oreades206

I read somewhere that this drama was shot before Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty season 1. So this must have been filmed 5 years ago. Chances are it will air after Contenders.
There's a few behind the scenes clips if you'd like to check out.
https://v.qq.com/x/cover/mzc00200yv2egoe/u30839204cb.html

Since the drama is tied to Tencent, I think it will air after Tencent has finished airing season 2 of Purple River, which is the anime version. I haven't heard about when Purple River season 2 will air. I've seen 1 episode of season 2 on Facebook but that's it. The remaining episodes are nowhere to be found. So I think since the anime version hasn't aired, the drama version will have to wait. iQiyi can't air it if Tencent doesn't give them a green light.

The gang sang at China Internet Audio Visual Gala 2025. Lu Lingfeng, Su Wuming, Master Fei, Pei Xijun, and Ying Tao except Xue Huan.
https://weibo.com/1731986465/Pb6M2bbGO?pagetype=profilefeed

The gang sang at China Internet Audio Visual Gala 2025. Lu Lingfeng, Su Wuming, Master Fei, Pei Xijun, and Ying Tao.
https://weibo.com/1731986465/Pb6M2bbGO?pagetype=profilefeed

Initially the drama was supposed to air 48 episodes. They had shot all of them. But then there was this new government regulations about a drama not having more than 40 episodes. The regulations were issued during post production of this drama. So they decided to divide the drama into 2 seasons. So technically this is just one drama that consists of 48 episodes. On Douban it's considered unfinished. That's the reason why it hasn't got a rating yet. Maybe after all episodes have been aired.

Opening ceremony 12 Dec 2024.
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5113850593214491?from=old_pc_videoshow

Their weibo accounts has posted BTS:
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5125537518256148?from=old_pc_videoshow

yw! Their weibo account has started to post some material. Looks like they're gonna drop the drama soon.

yw!

Perhaps next year but this is their first teaser.
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5090488039178284?

I think it's a different story. But the director and the screenwriter was the same as Duel of Shadows.

That's interesting... Well, it could be that the director has known these veteran actors for long and they have formed some sort of friendship? I believe people in the industry form circles so it would be easy for him to ask these actors if they could help him in a project since maybe they have known each other for long or have worked before.

Before the airing of this drama, I checked this director on Douban, he (Zhao Junkai) seems to have been around for a very long time and it looks like he specializes in police and war dramas. His early works looked very good, having high rating on Douban, but the ones made after 2015 were not that good. From the discussion (Duel of Shadows) that I checked on Douban, the audience have lamented that he keeps making this style of police drama that looks so outdated nowadays. It worked in the early 2000 when he started directing but not anymore now.

His previous police crime drama Chase the Truth (aired in Nov last year) was average too. So before Duel of Shadows aired, I got the feeling that this drama would be the same. Yang Xuwen had just finished filming another police drama directed by him again before STOTD 3 started shooting. Oh boy... I'm afraid it's gonna be average again. 🤔 I hope I'm wrong.

I really liked his role in Eternal Brotherhood as Zichuan Xiu. The drama was not well executed but it's still better than this drama. And he played a completely different character from Lu Lingfeng. Han Zengfei looks similar to Lu Lingfeng in my opinion. I hope after STOTD 3, he will get to play a different character.

I've watched a couple of episodes but personally, I think the story's not interesting. The design of each character is not well crafted. I wish it could have been better.

For Yang Xuwen, I feel that he took this project so that he could work with veteran actors. In this past 2 years he has filmed dramas in which his costars are mostly veterans, e.g. Duel of Shadows with Tian Yu, Contenders with Wei Zi, and the latest one (filmed from August to mid October) with Wang Yanhui. It's as if his purpose was to improve his craft by learning the art of acting from much more experienced actors. I may be wrong though.

Looks quite violent.
https://weibo.com/tv/show/1034:5090225827807323?from=old_pc_videoshow

BTS featurette.
https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNjQyOTkzMTQwOA==.html

After the Taiyin sect arc there are 3 cases. They're more interesting than the Taiyin sect arc. One of the cases might remind you of Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express and another case might make you cry. A lot of ppl said that this is one of their favorite cases in S2. S2 ends on a high note.

You're welcome.

No. it's unrelated.

I see. iQiyi has confirmed it. It's on their IG, but they're not promoting it heavily, which I think is good. There's still 8 - 9 days I hope they aren't gonna release too many promotional materials and stay lowkey. I don't want spoilers.

They hope to get more reservations maybe? Now they have over 3.2 million.