9lives

Mo the Man

Lady, what bias? My mom happens to have been on this Earth for over 6 decades and she has a brain and a pair of eyes that work perfectly. There’s no bias when she can distinguish something that works well on screen and something that doesn’t. Jing ain’t a main anything. He’s not a threat to anyone. So now you’re saying Tencent has been biased again from the beginning?? Curious take because I remember how Deng Wei supposedly made Jing so much more famous than he was in the novel. So adorable, so full of love. Bless his little heart. So which one is it? Make up your mind.

You keep blabbering about XL having been made to look good lolololol he’s been looking good on paper for over a decade, since 2013 when he was still only words on a page. Which is interesting because as you pointed out, he really is supposed to be the third ML and he has the least amount of chapters in the book. But even so, there’s no such thing as making him look good because he always was a fantastic character. If you mean looking “better”, then it certainly isn’t at the expense of your fav. What does Jing have to do with Tan being a terrific actor? Even if he’s out of character or not, in no way it diminished the impact of his presence in the drama. The only ones who should be complaining are Cang Xuan fans and even so, ZWY did an excellent job with the questionable changes his character has unfortunately suffered.

So what if they added more Xiang Liu scenes? He still had less screen time than any of the others anyway. The only difference is that he did the best he could with the little time he had. I can understand having a favorite character and a favorite actor, I really do, but let’s be real. Jing has never been and will never be a character interesting enough to warrant him the amount of attention that have been dispensed to Xiang Liu. It’s basic storytelling. So even in future adaptations, if such a thing come to pass, you can be sure that Xiang Liu will still be the one character that gets a good portion of the screen time and will have to be played by someone who can grasp what he means for fans of this story. As for Jing, be it a veteran actor or a newcomer, he will remain constrained by the limitations of how Tong Hua approached his character. When we say that he is a plot device, please understand that it’s not a way to diminish him, it’s just the function he has in this story. He is what the protagonist gets in the end when she’s been through the whole story wishing to never be abandoned again. It’s his purpose. You know this. Even if the production team had spent all the budget on him, it would not have changed the essence of what his character represents. They could have shown his mount, they could have shown a big love reunion with all the petals they deserved, they could have given him more lines of dialogue, they could have made the whole second part about him and you know what would have been the result? People would still complain and say the story is lacking, that it’s no longer interesting as it once was etc. Jing cannot carry this story. YaoJing’s relationship cannot make this story interesting or make it any more entertaining than the average Chinese novel. That’s the issue that Tencent faced when adapting the book. They butchered a lot of things, I agree, but when it came to the decision to make the most of the one character that turned this story into something remotely interesting, they got it right.

Also what backers? You mean Tan? The one who has been working hard for a whole decade before he got his big break? The one who keeps doing more than everyone else because he happens to really love and be thankful for the projects he’s been given the chance to work on? Please. Why don’t any of the others show the same passion for this project as he does? Try doing that next time and maybe the result will be different. Spoiler alert: it won’t. Some things in life can’t be bought with money.

Go East has reached 1 million reservations on IQIYI 🔥🤩🎉

https://weibo.com/7527272248/5067000621041940

So funny watching this with her 🤣 she’s even more savage than I am 😛

What part of “I would have cheered for her had she rejected all of them n made them all jst frnds forever n left alone to wander being WXL again, free spirited n happy with herself, that would have been true woman empowerment.” can’t you understand?

Nowhere in that comment did the OP said a single word about Xiang Liu. Lmao I can’t with you. XL has truly walked into your dreams 🤣

You seem equally stuck if Kokuto’s comments are prompting you to give out religious advice 😹 have you tried Buddhism?

Not sure if you’re talking about Tan or ZWY but there’s a new drama with Zhang Wan Yi (the actor who plays Cang Xuan) airing this Monday. It’s called Are You the One (previously Hidden Charm) it looks good and he’s a solid actor so maybe it’s worth a watch 🤗

There are also many Tan Jianci dramas coming out so if you liked Xiang Liu then you can look forward to more of his stuff 😋 Go East is probably coming at the end of August 🥳🤩

Jing could have had the entire drama for himself and fans would still complain about it not being enough. It’s not a screen time issue when dealing with a character such as…him.

Our Queen of Misinformation strikes again. Not a day goes by without some nonsense being written. I’ve been away for some weeks but nothing seemed to have changed. Oh well, Xiang Liu has had everyone in a chokehold. Even the Jingers 😋

No, he was never an interesting character in any way. He is a plot device for Xiao Yao.

Some thoughts now that I have been rewatching part one with my mom. Mom didn’t know that much about the story at first but she’s smart and she’s already aware of many things without me having to tell her a single word. Screenwriting is something that interests her immensely.

