scientiae

This could have been a perfect drama if they'd managed to keep the humor of the earlier episodes.

Five episodes in and this is the sappiest show I've ever seen.

Douban still says October:

First air: 2022-10 (China Mainland).

https://movie.douban.com/subject/34937939/

The Douban page for this drama agrees: 2022-10 release in China. Probably won't be before the middle to end of the month, though, given the celebrations of Golden Week 黄金周.

They really went unbearably slowly with the last few episodes. Should have cut it down to 54. Was I the only one hoping (though I knew it was impossible) she'd end up with Yuan Shanjian? Her relationship with Buyi seemed the most forced of the trio.

Is this a ghost story?

This has one of the stupidest looking trailers I've ever seen. I take it the show is a lot better?

It gets better. The revenge plot reaches absurdity before taking a nosedive and almost entirely disappearing for the last maybe 25 episodes.

I'm sure Tencent would love to air it right away. It's not up to them. The government gets the final say.

I thought to myself when I saw that they cut it in two to get around restrictions on the number of episodes that I'm not going to get into this drama until part 2 airs. Not because it'll be unbearable to wait, but because part 2 is going to need clearance and who knows if they'll ever get it!

Perhaps I'm overthinking things here, but I see a lot of symbolism behind the crab. It's a 河蟹, which is a common euphemism for a euphemism for censorship in China, 和谐, "to harmonize". Dede takes that poor little crab and puts it in a little glass that she keeps at home. It's barely larger than the crab itself. It offers no enjoyment of life, but it is protected from the dangers of the world beyond.

A simple movie, not the worst, nothing amazing. There were some funny moments, some stupid moments. If anything, it felt a little too American for my tastes and there was no point beyond capitalizing on name recognition for the main character to be Yip Man (or Ye Wen in Mandarin pronunciation). The fighting wasn't that bad, though, so there's that going for it. I had low expectations and they were exceeded, if only marginally.

I'd be impressed if they were better than Viki's. Though I did notice a few points that could be improved, that's only because I'm currently reading 三国演义 and recognized the lines and that the translation didn't match the modern Chinese explanation given in my copy, but otherwise they were top-notch.

Reset (开端) definitely deserves consideration if you haven't seen it yet.

Those English subtitles on YouTube are some of the worst I've ever seen. Viki's are great but not perfect. I saw a lot of parallels in the language used in the opening of the first episode to the language of Romance of the Three Kingdoms (三国演义). It's fairly complicated language, surely, but there are a lot of explanatory materials available for understanding the novel. Since those lines are transparently lifted straight from Three Kingdoms, I'd recommend the subbers explore those connections in crafting the best possible subtitles. Still, they did a very good job and won't fail to get the meaning across to any Anglophone viewers.

Having watched dozens of Chinese dramas and read many Chinese novels, I am in total disagreement with your claim that "there is always the idea that only the govt can solve all problems". In fact, it often seems to be quite the opposite in a way that I never expected when I began watching them. Chinese dramas often portray the government in a negative light, incompetent, corrupt, not uniquely capable by any means. They do, though, tend to emphasize the Confucian ideal of the government as being the one entity capable of ordering society broadly, and often the crux of a story is the elimination of the impediments thereto in the form of corrupt or thoughtless officials.

The last three episodes ruined it. Chinese romance dramas always do that! They have a lighthearted, happy, funny couple dozen episodes and then a few final ones that are nothing like it, totally different tone, they essentially undo the development of all the good times, retroactively making it all meaningless - boring, slow, dare I say depressing, you feel like you're on the wrong channel. I almost want to stop watching any future romance drama on the penultimate episode!

Well then how did you interpret the ending? It is quite contradictory. She decides to leave, he coaxes her to make that decision, but then suddenly when she's supposed to be gone, she's waking up in bed at their house! I figured that that final scene essentially took place in her heart, meaning that she left but they're still together and will be on her return. I wouldn't mind a sequel where she returns three years later and they try to recover their relationship, I could look at Zhao Yiqin all day.

What's wrong with Yang Xizi?

Is this a fantasy? It doesn't say so in the genres. But I'm reading the original book now and it's all about magic and spirits. It seems like the plotlines will have to be totally overhauled to make it work without that stuff.