GrnGrnTmt

I'm tired of heartbreaking love stories! Can we please get a movie with an uber happy ending! What's going on with Chinese romantic films these days! I don't need a realistic movie! I live reality everyday. I could use a little unrealistic romance! First "Our Times," now this. Boo... But I do recommend this movie. It's well-done and fun to watch.

I just watched this movie. I agree. There was no need to have had the ending be so bittersweet. The characters Lin Yi and Xiaozhi could have made it work. Lin Yi did so much to be with her, but she didn't have confidence or trust in Lin Yi and decided just to give up. That last scene with them together, drunk and crying about what happened as heartbreaking. You think they could've had that conversation years ago and both of them could have found happiness. The ending should've been happier.

Just watched this movie. I really liked it. It had a nice flow that was both nostalgic and new. Ling Geng Xin does a good job balancing the sometimes overdramatic and serious. I also liked that in the beginning you think Lin Yi has made it big and is really successful but in the end you realize he is living a normal stressful life of a salaried worker, the only difference being that he is in NYC. That was a sobering twist done well.

I do wonder why the ending had to be so bittersweet. I would've been completely happy with the fantasy wedding bust as the ending instead of that being either Lin Yi or Xiaozhi's fantasy. Is it just to remind us that such fantasies don't belong in the real world for adults? It works when you are a college student and consequences of a "jail break" ("SARS break") may be just a slap on the wrist, but consequences as an adult are serious and you as individuals must take responsibility for them? I just didn't like the ending. I really wish they could have ended up together.

I get it. Xiaozhi's dream was to go to the U.S. and attend Standford. Lin Yi's dream was to be with Xiaozhi. Neither of their dreams came true. But I wonder couldn't one of them have had the courage to reach out and hold on to the other? The scene where Xiaozhi remembers all the places that Lin Yi has lived in in the U.S. in vivid detail and Lin Yi's accusation to her about how could she just give up was heartbreaking. Throughout the movie Lin Yi worked so hard to achieve being with Xiaozhi and I feel like Xiaozhi didn't try as hard when things got tough. If she couldn't get the visa to go to the U.S., couldn't she have had enough faith in Lin Yi to ask him to come back? Why didn't she have that trust and confidence in him? But then, is the answer that Lin Yi wouldn't have gone back anyway since he didn't go back after Xiaozhi told him she didn't want to go to the U.S. anymore?

I guess hindsight is 20/20. And you can only move forward, you can't go backwards. So the thing to do is to just remember the memories and move forward with your life, no matter how bittersweet.

silvermcv I wish you could've warned me about My Old Classmate... He is pretty fantastic in that movie though.

Just watched My Old Classmate. It's a great well-made movie. But the ending... WTH. By the way, I find it funny that Shawn Dou's breakout movie was Under the Hawthorne Tree with Zhou Dongyu and Lin Geng Xin's breakout movie was My Old Classmate also with Zhou Dongyu!

I understand the speculation but I just don't think that's how they're going to end it. Most production companies don't make dramas or movies anticipating a sequel unless it's a franchise they know will work and the set will be different. Can you imagine them trying to recreate this set all over again for a whole new cast? It doesn't make financial sense to shoot something twice with the same set and a different cast when they can shoot it all at once. Also, I think the cast interviews are taken out of context. They never shoot movies or dramas chronologically, they shoot it according to location schedule. So she could've been saying that the last scene they shot was the frozen lake scene but that doesn't mean it's the last scene of the drama. I would imagine that the director and producer will produce a piece of drama as a whole and complete piece on its own without anticipating a season 2. After all, who knows what the ratings would be? I think the best thing is just to assume that the story will have a legitimate finality and wait for it then to speculate that it will end a certain way. Production, shooting and finances all play a part in the way a drama or movie is made and none of what the rumors are saying makes much sense to me in those three areas nor have I ever seen drama shot that way.