Mom thinks Jing is merely a background character. He’s there merely for plot reasons and because he needs to be the “endgame”. Indeed, watching it again makes me think there’s not much difference from the second part. Mind you, certain folks have been complaining about how his scenes have been reduced and how he’s been turned into a servant. My dudes, he’s had that downtrodden servant vibe since the beginning. I had forgotten how rude Wen Xiao Liu was to him every time he was moping around like a beaten dog. Yikes.

Mom has also noticed that he only mumbles and says “okay” a lot. Not much of a deep conversationalist. There are not many lines of dialogue reserved for him. Nothing too complex that would make the second part seem like such an aberration. So the weird claims that his lines have been given to others are…well, weird. What lines? “Okay”? The drama adaptation has not been too kind to his character since day one. Where’s that cunning, smart, artistically inclined businessman from the novel? Never really seen it in the drama, and I’m watching it with extreme attention this time around.

So all in all, there’s not that much difference between both parts, stylistically speaking. Maybe the long time it took for it to air is to blame but it was all filmed together, so apart from some questionable editing decisions and story changes more pronounced in this second part, it’s not that big of a deviation in style from part one. They’ve been butchering the novel for a while now, it’s nothing new. My heart goes to Cang Xuan and his fans, though. A very well written character that shouldn’t have been emptied out like that. When will they learn?

That being said, the one thing that is undeniable is that during the near 12-month period it took between parts one and two, Xiang Liu’s popularity has skyrocketed to massive heights. Tencent isn’t oblivious to this fact so they took advantage of him as much as they could. They put some extra Tan in there and called it day. I couldn’t possibly be happier about it because he be playing that role like his life depended on it and now he’s finally and deservedly getting all this attention to his work.

But I digress. When it comes to part one and two, two things were evident to mom:

First, Xiang Liu stole the show the moment he was introduced. I’ll add that it remained like that until the very end, 14 minutes into episode 23. Poor mom will not like to watch that. Oh, well.

Second, that I shouldn’t be too sad about his arc because he was evidently the most important (male) character in the drama even if that may not have been the initial intention, and according to her, it’s probably the reason why he was the only one that remained somewhat untainted by the many changes this adaptation made to the original novel. If anything, it only made people love him more seeing all those seemingly out-of-character tears and vulnerability that we can’t get from the novel. That’s nice :)

Okay that was longer than I thought 🤭

Waiting for a Xiang Liu 24/7

Whatcha gonna do about it?

I get it 🥲 I also dropped it for now. Maybe one day 😔

Think of it this way: Xiang Liu is the MVP and he's too good for any of these people. So the why is because he's the author's favorite character and she wouldn't let him end up with the likes of Xiao Yao. If you try to see it with this mindset, it gets a little better. Great men like him deserve an equally great partner :)

Very well written! All my thoughts consolidated into one great review!

It saves everyone's precious time eheheheh

You’ve been lucky, but then again you always had way more patience then anyone else :)

Xiao Yao was never meant to be a strong female character. She's a traumatized woman whose choices have always been informed by (1) unresolved issues that remained with her until the very end; (2) self-deception (here you can add obliviousness, denial, plain stupidity, or whatever you wish to call it). She had a mediocre end because she settled for mediocrity.

Truly strong women accept that life is finite and that is better to enjoy the little time we have left with our loved ones even if they're doomed to die eventually. It's not a nice realization nor a happy one, but it shows maturity and understanding that we came to this world alone and we will leave it alone.

Now for the funny part: I suppose the author wonders about the bed part as well because she never even gave them a proper honeymoon 🤣

Love it :) How To Train Your Snake 😹

Yes, that's all pretty much what we have been analyzing for over a year. There's no growth when a person with very clear, identifiable issues remain tied to those issues by choosing a path that does nothing to overcome them but instead keep them prisoner of their same old fears. XY's hard shell may have been broken in the end, but she never stopped needing someone who would never abandon her. Had she undergone real growth, she would have been able to understand that nothing is forever and people come and go. It shouldn't stop anyone from loving this or that person only because that love may be temporary. Demanding eternity from someone is such an unhealthy mindset.

It's a strange story for sure, one that makes you wonder about its themes of loss and longing. Never saw any of this as something happy, but then again the title, both in Chinese and in English, do make it very obvious that this is not a tale of rainbows, sunshine, and mentally stable people.

Edit: I lied. At first, when I was still a sweet summer child, I did hope for a better outcome, considering Xiang Liu is so ML-coded and straight out of a fantasy book, so there was a time I was expecting it to be rainbows and sunshine :)