geechoo

Mulan under performed to be fair, and her (bad) acting was cited as a large reason for that. plus she also had some political controversies that made international audiences dislike her.

the problem is the otp moments end up being only what we see in the previews lol so it makes the actual episode feel somewhat underwhelming. a lot of fans on weibo and douban have been complaining about tencent's promotions so far. it's too focused on the romance and they spoil too much.

ep 15 & 16 has gotten pretty bad reviews so far on c-side actually. especially ep 16. the criticisms I've seen the most of: the tea scenes were overlong and anti-climatic. the dance scene was awkward.

yeah I like the original voice too. there's been some minor criticism on the c-side because they think some actors need to enunciate better but imo it's better than using voice actors because they all end up sounding the same. one issue I have is with the sound mixing, sometimes it's too obvious when they switch between live recording and studio recording. They should've picked one or the other.

I don't think it's taken off yet internationally but I hope the hype catches on because it really is a high quality drama. It doesn't help that there are no liu liang stars in this so international fans aren't looking into this

the pipa scenes are so poorly done because her hands don't even match the bg music

tencent needs to stop spoiling all the couple moments in previews because it makes the actual viewing more underwhelming. I get that the OTP is the most popular thing about this drama atm but seriously... they need to learn how to promote the drama from other angles too

those folks are usually middle aged lol ML is supposed to be in his late 20s

neither leads are well known with international fans and the drama itself is more "mature" than usual idol historical dramas so it's not as surprising that it's not as popular on this site as others that target younger audiences

there's a lot on bilibili (china's youtube). for example: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1eb4y1W7dN?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click

well his character when he's back in the capital and not on the run is supposed to be clean cut lol

he really suits facial hair imo he kind of looks johnny depp-ish here: https://i.pinimg.com/736x/45/00/c6/4500c61af4d0a082056ac83532dba158.jpg

is something wrong with my comment?

I just did a rewatch of my favorite scenes to prepare for the new episodes airing tonight and I want to give big praises to the director and set designer. The latter in particular is what makes this drama feel authentic compared to a lot of other idol historical cdramas these days. The set looks weathered and not like it was newly built just for filming. So many cdramas have gaudy and quite frankly tacky sets. There's something so beautiful about ADoS that certain scenes almost look like a moving oil painting. The scene in episode 6 where the ML & FL are walking separated by this cloth thing is a good example of this.

yeah it's kind of shallow but I think Ouyang and also Yinzhang's fiancé should've been played by more attractive actors because otherwise I'm kind of question mark over how they were so head over heels in love with them. Yinzhang's fiancé in particular was so old looking.

lol cnets have been making shipping vids of his yangguo and her xiaolongnu since this drama aired.

it's kind of funny because in China, CX is considered one of the best looking from his generation.

I wish this show was on netflix or something more accessible.

FL gave him 3 demands and he couldn't fulfill any of them so he decided to take a job outside the capital to get away from her. However the job is viewed as undesirable so Gao broke up the engagement between his daughter and Ouyang.

lol Chen Xiao used to be one of the og pretty boy actors in idol historical dramas in the early 2010s. then he got married and only acted in serious contemporary dramas that most international audiences don't watch.