melontea

Sad ending if you like certain characters, bittersweet/happy for the leads.

Thanks for your insight into Viki's behind-the-scenes. It sounds like the screening process for subbers is rather lax?

Viki subtitles have an incredibly positive reputation among drama fans, but I've noticed more than a few translation mistakes in several dramas. Making some mistakes is normal but sometimes it's obvious a subber didn't even get the basic meaning of a sentence. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be an easy way to submit corrections for wrong subs.

I'd say it's not romance heavy in the typical sense but at its core, the plot does revolve around the main romance. It's also about family, friendship and politics.

You won't see cheesy "tripping over thin air and accidentally kissing each other" kinds of scenes. It's a more subtle and well-written romance. I enjoyed it a lot and hope you'll like it, too.

It's interesting you interpret SML's feelings for the FL as sincere. The reason I couldn't root for him in this love triangle was because I never got the impression that he loved her as a person.

They barely knew each other and didn't have a lot of interactions throughout the story, but he was obsessed with her right from the beginning on. To me, it seemed like the SML developed an idealized image of the FL because of the portraits of her he's been staring at all his life. Whereas the FL already had a well-established life and routine with her friends and beloved master at Nancheng Mansion, people who have become her second family.

I think it's understandable why she didn't really want to leave it all behind by choosing the SML and becoming an empress even though this was her duty as the daughter of the Cui family.

Some international watchers can understand without subtitles because they have a Chinese-speaking background or learned this language. And I'm guessing they know how to find and watch it on Chinese websites.

I watched it on YouTube. Another user posted the link in the first comment:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=px0Fa8krmII

I watched a little without subs. The cold and haughty female lead seems interesting. Too bad it's just another 3 minute drama :(

"they were forced to bump into each other on every possible occasion and stare at each other in slow motion"
And there's always one accidental kiss and several scenes where ML catches FL who trips over thin air, then they're suddenly in love. I never found that believable in any way. Definitely prefer how this drama writes the romance.

Where do you think the water army comes from? I'll be honest, the international C-drama fandom is really small from my point of view and many fans are just casual fans. I just find it a bit hard to believe that Chinese actors have so many English-speaking hardcore fans who come to this website and waste time downvoting dramas of actors they dislike.

I know voter manipulation definitely happens on the Chinese internet! I'm just confused as to how their fandom fights have anything to do with us English-speaking fans who are pretty chill as a whole.

Honestly, I'm okay with female leads making mistakes and having a few negative traits. Everyone's entitled to their opinion, but I feel like some viewers expect perfect FLs and criticize them for making even the slightest mistakes while they don't have such expectations of MLs and other characters.

Honestly, I don't think it's that deep. It's just drama logic in dramaland. 🤷

Crossdressing female characters who are styled like women and sound like women is a common trope in C-dramas. It's not to be taken seriously. We, the viewers, are supposed to suspend our disbelief and just go with it.

I don't know about that...

Crappy Chinese dramas already exist on WeTV. It makes no difference if they add one more crappy drama to the catalogue. Moreover, people who choose to watch Asian shows on WeTV do it because they want to see something different from "Western" shows, even if they have bad CGI or the script isn't perfect. The competition you speak of doesn't really exist.

Her acting skills are good when she chooses the right roles. She's amazing in Princess Weiyoung and Ashes of Love. I think playing strong and brave female characters matches her most. She's less convincing in sweet and naive roles.

Yeah, it's a bit disappointing. But I don't think it has something to do with different countries having different customs. Other Chinese actors do plenty of real kiss scenes. He doesn't, for personal reasons we may never know. Some people think it's because he's married and that's why he doesn't act out kiss scenes but who really knows.

I guess one good thing about not being able to understand Chinese is that I don't have to read negative comments from Chinese netizens, too. Any negativity on this website or YouTube/Disqus is enough for me, lmao.

Interesting title lol

That's the first time I see someone call a male lead annoying, lol.

"If they work with Zhao Lusi they 3 will look like triplets!"

Zhao Lusi looks nothing like them.

Only 12 minutes have aired so far. It's too early to say if it's good.

Yes, it's currently streaming on YouTube. Someone posted the link below. I bet when it has finished streaming, it will be uploaded on WeTV.