ninan

Ok. Just a quick look into Ep50. Manniang is still there. lol. I have to say I wish her story line could finish asap.

Your last sentence... That was exactly my mind after i watched The Story of Yan Xi Palace and of course the first 20eps of Ming Lan.

I am somehow getting the rhythm now. It is like waves. it started low, then after a few small waves came the big wave which was the wedding. Now it is clearly going down again to prepare for the next big wave. If it follows the novel, it will be the poisoning incident of MLs grandma. A climax in the novel as well. I don’t think they are weak episodes. They are the transiting episodes and they also gave the closure for two story lines: justice for Madam Bai/GTYs mother and end of Manniang. Meanwhile it shows the process of how Ming Lan adapts her role from a concubine-born daughter in a lower official family to a Marquise and the development of the relationship between our lead couple. From now on the family issue in the Gu house comes a temporary pause. The Sheng family and Antie Kang will have more screen times soon.

PS: Ming Lan gets pregnant before the poisoning thing. So soon we will have some great couple time, i hope.:-)

It is a slice of life drama. If you like those BBC Jane Austen dramas, you should give it a try. Maybe I watched too many cdramas with actions or strong emotional rides recently, I was a bit disappointed and felt too slow pace at the beginning but the super acting of all characters held me till around 15 ep. Then suddenly I was totally dragged in and so enjoyed the slow pace. As Wongh2h said, the character development is amazing especially the male lead and the female lead. Very additive drama. The best part is the chemistry between the ML and FL. So genuine, so natural. Maybe because they are married IRL, I feel that I am watching a documentary about this couple. lol.

Just realized that Ming Lan's maid Xiao Tao is played by Lin Jing Xiao in A Love So Beautiful. She gained 10kg for this role. No wonder I did not recognize her. Kudos to all devoted actors and actresses! This drama is just getting better and better!

The whole Prince Yong family was already dead. Qi Heng is a widower now.

Oh, I forgot to mention Disguiser. You might like it too. It is also from Daylight Entertainment and available on viki. It is about a family of 1 older sister and 3 brothers in Shanghai during the Japanese occupation period (1940s). Very complicated political situation leads to very complicated relationship among the family members. Each family member has at least 2 identities. lol. Not a very popular time period for many cdrama fans but I like it a lot.

Another interesting fact about Daylight is that they like to use supporting actors/actress repeatedly. You will definitely see some familiar faces in NIF. :-)

Yes, agreed. Recommend all work from the Daylight Entertainment. In my opinion, they are currently the best drama production company in China. Nearly all their works gain both good popularity and ratings. They are famous for portraying a group of characters, no matter period or modern, no matter good or evil with complex humanities. Viki has Nirvana in Fire, Nirva in Fire 2, When a snail falls in love, Surgeons, Ode to Joy, Disguiser, Candle in the tomb, Love u if u dare and Like a Flowing River. I agreed with others. Among their work. If you are looking for a story about a family in difficult time, Battle of Chang Sha is the closest. if you are looking for a period drama with similar vibe, definitely is NIF. Even the style of the beginning OST and music is similar. lol

My guess: QiHengs mom knew her boy well, naive, incompetent at handling the real world matters. Telling him means she might have one more thing to worry. Her boy might do sth stupid, out of good will but end up badly. Or maybe just habbit, thought she could protect her boy like always.

Er... yes, we did watch all details without problems. Different people different liking. I don’t see anything wrong with it... I enjoyed the slow pace, enjoyed all small talks with Granny, so much wisdom inside. A lot of things you dislike in this drama are where i like. I like fast paced drama normally but strangely this slow one really sucked me in. The magic of this drama works on me but not on you. It is just that simple why bother to write an essay. lol. Just find a next drama which you can enjoy. :-)

PS: actually this drama sells quite well in China. The television viewing rate tops already.

In short, it is just not the drama type you are looking for. There are enough people who hooked on from the beginning and watched every episodes carefully and anxiously wait for the new eps.

