princess wanning

This has been on my to-watch list forever! You've motivated me to start it now.

Gotta say, the last 5 episodes saved this drama for me. It felt like it was reaching flop territory for a little bit there but once the story focused on the themes again… wow.

Certainly the drama isn’t perfect. Even from a production standpoint, extras and props were pretty cheap in favor of excellent CGI. I understand though because the budget can’t be unlimited or on the level of a movie.

Certain characters truly contributed to nothing in the end and I would have cut them out entirely. Both male and female before anyone comes after me. I would also have loved to see the cut content from Tianren Realm. As this is LYX’s drama, it’s unfortunate his own content was cut.

In the end though, I believe they delivered the themes of letting go of obsession, human nature is good, finding and believing in humanity, using powers for good and not being too attached to worldly possessions and desires, etc. was delivered magnificently. 8.5-9/10 for me.

Thank you for a wonderful experience Luo Yunxi & Studio Otter. This is their third and final collaboration after Immortality and Till the End of the Moon. It’s been a great ride and looking forward to the future!

you can see the number of ratings increased so most likely people who caught up/waited to rate

“A-li, look at the moon. It’s so beautiful. Just like Zhoudi Tower.”
“Yes, very beautiful.”

Oh I could cry… what a lovely scene.

Absolutely. Her character for 30 out of 40 episodes didn't even have any memories. We had to guess that she was potentially playing a mysterious, femme-fatale type role when in actuality she was just a blank slate. What's worse is that she even admits out loud that she didn't have the capability to accomplish her goal or fool alone without needing someone else to turn her into a pawn to use.

Fans of her character love her beginning moments because of the supposed subtle romance and attribute her importance to the plot on whether Tang Lici likes her or not. She's completely centered around him to the point she feels like every other awfully written female character in this type of adventure genre, who only exists to like the main character and follow him around. She only became interesting to me after the reveal and the connection to family became more evident but by then it was too late and then she just dipped out of the story completely.

Altogether, with the way she's written, I would not have included her in the drama either. The potential for romance was there as bait and ended up wasting big chunks of some episodes when we could have advanced the plot instead.

Well, because that's Tang Lici's goal in the story? He's stuck in the past and can't move forward, which causes all sorts of problems later on. But I agree that they could have delivered that message sooner. I think cutting out some characters and letting the story focus on his grief so that he could start a new chapter by episode 20-25 would be an improvement.

I agree. I remember early on when Ah Shui connected with the Yanmen Sect father regarding the parent-child relationship it felt a little forced since we didn't see any flashback with her father at that point. And then finally getting her reveal at the end I saw the connection that her role is to represent "family focused" and "home" as a character. But it kind of got distracting when they favored a romance over found family and friendship as you said. Especially when the peak of their "romance" in ep 30 was her expressing she doesn't have any desires except to see TLC happy and safe and TLC not really reciprocating. It externalized her character a lot which was a disservice to her.

They never really explain it but it seems to be a branch of the Sword Alliance that has a leader position which she currently occupies. It seems to put her between the level of ordinary disciple and Sword Master, maybe it's like a stepping stone position for exemplary members or something.

Episode 38... I thought I would run out of tears but they kept flowing.

no canon romance but many ships to choose from

No.

Yes I heard they cut a lot. Idk which episode you’re on but imo it ended really quickly in like less than 1 episode worth of material.

So sad these parts seemed to have been cut from the final drama 😢

You don’t need to bring weird societal takes into this just because it didn’t go with the romance route. Again, this is why people are calling out people who are obsessed with CP. Not everything is about CP!! Even if the ending was a happy ending that doesn’t mean it needs CP, marriage and babies. There’s tons cdrama with that type of messaging. Not all of them need it! This is such a weird conversation. I’m out 😭

I’m sorry but this is a weird take. The story is aimed at young men so it focuses on adventure, martial arts and brotherhood. It draws in other demographics because of its messages on grief, finding yourself and letting go. Nothing about it suggests it needs to go with traditional family route. Men don’t need dramas to tell them to go get married and have kids. Society already has that message.

I mean how do people know it will have BL undertones? Have we even gotten a trailer to make that assessment? Does the original novel have BL undertones? As far as I know, that's not the case.

Just because it doesn't have CP doesn't mean it's automatically BL bait. Them complaining about it this far in advance just shows how homophobic they are and unwilling to share space with queer people and queer supporters.

Personally, I don't expect much from Cdramas because of censorship when it comes to bromance, which has gotten worse imo. If they do have a bromance with strong chemistry between the leads then that's great! What's wrong with enjoying a positive relationship on screen?

I agree CP promotions were dishonest but at the same time this drama has never had the romance tag on it and has source material that one can use to cross-reference to make sure they know what they are getting into.

And yes, helpful critique such as bloated storytelling makes for good discussion. This drama's weakness is not that it failed in the romance category, as many of the comments suggest, because it was never a romance to begin with. What's not clicking???

There are plenty of people who don't care at all about BL who have expressed their dislike for the writing choices for both Ah Shui and Zhong Chunji.

You are making a lot of assumptions about people just because they don't like your favorite character. If feminine characters were disliked, then they wouldn't be so popular in cdramas. Story of Minglan, Prisoner of Beauty, etc. all feature very feminine and domestic but still badass women and no one will ever say they are useless.

Not all portrayals of women and femininity are powerful. There is a line between playing a powerful support to the "action-heavy" main players vs. just being there and taking up questionable space. There are many who felt Ah Shui fell into the latter category. Pei Xijun in Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty is a great example of a female side character who cannot fight, most feminine on the team, and mostly plays support role with her art skills but she is very well-loved even by non-romance enjoyers.

What does a reddit mod have to do with anything? Reddit mods are fans just like you and me and everyone else on this page. There are some moderators who are more knowledgable about cdrama history and there are some moderators that are newer. None of them has claimed to be a film critic or have experience with writing/screenwriting. The mod who made a post about WOF criticized the costumes and over the top cinematography back when the drama was first airing. The post had nothing to do with the writing and people rightfully defended the stylistic choices of the production team.

Yes, there is plenty to criticize about the drama's writing but majority of the fans complaining on this page are mad because romance wasn't delivered to them. That's fine if you're only interested in that part of the drama, but come up with a better critique if you want to have a real discussion, not just whining about your ship not taking off.

Btw I love BL ships and my favorite heterosexual ships in cdrama are with a quietly strong & intelligent strategizer type woman who is a power couple with her man. Stop putting us into boxes just because you hate gay ships. It’s giving homophobia!