WK1

Of course you can, and you are indeed very much welcomed to stay

This is a home for everyone and anyone who is here to enjoy each other's company.

Besides reading comments, you can certainly ask questions, if reading those comments made you curious about certain things in the drama. Especially since you do not mind spoilers.

According to airing schedule, everyday. But some days one episode, some days two. Raw, in so many of those unofficial platforms. If I am not wrong, there will be two, tonight.

I do not think it was ever a deliberate decision, to somehow slight us. More like it just happened this way. That they could not get those eng subs out the door on time.

Tell you what. We wait for their next drama. Either immortal samsara or legend of anle, whichever comes first. If the same thing happens, then it is a deliberate strategy on their part, to hit the domestic market first before catering to international viewers like us. If subs are out at the same as the China release, then what happened to TBW was due to inability to sub it on time, or the fact that they just want to 'un-stuck' all their dramas by releasing TBW earlier in the Chinese market than they had wanted to.

I totally agree with you that Youku is the third fiddle to tencent and iqiyi. I read from Wikipedia, they were a bit late in doing platform streaming and drama producing. But, they are catching up fast. And now, with iqiyi suffering and Tencent making a couple of mistakes here and there, Youku is well poised to seize the opportunity to catch up in double quick time. They just need more experience, and they are getting it this year, having produced some great dramas last year. They are learning how to market better, pick better scripts, team up with better cast. The fact that they feel they don't even need tencent to show TBW is a reflection of their new found confidence. No need to depend on big brother.

If you want a clue, look at the actor who plays Lin Canglan. If he has been playing bad character in most of his dramas, he could be evil. But, if he has been playing good guys all along, he is indeed a good character here.

You see, that is the fun part of watching a drama, without reading the novel. We like the suspense, to be clueless while we watch. And when he does indeed turned to be the good guy, we will cry with tears of regret for heaping so much hate on him. If he is bad and he dies, we say, hah, he deserves it. Either way, we win.

Let me repeat the rationale for the decision making, for those who missed it.

As a business entity, they have clearly weighed the pros and cons of waiting for the subs to be ready and compared to releasing it first in China, and then later overseas.

Youku obviously feel that they have a winner in TBW, which is why they do not even want to share viewing platform with Tencent. In China, Youku's platform is the only platform Chinese viewers can watch this. If you have a winner, why share your profit with another company? It is only when you are not sure, you spread your risks.

Why did Youku have the rights to broadcast in China and CrotonMedia the rights to broadcast in China? Really really simple. They are the largest investor in this project. And, believe me, the Chinese market is always the primary market for a drama like this. Likely, for any Chinese drama, as the Chinese market is so huge. Youku took the largest risks, and it is only fair that they have the larger market to mitigate that risk.

Hence, instead of waiting for the subs to be ready, they decided that since Youku has lots of dramas waiting to air, it is prudent to quickly let this one go. That frees up their schedule. If necessary, they could also use feedback for the China release to make adjustments in its international release. This also mean TBW is released ahead of their likely competitor, Who Rules the World, a Tencent production. Remember, TBW has two parts. Releasing it early means both parts could well be screened before WRTW, giving it a free ride in the Chinese market.

Some of you said, will they not lose a lot of international customers, since many thousands will already watched this on pirated channels? Judging by the comments here, most likely not. Why? The subs in those unofficial channels are not that great. Timing is off and translation is also off. For non-core supporters of this drama who do not really care too much about sub quality, they will likely not watch it again. Believe me, core supporters of this drama, core fans of Dilraba and Allen, who would not want to misunderstand those dialogues, who want to better appreciate the effort put in by the production team and cast members, they will most certainly do re-watch, once the subs are out.

Core fans are just watching this in raw because they cannot stand not watching their favourite actress and actor on screen, even if it means they do not understand much of what is going on. They have watched enough Dilraba gala events, enough of her commercials, enough of her talk shows. Time to see their favourite heroine in action, in a drama, which is what endeared them to her in the first place, not those commercials. Core fans will do re-watch after re-watch. once the official subs are out. Dilraba fans will tell you the countless times they re-watched TLB and YAMG.

Furthermore, whatever international business they lost, they can make it back later. Since this is such a good drama, they can sell the international rights to Netflix later, just like Word of Honor.

So, whichever way you look at it, this was a smart business decision, made by both Youku and Huace/Croton Media. They know their international customer base and that we will wait for those official subs, no matter how much we are suffering right now.

For those 'passers by', content with poor quality subs in the unofficial platforms, and will move on other dramas, I suspect these people have been doing the same thing to every single drama out there. They just want to watch for free.

For dramas that we just want to watch to pass time, that is ok. But not for a drama we core fans care so much. We will wait, and we will pay, just to make sure we understand everything that is important. We have waited since September, 8 months! What is a few more weeks of waiting? And it is not much anyway. I think subscription to Croton Media's YouTube channel just costs a few bucks a month, whatever bucks we are talking about. US $, Malaysian ringgits, Singapore dollars, Indonesian Ruppiah, British Pounds, you name it.

