LanLan

Have you ever watched Secret of the Three Kingdoms with Ma Tianyu? I definitely recommend as it also has political intrigue, romance, and great chemistry between the leads.

I think it's definitely worth a read. I honestly did not expect to like it as much as I did, but was pleasantly surprised by the time I finished it.

I saw posts about it on Weibo from fans who noticed the episodes’ length difference when it was announced HK tv was airing it.

No problem! It took a lot of careful cuts and stitching at the right timestamps using sound clips and music with my editing program 🙂 If they ever leak substantial footage to the other scenes I will edit them as well.

I doubt they'll put back all the West Shu portion, but maybe the scenes they have shown won't be cut down so drastically. Like for example, their kiss scene after the wedding or the kiss from the bed scene when the emperor interrupted them. It's all speculation right now, but if it's true, I'm sure Cnetz will find a way to get them shared online since its cut scenes have been such a hot topic.

I guess we will find out in a few days when they reach those episodes that had major cuts.

I've edited in the cut boat scene clips from one of the fan edits (she had the best video quality) and fixed the bgm and sound effects to make it flow more seamlessly into episode 25. This was a pivotal moment so watching it full will be a better experience. If you are doing your rewatch or first watch and want to hop over to this more complete version when you reach this point then you can download the file below. Link is also added to the compilation thread above.
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1HZ4Ghl-LyL2PcgAkoUXOWNTD_8eRdjSm/view?usp=sharing

Fantasy dramas are what have been becoming extremely popular in the past years and draw a lot of traffic. This seems to be worrisome to those in charge.
I didn't save links from where I read it so I don't have them now, but you can read about some of the new rules in this thread shared by another member: https://kisskh.at/discussions/fu-tu-tower/84163-statement-from-member-of-production-team-about-censorship

Yeah if this is the pattern then Chongzi will most likely be butchered. I have noticed that in the last couple of years, China's romance dramas have been much more daring with their filming of kiss scenes and such and I guess the censorship board isn't down with this either. Cnetz have been making jokes about how are they going to promote the 3 child policy if they keep banning these romantic scenes from being shown.

The novel was a pretty fast read for me since it focused mostly on the two of them and their romantic development. It might be better to read after you've watched so you're not disappointed. The drama description above makes it seem like they did the reverse of the novel and focused more on the work aspects. In the novel, she decided to pursue him as revenge on her ex. All the cheesy pick up lines she would throw at him as he acted nonchalant to her, but still can't help himself from feeling intrigued even though he knew she was faking it was so funny and embarrassingly cringey. The casting is perfect though. I think BL and WHD really fit their characters. Even though he does look a little young in the face, he'll make up for it with his CEO aura.

I swear there's something new we haven't seen every day 🥲. She was sitting on his lap when they were in the carriage entering West Shu as fake husband and wife.
https://weibo.com/u/6617313414?refer_flag=1008085010_

Yeah, ML is really something lol. He kept her up for hours after this until she finally had to turn him down as he was placing kisses on her back to get her going again. The novel isn't explicitly written, it's more figuratively descriptive, but it was implied that in one of their sessions, he had her up against a mirror because he wanted her to see the faces she was making as he was seeing her. Another time, he turned down cherries that she picked only to make her eat them later and tasted them from her mouth himself. They finished a whole basket of cherries this way lol.

On the surface he seems like the typical cold CEO type, but he has this dry, sarcastic humor that he uses to tease FL whenever she throws all the flirty nonsense at him in her attempts at pursuing him. When he does the flirting himself, it's super swoony. I hope the screenwriter keeps this essence and I'm excited to see how WHD will portray him.

Yeah, I think there will be much adjustments to this since censorship is ruthless now. All romantic kiss scenes will be so watered down from now on 🥲

You can read more about it here:
https://www.scmp.com/abacus/culture/article/3028790/video-streaming-site-iqiyi-stops-displaying-view-counts-combat-click
But the short summary is: "So how will you know whether a video is popular? iQiyi’s solution is to replace view counts with a “Heat” index. It will be based on viewing behavior, sharing and other interaction -- as well as the “reputation, social influence and value orientation” of the videos."

Unchained Love is getting broadcasted on a Hong Kong TV network and the rumor going around is that it seems to have a higher number of episodes. Cnetz are holding their breath hoping for it to be the uncut version.

No, it just lost its momentum due to all the cuts making the second half choppy and decreased in storytelling quality. This is how I know to trust iQIYI's rating system to be a more valuable insight to a drama's quality over other platforms'. UL reaching over 9,000 was already such a feat that I'm okay it didn't reach 10K as most of those that do are really tough to compare to.

Not that I've seen. Mostly just fans getting excited they got to see it. It was shared from a private account so I think that's why they deleted it once it started spreading. This could also be the team's sneaky way of getting those scenes known without getting in trouble.

They better be prepared for this to be the norm for awhile for most of the romance dramas that were filmed before they had the new regulations and not released yet. I saw Wu Lei’s new modern rom-com got 2 episodes' worth of cuts made. XZ's The Longest Promise seems to be sitting in "who knows when it will ever air-ville". Xianxia teacher/student relationship is also under the microscope and I remember reading that it had to be sent back for another round of censorship trial back in December. So was GJ's Legend of An Le. There were some topics from cnetz around then that UL, TLP, and LoAL might have to battle each other in ratings because they were supposed to all air around the same time in Dec.

Version 2 of the fan edit posted below, but with the original soundtrack used in the drama version.
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:4862637436239901?from=old_pc_videoshow

Basically, FL got her fingers jammed in a door and ended up staying with ML for a week. This is in the much later chapters so there had been a lot of sexual tension built up between them up to this point. So the first night they slept together on the same bed, FL was snuggling ML which turned him on so much he almost did it with her. It was only when he accidentally put pressure on her injured hand that he stopped himself. She and her best friend talked about how they had slept on the same bed together, but nothing happened. So her friend said it's either 1) she's not enticing enough or 2) he can't do it (as in he can't get it up). For the next 6 days, FL basically tried to seduce him with all her different nighties to see if he would lose control and go for it, but nope, nothing happened. So by the last day, she pretty much gave up. Before bed, she forgot to close her laptop in his office where her WeChat convo with her friend was still opened. As she was chatting with her friend through her phone in the bedroom, the messages appeared at the same time on her laptop and ML was able to see everything they were texting. She told her friend she was going to bed early and the friend was like, you haven't been sleeping early in the last few days, are you going to finally do it tonight? She said no and the friend laughed at her saying she really does fail at being enticing. FL retorted it's not that she's not enticing, it's him that can't do it... and of course he saw it. This is when it gets intense because he comes into the bedroom and does this hot motion of taking off his tie and throws it on the bed. He tells her he was worried that he would accidentally get carried away and hurt her injured hand, not that he couldn't do it. Then he starts kissing her passionately and you know where it's heading. Although FL likes to push his buttons just to know she can, when he really acts on it she gets shy, so she is still kind of in shock that he's coming on so determinedly as things get heavier and he starts removing her clothes. Her fingers are almost fully healed by this point, but if she puts too much pressure on it, it still hurts. So as they're going at it, she also lost control and gripped his shoulder too hard and hissed in pain. This made him stop what he was doing and it seemed like the mood was killed and she asked if he was still afraid of hurting her hand. He then reaches over to the tie he took off earlier that's on the bed, grabs both her hands and pushes them above her head to tie her wrists together, then said, "Now, I'm not afraid anymore."