festivalen

Hm, I remember reading somewhere that the producer was super adamant on not selling SFOT outright, even when the production was facing financial difficulties. But it also seems like iQiyi has been giving more marketing support lately, with the interviews and stuff.. interested in seeing how this rumor shakes out 🤔🤔

I might be alone on this but... I don't really want a 2nd season lol. A movie is perfect. A couple extra episodes would be alright too. A whole entire season feels like it'd be very, very difficult to get right.. I'd rather iQiyi just invest in the production company itself and let them make more good dramas on their own.

Yeah exactly, stuff like A Lifelong Journey, Reset, The Crack of Dawn appeal to a wider audience, but those audiences are usually more the "watch and move on" type. SFOT gets the "watch and go crazy for weeks" type lool
Imaging SFOT with YAMG's marketing :'''') If only omg.
(i saw that rumor too, i'm cautiously hopeful. the cast interactions in the bts vids are so cute and funny, i'd kill for a variety show or group interview)

Ah yeah, I'd agree those two don't really fall in the romance genre lol.
You make a good point about romance dramas and their limited audience. Account-sharing dramas (like SFOT) target very specific audiences as well, so it's quite difficult to really reach a wide enough group to go viral. Luckily SFOT's demographic is one that loves to use social media ahahaha

Honestly, things like visiting filming locations, vids/pics that breakdown character wardrobes, having random items suddenly become popular (like certain lipstick colors selling out overnight), vids mimicking iconic lines/scenes etc. aren't entirely uncommon. I've seen these things occur for various romance dramas before. But /all/ of these things for one drama is awfully rare I think.. and it'd usually be for dramas that are much bigger hits that SFOT. Think mega-hits like Goblin. So while SFOT isn't the first of it's kind to enjoy viral success, it really defied all expectations in getting there.

Though, it's kind of hard to compare SFOT's viral phenomenon to other dramas, because it's circumstances are a little unusual.
I think all the drama examples you listed had fairly normal airing schedules (ie they didn't just get dumped all at once and had more than 1$ for their marketing budget), which allowed them to gradually attain popularity and buzz.
For things like Go Go Squid and You Are My Glory - these two were based on well-loved novels and have superstar casts (with huge, scary fanbases). They were popular from the get-go, plus having a normal airing schedule naturally spreads the hype out. In comparison, SFOT's popularity feels a lot more like a sudden explosion because the hype came from nowhere, thus making it feel more viral. SFOT is pretty accessible for people looking to really go wild with (affordable styling that you don't need to take out a personal loan for, accessible filming location with a real bio-luminescent beach), so that's probably helping it's viral momentum a lot too.

Seconding Word of Honor - I didn't even watch that drama but I still saw it every where lol. I imagine The Untamed was similar when it aired, cause I /still/ see fans wilding out about it.

My favs tend to flop too ( :') lol) so this is the first time I've managed to watch one I like go viral like this. I think SFOT having such good rewatch value plus an open ending really helps it in this regard. Also the fact that the production team is drip-feeding us very small extras just makes everyone hungrier for more. SFOT c-fandom is really hitting above it's weight tbh.

I didn't think he was tall at first either ahaha. Her height plus his hair style making his head look bigger (he's got so much hair, i'm jealous) really threw me off.

Yeah, Hao Yue Dang Kong/Bright Moon in the Sky with Fang Yi Lun. They've started filming already, but there's seemingly no news on the rest of the cast

Oh same, definitely side-eying any 2023 release dates lol. There's too many moving parts - the time it takes for script/production to be figured out, the time it takes for the original cast to be available, the time it takes to actually film, the time it takes for NRTA (ie the censors) to approve everything... it's gonna be awhile ahahaha

Qu Chu Xiao is like 180cm at least lol.. it's just that Zhang Jia Ning isn't short either (she's like ~168cm)

Yeah, I had this idea as well. Go Princess Go was super, super low-budget but filmed a couple different endings - so I thought it was very possible this drama did the same. Like little 5-10 minute clips of various alternate endings. The scriptwriters clearly left themselves a lot of possibilities. I imagine the very warm and ardent reception of this drama likely changed the production team's agenda.
If they are gunning for the original cast, they have a nice buffer to write/polish the rest of the script. Qu Chu Xiao is filming his space drama right now (with a buzzcut ofc), and Zhang Jia Ning likely has commitments as well (and also has short hair lol).

No no, these were from the initial filming in winter 2020-21. I doubt they even have a script ready for the movie yet lol

There's some costume fitting photos of that particular outfit (plus some other coat outfits), which makes me think there must be more... surely :'')
https://www.douban.com/group/topic/260694976/?_dtcc=1&_i=5505969BkWyo9G

Bit of a discovery I bring from douban 🤔🤔
Wu Xi Ze posted a short BTS vlog on his douyin - https://www.douyin.com/video/7067350175311875368
There's a shot the makeup room where you can see character references for the stylists - https://imgur.com/w8wQRbL
Seems like they did have an adult-version of Zhang Wan Sen designed. It matches up with this mysterious bts pic too - https://imgur.com/CHmHAOl
Very curious 🤔🤔

I don't think they ever say, but I always assumed he was a dropout around the same age as them.

Lovely post - my thoughts exactly.
I think the heart and strength of this drama is very much in the emotional line and character design (and acting ofc lol). And I think that's where a lot of people's enjoyment will hinge - how much you buy into these characters and their emotions will impact how much of the story's logical flaws or cliches that you'll be able to overlook (consciously or otherwise) or put up with. I bought in like 200% so this drama was /incredibly/ easy for me to stomach. People who cannot connect (or who look for more rigorous plotlining) will probably have much less of a good time.

This drama stirred something in me too - I don't remember the last time I've lingered on any show like this. It's really earned a special place in my heart :'')

:''')

The kiss scenes in My Fair Lady were something else lmaoo
If only he wasn't so fond of playing characters who have such bitter fates :'')

It's him in my heart and mind too, alive and well :''')

Yeah I watched on iQiyi. The subs there are machine-translated, but my brain is good at parsing those and I've got some basic knowledge of mandarin. Plus the storyline is not very complex, and most scenes are fairly straightforward.
Idk if it's worth the trouble to use your braincells on this one if you came here from SFOT. Unless you really want to hate-watch it like I did lol. Chen Yan is the anti-Zhang Wan Sen, the production values aren't great, and the story here is /very/ soap opera.

I'm glad you enjoyed hahaha

Thanks for sharing, I'm glad this got subbed!! Sun Tianyu seems like a such a funny guy lol