ibisfeather

AMAZING COMMENT SECTION -- lots of viewpoint and emotions clearly expressed w/o too much off-the-walls conflict. This is as richly developed (if not more) as the show. Some brilliantly detailed and respectful comments on RL SA/SH, but also just as valuable, sincere feelings on the script/story/fictional characters. Pride here.

Loving this! "that was my first kiss"... choi hyun wook newly-anointed prince of the noona romance!

same here, could not continue. Really intolerably mean-edged comedic portrayal of country people. The fl emotionally is too hostile even for enemies-to-friends. Kang Tae Oh's energy level is way too low to match hers.

yes, those are good ones. They werent there when I started writing.

Thank gods for the comment section -- weeping and yelling at the screen is getting too intense in my space!
Hate the script/love the series aesthetically. Rhetorically (since we all know in reality how hard it is for SA victims), why oh why oh why doesnt she let anyone into her life? Her family gaslights her, abuses her and neglects her. Where are her reporter friends? why dont the police help!!!

The contradiction of the exact now situation in modern china: altho she wants to be independent and puts all of her energy into maintaining a bright public face and the old communal value of prioritizing group harmony over the health/safety of the most vulnerable/children women is supposedly done with, guess why she still feels so much shame!

Heartfelt thanks to all the chinese-speakers who have raised holy heck over this weirdly ambiguous take on SA and romantic obsessions. The director and scriptwriters deserve all the criticism for not respecting the victim enough.

yes, just as you say, the dubbing is disrespectful to the actor's craft

and to the original point, while it is likely that the current admiration of the Tang is exaggerated, the list of buildings and festivals in the Wikipedia article on Chang'an is kind of thrilling.
Of course you are right to point out that the life of women even in the most glittering and prosperous era is still intimately horrific.
Not sure where your perspective is centered from, but in the west it is easy to think about either european renaissance, south or north, to do a simple RL thought experiment: women are intimately beaten, murdered, tortured and enslaved without historical record, and kept out ofpublic roles.
Most importantly without real legal recognition as persons. And yet, still struggling, still working towards a space of greater agency, however small, in their own lives. Usually under the name of some male relative.

absolutely yes. I agree. I must have misread your comments which I took to mean that life in general was impoverished (I might have missed a pronoun).
But dont you think that even though this is a fantasy, the writer responsibly took care to show that even Madam He's 'independence' was completely fragile and momentary? Ultimately it was due to her patronage by a powerful and unusual man. Thus by definition temporary, along with any imaginary association of women in business... Moments of energy do happen, even if in the long run they disappear from the historical record, sinking under the grim weight of what you point out.
I also agree with yr implied impatience with the dogmatic and saccharine female-centred dramas currently, by the way, I do hope, however that there is a steppingstone there somewhere like the Betty Friedan moment which I at the time disgustedly thought was way too little etc. Stuff like this gets caught up in its own contradictions as people think about it in RL. As you do here.

Umm. Your comment on the scenes of conspicuous consumption being unlikely in the Tang is just plain wrong. It isnt my field but Chang'an was where the worldwide money was in the 7th and 8th century for sure. Maybe you are thinking the fall of the Roman Empire affected Asia? Not so. I am not sure where to direct you to get a better general feel for what the rest of the world was like then, but maybe on reddit? Or another person in these discussions?

oh heck, I have read Frankopan's The Silk Roads; A New Hstory of the World, cover to cover so many times that I may as well make a stupid recommendation (it is too long really really too long). But even though it is from 2015 and endless...maybe reviews of that book will give you something more succinct to read on Asia's position in world trade in the Tang.

I am totally with you on this one. Especially the horse poop. I am just going thru older Li Xian and will delete my own review when part 2 of flourished peony drops. Fighting

thank you for saying S2 is coming. I was so confused by the ending!!!!

more of a corporatist culture than a patriarchy, so more complicated. It isnt right to be rude about korea.
Low birth rates in all industrialized countries are currently exacerbated by economics and demography, but basically since the 19thC not having to produce enough children to offset miscarriages, infant mortality and childhood disease and still end up with enough hands to run the farm...well thats why in the modern world we all have low birth rates, because individuals who fall in love still can do the math.

mm-hmm. When I read your review I remember how much I disliked their relationship too. I just was entranced by the crazy plot, the music and the visuals, as always.

Thanks for pouring out all the feelings I had no idea of how to compress into a review.

yeah. I agree.

That's what I call a good review. Thanks -- altho I think this is the best JJH can do in the kdrama context where romantic emotion and comedic timing are most important. He is absolutely the melancholy cool action hero.

Yay, here's hoping it is a good show. Topic is interesting. I havent liked the kmovies Ive seen lately so who knows what this will be like -- movies are way more about directors and cinematographers. Will they trash SJK or exalt him?

Yeah. I was in, the second that Dylan's character in the show fought back about his accent/dialect being dissed at the company dinner. I love his true voice, a little hoarse, definitely opinionated and not afraid to speak up. His comic timing is excellent. That's the Dylan who even if he wasnt voicing the Demon Lord, cracked me up in the opening body swap of LBFD. Remember his initial communication, or lack of it, with Orchid? His go-to response? "Boh! Whatever!"

Oh I do -- like tale9, and fantasy. Top ten is always very personal, isnt it? My criterion is if I cant get it out of my head (in a good way), and tale 9 doesnt do that for me. It often comes down to cinematography, probably unconsciously.

I watched it all the way and hated it too, back when it first came out. You go girl. At the time I had just started kdrama romance so I was learning the drama-trope vocab, but even so it was truly icky.