lilili

I didn't like the wrist grab in ep 22 or Jianglai saying that he would never let Shanbao go. It's such a cliched trope and very different from the dynamic we've seen between them up to now. I hope it's just a one off scene and doesn't represent their dynamic going forward.

That's because the writer is a woman who's directed a lot of vertical short dramas and a lot of the supporting cast are actors from vShorts

No, Yang was presumed dead and her husband was accused of killing her which is why Lu was trying to find her by imperial order. The Yangs are trying to find her because when she split they tried to use her disappearance as an excuse to grab tea plantations from the Wei family and they wanted to make sure she stayed disappeared under their control.

I 100% blame granny for the family being such a mess and the sisters/cousins scheming against each other. If the tea empire collapses it'll be her fault.

I'm obsessed with how beautiful the poster is and how well it captures the premise of the drama. Having the cord on the earbuds form the shape of the man she's listening to is genius.

According to a post on Douban it will have a February-March release date

Thank you so much for sharing that theead. I already loved the drama but it's incredible how many layers of wordplay there are in the script that unfortunately English speakers just won't understand.

Conversely I wonder if the Chinese audience understands all of the references in the BGM because I caught homages to Ennio Morricone scores for Sergio Leone westerns, the Sex and the City theme, the Harry Potter theme and music from the Pink Panther films, not to mention all of the Western classical music that's used. The same composer, Chen Xue Ran, composed the BGM for A Journey to Love and included an homage to the music used in 1970s police TV shows in the US

A request: can someone tell me in which episodes we get the most graphic violence and what scenes? I want to be spoiled because I'd like to watch this but I will get triggered if I watch brutal murders in detail rather than just hearing them described.

Thanks to anyone who is willing to help me with this.

If you do reply, please use a spoiler tag so other people aren't spoiled. Thanks

I find it ironic that Man's Inhumanity to Man is coming out shortly after A Calm Sea and Beautiful Days with You, a Jdrama romance about a woman and her husband who's a Japanese imperial naval officer in 1936, the same time period that Unit 731 operated. This is equivalent to having a sweet romance about a Nazi officer in 1936. The drama has been a fan favorite and I hope it's because they don't know Japan's history during WWII.

https://kisskh.at/789108-nami-uraraka-ni-meoto-biyori

Most of the dramas that become popular internationally are idol dramas and the audience just wants pretty people and silly plots for escapism. No one wants to deal with the atrocities, especially not during the holidays.

Thank you for writing this, I've been thinking the same thing especially because there's a Cdrama airing about Unit 731 which was the Japanese unit that conducted human experiments (really torturing people to death) from 1936 to 1945. It upsets me that most people are either unaware or don't care about the history.

Because the origin of BLs was stories written by women for women in Japan (yaoi). To build on the definition of BLs, a lot of BL stories, especially in the early days of the genre, dealt with problems of womenhood but without female bodies present. A good example is the "We didn't even kiss" line in Heated Rivalry, that's a very woman coded experience.

But now that we have years of live action BLs being made with directors who are mostly gay men the genre is evolving and the lines between BL and LGBTQ series are blurring. It's not necessarily easy to distinguish them anymore. For example Only Friends is a BL but it also had a lot of experiences that are very much what young gay men go through because the director is a gay man who said he wanted to make a horny series.

FYI, Google translate is a great tool for translating lyrics and subtitles that appear onscreen. It's a bit tedious but below is a link to a video on how to do it. At 1:26 the video covers how to translate text in a different language. Unfortunately for some reason I can't translate that easily, I have to copy the text and then paste it into Google translate which is a tedious extra step but it does work:

https://youtu.be/-Wt7gN6jE8E?si=u6U7fhO5YXzioQp_.

Another thing: if you're looking at a lot of Chinese language websites you should install the Google translate extension on your browser. It will automatically translate web pages for you:

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/aapbdbdomjkkjkaonfhkkikfgjllcleb?utm_source=item-share-cb

Finally, if you're looking for LYN content, you should install the Xiaohongshu app. If you set your language to English the app will automatically translate all of the posts and comments. The translations are mostly accurate and you will get access to a lot of LYN info that isn't available in English language media.

I hope this helps and I haven't overwhelmed you :)

I've been reading XHS posts too, I love seeing what people are saying about it. What is it that you think you're missing?

Thank you for laying out exactly why Song Yi Meng mistrusted Nan Heng for so long. Not only did he try to kill her five times and lied to her about being Li Shiliu, he even threatened to harm LS to manipulate SYM into doing what he wanted! She had every reason to be angry with him and mistrustful for a long time. And I say this is someone who adores NH's character.

I admire this drama for how unsparingly it depicts the brutality of corporate life. If you've ever worked in a big corporation you've known many Mr. Kims, company men who undergo countless humiliations before being discarded by the system. The acting, directing and OST are all top notch and the writing was mostly brilliant with the exception of Su Gyeom's storyline. But watching this drama felt like I was being dragged through a hedge. It was one of the most unpleasant viewing experiences I've ever had. I gave the drama an 8.5 because it's so well done but it's definitely not one I'll ever revisit. I left corporate life for a reason and don't want to experience it again in a drama. I suspect this is why the rating is so low. Even though I felt deep empathy for Kim Nak Su at the end, this isn't exactly a feel good inspiring story.

I want to know how he keeps getting around the censors, his work feels so raw that it's a miracle it gets a pass

The reason Nan Heng is constantly misunderstood and blamed for everything is because in real life Liu Yuning suffered so much during the filming of A Journey to Love when he was subjected to a vicious online hate campaign. ADWAD was the production company's response to whoever was funding the online "black water" campaign and Nan Heng's character was written for LYN. The ep 1 script reading scene has a lot of very specific references to the rumors about LYN and even shows Nan Feng watching a scene from AJTL on his phone. You can also see the influence of LYN's life story on the idea of fighting fate since he grew up very poor and never went to college yet has achieved enormous success as an entertainer. That's why Nan Heng is such a compelling character: for LYN and the producers it was personal.

Unfortunately, because the entire production is pretty much centered on the injustices suffered by LYN/Nan Heng I think the FL got a little screwed. Li Yi Tong is hilarious in this but she needed to show more vulnerability and ambivalence toward Nan Heng in the middle section. It was too strong for too long (and I absolutely love this drama but I can acknowledge its flaws). Once she lets go of her prejudices and fully accepts him they make a fantastic team and the final episodes had me cheering but the progression from hate to love should've been presented better.

It's directed by Nuchy (can't remember her last name) who directed Not Me with OffGun, First and Gawin. She's an award-winning film director with serious credits. GMMTV generally does invest in some high quality projects every year like Moonlight Chicken, Be My Favorite, and F4 Thailand.

She's not a professional reviewer, she's a fan with a platform who spent a brief time in the industry. So I don't expect her to do deep analysis even though sometimes she does. See her videos on The Bad Kids and A Dream Within a Dream.

Also isn't sexual tension in a drama a good thing