed it. She will get the most screen time and we will know this is her story.

But, like you said, we also got to know so many other interesting characters in the drama.

I read everyone's comments before joining in discussion.

Anya and gesun birdegg are new and have just joined us. Anya had expressed her opinion about the Haoyan couple even before I communicated with her, so no one can say that I have tried to influence her opinion. Likewise gesun birdegg's opinion and analyses.

It is very clear that the Haoyan couple relationship took place rather swiftly. It will be really hard for anyone to argue against that. Both Anya and gesun birdegg have given excellent analyses, and there is no need for me to add any.

The main focus of the drama (and indeed the manhua) was never too much about romance, but the journey of Li Changge. And while Ashile Sun was already in the manhua, Leyan was never in it. The screenwriters had to write her character into the drama, where there none in the manhua.

How should they write her? Write her as another Li Changge? So, we will have two Li Changge? It will make no sense at all! The manhua artist clearly wanted Li Changge to be her main character. That is the very title of her manhua in Chinese: Changge's journey (and not Changge and Leyan's journey).

So, they wrote Leyan to be a more typical Tang princess (in contrast to Li Changge). She will be the opposite of Changge. While Changge would do archery, horse riding, learn martial art, military strategies, Leyan would do none of those. That is why she could not physically fight back against those human traffickers.

Usually Tang princesses were just getting ready to be married off in political marriages of some sort, so very likely Leyan's mother would be preparing her to get married off and be a good wife and bear many children. So, she would likely have learned some cooking, embroidary, music, dancing and so on.

In short, she will be the ideal damsel in distress, and using the typical hero-saves-the damsel trope would have been the fastest way to write the romance between her and Hao Do. They do not need many episodes for that.

But the GeSun couple was indeed very unique. Yes, he did fall for her first, but he first admired him, even before knowing that Changge was a girl. He admired 'him' from the first episode. "He" was so good, he can beat me in Cuju ball. And 'he' was so good in coming up with plans to get out from the city of Chang'an. He has more or less admired 'him' for 4 episodes before finding out that 'he' was actually a she in E5.

And we must admit, to morph from the feelings of respect and admiration to love and affection is mighty easy. Here was this 15-year old. Strong physically, sharp mentally. Previously, we can be good friends. But now, great! It is a girl! She can now be my girlfriend. Maybe even my wife!

His feelings for her changed from admiration to love at the riverbank.

How about Changge's feeling for him? I like gesun birdegg's explanation for saying that Changge's feeling for AS started way before Mujin told her about what AS did for her.

I think it was that falling- off-the-roof scene that CG was already starting to some feelings for AS. Go back to that scene and look at her face again at that scene. We will see that she was almost blushing after AS caught her. But, she was not ready for romance. She was still filled with the desire for revenge.

And she was a tomboy, she not sure if having that kind of feeling for a boy was 'natural'. No one had told her about this sort of relationship. In the palace, she was always doing stuff boy do. Leyan would have been ready for marriage at 15, but not her.

There would be many gestures of affection from AS to CG at the grasslands, but the little girl needed time to understand her feelings and how to respond to those feelings.

With more time at the Liyun temple, she came to terms with her gender. She understood those feelings AS had for her more completely, and started to write his names on all those papers.

Then moving to the episode when AS would rescue her and told her all is forgiven for her role in his mother's death, she knew he still had feelings for her and she would then reciprocate in kind.

The build up to their relationship was very unique. Because it had moved from friendship to one-sided romance, to being enemies (when she was defending Shouzhou against the Ashile troop), to being his military advisor, being somewhat responsible for his mother's death, to one of mutual love, affection, respect, and admiration.

And it was not all the time that AS saved Changge. Once, she came up with the plan to save the Eagle's division and then came up with that elaborate plan to rescue AS at Ding Xiang.

As was mentoned by Anya, their relationship would be very unique to this drama. I might add, it is unique in all Cdramaland.

Don't worry. Minority is still rather large number here.

Now that you talked about it, indeed I do not recall seeing his character in the manhua!

I think once he knew he lost out to Ah Sun in winning Changge's heart, he gave up on finding love (in the drama). He did not want to latch on to Leyan, as a consolation price. He was indeed very honest in dealing with Leyan. He could have put a wedge in Hao Du's relation with Leyan, but he did not.

Regarding Changge's relation with Ah Sun, there is not much he could have done. Changge is much too strong for him. She already told him off, that any kind of relation between the two of them is not possible. So is Ah Sun. If he insists on trying to win over Changge, Ah Sun will likely end up killing him. Or least given him a good beating.

Some people said, jokingly of course, the only good thing he did was to save Leyan in that drowing incident. I would like to add one more. In the opening sequence, he was the one who shot Changge. And he did aim for her shoulder. I wonder, if he were not there, maybe Hao Du would have shot her right in her heart.

