ninan

Drama story and novel story is different. Before you bash the writer, maybe read the original novel first... The drama not only put too much effort on the relationship between ML and other female roles but also greatly weaken the FL. In the novel, ML and FL is more equal, no stong master/servant or brother/sister set up. FL is more of a cool character and she takes the lead from time to time.

And nothing wrong with a good background. With all the good resources (shooting base and veteran supporting roles) and free publicity (a lot of people watched the show just out of curiosity for him) he could bring in for the drama, if i was the investor, I'll make him the ML as well, not to mention he does have some above average acting skills in his age. And the result is also not bad. MDL 9.0/10, Douban 7.4/10 with over 30k ratings (in douban, above 7 is already considered a good drama). Enough people are satisfied with his performance here.

Can you give the names of some teenage Chinese actors who can play better than Arthur here? Honestly, I see none. Most are of the similar level. Arthur has some fair performance here and his action scenes are super. The line delivery is still lacking but acceptable. The best part about Arthur is that he can easily have chemistry with everyone in the drama, male or female, young or old. He nailed it in this part. I like all new faces. So tired to see some 30+ even 40+ still play 10+ old characters. Fresh face, green acting but fits the character.

You mean Erqing? Actually in the later story, it is revealed the emperor did not do it. Erqing made everything up. She purposely told this lie to the Fucha Empress and her brother to vent her frustration and anger.

Yes, from time to time I found the emperor is too ruthless. Since it is a harem drama, I just let it go. That's why i never watched any harem dramas before. This summer there were three hot dramas: AOL, Guardian and this one. I finished the first two and was totally sucked into those two for quite a while, then i was curious about this one. Why everyone were so crazy about this? Then I clicked and stayed. :-D It is definitely not the romance which attracts audience because for the FL, she loved the Empress the most, then herself, then maybe the emperor. And I'm so happy for it. hahahaha.

The relationship between the FL and the emperor is really interesting. The emperor/empress pair and FL/Fuheng pair are really mirrored pair. Among these two pairs, one (FL and the emperor) is ruthless and selfish and the other (Fucha siblings) is pure and soft. Yet both relationship did not work. The two wolf-like characters ended up together, they tested each other while tried to find warmness from each other. Really complicated relationship and totally new in the drama land. I like it somehow. :-)

Yes, happy ending. :-)

That's because they are making Season 2: the Pillow Book. Now it is in post-production, planned to be aired in 2019.

@Mimi, I can understand your feeling. The emperor is definitely not a caring husband but he is an emperor. Honest speaking, in the long history of all Chinese emperors and their harems, there are hardly any good husband material which fits modem standard. The emperors were taught to be loveless, any over doting or obvious favor of any lady in his harem would invite criticism from his elderly and officers. The women who could survive the harem had to have really strong hearts.
Same here for this emperor, if you watch further, you will see why the emperor could not express his love to the empress. And as the story goes further, you could also see why Yingluo ends up with the emperor. They two are too smart, sharp, ruthless, with too strong characters for others. The affection started with manipulation and ended up with unconsciously falling. Till the end non of them said the word Iike I love you and none of them were willing to say that but they just knew they love each other. It is an interesting feeling watching how their love developed. :-)

9.0 now is already very satisfying. It was dropped to 8.5 before.

Did you watch the special prologue episode in viki? A midwife carrying an infant left the Zeng Manor shortly before the massacre of the Lin Manor. The baby is Sang Sang. She is from the neighbor house of Ning Que's family.

