artisticcreativesoul

Also the novel author who wrote the original book is Ma Bo Yong, who wrote novel behind these amazing shows: 'Longest Day in Chang'an', 'The Wind Blows From Longxi', 'Under The Microscope', and 'Luoyang'. The Litchi Road is also one of his highly appreciated books which show how the protagonist try to transport litchees to Chang'an before noble consort's birthday. He has to ensure that litchees remain as fresh as ever while he faces many obstacles in his way. This is quite a realistic story about hardwork, friendship and the harsh reality of the society back then.

The plot is so unique and interesting! I cannot wait to watch this drama. Chinese historical and period dramas never disappoint with their unique concepts. And on top of this we have Cao Dun directing this, whose cinematography is mind blowing. 'Longest day in Chang'an' is one of his directions. The litchees are going to look extra delicious.

Also, 2 modern romance dramas from China have done well this year: Meet Yourself & Fake It Till You Make It.

-Meet Yourself: Set in a beautiful village, it is a slow paced slice of life drama. Meet Yourself has the healthiest lead relationship I have ever seen. The FL is an actual strong & smart woman, not a rude and arrogant woman in the name of being strong. The show focuses on not just the life of the leads, but also that of the villagers and their life. From kids to old people, we have characters from all age group and their stories. One of the best depictions of an introverted character(Damai) that I have found as an introvert myself. The cinematography is beautiful, and unlike Korean shows made on the similar theme, villagers were very accepting of the FL. This was a plus point as I hate when I get to see such annoying conflicts in a drama that was supposed to be relaxing. It singlehandedly outdid every 'return to hometown/go to a village/town' kdrama for me. I highly recommend this show for people who love slow paced slice of life shows with lots of golden conversation.

-Fake It Till You Make It: I have not watched this show yet, but I know enough to be able to recommend. This show depicts a mature relationship with mature leads. The FL is shown as a career focused woman, and behaves like one. The leads chemistry is sizzling and explosive. One of those rare romcoms with realistic portrayal. The conversations between them feel real, and there is a sense of understanding between them. They communicate and do not let any misunderstanding happen between them. Also, it is only 14 episodes long.

I fully understand as I will not recommend Playful Kiss even to my worst enemy. It was sooooo bad. I loathed that show with full devotion.

I agree, but that is what I feel romcoms are like in general. Like the genre itself is so popular for mindless fluff that no one tries to add a meaningful plot in it. It is fine by me however. While watching romcoms, I am not looking for a complex plot, but depiction of a healthy and mature relationship. I would rather prefer it being just fluff than what is happening these days with a lot of Korean romcoms: the addition of a thriller plot that is so terribly done even a child could guess who the killer was, or what the mysterious event was.

Stretched to max is so on point as there is only a certain episode count till which a typical romcom show works. Anything beyond that will make me drop if I do not root for the leads. Only if I root for them(rare to happen) will I watch 20+ episodes of a romcom.

Romcoms have a high chance of being trashy, especially when a bubbly and carefree female is paired with a cold, perfect, popular and arrogant dude. This somehow seems to be a popular equation, given the influx of CEO romances every year. Romcom is not my favourite genre for this very reason, and I only prefer them when it has a excellent and unique story that is well done as you said, or if the drama depicts healthy relationship between the leads, or if it shows relationship between an older woman young man (my favourite setup as chances of FL being a mature woman are high in these). I much prefer slice of life, mystery, thriller, horror, psychological, comedy, historical, wuxia, xianxia and xuanhuan genres instead. I keep the boring romances for playing them in the background as I do something else. This often leads to me hatewatching shows as I eat my food.

Thank You😊 I have it in my list and I have found out that it is quite different from the usual Korean historicals. I feel like I will love it.

But I definitely agree on one point. Except for the average modern romance dramas, other excellent Chinese dramas should not get as popular as Kdramas. Because if this happens, they will loose their unique touch that they have now in order to please the international audience. So many Korean dramas ruin their show trying to do this, especially seen in the saeguks that have become mindless and illogical fluff. The only reason for making such fusion saeguk is to make it easy for the international audience. Complex ones rarely go popular now, which discourages drama makers. Chinese dramas target the domestic audience majorly, and should continue doing so.

