> All the father wanted was for his eldest son to inherit the kingdom he built from the ground upThe father…
> And he wasn't cruel to his son either
The mother got killed (with the father in the room) - and rather than blaming the family who killed her, barely a few seconds later he insists the son call the second wife "mother," and refuses to let him mention his original wife ever again.
This drama is visually stunning, but it has some serious plot issues and character problems:The Sister's Endless…
> All the father wanted was for his eldest son to inherit the kingdom he built from the ground up
The father was a villain, though. He didn't just "want" his eldest son to inherit the kingdom. He attempted by deliberate cruelty to mould him into his own vision of cold-hearted ambition.
The site I used to get subtitles from (subscene) has shut down. Does anyone know where I can find english subtitle files for the show?
I realise it's possible to see Joy of Life with English subtitles burned into the video. But I'm trying to learn Mandarin, and having subtitles in a different file to the video helps me because I can choose to look at them only for bits I don't understand.
I haven't started watching this yet, but I remember the book from way back. Why does the cast list not include whoever plays the Scottish guy who becomes a samurai?
Why is general Cui upset at his army being disbanded when they appear to be about 100 people?
That's the staff of a decent sized estate for a noble family. He could simply employ them all, call them gardeners and "disband" the army without losing anything at all.
Alternatively, if there are meant to be more troops out of camera, the show really needs to work on making the army size look like an actual army, not just a small warband.
C'mon LCF (Liu Cheng Feng) makes the entire drama just silly. He destroys 3 armies, kills 2 princes, brings down…
It's nuts, isn't it? I just found it completely unbelievable. It's a pity too, because so much of the rest of the show was working.
My biggest problem wasnt his motivation, either (although I do think he ought to have been given far, far, more character depth).
My biggest problem is that it's not just credible that one person can do so much. In the end he simply became a plot generator. He seems to be able to teleport over the map and make ambushes at will, summon hordes of bad guys whenever he wants, capture people who are otherwise smart, infiltrate an army with imposters, take a fortress that's meant to be impregnable, and poison people in sealed complexes despite them being guarded by an army who know the enemy use poison.
I tend to prefer overwhelmingly happy endings (eg Minglan), but if not, I at least want some form of satisfying closure (eg Nirvana in Fire).
From the sounds of it, the ending to this seems to be unsatisfactory and unfinished (in need of S2). I remember being very frustrated by the endings of Joy of Life, the Autumn Ballad and Rise of the Phoenixes for similar reasons that they didn't give closure.
I'm just wondering how much of the ending is necessary? Is there a point (eg a timestamp) where I can watch up to, then stop, and feel it's well-made, good, satisfying and complete? Or is the show all of a piece, where you need to see all of it and there's no place where it feels done?
So I am looking for a good Chinese drama. I am pointing some key points which I would prefer. But even if they…
I recommend The Story of Minglan
1. The drama is historical/Wuxia and not xianxia = Historical
2. The drama is mature. Mature as in the characters are not too childish. Would prefer a drama with intelligent leads. = It's slice of life, so you will see the characters grow up. But Minglan is more mature than almost any other FL in Cdrama. There's no baby voices here. She's can't fight at all, so instead, she just out-thinks everyone. There are several smart FL's in Cdrama (eg Yanxi Palace), but Minglan is easily up there amongst them in the top tier of intelligence, social adeptness and perceptiveness.
3. Would love romance or slight romance = It's a growing into adulthood / revenge arc for half the show, then a romance. At the time, the ML actor and the FL actress were in a relationship, so the romance comes across pretty well.
4. I like dramas like Jou of Life, Niravana of Fire, Sword Snow Stride, Young Blood, The Blood of Youth type of series. = It's not as explosive action as most of those. The ML can fight, and there are some fights, but it's not the focus of the show.
Bear in mind that I'm not Chinese and am very much a beginner trying to learn Mandarin. But the word "fang," (I can't do the hanzi or the accent on this keyboard, sorry) that is auto-translated here as "room" has other meanings, and I think MangoTV picked the wrong one.
I think it should be translated as "house." Which you can then consider as something like the phrase "noble house." I.e. different branches of a family who don't like each other.
If I'm right about this, then each time the subtitles say "three rooms," I think what they ought to be saying is "third house."
Mango TV does the same thing with other words throughout the show. They keep talking about "storage," which everyone is really interested in. I think the real translation of that is something like "heir," because what we really have is a number of royal possible heirs trying to climb over each other and be the most important / kill the others.
Not really, and that's the most disappointing thing about the show, because it gets so much of the rest of it…
I don't know about 'supposed to end up together,' but there's obvious chemistry between the ML and TanQi, until, at the end, for a suddenly invented reason they're heading off in different directions. I'd be fine if it was more layered and built up to - I don't need them to end up together as long as it feels plausible. And this one didn't.
But mostly my problem is that I really did need the evil guy to actually pay for his crimes.