If we compare EN with other Xian Xia dramas, EN is really the top-notch production in this genre. The only issue I have is the rhythm of the drama. Maybe it is the director. I feel that she is good at depicting the subtle relationship and interactions between characters and also good at handling the fighting scenes. But somehow it is strange when these two are together. I mean the pace of the storytelling flow.
NIF has a very classic rhythm. It has about 50+ eps, nearly every 10 eps there will be a climax, like one wave after another wave, one wave is bigger than the earlier wave and then till the end, it is the peak and the biggest wave. As an audience, my emotion and expectation was well channeled.
However in EN, I did not get the rhythm. In multiple times I was like "yeah, let's get the climax!" and then suddenly everything dropped to peace... This is my biggest complain about this drama. But still I like it a lot. :-)

Yes, I agree with you. :-) For me, Ever Night novel > Nirvana in Fire novel but Ever Night drama < Nirvana in Fire drama. Well, it might be unfair to compare the dramas since they are of two totally different genres.

NIF is a court strategy/Conspiracy novel, the set is mainly indoors, nearly no CG effects, And the story is really highly ML-oriented. Every other characters work around him. Hence Mei Chang Su character in the drama is deeply explored as in the novel.

EN is a fantasy drama which needs a lot of sets design, a lot of CG effects which will take away some screen time. And it is not a single ML story like NIF. The ML did not even show up in a lot of chapters. lol. It is more a story about a group of people, more precisely, Fu Zi and his students. Hence the screen time for ML is even more shortened. This might be the reason why ML seems less developed than Meng Chang Su.

Sorry, revenge is just a very small part of this grand story, it is like an introduction. I would suggest you to read the original novel. It is a very beloved web novel, was nominated for the top award for the Chinese web novels and won the golden prize. PS, Nirvana on Fire novel was also nominated at the same time that year and won the silver prize.

Actually I was wondering if we are watching the same drama. I did not see much of revenge. I feel the characters, their happiness and sadness, especially, I feel humanity which is the theme of the novel and the drama here.

The rating was dropped to 8.6. Then mydramalist cleaned up a lot of 1 and 2. At that time, the drama got over 60 ratings of 1 and 2 in less than one week which is extremely abnormal considering there are hardly 60 ratings in a week in total for a cdrama. After the clean up, the rating is back.

Her brother is a reformer. He was from Xilin yet he set up a new religion which leads to the downfall of the Xilin authority. After his death, Ye Hong Yu carried on his will. Honestly speaking, i am not so sure if the drama will follow the novel in this part, a bit sensitive, let’s see.

She is a representative student/member from the Monastery (Zhi Shou Guan) in Xilin, which is like the academy to the Tang Empire. She can be seen as the female version of Ning Que. Smart, gifted at fighting, strong willed, ruthless, selfish yet still has a soft spot in her heart for her family. Her brother, who currently only lives in lines, will be a very very important character for the later story in the novel. She will also play a big roll in that part.

She is light herself. Remember FuZi said: absolute light is absolute darkness. Where there is light, there is always shadow. Therefore God of light (Hao Tian) and Hades (who will bring the ever night) is one. Sang Sang is the one. That's why she can easily manipulate light if she wants. And Wei Guang Ming saw lights on her. It is her nature. This is the novel version explanation, the drama might use other theories. Have to wait for future eps or maybe S2.

I would say the acting in this drama, especially of ML and FL (characters are in their teenage), is very refreshing and natural, fitting their roles perfectly. The chemistry between ML and FL is amazing. Actually ML has good chemistry with nearly everyone, with his childhood buddy, with his seniors, with his classmates, with his master, etc. The veteran supporting roles are superb! I was in tears couple of times. A lot of touching moments in this journey.

Kiss on the cheek only lol. It is a romance without much phyical intimacy. The two kids are brother/sister, friends, family, soul mates and lovers. Their interactions are just too sweat. Sang Sang is the child of hades. Later NQ will fight against nearly the whole world to protect her after her identity is exposed and fight against SS after she is possessed by hades.

It looks like mydramalist is cleaning up the abused rating system. At least with AOL, a lot of 1 and 2 ratings were removed. Hope it will happen to TMOPB soon as well.

Understand. Maybe you can try some ML-oriented dramas if you want to explore more Chinese fantasy genre. I recommend one on-airing cdrama Ever Night, available on Viki now. High quality production, interesting story and characters. ML and FL are just tooooo adorable.