oreades206

Thanks for the info!

Yang Xuwen is probably one of those chameleon actors :) If you'd like to watch his other works, I recommend Legend of The Condor Heroes 2017 version where he played naive Guo Jing and Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty season 1 & 2 where he played a rigid Jin Wu guard. I didn't watch Love in Time but a lot people like his performance there too.

He just played a gangster in a mafia drama Contenders. I just watched a couple of episodes coz the genre is not my cup of tea. But he did well there too.

I meant in the anime/ donghua :) Yes, in the drama, Di Lin and Si Yi Lin don't have this ability. I have watched the anime/ donghua but I haven't read the novel. So I have no idea which adaptation is the most faithful to the novel :)

In the animation, ZX does have some kind supernatural power. He just doesn't use it very often for some reason. You can check the first episode of the anime: https://youtu.be/4NiFl6Yy4zM?si=6Rf-InaX8i9Tzu89
But Di Lin and perhaps Si Yi Lin too have it too.

Yeah, lots of drama adaptations butcher some part or whole part of the original novel or manhua. Sometimes better than the novel or bad. In the case of Eternal Brotherhood, I have no idea how much they butchered the story but the novel does have a lot of Western elements which the animation version keeps such as orcs, goblins, dwarves, etc.
If you're interested, here's the glossary of the novel. The original title is Purple River, which is also the title of the animation.
https://moonbunnycafe.com/purple-river/purple-river-glossary/

On the other hand, the drama actually replaced those races (orcs, goblins, and dwarves) with human races with different names. So in this department, the drama is trying its best to stay away from LOTR vibe. However, since this is an adaptation from a novel, they had to include some parts (e.g. falcon or eagle thing).

I have watched the animation and liked it except for the LOTR vibe,lol.

One small snag of the story is that they use Western fantasy elements which come off as Lord of The Ring's knock-off, which is a shame. If they set the world based on Chinese or oriental fantasy, this story would be much better. I never read the novel but from what I've heard, in the novel the story is indeed Western fantasy with some Chinese elements. The animation has the same tone. Very Western with orc lookalike, elf lookalike etc. It's too much LOTR vibe. On the other hand, I think the drama has done really well trying to reduce as much as Western fantasy elements and infuse more Chinese elements. But they could not ignore some parts (such as falcons) as this is adapted from the novel and had to include it as an effort to stay faithful to the novel. Had Lao Zhu made it more Chinese, the drama would have been better without LOTR vibe.

Aaaand it's a wrap!
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5171449225216015?from=old_pc_videoshow

You're welcome! It's a low budget mini drama that was shot 5 years ago. I think the platform is clearing their backlog of dramas and this is one of those. If this drama does well domestically, perhaps they will make it available for international audience? Who knows..

Heard a rumor they're gonna wrap filming this week. Hope it's true :)

You're welcome!

Seems it's not airing internationally. But you can see some clips here.
https://v.qq.com/x/cover/mzc00200yv2egoe/i4100w9mm63.html

It airs on May 30. It has been confirmed 😃

It airs on May 30.
Trailer dropped
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5170322778030134?from=old_pc_videoshow

I know. It's one of those mini dramas made with low budget. You can tell from the props LOL. Not to mention it was made 5 years ago.

The drama will air on 25th May. Here's the trailer:
https://x.com/dramapotatoe/status/1926102380786930037

The drama releases its trailer ahead of premiere 25th May.
https://x.com/dramapotatoe/status/1926102380786930037

Precisely. On Douban, some XYW's fans are speculating that starring in Contenders was kind of him repaying debt to GHY for having helped him rebounding from career setbacks with Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty.

I think you're not the only one. Some people on Douban mentioned that they couldn't understand why Guo Jingyu (the scriptwriter) maintains this type of plot, which is outdated and doesn't sit well with current audience anymore. It's a waste of YXW's acting skills. I just hope his next project won't be with GHY again. He should get out of his comfort zone and work with other teams.

I watched a couple of episodes, like 1 and 2 just to check out how Yang Xuwen did. His acting pretty good. He did well acting opposite veteran actors. I'm just not into this genre so I dropped it after 2 episodes.