mukkanna

I get it. But that doesn't mean I like their relationship. I like angst, but any relationship where it's "I'll only love you if you change" is a hard one to like for me.

You misunderstand me. I understand that the enmity is part of the basis of their relationship. However...even in the portions where each of them believes the other one truly cares about them: neither of them fully trust the other one to have their best interests at heart, even when they're theoretically getting along well. It takes nothing for either of them to suspect the other of betraying them, to the point that even when TTJ is actually trying to do the right thing, LSS can't believe him, and vice versa. This is mostly caused by the fact that they don't talk to each other to clear misunderstandings, but make assumptions about what happened and why, resulting in a lot of drama (and deaths).

I also fundamentally dislike the fact that this relationship that can only exist when one person changes the other person. This is only really acceptable because he also wants to be changed...but then, despite the fact that he's changed, it only takes a second for her to believe the worst of him. One step forward and two steps back.

I have a good understanding of the timeline and worldview, but thank you for the reference.

Even taking out the entire background of enmity, the main couple's relationship is so dysfunctional. ...I was going to say "at least some of the side characters' relationships are healthy," but upon further consideration every couple is dysfunctional in some way. Only one ever develops into a healthy relationship.

The CGI is good though, and I do like how convoluted the plot is in the macro view (it's otherwise very predictable, though).

From what I can tell the script was fine. It's the acting/filming/editing that was the problem. It seems they cut quite a lot of the main CP love line that was scripted and filmed to add more screentime for those characters, which was probably the biggest mistake. They also seemed to add more "sweet" interactions between FL and Luo Mingxi, while removing the ones between FL and ML... They also changed Mo Bei's lines at the end for no apparent reason... Not sure what they were thinking!

I still like it a lot because it's the type of drama I like (and maybe it's also because I don't like stories that end up 100% happy because that's so unrealistic...), but it would have done a lot better with *most* people had they stuck with the main CP a bit better. A pity! (And I say most because there are also commenters saying that Mingxi and Linlang were "the only good thing about this series" and that their acting was the best, which I personally can't agree with...but to each their own!)

Agree, this (and the source novel) are both stories about romantic entanglement on a background of a revenge story. The focus is not on the revenge itself in either one.

I think it's a realistic dilemma that he's in. Basically, he's been promising to marry Di Ziyuan since he was 6 years old and feels that this is what he owes the Di family and Di Ziyuan since his family ruined her family...now he's in love with Ren Anle and finds that "Di Ziyuan" is not the person he remembers. He's thinking that they broke "Di Ziyuan" and feels even more guilty towards her.

The complication for Ren Anle is that she's the real Di Ziyuan. So, the love he has for Ren Anle is hers, and the responsibility he feels to Di Ziyuan is also hers. Add this to the fact that it was her own plot to bring the fake down from the mountain to marry him... Even if he chooses to marry "Di Ziyuan"...can she really get mad?

This is good if you:
- like light, not too serious stuff
- aren't too particular about supposedly smart people doing stupid things for no apparent reason
- can reconcile your mind with people who are supposedly thousands of years old acting somewhat immature initially.

This is maybe not for you if:
- you can only watch serious actors
- you can only watch serious dramas
- you can't rationalize or suspend your brain/logic to get through some scenes (although...this is 90%+ of C-dramas...). I've only had to do some major mind-bending twice so far.

I hope to see more character development, better relationship development (currently, I'm not 100% convinced this is a 'I'll die for you' kind of love story, even though that's what is depicted...not sure yet whether that's because their story is still developing or because the acting out of the emotions isn't enough). Don't get me wrong--the acting seems decent, and no one is downright terrible. Most of the characters so far are 1 or 2-dimensional, but there are a few 3-dimensional characters. I'm particularly interested in how some of the side characters are going to develop :)

So in summary: I think it's worth a try to see if it has something you like.

That's the best way to do things, to be honest. You can't expect 100% faithfulness to any source material, especially since there's censorship issues to contend with for broadcasting. I consider it an alternate universe. This one actually has different characterizations, plotlines, etc...I'm not even sure the world set-up is the same. This drama follows the general gist of the novel, but that's about it. I wasn't too impressed with the novel, so hoping the drama makes changes for the better.

I agree, this is watchable...at least the characters aren't completely annoying or stupid. They're being saved by the fact that they're characters being written by a fairy who doesn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the block, and the nonsensical things they do can be written off not as poor scriptwriting, but by poor writing by this fairy...

