Jess4163

Thanks, I’m so jealous you haven’t watched this yet! If you manage to connect with the leads, this really is a romance for the ages…the production team really put a lot of care into the script and the leads’ relationship.

Lol, I find it hilarious that you were actually annoyed by Fei Liu -HOW COULD YOU??!!!! You mean, you didn't like the WW smackdown with grandpa Xia Jiang?

All jokes aside, I'm curious if you disliked the way the character was written or Wu Lei's portrayal? From a writing standpoint, Fei Liu was quite likable: Has a few screws loose due to a traumatic past, yet he's deathly loyal to our beloved ML and is a kickass martial artist. Maybe you didn't like his blank expressions and the fact that he tends to pick fights with skilled martial artists -he did harass our beloved General Meng, lol...

As for Long Ballad, both me and my sister initially liked how Wu Lei looked in the opening songs and were hoping that we'd connect with his character. But his entrance ended up turning us off completely: He was extremely stiff, not commanding at all, and tried too hard to act tough and grown up. No way did I believe he's an experienced general. Since we were watching this drama for chemistry and a hot romance, the inability to connect with both leads (Diliraba also failed to convince me she was a real person who lost her whole family -found her to be flat and instead, thought Zhao Lusi's emotional acting was way more believable) killed our interest.

But in LLTG, it's the complete opposite: I was instantly floored by his commanding and stoically brooding presence. Talk about attractive AF! And it didn't start out perfect: I still found him to be a bit stiff, but this time around, he successfully grasped the essential essence of LBY's character and brought him to life. And as time went on, he started loosening up despite still retaining his stoic/cold persona.

Now, I'm suspecting that even the initial stiffness was just his take on the character in the beginning. I just happen to not be a fan of any kind of stiffness: Mark Zhao also played an extremely cold character as Ye Hua, but his eyes were full of expression/fiery passion. There was no hint of stiffness and it still is, in my opinion, the gold standard of how to portray a cold character without being wooden or stiff.

Currently though, I no longer sense any stiffness in Wu Lei's acting and he's fast on his way to joining the ranks of my two other favorite alpha possessive/obsessive male leads, Ye Hua and Chengyin. Lol, I sure love them relentless, edgy, and dangerous...

Lol, I just found out something interesting: Chinese fans are giving LBY a code name. Similar to how James Bond also goes by 007, they're also calling LBY 081. In mandarin Chinese, 081 sounds like ling ba yi, which is the closest to our ML's name, Ling Bu Yi.

Here's another awesomely cut mv showcasing our 081's lethal prowess using the song, "Misfit Lunatic":

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1fg4111754/?spm_id_from=333.788.recommend_more_video.-1

I'm so happy for Wu Lei! Before this drama, I wasn't sure if I'd ever take to him as a leading male after being turned off by his performance in "The Long Ballad." I ended up bailing out early because I couldn't connect with the leads. Wu Lei especially failed to convince me he's a battle hardened general in charge of a thousand troops. I found his acting very stiff and didn't find him manly or hot enough. To me, he came off as a child wanting to play grownup. At the time, I was very disappointed because I went in wanting to love him as I adored his character, Fei Liu, in "Nirvana in Fire." Sadly, it wasn't to be.

So coming off of "Long Ballad," I was initially wary of LLTG. Because Wu Lei didn't do it for me in "Long Ballad," I was scared "...my good opinion, once lost will be lost forever" (Mr. Darcy). It hadn't even been on my radar until my twin sister showed me a clip of him shooting an arrow at a clingy girl I later came to know as the annoying Princess Yuchang. In that clip, he radiated a level of power and manliness I found missing in "Long Ballad." Despite still being a little stiff, I found his cold, brooding portrayal of LBY to be incredibly hot and started watching the drama because of him, becoming hooked right away by the nuanced FL/other lovable characters as well as the intricate slice of life writing.

As I watched further, Wu Lei's take (despite limited appearances, which convinced me even more that the director's respecting the source material) on LBY (subtle layer upon layer) continued to impress me until I fell head over heels after the proposal/carriage scene. I'm now all in on the leads' hot chemistry, but the FL's recent character inconsistencies are annoying me. LBY, on the other hand, has stayed consistent thus far and has the potential to become one of my favorite romantic MLs of all time, joining the ranks of Ye Hua (Ten Miles) and Li Chengyin (Goodbye my Princess)! What can I say, charismatic, alpha, possessive/obsessive MLs are my kryptonite in romanceland and Ye Hua and Chengyin are just simply in a league of their own. I'm hoping LBY ends up joining that elite tier for me.

