Ep2-3 Just doing a rewatch -- I had forgotten how silly Lu Yu Xiao's maiden warrior portraying a fairy was. She pushes it over-the-top to the point of toothacheing cutesiness. It gives HMH an easy out to play slightly revolted.
The close-ups in ep3 really move the needle. HMH's eyes are practically unearthly. This is where the charm of LitC starts; so much better than the usual xianxia. Lu Yu Xiao creates the half-faked romantic connection which will break our hearts, while HMH now reveling in his momentary dominance will crash and burn nicely later on.
The two of them do an excellent job on that so-difficult romantic task for two actors, to be attracted to each other while technically faking it . There has to be enough of a muddle to delay romance, but a clear line of increasing romantic tension.
The director and sound editor help a heck of a lot, but basically it is a good take on the Bogart and Bacall set-up.
post Ep4 Theories, theories. I am probably completely off the piste, but here goes...
Here is the problem with the Cold-Case GangUk back-to-life:
1. If GangUk is alive in the ColdCase dept, then his two colleagues are still back in his previous dept. Lee Chang Hoon and Kim Min Ho playing Ko Pil Dong and Song Hyeong Min. They are both great comic actors and definitely look to be part of the team to come. If GangUk becomes Ghost Boyfriend then the two of them can be moved to Cold Cases to fill the vacancy?
2. Granny, Cha Mi Kyung, needs room to spread her wings. If GangUk comes back to life, she will be pushed to the background again.
ep4 If Gang-uk actually died then the Grandma will be a really important character, like an anchor for Yeori. If he is alive, then probably she will continue as comic relief?
I really like the Grandma character and the actress so I will be in the minority and vote for Gang-uk as Ghost Boyfriend. For now.
I mean he's obviously not dead so this cliffhanger isn't really working for me.
Ghost-boyfriend? In coma, so soul on the loose? kdrama timing trick, he came back to life on the operating table? But he wouldnt be well enough to run outside, surely?
Ep31 The look on the faces of the two of them when Mo Yu tells them that they are pregnant, Once again, so RL that it had me convulsed in giggles!
Very interesting but I think it might under cut my theory that The ML has planned the fake death from the getgo of the show and that he has already told the FL. How could he not tell her? She knows everything before he can say it anyway!
But in this scene I can see all the complications this will cause him unfolding across his face. I am not so sure that beautiful ms.Meng is thinking along the same lines. Yet?
ok, so I just finished this and there is a few things that i liked and a few i didn't like.Firstly, I really liked…
I am totally with you on the malevolent princesses which I could only tell apart by hairstyle. I havent got to the end yet, but I have been trying to think about the other things you notice (me too) as a choice of the writer and director to stay carefully in the present. They really kept flashbacks to the absolute minimum.
In the line of niggling thoughts, where are the voiceovers? It is so old-fashioned and stagey to give the explanations to secondary characters to actually talk about.
Anyway, I get the feeling of a more intellectual framework of interesting choices that doesnt work, or maybe it does, that I need to think about later.
Not sure my comment actually needs a spoiler veil, but I will put one on to make it in line with yours.
i honestly love him...In the end he never did anything wrong he even died for love
I wouldnt go that far. I loved him because he is in the tragic tradition, where solipsistic obsessive love pretty much leads to death and ruin, and because the actor was brilliant at it. There is nothing better than classically trained Chinese actors at tragedy. Such a pleasure.
Ep31 The conversation of the almost-second-couple after each separately has been scolded by their imperial elders. They meet at a corner of one of the grim outside passageways of the palace with the stone corner-deco dividing them. This is a wordy scene, with no physical movement. So what is it for? a) it thoroughly covers the female-centric trope in costume dramas where, in appropriate women's spaces, the heroine usually gets busy encouraging other women to be more upstanding economically and/or fight their way out of abusive situations. b) this speech, by Shen lady number two (stepsister, the one who likes horses and has sworn off marriage) goes way beyond the normal version to explain the various ways women's collective spaces can provide various sorts of support. Very modern, so that is fun and this show now makes it part of the romcom tradition.
c) With the addition of Prince Lie's annoying and somewhat traumatic devotion to our FL, we see again the insistent way this show harps on the theme of monogamy. Normally part of true lovers' vows, this show frames it as an individual's choice, something to wait for and treasure when you find it, without the compromise of half-ok or maybe slowly improving marriages.