Same wish for Taiwanese and Japanese dramas. Frankly, Japan & Taiwan do such fantastic jobs with their shows that I wish they never suffer the same fate as Korean dramas. Dare I say J doramas and Taiwanese dramas are way better than Korea in every aspect. Less silly romance, more realism, and more darkness when required. Both countries also create some silly stuff, but if you dig deep, you will find a whole new world. But of course, their silly stuff is also way more popular than their excellent stuff as international audience prefers such trash. Their great shows rarely have 1000+ watchers internationally. Many only have 10-200. They dare to do what Korea can never think of, except for a few exceptions of course.

Dear My Friends is a big example of an excellent Korean show that was so unique, yet never went as popular as other trashy Korean dramas because we don't have any handsome oppa or romance in that. Who will ever want to see old people and their life over CEO oppas anyways?

tagged as spoiler as the list is quite long. My list of shows I consider overrated.

As for shows I consider overrated, here is my list:

-Strong Woman DBS: main couple is the only charm of this show, but this has the worst comedy. Bad toilet humor, domestic violence being shown as funny when coming from a female's hands (FL's mother), being racist towards Indians, homophobic comedy, this show has it all. Was I really supposed to laugh at that trash? I hated the comedy, and I can't see why someone will laugh at this offensive comedy.

-She Was Pretty: This one was sooo bad. The FL was a clown. She literally screamed from excitement in a meeting. Imagine a grown adult doing that. She screams a lot throughout the show. And what is this obsession of Kdramas having bad curly hairs only? This one takes a step back by showing curly/wavy hairs as ugly and straight hairs as beautiful. I especially hate it when dramas show the supposedly ugly women living pathetic lives until they get a makeover for oppa and become successful. Also, were they making fun of people not blessed with looks that match Korean beauty standards? This is not how we behave, nor do we need an 'oppa' to get an makeover. She could have gotten a makeover if she felt it was affecting her life way before she met the ML. But no, it has to be after a certain point in development of lead relationship. They say that she did it for herself and oppa loved her for her real beauty, but I know they did it to make her look pretty as they were set to get together and date. Also the ML was so rude and arrogant. The only thing I liked about the show was the clumsy moments of the ML and SML's jokes.

-Another Miss Oh: The screaming was unbearable, the ML was super toxic and drinking scenes were appalling. She was evidently beautiful, I can't understand the Kdrama logic. I was expecting a show like anime Nana when I went in, only to realize it was about demeaning the beautiful Miss Oh, and glorifying the average Miss Oh. Such a 'I am not like other girls' mindset.

-Love In The Moonlight & Hwarang: Terrible job at writing politics and logical parts. A FL with no personality, a crybaby basically needing saving from ML at each step. Why would the ML fall for her in both shows over SFL's with way better personality is a mystery. These shows are the most popular historicals of all time on MDL, and I always laugh at this. Certainly more worth watching than Nirvana in Fire.

-The Tale of Nokdu: This received so many rave reviews, so I was confident in it being a good comedy historical. It was even promoted as a comedy. However, don't be fooled. Comedy lasts only first 3-4 episodes after which it becomes serious. Rarely any comedy. I wanted to laugh as much as I did while watching Romance of Tiger & Rose, but this failed. And it would have been all good if the serious parts were done well. From the beginning itself, it pretends to be so complicated and mysterious. However, the politics part was so predictable and average that I wanted to throw my laptop as they did the 'big revelation'. Truly a waste of a unique plot. By the way, ML only cross-dresses for 4-5 episodes. After those enjoyable 4 episodes, it became a snoozefest. I had to fast-forward the last 2 episodes. The FL was supposed to be strong, but she was not. She needed saving so many times and had put herself in dangerous situations without thinking. I expected better from a woman who trained herself her entire life to work with weapons.

-A Korean Odyssey: It seemed so interesting with it giving 'Journey To The West' a modern fantasy interpretation, but I was hugely let down by the female lead. Yes, Tang Sanzhang was a weak character that was protected by Sun wukong, but he had his personality and Wukong was his disciple. Here they are paired together as lead couple. Big mistake. The set up of their romance is so bad that at no point will I believe that ML actually loved her. It was all due to the 'geumganggo'. There was 0 chemistry between them and I hated the romance so much that I laughed as FL & ML emotional scenes were shown. This would have been a great show if they removed the romance all together. But no, Kdramas have to insert unnecessary romance everywhere. The only saving point for the show was the love hate relationship between Oh Gong & Ma Wang.