It does! The whole package is just so amazing! The excellent acting by the cast, the cinematography, the music, the complex plot, the creativity of the screenwriters in connecting some of the sub-plots to the main plot, the pacing of the drama by the director, this really is the real deal!

What you have observed is absolutely correct. Great on screen and off screen chemistry. And those small gestures they showed toward each other is priceless. And will remain so in our memory. What would have happened if they actually did kiss? Wow! Many of our hearts would explode in joy!

That said, we also need to bear in mind. The screenwriters did not want to overdo the romance portion of the drama. The main theme was always going to be Li Changge's journey, showing us what stage she was mentally and emotionally in E1, till E49. We felt that romance was always going to take second seat to the character development of Changge, and the character development of so many other characters in this drama.

Don't worry about your long post. If I want to, I can easily match it. I am just afraid of readers out there, how much tolerance do they have for long posts. But if it is just exchanges between the two of us, we need not worry. Indeed many others may not mind long posts, as long as it is well written and expressed. And your fit that category.

Regarding Changge's connection to his uncle, in the manhua, he is an Uyghur, so is Changge, from her mother side. The manhua also shows Changge having a maternal grandmother. I suspect the issue of having to show an Uyghur in the drama could be sensitive internationally, knowing how the way the Chinese government is treating people from Xinjiang. So, they adapted, and showed no biological relations between the king of Mobei and Changge.

The fire scene in E49 was indeed a bit of lazy writing. There is absolutely no reason why Changge could not have escaped from that building on her own. The writers did not explain why.

The Leyan character was added to bring more traffic to this drama. No doubt about that. I was totally surprised that Lusi was even willing to take this role. Many of her fans felt she might even be a better actress to portray Li Changge than Dilraba. The producer and director felt differently. But it was a good move for Lusi to take this role. It did give her the visibility to move on to another serious role in a historical drama. She said so herself, in an interview, she really wanted to do it, because it was different from any of her provious roles. It was a smart career move.

They were given a limited number of episodes to show this drama. Originally 50, I believe. So, they ran out of time to develop the romance between Leyan and Hao Du.

Yes, you are totally right that the manhua author do not like love triangles, so we saw very very little of that in the drama. Practically zero, because there never was any true competition between Hao Du and Shuyu for Leyan's love. They each were willing for the other party to have Leyan, whoever Leyan will love. So, they wrote it that Shuyu only treated Leyan as a sister. So, technically speaking, it is not much of a love triangle. Even if we feel there still is, we do not see the kind of backstabing that we see in some dramas. Here, Hao Du and Shuyu did not backstab each other at all. They were both very honest in their relationship with Leyan.

What is the manhua author's intended ending? That is now a moot question now. The drama is already aired. If she does resume writing, there is not much point for her to write something that is totally different from the drama.

She could write an extension of the drama though. The drama ended with AS and CG both going to the grasslands. So, if she does continue with her manhua concerning Li Changge, she can well write what happened to them from that point onward. That will still be very very interesting, since Changge was only about 18 years old at E49. A lot people here are already imagining lots of things could happen from that point on.

Oh, this is a very easy one to answer. Many of us feel that the actor who portray A'Sun has a clause in his contract that says he is not allowed to do mouth-to- mouth kisses. We infer this from the fact that he has not done any kisses in any of his previous dramas

That is why they blurred out the kiss scene for AS and CG.

And also why you do not see any kiss scenes between the main couple. Only 2 forehead kisses. But, they show their love through their body language. From the way they gaze and look at each other. And from their warm embraces especially toward the latter episodes. Their dialogues and conversations were also very loving and very intimate

I think you were away for a while. If you were here all the time, you would have known that many here find his character the most useless among the five main characters in this drama. Even the actor who acted this role found the character useless. Someone said the most useful thing he did was to save Leyan in an earlier incident. I think he saved her when she was about to drown.

