mukkanna

They're still world-building. If they went from:

"Humans and spirits hate each other and there is no human/spirit couple in the entire history of the universe" to "We love each other" in 6 episodes, I'd have to drop it :)

Probably an unpopular opinion: the animation is childish with a predictable and uninspired plotline and a serious dependency on tropes. The characters are actually more fleshed out than what's in the source material.

I watched a lot of anime and dramas and read a lot of manga for 20+ years now. The manhua is, frankly, not that entertaining in my opinion. Maybe good for when you're 13, but lots of better ones out there.

I prayed it wouldn't follow the animation or the manhua it was based on. Did I read it? Yes. Because I'm a completionist. Did I watch it? Also yes, but on fast-forward. Because it's not that good. Did I enjoy them? Not half as much as the current drama. I do think they edited it weirdly in places--they seem to cut several scenes right in the middle of someone's line--but I've seen worse.

I also kind of laugh at the people who say Yang Mi has a frozen face because Tushan Honghong herself basically has a frozen face in the source material.

Sorry, not getting that vibe? What I'm getting is "ingratiating." He's probably smiling because he's trying to get something out of someone. Other than FL, he doesn't really seem interested in females...and he seems to be a bit confused about liking FL, too.

You could click on his name under the cast & credits section and look at his profile, including his previous works.

Dongfang Yuechu and Wangquan Fugui are first cousins (who also at some point work together) in the original work. Zhuye covers the story of the previous generation, so Dongfang Yuechu's mother and Wangquan Fugui's parents both appear in it.

The characters of Yuehong meet and interact with the characters of Wangquan in the original material, so if they were following the original material's storylines then the characters of Yuehong and Wangquan would need to appear as cameos in the other work. That being said, I don't think we know how this was handled in the film.

Just drop it if it's a struggle? I only finish one of 5 dramas I start. Life's too short to watch dramas you don't like.

I liked this one a lot, but it's not everyone's cup of tea :)

Came back here to check on a response to someone else's question...but I think you have some misunderstanding about the prince's "childhood love". What he feels for the child Di Ziyuan is obligation, not really love; that's why he still insists to marry the fake even though he doesn't love her. He just wants to pay back the Di family what he feels the Han family owes. Additionally, he falls in love with Ren Anle, who he doesn't even realize is the same person as Di Ziyuan. To summarize: the prince has a type, and he's consistently liked women of that type. Child Di Ziyuan and Ren Anle are both his type, while the fake and the princess aren't.

For example, Qian Zhao is a person who's depicted as holding brotherhood as more important than everything else. He'll risk his life for brotherhood. He's also a person who's extremely smart, meticulous, serious, and plans ahead. So the entire episode where he decided to kill the emperor was out of character for him. A person like Qian Zhao would never have forgotten to take his comrades into account. And I find it highly unlikely that he would be fine with sacrificing said comrades just to punish someone who's already showed signs of repenting. He held the lives of his comrades as so important that he's willing to kill the emperor to get revenge. But he's also willing to sacrifice other comrades for that? Make it make sense. If Qian Zhao were a more mentally unstable or emotional person, one could say maybe he got swept up in the moment, or maybe one could say that he cracked mentally a long time ago...but he was rock solid up till that point.

Another example is Yuan Lu. He's a genius, very smart, and loyal. He's not a stupid kid who does stupid things; he's a person who's able to participate to the fullest in all their schemes and operations. Is that the kind of person who would run himself to death, risking dying before ever delivering his critical message (as he nearly did)? Does it make sense that an operative that is trusted to be so competent would make such a huge gamble, when traveling more slowly would be more likely to ensure that he's in great condition to fight his way in to deliver the message if needed? Yuan Lu also always wants to live and loves living, so why would he do that--including putting his badge in the bag of badges before leaving? Doesn't make sense.

My opinion is that several of them were very forced.

Qian Zhao: the emperor had already showed signs of changing his ways prior to the episode of wanting to kill him. Qian Zhao, a cool-headed guy who waits and analyzes in silence, didn't wait and analyze this new information before trying to kill him. And Qian Zhao, a man who values brotherhood more than pretty much anything and is portrayed as a guy who plans ahead and takes care in all actions, didn't think about what would happen to the others if one of them killed the emperor, and didn't think about the fact that all of them would be hunted, executed, and go down in history as traitors. Makes no sense given the character traits he displayed for almost the entire series.
Sun Lang: has almost no presence, very little personality to speak of. Couldn't care less when he died. That's poor writing. But since he had no real character, at least he was "in character" when he died.
Yuan Lu: their excuse in sending him was that he could disguise as a youngster and get through the gates (not true). But also, there seems to be branches of the Six Realms active everywhere, and they have a system of bird messages. If you can't get back the way you came, why not go to one of those posts and just send a message? Who cleared their paths on the way back, can't they contact those people and get them to help send a message? They clearly had ways to communicate. This was never addressed. And then the number one worst thing was Yuan Lu's decision to "run to death." Why on earth would someone who was portrayed as a young genius do that? Does he somehow not understand that he's more help to Shisan alive than dead? Does he not think he could maybe die before telling anyone about the message? And he rode his horse basically to death--are we to understand that he doesn't know a live horse with rest can run faster and longer than a dead horse? Or that a Yuan Lu with rest can survive to fight another day and maybe save a friend more than a dead one?
Shisan: Could have just gotten on the horse and rode back with her, there was obviously plenty of time for her to ride away, turn around and waste time, and still survive. There were so many enemies that half of them could have easily just gone around him and killed her, if they were going to. Also, terrible decision to split from Ning Yuan Zhou to go get a different horse. Veterans should know not to separate from allies when surrounded in battle...but they did because ???
Ning Yuan Zhou: He held out long enough for people to jump down there to help him if the writer wanted them to help, but they didn't. They all had time to rush to the wall when he died though--conveniently able to clear all the attackers just in time! What are the odds? And the same thing happened when Qian Zhao died.
Ren Ruyi: This is the only death that made sense to me from a writing/character standpoint. She was rudderless after pinning her future on Ning Yuan Zhou, and she died on purpose in a way that was consistent with her character.

