WK1

In a show like this, we need bad guys. The 'badder' they are, the better the show. We will clap, when they are terminated.

I think the people who were on the page of YAMG will tell you what a great experience we had. Fairydustpuppy is on this page, and we were keeping watch on the viewcount. Each time it hits a new milestone, we celebrated on the page of YAMG.

The viewcount was something we used to help promote that drama to newcomers on that page. They can see for themselves, millions of people have watched, it has to be a good drama.

It was the easiest indicator of success to understand, much easier than some of the indicators we are using now. Product advertisers look for viewcount more than they do all the other indicators, as it is a direct measure of how many people watch a drama, and hence how much advertising exposure they are getting.

Viewcount also tracks the number of people watching this in China, hence, how many people are using Youku's app in watching this, hence revenue collected and their return on investment.

That is the problem. With Youku, we don't know. Back in days of TLB and YAMG, with Tencent Video, we have running view count. It is updated after about every 10m view, so we could get almost instant feedback on the viewcount.

Now, we are at the mercies of Youku. They must release on their Weibo page, and then we will know. So far, they have yet to do so.

Evolution of our fox lady.

It is quite an interesting strategy. If the sequence of events is similar in the novel, then credit should go the novel writer. If they changed it while doing the drama adaptation, credit should go to either the screenwriter or the director or both.

Here in this drama, do you notice that they gave lots of the screen time to a number of the key supporting characters? And the actors and actresses who play those roles are pretty good. Hai Yi Tian who plays Lin Changlan; Hu Yi Xuan who plays Luo Luo; Xiao Shun Yao who plays Lin Hao Qing; Ci Sha who plays Li Shu; Fan Zen who plays San Yue; Cristy Guo who plays Shunde. These are pretty good actors. They played their roles well and do leave good impressions.

Even Cristy Guo, who plays the villain. We can see what a nice and gentle lady she is, when she did the live stream event with Reba recently. Yet, on screen, she come across as proud, ruthless, and evil rather convincingly.

Even the guy who acts as Shunde's assistant, the guy who is constantly stroking his moustache, is doing a good job.

So far, no mis-casting, so whoever who did the casting really did an excellent job.

Acting wise, this drama has been great. Everyone is doing a great job.

He has been playing a relatively meek role thus far. But when the time for him to shine, he will deliver.

It seems to be a deliberate strategy by the screenwriter and director, letting different cast members shine at different times, so that we can appreciate one or two individuals' acting talents at a time.

Needless to say, the two most important characters will be Changyi and Ji Yunhe. When this drama ends, they will shine the brightest and leave us with lasting impressions of their love for each other.

I mean, you can always read the novel at night, after work? So, every night you just as many chapters as you can. I think you should be able to finish, by the time the Eng subs are here.

Although, I must tell you, I am enjoying the drama, even without reading the novel. So, you can actually just watch with Eng sub without reading the novel, if you cannot find the time to watch.

When we watched the Long Ballad, we said the role Li Changge was crafted with Dilraba in mind. No one could do it better than her. When we watched You are my glory, we said Qiao Jing Jing was almost customed made for her; we cannot think anyone else who could play it better than her. Now, in TBW, we can see why no one is a better Ji Yunhe than her. Tonight she shined very brightly, her acting power in full display. Very few actresses can do a badass role like Dilraba.

But Allen's turn to shine will come soon. We can be sure of that.

And then, together, both our leads will shine, at the climax of this amazing drama.

I see! She has an interesting hobby! People collect stamps, baseball caps, she collects creatures.

Also, Dilraba does not like love triangles. In The Long Ballad, there was no love triangle. In You are my glory, no love triangle. She is always like a script where it is one man for one woman. So, here it will be the same. Ji Yunhe will only love Changyi and Changyi will only love Ji Yunhe.

There may be unrequited one-sided crush, but a one-sided crush is not the same as a love triangle, where a girl may be torn between two guys, or a guy may be torn between two girls.

Riding the wave and enjoy both will likely maximise our enjoyment. Fixated on either one will definitely lead us to enjoy both less. Novel readers fixated on the novel will likely enjoy the drama less. Drama viewers fixated on the drama, when they read the novel, will likely enjoy the novel less.

You have put it so succinctly. They are like apples and oranges. When we eat an apple, just enjoy the unique taste of an apple. Same when we eat oranges. This way, we enjoy both apples and oranges and widen our taste buds.

I am just a very open minded person, really. So, when something is not cast in black and white, I feel that it may be open to various interpretations.

Will they make him force himself on her?? No. Not with this director. You might be new to his work, but lots of us are not. In all his past work, when a guy falls in love with a girl, it is always mutual. He will never direct anything like that. Also, you might not be aware of this, but this is the third Dilraba drama that he is directing. He knows Dilraba very very well. She will not be very happy to act in a drama where a guy forces himself on a girl. So, we are never going to see any forcing in this drama.

No problem. Lots of people come here with the same question. Hope they are reading our exchange of messages and just wait for a short while. It will not be long.

We are waiting. It can be anything between April 2 to April 22. So, the earliest in just about a week. Latest in about 3 weeks. The drama is great so far. It is doing very well in China. So, worth our wait.

Please do not worry. Allen is the Male Lead here, not the actor who acted as Lin Haoqing. When this series is done, after we have watched both Part 1 and 2, and we look back, Changyi will have more screen time than Lin Haoqing.

What happened is the broadcasting rights was divided with Youku and CrotonMedia. Youku takes the Chinese market, Croton Media takes the international market. All post production was ready for the Chinese market, but the Eng subs were not ready. So Youku went ahead with the Chinese market, beause they have lots of other dramas they want to air, and don't want TBW to choke up the rest.

As to why they did not let Tencent to air this, the most likely reason that Youku feels that they have a good product with TBW. Don't want to share any of it with Tencent. So, they became the exclusive broadcaster in China. Some with Croton Media; dont want to share with WeTV.

This is likely what happened.

Now back to the question of subs, we do feel that they are working on it. Will be releasing it in April, But, not sure which specific date. So, we just wait patiently.

Ah! I see! Very very interesting! I cannot wait to see that grandmaster. He must be quite a guy, for Shunde to love him. Maybe Shunde loves power and hence loves a man with great power. And she sees Changyi as too weak? Only fit to be a servant and nothing more.

Wow! Sounds really sad! I will get mine ready!

I think at this moment, Lin Haoqing does seem to have lots of screen, compared to Allen. But, having watched many of the trailers before this drama was aired, Allen does have lots of screen time.

In fact, when I was watching this, I felt both Reba and Allen had relatively little screen time, compared to the side couples. But, as the series progressed, both Allen and Reba started to have more screen time.

This may well be the way the screenwriter and director decide to tell the story. Move the relationship between Changyi and Yunhe slowly, one episode at a time and climax at the later episodes. This way, people will get hooked with the drama, because, for sure, more people came to watch Allen compared to the actor who played Lin Haoqing.

I am really curious. I know, you did say, if he had any romantic feelings for her, he would have expressed it. But, that may not be true. Some men are really good in hiding their feelings. And may be shy about expressing those, for fear of being rejected.

That is why novels can be interpreted differently by different people. If the novel author is completely silent about it, certain actions that Haoqing did could be interpreted as expression of romance by some, but not by others. Our interpretation could be easily be influenced by our age, gender, our own romantic experiences, etc.

If it is indeed open to interpretation, then what they (the screenwriter and director) did was to merely interpret it one-sided romance rather than no romance at all.