I will respond point by point

1. In terms of military acument, the Changge in the drama is every bit as brilliant as the manhua
2. The Ah Sun in the manhua is not exactly stupid, but he was very willing to listen to Changge. He felt that Changge had insights and hence made her his miliatry advisor. This is the same in the drama.
3. In the drama, Ah Sun is not exactly flawless. There was at least one incident where Changge needed to come up with a strategy to save the Eagles' division when he thought there was no way out
4. The Changge in the manhua was more ruthless. She would use a dagger to pierce into her horse, hoping that the pain will send the horse into an adrenalin rush and would be able to jump over that long bridge. In the drama, she would do no such thing. This is only one example of her ruthlessness in the manhua that will not be portrayed in the drama
5. Yes, in the drama, they fast paced Ah Sun's discovery of CG as a girl. As early as E5. This is done to create a more believeable romantic arc between the two
6. The essence of the story is pretty much the same. CG is as brilliant she is in the manhua, very brave. It will not come across very obvious in the drama, but in the manhua she could speak the Eastern Turkic language and their many dialects. She could also speak the Uyghur dialect.
7. The drama more than matched up to the manhua. The manhua had to stop halfway, because of legal issues, so the writers for the drama had to carry the story forward and they did a very good job. By the way, this adaptation was done with full permission of the manhua author and she was consulted by the producer/screenwriters.
8. Here in the adaptation, we saw closures to many relationships. Most important between AS and CG. There were others as well.
9. There were storyline in the manhua that were not included in the manhua, but that is understandable. They do not want to make the drama too complicated. But what they took out, they also added. For example, the Leyan character. This is to reach out to a wider audience and to show that all kinds of women can experience change, not just CG.
10. I watched the drama first before reading the manhua. I feel that the drama more than did justice to the manhua. Overall, I felt that the drama brought the CG character to live. Whatever she was in the manhua, she was in the drama, save for the part about her being very ruthless. I think in the drama, they wanted to portray her as very humane, very ethical, she will not harm anyone, not even animals. This, I feel is imporant. The drama is acted by an actress, while the manhua is just a drawing. Viewers may well associate the actress who portrayed Changge as being cruel, when she was merely acting. Now, it does not mean that in the drama, she was void of ruthlessness. In one scene in the drama, she was every bit as ruthless (putting barbwires in bales of dried grass to lure hungry horses from the Ashile troops). In general, she was just as not as ruthless as the manhua Changge, but I feel that this is prefectly alright
11. The drama made the romance between AS and CG stronger. Without this element, the drama will not survive. Like it or not, drama viewers want romance. Not a whole lot perhaps, but enough to keep them watching the drama. Their romance was very very sweet in the drama. There were no physical mouth-to-mouth kisses, but this was more than compensated by superb body language between the actor and actress who portrayed CG and AS. You have to see it to believe it.
13. If the screenwriters were to keep everything the same, as per manhua, I really doubt this drama would have obtained 3B viewership in China, and millions more around the world.
14. I cannot speak for manhua readers who read the manhua first and then watch the drama (as I did it the other way round). But, for me, the drama did an excellent job extending the storyline (where the manhua ended). And all the adaptations were great. It enhances the manhua. Remember this one important point: The manhua author gave her blessing to the way the drama was written. What does that tell us? Do you think she will want an inferior adaptation to ruin her reputation?

If this is the first time you are here, welcome to this forum. We have the distinction of being the forum in MDL with highest number of comments. If you stick around, you will soon discover why

E14, about 17 mins 40 sec into the episode, Changge let out a huge cry, letting out all her bottled up negative emotion of anger and sadness that the Ahsile troops had killed a young peron like A'Dou and that now, she had taken revenge for him. That cry could be heard in the whole city.

That scene was also pivotal for Reba and she really need to portray her emotion very well. It was shown in the trailer.

I thought she did a great job.

E14, on the release of emotion

I have just done it. And it is likely the fourth time I did it

I could easily have. But it is just nice to let someone else do it for once. There could have been others who were waiting at the same time that I did. I already did it several times, for different milestones. Thought it will be nice to let someone else do it.

Very likely a combination of factors. One, they just run short of time. They were given a 49-50 episode limit, so just could not squeeze in any more scenes of the Haoyan couple. Secondly, I think they don't really want to drag out the romantic portion of the Haoyan relationship too much. They already did that for GeSun. Doing so for another couple may cause people to think that this is a romance drama, which it is not. At least not the main or primary theme.

Third, as Leyan was not even in the manhua, this part of the writing was completely done by TLB screenwriters. They had nothing to fall back on. I think they just wanted to spend more time focusing CG's journey, rather than cracking their brains how best to write the Haoyan relationship.

I remember the producer saying they added the Leyan character in the drama, because they wanted to show that all kinds of women can experience change. Hence, even Leyan getting lost arc got even more attention than romance between Leyan and Hao Du.

In the end, they just relied on the usual hero-save- damsel trope to give us closure on the Haoyan relationship. And they did a decent job. They gave Du Ruhui a daughter-in-law before he died, and gave him a nice ending. And, like you said, the Haoyan couple did have good chemistry. Their screen time as a couple was short, but they did have many interactions in other context.

Went to bed at 29,999. Wanted to let some else do the honour of calling the 30k and we sure did hit 30k! Wow! Another milestone

We have beaten Startup, to be the comments section with the highest number of comments in MDL, across all types of drama!

Now, on to 30k!

Yes, basic themes remain the same. Just different folklores, different ways of expressing it, that is more suited to different cultures around the world.