Very thrifty, despite the fact that he can turn his tears into pearls.

You can do that. If you feel that your level of understanding is sufficient, you can join in the discussion now. If you feel otherwise, you can always join in the discussion later. Cause many of us will be here for months. Especially all current and new Dilraba fans. Allen fans may or may not stay.

Agree! It is the same song sung by Mao Buyi. But I think her rendition is slightly better. Her intepretation is more emotional, maybe because she has better vocal than Mao Buyi.

With her acting abilities, Dilraba will not ever want to pick a female role that play second fiddle to the male lead. Just look at Li Changge, Qiao JingJing, and now, Ji Yunhe. They are anything, but second fiddle always been led by the male lead, as if the female lead is merely playing a supporting role, compared to the male lead. Li Changge, QJJ and Yunhe all share some common characteristics: strong, independent, smart, somewhat humourous. creative. Ideal partner for a modern 21st century guy, who may not mind to be led sometimes, which is what is happening here in TBW. We can see that Yunhe is clearly taking the lead in many of the aired episodes. Of course, this will be balanced later on. I do not think Chinese viewers are ready for a drama where the FL calls the shots from E1 right till the end.

I think this is how she makes decision regarding drama script. No matter how much money is offered, if the script makes the FL like a supporting character, she will not take it. If a script makes the FL at least on par with the ML, and has a nice story line, she will take it, even if the money is not that great.

Please do not worry, Sakie. Lots of pals from TLB will still be here, when the subs are out. We, and many others, could be hanging around here (and on the MDL page of Part 2 of TBW), for months, while we wait for Reba's next drama, The Legend of Anle.

That is why it is called an 'adaptation'. The screenwriter and director changed things to make the novel even better. A novel and a drama are two very different medium of communication. And novel readers and drama viewers could also have different expectations. They could very well be as different as Yunhe and Changyi are, in terms of species. Of course, there will be overlaps.

Quite a number of people here have already mentioned about the humour added in the drama, when we saw the trailer. There and then, we suspected that things will be different. That suspicion has turned into reality.

To be quite honest, for those of us who have been following Dilraba, the level of humour added is unsurprising. In the drama, The Long Ballad, we were told that some comedic stuff were actually suggested by her and her co-star. In You are my glory, I am absolutely sure that she added her own signature to the character Qiao JingJing, to make QJJ cuter, compare to the novel version. So, here, I am totally not suprised at some of the changes you mentioned. She likely suggested some of these changes and these suggestions were accepted by both the screenwriter and the director. And, it would appear that even the author of the novel is enjoying Dilraba version of Yunhe.

Dilraba can play a cute character extremely well. I think it is part of her own personality, something which she extends to all the characters she plays. So, in her next drama, The Legend of Anle, the same will happen. Whoever the character Anle is, in the novel, once it is acted out by Dilraba, we will expect a more humourous version, a cuter version. If there is pain, it will be pain moderated by humour. This has endeared her to millions of followers in China (and overseas). This is her brand of acting, seriousness punctuated by the right amount of humour, at the right time, at the right place.

Oh I asked you that question, whether your Chinese competency level is quite good, because I was thinking you could do this simple experiment.

If it is good, you can actually compare your viewing pleasure between your current experience of watching it, while already knowing what happened in the novel, and watching it in future, while totally clueless, since you said you have stopped reading the novel.

If you feel that watching it clueless gives you more pleasure, you have made the right decision to stop reading. But, if you cannot take the suspense of not knowing the future, you can always go back to reading the novel.

For me, I have no issue in being clueless. Part of the fun has always been to wait and see how a screenwriter or director will 'terminate' all the villains in a drama like this. Knowing too many things ahead of time reduce some of the fun.

That is for me, but many many pals of mine from The Long Ballad and You are My glory, they do prefer to read the source materials ahead of time. I will hardly fault them at all. That is what make things fun. Just like Yunhe and Changyi. Two different species. Life will be so boring, if everyone thinks the same way.

I expected this respond, honestly. Ever since the release of the trailers, when novel readers mentioned that there seems to be more humour in the drama than in the novel, I expected all these things to be added by the screenwriter and director, or even suggested by Reba and Allen, more Reba than Allen, as she is the more cheeky one between the two.

Yah. She loves to eat. I think filming TBW must affected her. We learned that she had to diet, in order to look right for the role. Hopefully those days of strict dieting does not affect her body in a bad way

Indeed! And the director is a very experienced guy. Scriptwriter could well be on site. Cast members all very experienced players in the industry. Should wrap this as fast as possible and go to post production

That is great! Drama is targeted for broadcast in October, which is actually a short wait, considering the filming just started about a week ago.

Yes, go watch something else. I think the subs will only be out sometime in April. No one knows the exact. You can always pop by to this page every 2-3 days, just browse and see if the subs are up. If it is up, someone will surely mention it.

So, this scene, was it in the novel as well? Or they added only in the drama?

Haha! If that is the case, I know why they changed it in the in the drama and did not use Yunhe's quote that is found in the novel.