distantUtopia

Just finished the 40 episodes + Special, and I have to say, I think they shouldn't have made the Special at all and instead left the 40 episodes as a "hopeful" open ending. The banal slice of life tone of the Special clashes with the moral weight of the main drama and it just leaves a weird off-putting taste in the mouth.

I disagree with the comments above. With the iQIYI ending only, I think he was able to write a letter and get off the boat, as the mail man did not mention that he died, however he may have been too sickly to travel to the rematch location, and more likely, died shortly after getting off the boat.

Depending on the amount of prowess you attribute to religion in the drama, the monk stops drumming at a particular point in time - which in "historical" cdrama often indicates a departure (together with objects breaking/cracking at unlikely times).

Even with the extra episode, he would have died well before Di Feisheng and Fang Duobing arrived. Their faces showed no shock (e.g. no corpse) nor happiness (e.g. not alive) - the beach is actually empty. The camera pans forward into the water and back, showing that it was only in their imaginations, or it was a flashback to when Li Lianhua was by the water in the 3 month gap. The odd point where the Hulijing seemingly looks up, but that could have been also an imaginary Hulijing to pair with the imaginary Li Lianhua.

He used up all his qi to heal Bi Qiu ("[at least there is a use for this last remaining bit of qi]"), so he is definitely dead.

From a narrative standpoint, the fact that the final battle was on ep.39 and not ep.40 meant that happy end was not in the cards.

Leaving Hulijing/Lotus Tower to Fang Duobing is the end of Li Lianhua, and the shattering of the Shaoshi Sword is the end of Li Xiangyi.

by the pace of season 1 I would expect that the question would be solved around season 3 lol

For the main characters, yes, a happy ending.
For Spiderman, Miss Meng, Lil Sis Gu and Lil Fairy, also happy ending.
For everyone else, a karma-y ending.

Almost finished with this drama (42/44) - fundamentally excellent "modern" wuxia - the slo-mo and CGI is generally blended well and not obtrusive.

Good Points:
- Black Spider and Miss Meng are the definitive OTP
- Yan Nantian is the most heroic hero I've ever seen in a wuxia drama. This is exactly how I would imagine an era's hedgemon to act - by his own strict moral code, and not by ethics imposed by others.
- Xuanyuan Sanguang is just funny.
- Jiang Bie He was well acted but possibly too immediately obvious as evil - who decided to give him the evil eyebrows?

Bad Points:
- Tie Xinlan, probably the character with the third-most screentime, has terrible judgement for a wuxia practitioner. Despite being top tier in an entire province, is 100% completely useless after Xiaoyu'er discovers she's a girl. In any dangerous situation she interferes in, she either messes up the good guys plans at best, or becomes the bad guy's hostage at worst.
- Even though I liked Jiang Feng's portrayal, I didn't really like Hua Wuque's portrayal by the same actor. The woodenness for the first third of the drama felt quite off.
- I thought Lu Zhongyuan was actually only pretending to believe Jiang Yulang's backstory while intending to test him, based on his previous actions testing Jiang Qin. The entire time he had a vaguely wary nature to him, and to discard this at a time convenient to the narrative...
- The dubbing syncing is quite terrible

Do you have a list for "Dramas You Were Hyped For But Didn't Meet Expectations"?

All the romances are one sided ..... actually let me think about it.
... yep, all of them.

I finished it - most of the drama was a solid 9, but I had to take 1.5 points off just for the ending which was completely and ridiculously stupid, thanks to episode "44".

Episode 39: Suddenly Becomes 1̶0̶0̶%̶ 1000% CCP Propaganda! (Also Chen Shan's amazing disguises)

Yes that's right. Xie Bi'an never ambushed Fan Xian on the road from Qi Kingdom, so Yan Bingyun naturally wouldn't stab him.

Hope you enjoy :)

In season 2, I'm expecting the appearance of the First Prince (Lady Ning's son) and the Fourth Prince (Concubine Yi's son, confusingly referred to as the Third Prince because the Crown Prince doesn't count for some reason). They play major roles in the middle-late arcs.

Ending: Reincarnation, repetition, and the cycle of karma AKA everyone dies except for those who will undergo more punishment by living.
Romance: The kind of Freudian romance where your previous incarnations were lovers but now you are step-siblings so you're still kinda into it but you haven't realised you have no chemistry in the present life.

In the novel, Fan Xian is a lot more self-aware of his role in the court. He is, to put it bluntly, the emperor's sharp tool, to stand alone and excise people and factions that threaten the emperor's rule. He is given a lot of power and leeway to do this, but is also isolated from everyone else - if the emperor wished it, he could be immediately discarded since the emperor is essentially his only backing.

In the same way, the second prince is also the emperor's tool - a whetstone, to sharpen the blade of the crown prince, but then break in the end. The second prince was also given a lot of power and authority by the emperor to do this, allowed to build his own faction, interfering in court politics (and later, his powerful marriage alliance). As he says it, even if he didn't want to do it, the Eastern Palace cannot ever trust him given all of his past actions and current power. To give up, is to lose his life and his mother's life.

So, Fan Xian fights the second prince to save his life - only a powerless second prince can preserve himself. But the second prince cannot rely on the Crown Prince being magnanimous, and cannot rely on Fan Xian's unstable authority for this. So, the second prince fights Fan Xian to save his own life - only by taking the throne can he preserve himself.

In the novel you have some degree of different characterisation. Novel Fan Xian is also a proponent of 21st century ethics much like drama Fan Xian, but he recognises that he cannot be a second Ye Qingmei - like he says "I only wants to live well", so he limits himself to people he personally knows and cares about. Other innocents, he can't really be bothered about. Overall in the drama Zhang Ruoyun does manage to capture the essence of the novel Fan Xian.

In terms of epicness like I commented somewhere else, there are quite a lot of events that were added in the drama where either didn't happen in the novel or Fan Xian wasn't personally involved - e.g. search for the chicken leg girl, Si Lili's capture, Yan Xiaoyi's ambush, Shen Zhong's gamble, 2nd Prince's ultimatum.

But at the same time I think there are sufficient events of epicness in the novel which were not portrayed in the drama as well.

Overall I'd say the novel is a good read so far, I'm somewhere near the middle. The translation is a bit off in places though, so if it doesn't make sense you should go back to the raw.

The second prince doesn't want to fight Fan Xian, but is forced to fight. Fan Xian doesn't want to fight the second prince, but is forced to fight (more apparent in the novel). Two people who are immensely appreciative of the other. What a pity.

Lin Shu, the Young Marshal. Martial arts was his joy, but the army was his life. For 13 years, Lin Shu was not allowed to exist. When he no longer had to live a lie for the sake of duty (revenge), he made a choice: that he would be happier living as Lin Shu for 3 months, rather than living as Mei Changsu for a few more years.

To have the Chiyan Army Banner flying proudly again on the battlefield was probably his greatest wish.

It's hard when the past reincarnations wear masks all the time and you can't tell who is who.

It runs in the family. The second's prince's mum is also a bit of an oddball :)

Roughly. chapter 254. The events of the finale don't happen in the novel though, so you may want to start with chapter 230, which is roughly episode 44. Actually there is quite a lot of business in which Fan Xian is not involved in the novel, where he got involved in the drama. Maybe just start from the beginning :)