-The Penthouse & every other makjang: Why do I even watch these makjangs? I should rather go and watch those horrible Indian soap operas. Makajangs are the same as them. Everything is illogical and dead people magically come to life. Screaming at the top of the lungs is a favorite of makjangs. Here, they do not speak like a normal person would. They open their mouth and scream the f*ck out of their brains. I already have trauma from those terrible Indian soaps, I can't bring myself to watch such sh*t.

-Boys over Flowers & Playful Kiss: Both apart from being super toxic, did a terrible job of adapting the original material. Taiwan, Japan, China, & Thailand has done way better job at the remake of both shows (though Japan's ITA Kiss is still a bad adaptation). Still the trash Korean versions are the most popular.
I am barely able to watch the story of Itazura Na Kiss as I hate this kind of setup, but when I watched Playful Kiss I was an obsessive fan of East Asian shows(bad days). After watching the trash that was Playful Kiss, I have no mood to watch an adaptation again. Leave that, I realized that I was forcing myself to watch trash through my obsession. It was then that I gave over the stupid obsession. However, the Taiwanese version was way better. The ML looked like he loved her and there was so much chemistry between them. Also, he was not that rude. Significant difference can be seen in the wedding kiss of both adaptations. In Taiwanese one, the actor acted well and you can see his love for her in his eyes. He even wore a wedding gown for her and kissed her with full interest. In contrast, in the Korean version it appeared he was being forced to kiss her and was appalled by her. He even got irritated by her. I wanted to kill him I was so mad the entire show.
In BOF, the FL was just shown as strong in the beginning. However, as the show progressed she became weaker and weaker. Also, she screamed a lot. My ears bled due to her. She spoke in a exaggerated way while making stupid faces. And the ML was terrible too, just like his wig. Korea cannot ever show curly hair as good. FL's hairstyle was like that of a toddler. ML & FL fought a lot. They were supposed to bicker, not fight. The show took itself so seriously when it was just a brainless show. The Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese and Thai adaptations did such a good job. There was no screamy FL, no bad wigs, no taking it too seriously, & only bickering not fighting. There is a piano scene comparison available on Youtube which shows that in all other versions, FL rebelled against the mom by either smashing the keys or giving a sassy speech. But the Korean FL just cried as she sang a sad love song. This trash is however the most watched adaptation.

-A Time Called You (this one will be quite long, hence placed at the end of my list): This is a remake of a very well done Taiwanese show called 'Someday or One Day' which I highly recommend. The remake did a terrible job. I already had 0 expectations from the remake, but I still watched it in hopes of being proved wrong. It turned out that the expression "I expected nothing, yet was still disappointed" fitted well here. Still I can see that this is rated higher than what it deserved and is all set to become more popular than the original (which is fine by me as it further proves that people love watching even the trash from Korea instead of the excellent shows from other E.Asian countries). The reason they provided for loving the remake more than the original often is that they find the Korean leads more good looking and that mandarin language sounds bad to them. Now onto why it was so terrible:
They cut about 2.5-3 episodes from the original, and it showed. The drama was supposed to focus on the leads, but at the same time make us feel how the society just outcasts people who do not belong according to them. The makers of the original even dedicated their award to these 3 'imperfect' according to society characters and not to the main couple. The remake however seem to make the leads appear like saints and villainized my favorite character, Yun Ru/Min Ju. As a introverted girl myself, I had similar experiences as Yun Ru in my life and I highly emphasized and related with her. She might seem 'boring' to people, but she had her own personality, dreams and talents. She was great in studies and was very poetic. Both of these qualities were snatched from her to make the popular FL more better in the eyes of viewers. Compared to Yunru's beautiful and touching diary entries in the original, Minju wrote like any other person. The entries were plain boring. The drama also got rid of so many amazing and meaningful quotes and added a lot of cringey lines instead. The editing was so all over the place that although compared to the original, the remake spelled everything out and still people were so confused about what is even going on and who is who. In the original, they only gave out the most important information directly, but rest of it was vaguely put out for audience to put together. And as far as I know, no one was as confused while watching the original as they were while watching the remake. The original's sequencing and editing was really well done, and goes on to show the importance of sequencing the events in a show.
AHS did a terrible job by making one of my favourite ML as plain boring. The original ML was mischievous, playful and full of life. In the remake he was plain boring and often appeared cold. His acting is so bad, he just continuously blinked on emotional scenes. The eyes of an actor should be expressive of what they are feeling. However, he had the same expressions in his eyes throughout. JYB was slightly better, but still she was unable to portray the characters well. Minju appeared more like a pathetic and 0 quality teenager than an misunderstood introvert with abandonment issues. Introverts do not walk like penguins! Nor do they speak in the manner she was speaking. They showed that she always had a crush on ML unlike the original where she tried to control it as she did not want to get hurt again. And she was unable to act like 36 year old in a teenager's body well too. It seemed like she was a bubbly highschooler instead of a 36 year old in a teen's body. She was also unable to portray the grief of losing her boyfriend as well as original too. I partly blame this on the ML being so plain that you don't give a damn about her loss. The romance in the original was so realistic, it was like how actual people in relationship behaved. But in the Korean remake, the romance was so cringey that I had to look away.
The second lead was almost non-existent in the remake. He played a significant role in the original, where you can clearly feel that the only one he will ever love is Yun Ru. The ost choice was bad except for 'gather my tears', the cassette song. Still, I can't say that the cassette song was a good choice as it is not the kind of song that a couple will happily listen to. The song is about unrequited love. The song in the original, Wu Bai's last dance completely defines the feelings of the leads and is totally the kind of song that Yun Ru would vibe to. I felt that the original story was built around 'last dance' after getting to know the lyrics. I can't believe that someone will choose to watch this trash when an excellent original exists, with the GOAT Ke Jia Yen playing the lead.