Not sure it works but its a new addition to possible romantic entanglements in the fantasy context.
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Just doing a rewatch -- I had forgotten how silly Lu Yu Xiao's maiden warrior portraying a fairy was. She pushes it over-the-top to the point of toothacheing cutesiness. It gives HMH an easy out to play slightly revolted.
The close-ups in ep3 really move the needle. HMH's eyes are practically unearthly. This is where the charm of LitC starts; so much better than the usual xianxia. Lu Yu Xiao creates the half-faked romantic connection which will break our hearts, while HMH now reveling in his momentary dominance will crash and burn nicely later on.
The two of them do an excellent job on that so-difficult romantic task for two actors, to be attracted to each other while technically faking it . There has to be enough of a muddle to delay romance, but a clear line of increasing romantic tension.
The director and sound editor help a heck of a lot, but basically it is a good take on the Bogart and Bacall set-up.
Theories, theories. I am probably completely off the piste, but here goes...
Here is the problem with the Cold-Case GangUk back-to-life:
1. If GangUk is alive in the ColdCase dept, then his two colleagues are still back in his previous dept. Lee Chang Hoon and Kim Min Ho playing Ko Pil Dong and Song Hyeong Min. They are both great comic actors and definitely look to be part of the team to come. If GangUk becomes Ghost Boyfriend then the two of them can be moved to Cold Cases to fill the vacancy?
2. Granny, Cha Mi Kyung, needs room to spread her wings. If GangUk comes back to life, she will be pushed to the background again.
If Gang-uk actually died then the Grandma will be a really important character, like an anchor for Yeori. If he is alive, then probably she will continue as comic relief?
I really like the Grandma character and the actress so I will be in the minority and vote for Gang-uk as Ghost Boyfriend. For now.
In coma, so soul on the loose?
kdrama timing trick, he came back to life on the operating table? But he wouldnt be well enough to run outside, surely?
Oh, he must be dead!
Do yall think its a kdrama timing trick -- he came back to life in the operating room while she was outside?
Oh, I was all ready to go 1960's on this one and have a dead ghostly boyfriend as her caper-buddy!
I didnt see this coming! Wasnt paying much attention, I guess!
The look on the faces of the two of them when Mo Yu tells them that they are pregnant, Once again, so RL that it had me convulsed in giggles!
Very interesting but I think it might under cut my theory that The ML has planned the fake death from the getgo of the show and that he has already told the FL. How could he not tell her? She knows everything before he can say it anyway!
But in this scene I can see all the complications this will cause him unfolding across his face. I am not so sure that beautiful ms.Meng is thinking along the same lines. Yet?
but I have been trying to think about the other things you notice (me too) as a choice of the writer and director to stay carefully in the present. They really kept flashbacks to the absolute minimum.
In the line of niggling thoughts, where are the voiceovers? It is so old-fashioned and stagey to give the explanations to secondary characters to actually talk about.
Anyway, I get the feeling of a more intellectual framework of interesting choices that doesnt work, or maybe it does, that I need to think about later.
Not sure my comment actually needs a spoiler veil, but I will put one on to make it in line with yours.
The conversation of the almost-second-couple after each separately has been scolded by their imperial elders.
They meet at a corner of one of the grim outside passageways of the palace with the stone corner-deco dividing them.
This is a wordy scene, with no physical movement. So what is it for?
a) it thoroughly covers the female-centric trope in costume dramas where, in appropriate women's spaces, the heroine usually gets busy encouraging other women to be more upstanding economically and/or fight their way out of abusive situations.
b) this speech, by Shen lady number two (stepsister, the one who likes horses and has sworn off marriage) goes way beyond the normal version to explain the various ways women's collective spaces can provide various sorts of support. Very modern, so that is fun and this show now makes it part of the romcom tradition.
c) With the addition of Prince Lie's annoying and somewhat traumatic devotion to our FL, we see again the insistent way this show harps on the theme of monogamy. Normally part of true lovers' vows, this show frames it as an individual's choice, something to wait for and treasure when you find it, without the compromise of half-ok or maybe slowly improving marriages.
Not sure it works but its a new addition to possible romantic entanglements in the fantasy context.