To be clear, I'd be fine with every last character dying if they just stayed in character for it. Once the bag of badges showed up, you pretty much know what's going to happen. I just wish it were written better.

8/10 for me, and that's probably generous.

What was good: the action scenes. Liu Shishi was very good and I also liked He Lan Dou's acting. I also like how Alen Fang played Yu Shisan.

What was meh: number one issue for me is the contrived writing. They're all awesome, until they need to die as per the scriptwriter's needs. Then all of a sudden they make stupid decisions, are out of character, etc. Or previously smart/competent people have to make stupid mistakes so that another smart/competent character can die heroically. Yuan Lu's was the worst, with the whole "just missed each other" trope x 2 and his decision to completely take zero rest as though dying on the road and not ever delivering the message wasn't a possibility. What kind of dumb operative is that? And the bag of badges where basically people thought, "I'm just going to stick my dogtag in here, as I completely plan to die in advance and have zero thoughts of surviving even though I've survived so many dangerous situations before." I'm pretty sure the scriptwriter didn't intend to make it seem as though they had some sort of suicide pact, but several of these supposedly awesome people died pretty needlessly. And whenever someone dies, all the other people completely stop fighting so they can rush over, never mind that they're in the middle of a life-and-death battle. Because clearly, that's how experienced, hardened operatives react in life-and-death situations when there are still people actively trying to kill them. It's very kind of all those enemy soldiers to just let them grieve without attacking, isn't it? Issue number 2 is that a lot of the other characters are rather perfunctory 2-dimensional people. And issue number 3 is the acting of a lot of other characters. I like Liu Yuning as a person, and his acting has improved, but he's got a ways to go to craft a character that stands up realistically.

Actually, after thinking about it, I'll drop the score to 7.5. I think I had a Liu Shishi filter on.

Almost everyone's dead. At the end Chu Yue hallucinates a kid and the entire squad of dead people riding into the horizon.

While multiple characters have faked their deaths, most of these people died on separate occasions, and several of them died in front of friends who had no reason to fake their deaths. It's really unlikely that all of them managed to fake their deaths and then ten years later just randomly show up with a kid.

Another example of normally smart people acting stupid so that they can meet the scriptwriters' goal of killing them all off.

Magic life-suspending potions, magic incense where you can control the person's hallucination, magical fairy light writing, and gastrointestinal bleeding that cures mental illness? Just off the top of my head.

The novel is more graphic in that they actually were a couple, as opposed to the drama which is more of a (b)romance. At no point in the drama does either character refer to themselves as the other one's "wife," and they never explicitly go to bed together.

I felt that the novel was dry and the characters were not that interesting. The drama's characters felt more fleshed out and 3-dimensional. The novel was a short read, but I didn't enjoy it. I read the novel after watching the drama because I like to compare and contrast things. I honestly preferred the drama.

please mark as spoiler :)

I understand where he's supposed to be coming from. I just think it's poorly executed.

I'm aware he probably has. But it was poorly shown; there were no hints of discord in his behavior other than jealousy over FL, and no allusions to childhood issues until he was already going off the deep end. A 30-second sequence would have been fine. Also, in the FL's flashbacks/dreams where she's running away, she was initially alone. Adding him at that point would have helped the story. Why is he so in love with her? Why is he so attached that he went nuts? There's no convincing backstory. Just my opinion.

There are a plethora of silly dramas. This one has some competent villains at least, and the leads actually do seem smart.

I also just watched Wrong Carriage, Right Groom, which I managed to enjoy just enough to finish. But that one has plot holes so huge you could sail the Titanic through them. Supposedly smart people do dumb things pretty much every episode. The villain is so idiotic that they do look pretty smart in comparison. In my imagination, I just decided the entire population of the drama were all poisoned with lead as children, so the average IQ is probably around 70. Then with a normal-ish IQ, the heroes can look like geniuses. The end. Why did I continue watching, you ask? I suspect I just like the "mistaken identity getting revealed" trope...

Yes, I got all of that. But you reap what you sow. She's done similar things in the "all's fair in war" vein. Still no leg to stand on if she wants to be angry with him.

She's grieving, but she has no right to be angry with him at all. Though she didn't betray his army, her army did. She should just be happy he didn't fire arrows at them to help them along the road to hell.

Imagine your friend's house burned down. You let your friend and their brother move in with you. Instead of thanking you, the friend's brother stole your money, burned down your house, and killed your little brothers. Later, you see your friend's brother getting attacked in the street. Do you help him? Should your friend expect you to help him?