And the title is STORY of Ming Lan, not legend. if you happened to check the tag, it says slice of life. There is nothing legendary about her life. Just a realistc portrait of some ordinary lives of women in the Song Dynasty and how the FL struggled to have a better life with all kinds dialogues and small life events. No actions but enough conflicts and drama. Slow pace but full of interesting details. The feeling of watching it is like treasure hunting. Need a lot patience but so much fun. Plus I learned a lot from this drama.

It is like music. You might like rock while i might like soothing one. No need to force yourself, just move on.

http://dr-myri-blog.blogspot.com/
You can look for the Fan Fiction section in the list column on the left.

The website has the best TMOPB recap I've ever found. Strongly recommend to everyone!

I think the show is getting better and better. In ep18, ML and FL starts to have some cute interactions. Slow start leads to the low rating and now things are getting better. Honestly by MDL standard, this drama is seriously underrated. It is of way better production quality than other 8.4 rating dramas. Unfortunately this kind of drama is not appreciated by a lot of audience who like more OP moments, heavy action scenes and fast pacing.

If you are looking for a more realistic historical drama, try the current airing The Story of Ming Lan, led by Zhao Liying. A high quality production by the same company produced Nirvana In Fire 1 and 2. Unfortunately as I mentioned earlier, a drama with such realistic plots is not very popular these days. Audience found it too slow paced, too less actions, too suppressed female characters, etc. The rating is just 8.4 here in MDL, in my opinion, extremely underrated. If you happen to be a fan of BBC Jane Austen dramas, you should really check this one out. A lot of fans agree it is like a Jane Austen drama in Chinese Song Dynasty. :-)

Laugh at the documentaries comments. Well, you have to add something to make it as a drama right? Nowadays, the audience are hard to please, too realistic, they find it boring, too dramatic, they find it unrealistic. :-D

The FL is actually a real character in the history. If you check her info, you will be amazed. She is nearly a miracle in the history of harem by starting as a servant of the first empress with a slave status to an Imperial Nobel Consort (the step Empress was confined in the cold palace, so she was basically the No.1 in the harem) and was titled Empress after her death. Nobody knows how she kept the favor of the emperor for over 20 years till her death. Her life was actually as unrealistic as a drama. The writers based on all the historical records and made some modern twist to please modern viewers. The story is well balanced between realistic history and drama, hence the success. Actually the producer did not boast this drama as a classic historical drama, therefore most audience who are aware of the difference accepted its unrealistic part.

:-D Princess Yunxi is too young for my taste. Can not give you much help on this drama. But there is one similar drama "The Eternal Love" and its squeal "The Eternal Love 2". Both are web dramas, short( 20/30+ eps), with a young and good looking cast, light comedy drama, very well received both in China and internationally. Viki has both. Note: it is not "Eternal Love".

Thanks MDL for cleaning up the ratings.

Actually you could just let all these details go, just enjoy even with some confusion, then slowly everything comes together. That is how long cdramas work. :-)

Honestly speaking. No idea. And they are targeting at nearly all top rated dramas, not only cdramas. The pattern is in just one or two days, a lot of ratings of 1 for all those dramas. People has too much time?…

U r welcome! That’s what happened when u watched a drama too many times. Orz.

1. That is SuSu and Yehua getting married. Start at ep11, YeHua met SuSu in the Human Realm. Very sweet till they were found out by his grandpa, i think around ep17. Here is another common setup in Chinese mythology: A cross-realm relationship is not blessed. There are so many folk stories about how couples (mortal/immortal, human/spirit, human/ghost) fall into love, overcome all hurdles and live happily afterwards. lol.

2. haha, your guess is wrong. MoYuan is NOT Yehua. They exist at the same time. As in the first life, MoYuan is the teacher, Yehua is the lotus spirit showing up from time to time. You have to find out yourself. No fun to spoil all details.

3. My feeling is the three life is more for Bai Qian. The original novel is basically a first-person narrative story, all from Bai Qian’s view. She was totally of different personality in these three lives.