Me too! Lately my weekends are spent trying to make time go by fast enough for Monday! This usually entails watching movies or other dramas with ZLY and LGX in them. :)

OMG, me too! I just got back from watching Taking Tiger Mountain at the theater today! It was playing only for one day today bc of some film festival. What are the odds?? He was so cool in that movie. I'm going to watch My Old Classmate tonight. He's a really good actor!

I love your review!

Linh, you totally got me started on Lin Geng Xin movies now! I just Wikied him and saw that his movie My Old Classmate is on Dailymotion (with eng sub) and talk about timing, his old movie Taking of Tiger Mountain (which he got a lot of praise for) is actually playing here in town for one day tomorrow! What are the odds! So guess what I'll be doing tomorrow!

Linh I'm with you. I couldn't get into journey of flower but I'm so into this one! ZLY is great as CQ and her chemistry with LGX is fantastic!

Haha! Yeah! I actually watched it in the theaters bc I'm a big Luhan fan! :) And then I was surprised to find out Lin Geng Xin was in it so I had to look it up again. If you haven't seen it you should watch it! It's not as terrible as everyone says it is. It's quite entertaining and the battle scenes are really cool. :)

Yeah, I really like Yue Qi! Sometimes I feel like it'd be fun to know what Yue Qi is thinking about all that's going on with YWY and CQ. I wonder if he's like, omg, you guys just need to kiss and make up.

Look, I get what you're saying, well noted. But a part of me feels like if you're waiting to watch the drama until it ends or or haven't caught up to the most current episodes, then you shouldn't read a discussion board that is talking about the drama and the most recent episodes. The episodes have aired and all with Eng Subs. I wouldn't walk into a discussion about a movie or tv show that's been airing and ask everyone to not talk about it bc I haven't seen it. In other discussion forums like Dramabeans, the spoiler button/note is saved for episodes that have not aired yet or do not have subs. It's not for people who are waiting to finish watching it. Part of the fun of watching a currently airing drama is to talk about what is going on and share thoughts on it. With the big issues or endings, I get it, but It's too much to think deeply about small details from an episode and think to mark that as a spoiler bc then we wouldn't be able to have any discussions at all and everything will be marked as a spoiler.

I agree with you about the spoiler button but I didn't think it was a spoiler since it's a pretty well known fact of the drama of the relationship between CQ, YX and YWY and what happened to YX's family. It's even in the synopsis. The rest are just my thoughts.

I can't say I'm frustrated with Chu Qiao, only that I don't understand her. I don't understand where the intensity of hatred towards Yuwen Yue is coming from. She's acting like he killed her entire family. In Ep. 40 she tells him that they are enemies and accuses him of his actions at Jiyou Platform (the execution). But even if she didn't know the emperor explicitly told Yuwen Yue that he will kill off his entire Green Hills Court if he so much as showed sympathy towards Yan Xun at the execution, she must be smart enough to know that siding with a convicted traitor, no matter how BFF, would mean certain death for Yuwen Yue and his family. She must know it bc that's what she sarcastically tells him in Ep. 40, that, "oh, you have your title and your family so you can't help." But how could she blame him for not wanting his ENTIRE family from getting killed off just to side with Yan Xun? Why is Yan Xun's one life worth more than the lives off all his Green Hills Court - including the servants with whom Chu Qiao must have known when she lived there? That seems contradictory to her every human life matters philosophy. Also, she seems smart enough to know that the fact that Yuwen Yue got sent to the border must mean that he did side with Yan Xun and tried to help him, otherwise why would he be punished by being sent to the border (back then, only those getting punished were exiled to the border)? And isn't it smarter for Yuwen Yue to have pretended not to side with Yan Xun and just survived so that he could help him? He's more help alive than dead! Which is exactly what Yuwen Yue did and has been doing. None of her actions or hatred towards Yuwen Yue makes sense now. Not after he has explained Linxi's death and her fake death. I know that Yuwen Yue has a lot of ground to make up for those 3 years of harbored misunderstanding and hatred, but he's doing that now. I just wish Chu Qiao would use her smarts a bit to try to understand the situation and Yuwen Yue.

