mukkanna

I haven't watched that one and won't till it finishes airing, but I have zero problems with an actor acting out a character who's acting out a different character or an actor who's actively trying to hide their true emotions. One of my favorite characters (from the 80s, hah) was a good guy pretending to be a bad guy pretending to be a good guy. I love double agents!

I'm currently watching a drama with another of the actors from TBOY. I really don't know how it managed to get an 8.7, other than that maybe none of the actors are popular enough to have haters yet. The first arc was reasonable, but then the characters suddenly become randomly inconsistent. ML abruptly became an idiot who nearly kills himself rushing through a blizzard without even drinking water despite supposedly being an excellent military officer simply because he wants to see FL a little bit faster...his second in command spills those beans to FL right in front of him, and not only does he ACT like he didn't want him to, but the actor's performance indicates he ACTUALLY didn't want him to. I could have been okay with his acting like he wanted to hide it but secretly being fine with his subordinate scoring some brownie points for him, but there's no way he couldn't have just told the guy to shut it or go run some more laps like in previous episodes. I suspect that maybe the actor misunderstood the script there, but the director should have corrected stuff like that... I'm also really not okay with a military commander not knowing that people need to drink water. Armies that don't have water are dead, how can he not know? Sigh.

Yes, it was higher before people started rating episodes that hadn’t even come out yet. Dropped 0.4 points in just a couple hours. That’s why you can’t trust MDL ratings much. People who are still watching the drama mostly haven’t rated yet.

That being said, I’m watching a completed 8.7-rated drama right now and the over the top acting, fragmented logic, and poorly written storyline are really sapping my patience…but I’m still going to finish even if I have to rate it a 5 or 6 at the end!

Haters rating episodes that haven’t even come out yet. MDL’s ratings are just favoritism contests. If you look at the list of most popular actors and actresses, you’ll find there’s not much correlation between who’s actually a good or famous actor and who has the most flowers.

There were two. I’ve also seen both of them and we’ll have to disagree on this one.

I also like Su Changhe’s character! His moral grayness and blatant double standards are so fun to watch. Chang Huasen so far seems to be doing a good job.

I would like to also say that it’s not Gong Jun who’s stiff and expressionless and blank, it’s Su Muyu himself. Su Muyu is a very closed off person, especially when he’s in “work mode.” You have to watch carefully for cues! Contemptuous eyes and a slight sneer when he sees someone he actually wants to kill, a softening around his eyes when he’s trying to reassure children, a split-second clench of his jaw when he’s impatient and annoyed but still feels compelled to stop…have to really pay attention to the details for Su Muyu.

I hate to tell you this, but I suspect you either have a lot of trouble reading people in your real life or you’re just extremely biased against this actor. There are quite a few examples I can point out even in the first few episodes. If you think there’s still no emotion, the problem is not Gong Jun. Do you find that you have people who are inexplicably upset with you in your life?

You do realize that the screenwriter is the original author of the books this is based on, right? SMY is doing exactly what his creator thought he should do.

Because that’s the character setting. The SMY in the source novel, the animation, and the other two dramas from this series are the same. Other characters even comment on their lack of expression.

I read on douban that Zhou Munan said he would not have written Su Changhe’s end the way he did if he had written Dark River first. Zhou Munan is also terrible at keeping his timelines straight, but it wouldn’t surprise me if he rewrote things in the future. It’s not so hard to write that, say, there was someone impersonating SCH and the real SCH was hiding out behind the scenes manipulating people and purging the sect, with or without SMY’s knowledge. Or even that this was all part of their plan to lead them to the other shore. TBOY has a sequel planned, so all things are possible.

Yes

I enjoyed his acting in LOA as well, but I think you have to be a person who reads emotions well to enjoy his acting. A lot of people prefer more obvious acting. Like “angry” = clenched fists, scowl, furrowed brow. I like acting more like in real life, where “angry” may just be poor eye contact, a slight clench of a jaw, a tightening around the eyes. If you’re a person who has trouble reading emotions (which many people are in real life), I think you’d also have trouble recognizing more subtle emotions being acted out by an actor.

I think a lot of people also forget about layering. You can be sad and angry, and you can also be happy and sad. And you can also be happy and sad and at the same time be trying to hide one or the other. I think Gong Jun does a pretty good job at portraying these complex moments.

Chang Huasen also had a well-acted moment of layered emotion in the first scene where SCH confronts SMY. I really enjoy that kind of acting!

It’s annoying behavior. This is exactly why I still give dramas rated 7 a watch. You can’t trust the ratings.

Most actors don’t shine in those roles, tbh. They’re a lot more difficult.

Besides that, his actor is doing a great job, too

I think because his revolution is only for himself and the people he cares about. Which at this point seems to be just one other person. Everyone else is just a tool for him.

Compared to a lot of other popular actors and actresses in the industry currently, I think Gong Jun is one of the better ones. In this case, though, he’s playing a character who’s known for his aloof, “wooden” expressions, so he really needs to be subtle. Maybe too subtle for a lot of viewers who expect telegraphed acting, like clenching fists and scrunched faces…but I’d rather he act the character accurately than perform in an out-of-character manner to avoid criticism about his “wooden” acting of a character who is actually designed that way to begin with. Gong Jun luckily is better than the average actor in the industry at eye acting and microexpressions, which I suspect is why they selected him in the first place. There are quite a few other popular actors whose dramas I enjoy but that I don’t think would have been able to carry this character with the same or better degree of success.

I’m wondering if he speaks differently in the “puppet” persona on purpose. One of the themes seems to be an evolution of darkness into light (the episodes progressively appear brighter), and I wonder if the “puppet” coming to life is another theme.

If it follows the novel, the romantic interest should be Bai Hehuai. However, Zhou Munan's works are primarily targeted towards the male audience, so the romance takes a backseat (similar to The Blood of Youth, where ML had a romantic partner but that relationship took like 30 minutes of screen time).

All this MDL drama seems silly. Can't we all just watch if we enjoy and drop if we don't? All these Chinese actors and actresses seem to have haters. There are some actors and actresses who aren't that good, to be sure, but often they can still find roles they shine at, if only because their acting style fits the role. I don't understand why people want to judge the actor themselves and not whether they did a good job in a particular role. For example, I'm in the middle of watching Coroner's Diary currently, and I find that (so far) I'm not a fan of ML's acting there, as I think he's too expressive for the character--but I think he did well in TBOY, which was filmed before Coroner's Diary, because that character is an expressive and somewhat naive person. Still, I'm not making a final judgment yet because it's my own preconceptions about what a "prince" and "general" should act like, and there may well be some story developments later on that will shed some light on why he doesn't have the decorum and gravity I normally expect in these roles. He does seem to be sort of a rebellious child with a poor relationship with the Emperor, and that may explain it.

It's really a pet peeve for me when I see people criticizing actors and actresses for accurately playing the completely boring and stone-faced character/socially awkward character with poor eye contact/character pretending (badly) to be someone or something they're not/overly dramatic character they were assigned. Dramas and novels everywhere are full of these tropes.

The colors seem to be fine watching on Youku's Youtube channel on my computer. Maybe your screen settings?