geechoo

apparently he's going to do a variety show before his modern drama starts filming. one thing about his company is that they never let their actors rest. I looked at Li Yi Tong's schedule (she's in the same company as him) and she is always going from set to set with no rest in between.

tbh I think she is veryy overrated. DFQC is her magnum opus and she got a lot of hype because of that drama but when you re-watch that drama, you'lll notice everyone else was styled terribly lol ChangHeng and all the other gods had outfits that made them look pregnant lol and now she basically just copy & pastes her designs.

I was wondering too because I found some of the patterns very familiar so I searched on weibo and yep, she did the costumes for this drama too

so I did more research on this drama (because there is SO little promo material) and it's actually not typical gods in heaven type of xian xia. It's more similar to the Chinese Paladin series. Which makes me more excited because I'm kind of bored of typical Xian Xia. I just want a teaser or something video!

the costume is very typical Yi Xiao Ya lol

IQIYI is more accurate lol MDL can be edited by anyone. It's very rare for xianxia dramas to be 24 episodes.

I think this is the only one left that was finished filming in 2022. The other big budget dramas only wrapped filming in 2023. I don't think the post-production is ready.

one complaint I have is the filter is way too white. it washes out their features. I almost thought this was a youku drama lol because youku loves putting this kind of filter on their dramas.

Chinese Paladin 4 being rushed like this (it's scheduled to finish airing in 2 weeks by Feb 1) makes me think IQIYI is saving a bigger drama for the CNY break.. let's see if we get news about the broadcast license being granted in the coming week..

they should work on getting the broadcast license first lol because without that, they can't air at all.

tbh that makes little sense because IQIYI has a bigger market share in streaming than Tencent. They don't need to piggyback off Tencent's promos. the lack of promo makes me feel that they might not be confident with the quality of the product or they're trying to air this discretely to avoid garnering more attention over the billing issue.

it's super rushed and barely promoted by iqiyi. it's going to finish airing in 2 weeks and there's barely any ads on their mainland website. really bizarre roll out. I wonder if it has to do with all the fighting over billing.

I'm sorry but this billing stuff is the dumbest thing I've heard. if the drama does well, both leads will benefit. Dylan was second billing in LBFAD and he arguably gained way more from that drama than Esther. I just want another big budget historical drama to air! lol I'm tired of these modern romcoms

I feel like fans are bit too sensitive. people are allowed to dislike a drama as long as the criticism is rational. imo, things like pointing out the cgi is bad or they dislike a character is valid criticism.

the good thing about modern dramas is that they are quick to film. historical dramas are always 4 months of filming with some being even longer. like Eternal Faith took 8 months!! 8!! and it's not even going to air :/ The Grand Princess is going to finish filming at the end of this month or early Feb and then he'll prob rest a month and then film the modern rom drama in March.

why does this drama air so slowly compared to other cdramas?

ZLH said in an interview that they are most likely wrapping up filming before CNY (Feb 10). since this drama has no CGI, hopefully post-production won't take long. MJTY's post-production only took 5 months and that drama even had some CGI.

fingers crossed we can see this drama in 2024!

how did the animated version get approved then?

IQIYI should really just sell this to a foreign streaming platform like netflix and just have it air outside of China. the IP for this drama is huge so it's guaranteed to have viewers even without China. The animated show was able to air so I don't understand why they can't do the same for the live action.

lol he is definitely not kind in the novel. his character is your typical cold ML, but ngl that's what attracts a lot of cdrama viewers (see Story of Kunning Palace). He pretty much is only sexually attracted to FL and even admits towards the end of the novel that he felt like she was a "trap" sent by her family because of her beauty and how he fell for her looks. Their relationship is pretty shallow in the book.