In my opinion, this is the breakthrough drama where Wu Lei proved himself to be a formidable male lead. If he keeps this up, he will immortalize himself as LBY the same way Mark Chao, Chen Xingxu, and Hu Ge did with Ye Hua, Li Chengyin, and Mei Changsu.

Check out this cool mv of Wu Lei's fighting scenes from LLTG and "Long Ballad:"

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1nY4y177iy?spm_id_from=333.337.search-card.all.click

Lol, I find LBY to be so much hotter and more commanding than the "Long Ballad" character despite Wu Lei playing both of them. Sorry, but that other guy is too soft compared to my LBY.

Just wanted to add, by being someone easy to manipulate the FL IS REGRESSING. From season 1 overall I never got the impression that she is easily manipulated. Compare her to Yang yang and you will know what 傻白甜is. The FL always gave me the impression of being clever, sly, full of machinations and trickery.

She would not have gotten far in her household as a kid growing up had she been easily manipulated. Anything that exposes her as being easily malleable is to me a contradiction to her overall character setup. So we'll agree to disagree:)

On the other hand I do agree about her being reckless at times and not considering consequences. That still doesn't make her someone you can take advantage of.

Nope! My sister read further than me and said even the bitches are more nuanced, making them more believable and less one note.

There are ways to write lousy people who do terrible things without making them feel like plot devices.

The only saving grace is they are following the novel when it comes to the major bitch incidents, only they tend to dial it up by 10 and dumb down everyone so the ML can do his “white knight” routine.

I can only hope this phase stops soon as it’s getting too repetitive and only cheapens the female characters.

Lol, I’ve had it with all those nasty, too stupid to live screechy females. I heard none of them were this ridiculous in the novel.

The creators are better than this as they clearly respect the source material. This is the last drama I expected to have makjang characters. It’s really unbecoming…

Hey, I actually haven’t finished the novel yet. I briefly skipped ahead to check out the few parts of the drama that frustrated me. But I’ll let you know more about YS once I read further. Sorry.

I understand where you’re coming from and I agree that the FL never learned from the bridge incident about exercising restraint to avoid repercussions.

But she can learn all this with a much more clever plan, one that’s much more fitting for a clever girl like her that backfires because she overlooked some key element she doesn’t understand (maybe something palace related). That way, she’ll gain the crucial character development without weakening her character.

The key difference between those earlier plans and her latest one is those were actually clever, but this latest one is not only dumb, it lacks basic common sense, something that her previously established character never lacked. So that’s why I’m disappointed -the drama creators are better than this.

Lol, sounds like the classic bad writing trope of using characters merely as a plot device to roll with whatever random plot the creator comes up with. Character A or B acts this way only because the creator demands it...

Lol, with the increasing popularity of this drama, demand will rise for a proper translation of the novel. Even if the second half of the drama becomes a trainwreck (doubt this), somebody will translate it.

But this was all filmed beforehand, so they couldn't have known about viewer response back then. And there's lots of creative ways to make LBY/Wu Lei look like a hot knight without compromising all of the FL's character development. Point is, if they wanted to ruin her character, why start now at the drama's halfway point? They could have done it much earlier. You don't build something up only to have it start failing halfway through...that's like neutering your own hard work. Can't believe the production team's allowing this to happen.

Nope, this is basic common sense that even a mildly intelligent person would possess, let alone the FL from part 1 who displayed a high level of intelligence and competence. Heck, the FL, who more than anything hates being coerced, was willing to sacrifice herself to a possible miserable marriage in order to prevent her family from angering the Emperor.

Even if it is to help out the empress, there's no way she would compromise her entire clan's safety. With her smart brain, she'd come up with a much more tactful plan. This fire token plot is nothing more than bad writing. Its only objective is to make the ML look good. I just wish the creators could achieve this without sacrificing character integrity and drama quality.

Thanks, I had a lot to say and needed to write it all out. It's been a while since I've been so obsessed with a drama and I desperately want it to stay its course to the very end. Fortunately, it's not too late and I hope the production team can resolve all this in a satisfactory manner instead of simply brushing it off as an isolated incident of stupidity where it's never mentioned again and the FL's suddenly becomes smart again when the next plot point demands it.

They can easily make LBY shine without weakening the FL. I just hope they can resolve this current awful fire token plot with grace and revert the FL's character back to where she was in part 1. Maybe have her learn something of substance and continue growing...

Yep, China's censorship will always handicap any of its art/creations. Imagination shouldn't be stunted by all these rules. You'll only prevent your culture from truly flourishing.

Lol, the general audience loves possessive MLs. Look at the ML in "Goodbye My Princess:" So many Chinese people appreciated his complex character and obsessive love for the FL. Dozens of music videos were made to honor his character on bilibili.