I'll add more soon

I respectfully disagree with the person below me about Chinese dramas. The Chinese do way better job with strong female characters in their dramas than what Non-Chinese drama watchers know. A lot of international audience also just look at the terrible dramas that the Chinese themselves hate like 'Cute Programmer'. The ratings and popularity of such Chinese shows is high internationally because international audience chooses to watch such shows. That is why I rely so much on Douban. Before I discovered the world of Chinese dramas, I used to think that Chinese modern shows were unoriginal. But through douban, I discovered so many unique shows that I have never seen Korea make. But such shows only have about 10 - 100 people rating them on MDL.

Also, apart from a few Korean historicals like 'My Dearest' & 'Mr Sunshine'. Korea rarely makes great historicals and period shows with strong females like the Chinese do. They once used to make amazing saeguks, but now all they make is fusion saeguks that keeps the international audience in mind. Plots are rarely complex. The reception for Gil Chae in My Dearest shows that Kdrama watchers and international audience of East Asian dramas overall HATE complex and well written strong female characters. That is why Korean historicals like 'Love in the Moonlight' & 'Hwarang' are the most popular. Despite doing terrible job with politics part and having a 0 personality FL, these show got so popular. Even the highly rated Alchemy of Souls had the FL that was introduced as a badass assassin being reduced to someone who needed ML's protection. They never showed her fight till the very end.

Anyways, here is a list of popular as well as underrated Chinese shows with strong female characters. The list will be long if I write down each Chinese show with strong female leads, but here you go:

-Ruyi's Royal Love In The Palace
-Meet Yourself
-Nothing But You (the one with Zhou Yutong)
-Rise Of The Phoenixes
-A Dream Of Splendor
-The Story Of Minglan
-Wild Bloom
-Story Of Yanxi Palace
-Love Like The Galaxy
-New Life Begins
-The Long Ballad
-Arsenal Military Academy
-My Journey To You
-Lost You Forever
-Legend of Concubine Zhen Huan
-Destined
-The Romance of Tiger and Rose
-Who Rules The World
-Ancient Love Poetry (many FL battle scenes)
-Imperfect Victim
-Rock It, Mom
-Lady Tough
-Minning Town
-Faithful
-Princess Agents
-The Rational Life
-Rookie Agent Rouge
-Battle of Changsha
-Ten Miles of Peach Blossom
-The Ideal City
-The Song of Glory
-Legend of Fuyao
-An Ancient Love Song
-The Legend of Condor Heroes
-The Return of Condor Heroes
-All Is Well
-Be Your Own Light
-Love In Between
-The Ingenious One
-The Legends
-I Am Nobody
-Rattan
-City of Streamer
-Song of Life (San Yue You Le Xin)
-Young Blood
-Side Story of Fox Volant
-The Story of XingFu
-Ode To Joy
-Nothing But Thirty
-Delicious Romance
-Remembrance of Things Past
-Fake It Till You Make It
-We Are All Alone
-The Starry Love
-The Killer is Also Romantic
-Reset
-Falling Into You (with Gina Jin/Jin Chen)
-Couple of Mirrors
-Parallel World (with Ni Ni)
-Definitely Not Today
-Flight To You
-Marvelous Women
-Palace of Desire
-Red Sorghum
-Scarlet Heart (FL is way better than the K version, which itself is silly and dumbed down version of the original Chinese)
-Legend of Fei
-The Rebel Princess
-The Day of Becoming You
-Hi Venus
-Hilarious Family
-Forever Love (smart FL that scores well in school)
-Don't Disturb My Study (another smart FL that scores well in school)
-Ancient Detective
-Once Upon a Time in Lingjian Mountain
-Maiden Holmes
-My Uncanny Destiny
-Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre
-Miss S
-Ordinary Greatness
-Eagles and Youngster
-Stealth Walker
-Begin Again
-Love Is Sweet
-You Are My Glory
-Here We Meet Again
-The Vigilantes in Masks
-Tientsin Mystic
-Beyond (about winter sports)
-Bureau of Transformer
-Dr. Tang
-Candle in the Tomb Series
-Ultimate Note
-The Imperial Coroner
-Sound of The Desert
-The Princess Wei Young
-Love & Redemption (don't be fooled by her initial behavior, she is much more than that)
-The Blue Whisper
-The Legend of Zhuohua
-The Sword and the Brocade
-Luoyang
-Nothing Gold Can Stay
-Dong Lan Xue
-Zhang Gong Zhu Zai Shang
-Secret of Three Kingdoms
-Miss Gu Who Is Silent
-A Girl Like Me
-Fake Princess
-Listening Snow Tower