I completely agree that choosing an appropriate drama is key. Not completely bombing your reputation as an actor/actress is the most important part of getting another job where you can hone your acting skills more! There are definitely advantages to having simpler characters.

But, I expect we should be seeing more seriousness from YCY's character at some point, given the clues we've been presented. Looking forward to seeing how it goes!

The character she plays in this so far has a limited array of emotions to express, as far as I can tell (so far--I'm up to ep 22). Yang Chaoyue's acting has been able to hang on so far.

That being said, the current arc is really highlighting how much space both ML and FL have to improve their acting skills...they both seem to be acting "how I think a person of the opposite sex behaves" vs "how the other actor/actress behaves." I think her acting would be much more effective if she works on layering emotions. In my opinion she's doing quite well given her age and experience, though...not sure why people don't take those sorts of things into consideration.

The source novel is only so-so and I think the success of this one mostly depends on the script, if the actors and CGI can do a decent job. The script, so far, seems to deviate significantly from the drama not only in terms of the plot but the characters as well. It remains to be seen which is going to be the better version!

Just Han Ye and Luo Mingxi.

Depends on what you like in a story! For me, I liked it a lot.

Wang Yi Ting is a great dancer. Hope they write her a multi-faceted character next time so we can see if her acting is any good!

Censorship, I assume. He did end up losing his mother and daughter, and nearly lost his precious heir, so I think he's been punished anyway.

The wuxia trope is usually extreme grief or qi derangements (or extreme grief causing qi derangement).

In this case, I suspect it grew out and she cut it. Because she was no longer grieving, it grew back black. In the novel, it was only half white and grew out black and later she cut off the white half. The novel is much more wuxia-themed than the drama, but the drama did keep some of the wuxia elements.

Medically speaking, in real life hair that's already grown shouldn't turn white (though may grow out white under stress; it may grow black again when the stress is better).

It's a common wuxia trope as well, probably most famously in Jin Yong's Condor Heroes. The source novel is wuxia. Most wuxia elements were removed from the drama, but not all of them (for example, they still jump really far, and some people were shown to leap their way up mountains). But frankly, the novel's wuxia elements were pretty extreme, and many other things had to be scaled up to make any kind of sense whatsoever. Novel Di Shengtian blew a crater and exploded an entire mountain, for example. She quite literally flies up mountains. If you want to fight Di Shengtian with a normal army, how big of an army do you need?

I think the "white hair" trope is pretty common in costume dramas...this one is actually pretty good.

Maybe oddly, I think it makes more sense if they don't kiss, given the timeline of events. If they did kiss in the middle of all the drama/angst/etc. I'd actually have to downgrade my score for characters acting stupid... How can a smart, strong FL kiss when she's doing everything she can to avoid him because she believes he resents her for what she thinks are some really good reasons? I'd have to punch her through the screen for lack of respect! How can an equally smart, strong, and woman-respecting ML kiss when he sees FL is avoiding him, also for what he thinks are good reasons? I'd have to punch him through the screen for lack of respect!

One of my favorite parts of their relationship is that they both act maturely when things aren't going the way they'd like. They're respectful of the other person, in their way. Their fights (if you can call them that) involve talking and leaving calmly. No one's yelling, throwing things, making unfounded accusations, etc. And neither of them expects the other one to completely abandon their position just for "love;" they both understand that the other person has responsibilities they can't do anything about.

I think Legend of Anle is probably more accessible to American audiences compared to The Longest Promise. I grew up watching C-dramas, but my non-Asian friends find xianxia-type stuff off-putting and hard to figure out. They also find people "flying around" off-putting. Additionally, they find the production quality of modern C-dramas lacking. So in summary, they don't like modern, they don't like wuxia, and they don't like xianxia. But they're able to watch "normal" martial arts, historicals, and court dramas... So the removal of the majority of wuxia elements from Legend of Anle makes it more likely to be watchable to the uninitiated :)

I don't see it for USA. We don't get a lot of C-dramas on Netflix in the US, I feel...

Why would anyone hate you? You're welcome to your opinion.

Yes, people are watching because of the actors and actresses...I don't think that's a surprise since that's the whole point of casting popular actors and actresses. The fact that people are talking about it despite the production issues means that their strategy was successful.

And yes, I'm sure Youku wanted it to be very hype, as did drama watchers everywhere (except antis, I suppose)!