Now if they're worried that the government/censorship will prevent a darker ML from getting his happy ending, then I can understand. But Ling Buyi is hardly a villain.

I'm holding out hope too. There's hardly any romance-centric C-dramas with nuanced FLs like this one and I really don't want her character arc to be sacrificed by catering to the lowest common denominator. The production team's proved themselves to be above that and this is not the type of drama to be employing these cheap tropes. Please please director/script writers, stick to the source material like you've been doing the first half of this drama!

But in the novel, she gets engaged to him before the halfway point and that's when their romance really starts (the ML hardly showed up before this). Since they already changed this in the drama by tastefully adding in more interactions with the ML in a way that didn't compromise story integrity, they could have easily had the FL naturally fall for the ML organically over the course of the engagement in the next several episodes. At this point, they're learning how to operate as a couple after all and the FL can fall for him after getting to know him better. They don't need to wait until the last ten episodes for this to happen.

Point is, the production team already showed me in part 1 that they understand and respect the source material enough not to compromise story/character integrity. If they didn't care, they would have had the ML/FL interact much more in order to jumpstart the romance as quickly as possible. But they didn't go that route and respected the novel instead by focusing on the FL's story/character growth. Of course they couldn't ignore the ML completely, but the way they sprinkled scenes of him sporadically all worked in service of the story. It's almost the textbook example of what you would do with a main character that's completely absent in the first part of a novel.

They also weren't afraid of displaying the darker aspects of our leads. Because of all that care and respect, I'm now even more baffled/disappointed by their latest shenanigans. Why are they dropping the ball now by getting sloppy with the FL when the story's essentially about her growth and development? Ugh...I really really hope this is only temporary and the drama gets back on track -please book author, stop whoever's causing this....

Lately, this drama's been using one of my most hated drama tropes: Dumbing down the FL and other characters in order to elevate the ML.

This has already happened during the palace bitch drama incident. In the novel, Wang Li tried to ignore the FL (she'd been burned before and knew she wasn't a match for her) and it was the FL who first provoked her. The 5th princess wanted to avenge Wang Li, but she never went further than kicking the FL's shoe before the ML intercepted. Even then, the FL's already thinking up a tactic to counter her so she probably never needed his help anyway.

But the drama somewhat weakened her and turned all the other females into plot device bitches who have nothing better to do than be the FL's foil all day, everyday. This was all in their attempt to set our FL up as the damsel in need of saving in order to elevate the ML's hotness. The hotness was achieved, but it came at the expense of all the other female characters. Our FL from the earlier episodes who effectively delegated orders, led around her subordinates, and held her own against the fake bandits wouldn't have needed saving in this particular incident. Sigh...

Now I'm hearing the latest episodes has a fire token incident involving the FL that doesn't happen in the novel. Lol, this doesn't just weaken our FL, it's making her plain stupid (lacking in common sense) and is completely at odds with her established smart character from part 1. Once again, the drama's using the cheap tactic of dumbing down the FL in order to prop up the ML. I don't understand why they painstakingly crafted the FL over the course of half the drama only to sacrifice her character simply as a means to make the ML look good? It's completely mindboggling because they never weakened the ML in order to elevate the FL in part 1 when the focus was completely on her. Our ML's been consistent this entire drama.

They didn't rely on this cheap trope in the first 20+ episodes, so why start now? Why are they okay with besmirching all of their hard work with the FL in almost half the drama? If this continues, these inconsistencies will turn her into more of a plot device than a nuanced character. None of her later brilliant feats will feel as natural if they keep sprinkling more of these "dumbing down the FL in order to emphasize the ML's appeal" moments in between. God, I hope this gets nipped in the bud soon!

The latest episodes have been using one of my most hated drama tropes: Dumbing down the FL and other characters in order to elevate the ML. I HATE this cheap tactic with the fire of a thousand suns!!!!! I don't understand why they painstakingly crafted the FL over the course of half the drama only to sacrifice her character simply as a means to make the ML look good? It's completely mindboggling because they never weakened the ML in order to elevate the FL in part 1 when the focus was completely on her. Our ML's been consistent this entire drama.

They didn't rely on this cheap trope in the first 20+ episodes, so why start now? Why are they okay with besmirching all of their hard work with the FL in almost half the drama? If this continues, these inconsistencies will turn her into more of a plot device than a nuanced character. None of her later brilliant feats will feel as natural if they keep sprinkling more of these "dumbing down the FL in order to emphasize the ML's appeal" moments in between. God, I hope this gets nipped in the bud soon!