There are a lot more Chinese shows with strong female characters, I only wrote the ones I can remember right now. I will add more as I remember them.

Happy Birthday!!!

Yes, exactly. Like the Chinese had done a lot of things before other countries like tea making, which had influenced the Japanese tea culture greatly. Also Ming dynasty clothing had influenced clothing in Joseon too. There is no way people argue about these things as facts are available in museums and after doing enough research. But of course it is useless arguing as they will stay with their opinion no matter what. That's why I usually avoid such discussions when I read them.

Exactly. I read those accusations and had a good laugh along with my sister 🤣🤣🤣

This will be my first comment on MDL, since I tend to not comment as I don't like to get into arguments or long discussions, but I see that people are curious if this show has plagiarized Hometown Cha Cha. I am someone who loves these kinds of storylines (returning to hometown, set in a relaxing village or town). So although I have not yet gotten the time to fully watch both shows, I have checked out significant parts. And I have checked enough to say that these shows are very different.

-In HCCC, she goes to the town after facing work life problems, in MY she goes to the village as she had just lost a best friend. Her best friend had once wished when she was alive that she wanted to go to that village with FL.
-In HCCC, villagers are vary of her and she finds it difficult to adjust there due to this. In MY, villagers were kind and welcoming. I liked this part of MY the most.
-HCCC has ML and FL bickering when they first met, and they bickered a lot in the beginning. In MY, they did not do this. Both leads got along well from the get go.
-HCCC is more on the romantic comedy side. MY is more relaxing slice of life that also deals with tough issues like death of loved ones.

And there is a lot more that differentiates the 2 shows. As you would watch, you will discover significant differences. Personally, I prefer MY though I love HCCC a lot as well. That is because I love deep and golden conversations about life included in dramas like these. For me, MY is a drama that went in different directions that earlier dramas having a similar plot did not go into. Although we have our leads and their stories, we also see the stories of different people belonging to all age groups included in this. I loved to see their stories and problems being shown, as in a slice of life drama I absolutely love it when they include stories of various characters.

I seriously don't understand why people in Korea accused MY, but it is different from HCCC. And anyone who watched both the shows will know. Because if this is how plagiarism is defined, even I could say that HCCC has copied 'When the Weather is Fine' that came out earlier, or that 'Summer Strike' has copied HCCC due to similar premise. Even 'Business Proposal' and 'King the Land' can be said to have copied 'What's Wrong With Secretary Kim'. I can give countless examples like these.

So no, MY has not plagiarized HCCC. If it had done so, it would have been all over douban as the audience there strongly condemns plagiarism. I get to know about plagiarism issues in any drama, Korean or Chinese from douban more than anywhere else.

Happy Birthday Queen!!! ❤️❤️❤️

Happy Birthday!! 🎂🎂

Happy Birthday!! 🎂🎂🎉🎉🎁🎁

Happy Birthday!! 🎂🎂

Happy Birthday!! 🎂🎂

Happy Birthday!! 🎂🎂