darkstar

I'm planning to watch just because of her. However, she does look different. I feel like she lost that shiny look that was very characteristic of her. She's a great actress, so a new look should not impair her.

Agree. I did not recognize her at first. The new look feels more like a plastic surgery combined with the health issues. Whatever it was, she really changed.

This one is in my list. I'm finishing The Wanted Detective now. I like binge watching, so I always wait until the final episode airs before starting a new series. At the rate of only two new episodes/day, I'll probably watch something else before starting this one. Li Qin looks great as usual.

I saw the poster on Viki but did not recognize Zhao Lusi. She looks completely different.

I saw the preview on iQiyi and looks very good.
What does the "reserve" button mean? I saw an option to reserve it but did not see what it means. Is it some kind of guarantee that we are interested in watching it?

If we filter the blatant propaganda, this is a great drama. Again, filtering the propaganda, it gives some great views of the Chinese society's struggles over time.
I had just finished This Thriving Land and decided to watch this one. It provides a nice continuation of the TTL's pre-war, war times until this day.

The acting is top notch and so the production. It was great to see ZLS before she had this health/career issues and hope that she comes around.

I also liked that the story draws attention to the current global plague of Internet scammers and other scum and gives some points on how to avoid it. Not so good as Are You Safe? but still good.

So, for who likes China and its culture, it's a nice watch (filtering the propaganda).

Yep. It's in the "coming soon" list, at least here in the US.

Thanks! They fixed it. Now I can see the preview video in the Episodes tab. Before ot was giving the error message about the region. I guess they were still updating their servers.

I guess they fixed it. I just went back there and now can watch the video in the Episodes tab. Before, only the Highlights was working. The Preview was showing the "video not available in your region" message.

Thanks! Interesting. I'm not using any VPN, just the PC's browser. Like you said, we'll see tomorrow.
I liked her in Joy of Life, even though her character wasn't one of the most important.

I'm looking forward to it, but iQiyi is saying "not available in your region" (I'm in the US). I hope this will not be another fiasco like the Moonlit Reunion. Does anyone know of any regional deals or limitations?

I'm in the US and iQiyi is saying "not available in your region" instead of that it will start on the 2nd.
Will this be another boomer like the Moonlit Reunion launch?

Good story, but spent too much time on existencialism and old grudges. I was expecting more action. In this aspect, Kill Boksoon did a better job. Neverthless, it's a good entertainment.

Very good drama. The story is entertaining, the acting is great, the soundtrack very pleasing, and the overall production, such as visual effects and CGI masterly done. The only complaint is about too many flashbacks. They used and abused them, which penalized my score (9/10). A second season would be very welcome and there's a cliffhanger (Avatar style). Definitely a great watch.

Indeed. I may post a few comments while watching a series but only rate it after finishing it and comparing with others I already watched. Did it do its job well? How well did it tell the story? Was it original or just a remake? Did it make me crave for the following episodes? How was the overall production? (acting, OST, direction,. etc.) And so on. Only then I grade it. For a series to get 9 or above from me it must check all the boxes.

I also liked S2 more than S1.

When I compare with the others, there's nothing I can salvage in this series. The concept is good but completely wasted.

One of the things I use to measure how much the drama is doing a good entertainment job for me is how much I look forward to the next episodes or how I simply don't care and end up watching something else. In this one's case, I just put it aside, watched others, tried to watch folliwing episodes, either fast forwarding or even skipping them alltogether to see if the story improved. No joy. No matter how, watching its episodes felt like being pulled through the coals. That's how bad this series felt for me.
However, that's my personal opinion. As we can see by other comments, milleage varies. 😉

Sorry, but I beg to disagree, mostly after having watched Rookie Historian, My Country, The Red Sleeves and other similar-style ones. That FL needs some serious acting classes (as well as several others in this series).

The communists worked on the countryside because people there had been more affected by the corruption and incompetence of the existing government and were too ignorant and simple minded and easy to buy their bs. As the sentence "the Kuomintang fought the Japanese while the Communist fought the Kuomintang" says, the Communist were more worried about propaganda, deceit and telling whatever stories to get to power. Fighting the Japanese was secondary to them. They just saw WWII as an opportunity to rise to power.
Once in power, as usual, they eliminated anyone who still opposed or woke up, as more than 60 million starved to death by Mao did to eliminate opposition. Most of those were the farmers he "cared so much".
So, those scenes showing "genuine concern" for the farmers were just that: propaganda.
Left and Right are common terms used here to define political affiliation, with the left being those who support communists. This is a global definition, not just in the US.

Wait. You don't know where we are going? You are the one complaining about my post and the use of the word "propaganda".
Since the very beginning, I have been talking about this specific drama and how it portrays the communists as "saints".
You now expanded the discussion to several others and different eras and, if I understood, have been trying to portray communism as Chinese "culture", which I disagree. It is not. That would be akin to pinning it as part of Russia, Cuba, North Korea's. The fact that so many reject it by leaving those places or die trying proves it.
If that's not your point, please rephrase and make it more clear.