I love the banter between YWY and CQ but I feel like YWY's is more sarcastic and dry humor while CQ's has a bit of mean sting to them. The recent few episodes didn't have much YWY and the scenes with CQ were very short and not too meaningful. Ok, we get that he is getting jealous but what about CQ? The scene where Yuan Song tells CQ what it feels like to like/love someone she seemed pensive and hesitant. And she showed the same feeling when she heard YX was getting married to the princess. It is very hard to read what she is thinking or feeling. I wish the show did a better job of pointing one direction or another. The sweetness towards YX compared to the meanness towards YWY is too contrasting. If they want us to not know how she is truly feeling then she should soften both the sweetness and the meanness. Right now, she seems overly mean and rude to YWY, and for no real great reason since he has explained the past to her as much as he could.

I know this is such a silly detail, but I think YX takes Chu Qiao back home to Oriole Mansion to her room bc her pillow looks the same! The pillow in the preview looks the same as the one in her room. It might be that YWY just drops her off by a tree where YX can find her since he knows YX ran out in a rush to save CQ (even though YX is not supposed to leave) so it doesn't seem obvious to YX that YWY is helping CQ? Just a guess. Or maybe YX takes CQ and they hide out in a nearby (conveniently located and empty) cottage so YX won't be found and YWY just follows them there and has a chat with YX? The latter would be a bit weird. Ugh. I just want some sweet time and faster story development about both Chu Qiao and CQ and YWY's relationship.

They will have to do a lot to turn YX evil enough to be believable. For Xing'er to show her love for YWY - which frankly can be done quickly since they did lay a solid groundwork in the first 20 episodes - is more doable. I think if they add a YWY "death" scene - where Xing'er thinks he's dead and realizes her feeling or something traumatic like that - but where he is not dead - then I think we can believe her feelings for YWY. The part that I think will be problematic given the time frame is Chu Qiao's true identity, her getting her powers back and her memory. Perhaps bc that is an added part of the drama that's not part of the book they are struggling for a proper ending or way to wrap it up? I see that one issue - but a major issue to the story - will be the biggest problem for the show if it is going to wrap in 20 episodes left.

I wonder how they're going to wrap this up in the next 20+ episodes. Feels like they've been dragging the story a bit in the last few episodes. There is still a lot of ground to cover from a plot point and long ways to go for YX and CQ to escape to Yan Bei, for CQ to meet Mr. Wu and find out about herself, for her to get her powers back, for YX to turn completely evil and revenge driven, the secret to YWY's mom and what happened to her and why does it matter, and most importantly how YWY and CQ's relationship will develop. So far, YWY has not had a lot of screen time in the past few episodes which is annoying (did they forget he's a main character??) and the ones that he is in, he's just arguing with CQ and dropping comments about how he knows what she's going to do and she should stop it. I think they could have used the episodes more effectively to move the story forward. It seems a bit stuck.

They've been really good about story progression and character development but lately it's not great. YWY is the only one who's progressed far in terms of his character, YX a bit, but CQ not so much. Even though she's the lead, I feel like her character has progressed the least. She still doesn't know who she is, or has her memory and powers back and doesn't seem very focused on resolving those issues. Rather, she seems more focused and content to just help other people. In the trailer to this series, she talks about how her beliefs are strong and they help her survive. But it's like, what are her beliefs? Shouldn't they be clearer now that we are half way through the series? Is it that she wants to help weak people? Is it that she believes all life should be respected and honored? What is it and who is Chu Qiao? What are her beliefs? Aside from being beautiful, brave and badass (which are all awesome), I can't tell what else should make us be invested in her. It's like YWY said, she should free herself from others and live her own life.

On a separate note, did anyone think that it was a hint about Chu Qiao when the Liang Prince commented that he thought Chu Qiao looked more like someone from Liang with her pale and subtle face? Maybe her mom Luo He is from Liang? I do like the recent development of Concubine Lan and her connection to Chu Qiao.

This is the first Chinese drama where I feel like it should be longer. 58/68 episodes don't seem like long enough! It should go to at least 100!