geechoo

it helps that he IS mature lol I think ML is 28? which is considered kind of old in ancient times to still be single. both leads are adults which is rare for these romance historical dramas that tend to focus on either teens or barely adults.

the difference in filming quality is the most drastic. with this drama, you can see where the budget went. the drama looks movie-like. idg where the budget for all those other S+ dramas went

smh lol I don't want that

Did anyone notice in the OST MV that Chi Pan (I think that's his name? the comedic guy) is shown in several scenes kind of looking lovingly at Pan Er? I'm wondering wth is up with that because we're half way through the drama and they're basically enemies so far and each have their own partner. I really hope writers don't go down some bizarre makjang path..

I loove the Chen Lian character. He's a good actor and so lowkey funny. He's like a cupid for the otp.

they're basically like idol actors who have intense fandoms that promote them everywhere on chinese social media. it gets really annoying for drama watchers because if you click into any post about the drama, all the top voted comments are just stans spamming the same c&p paragraph about their favs achievements.

omgg episode 17 & 18 had me blushing the entire time. More international fans should watch this because it puts other romance historical dramas to shame with the acting and chemistry of the leads. also I'm so glad they didn't cast liu liang actors whose fans spam everywhere because the discussions on douban & weibo have been really nice to follow so far without annoying fangirls.

I found him creepy since his first appearance. Just like I did with her ex-husband.

his gaze is like that with almost everyone lol earlier in his career he acted in multiple dramas with Zhao Liying and they had soo many shippers. He actually got a lot of hate when he married his wife because a lot of people don't like her.

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