Ah, episode 27. Presumably this is to lay the groundwork for the time when, later in the show, billions of people all over the world are dying due to bacterial infections and safe operations are unable to be performed?
tl;dr - Solo is sick so his daughter makes him an over-the counter cold remedy. It's a penicillin antibiotic drink.
A really frustrating watch. I'll put why as a spoiler reply. Warning - it's really spoilery, so probably best…
Positives: - I found Hochi, Shanggu, Qing Mu, Gu Jun, Feng Ran and Wu Huan to be really nicely drawn and acted characters that I looked forward to seeing on screen. - Bai Jue was ok, but a bit too cold for my liking.
Negatives: - Never before have I seen a plot so full of "Noble" sacrifices. This is not a positive. If one person in a couple has to, once in a show, pretend all is ok then go off and do something unilaterally self sacrificing, I'll be just about ok with it. If it happens repeatedly, it looks like the couple just can't talk to each other. - Never before have I seen so many stupid people in a show. I'll give a special call out here to Mu Guang, who has to be the dumbest emperor I've seen in a TV production. How many times does he have to have his wife's lies revealed? And how come he has no sort of spy network or other intel that might tell him what's going on independently of Hoichi turning up and revealing it? - Never before have I seen a plot so full of situations that might have been resolved if only one person in a couple just talked like a human being to the other. - The massive set piece battle during the wedding had everyone who wasn't directly involved just stand around like statues watching. This is not how people ought to be reacting to immortals hurling spears at each other in the sky.
Super Negatives: - My eventual conclusion was that the most evil person in the show was Tian Qi. For some reason the show never seems to really address this. But, while he was doing his big setpiece in the first third, we literally saw people die. And there's a comment that if he'd succeeded, billions would have died.
Anyway, the show was full of conversations that needed to happen, but didn't for no reason I could tell other than the plot needed people to be idiots:
"Hey, Hoichi, there's a good chance I'm an avatar of Bai Jue. if you bring back Boaxan, there's a good chance I'm going to die. Still want to do it?"
"Hey, Qing Mu, I've just found out I'm pregnant."
"Hey, Fengran, I do like you but I'm keeping a distance so my mother doesn't attack you."
"Hey, everyone, the evil queen was the one who killed Yuemi."
"Hey, Father, my Brother has let out loads of evil in the world, let's not lock up Hoici for it."
"Hey, WuHuan, I actually like you and want you to stay in my palace - the stuff with the phoenix is just a fakeout."
etc etc etc.
Anyway, the ML's ultimate plan was terrible. Despite Bai Jue treating Shanggu really badly to make their relationship end, she ends up just as sad after his death as she would be if he'd been nice to her. But now she has an additional period of heartbreak before his death to handle, too.
Anyone know where I can get good subtitles?
The mother got killed (with the father in the room) - and rather than blaming the family who killed her, barely a few seconds later he insists the son call the second wife "mother," and refuses to let him mention his original wife ever again.
The father was a villain, though. He didn't just "want" his eldest son to inherit the kingdom. He attempted by deliberate cruelty to mould him into his own vision of cold-hearted ambition.
He might not have lied directly to her, but he certainly mislead his intentions when speaking to her father and mother.
I realise it's possible to see Joy of Life with English subtitles burned into the video. But I'm trying to learn Mandarin, and having subtitles in a different file to the video helps me because I can choose to look at them only for bits I don't understand.
Why does the cast list not include whoever plays the Scottish guy who becomes a samurai?
For example: https://youtu.be/aDvUn2Vm-EE?list=PLZZZLpfFwcBprNI6msl3NWt3pdX6F-eGs&t=160
That's the staff of a decent sized estate for a noble family. He could simply employ them all, call them gardeners and "disband" the army without losing anything at all.
Alternatively, if there are meant to be more troops out of camera, the show really needs to work on making the army size look like an actual army, not just a small warband.
My biggest problem wasnt his motivation, either (although I do think he ought to have been given far, far, more character depth).
My biggest problem is that it's not just credible that one person can do so much. In the end he simply became a plot generator. He seems to be able to teleport over the map and make ambushes at will, summon hordes of bad guys whenever he wants, capture people who are otherwise smart, infiltrate an army with imposters, take a fortress that's meant to be impregnable, and poison people in sealed complexes despite them being guarded by an army who know the enemy use poison.
I’ve tried putting scores on ones I’ve finished, but they never seem to affect the headline score.
From the sounds of it, the ending to this seems to be unsatisfactory and unfinished (in need of S2). I remember being very frustrated by the endings of Joy of Life, the Autumn Ballad and Rise of the Phoenixes for similar reasons that they didn't give closure.
I'm just wondering how much of the ending is necessary? Is there a point (eg a timestamp) where I can watch up to, then stop, and feel it's well-made, good, satisfying and complete? Or is the show all of a piece, where you need to see all of it and there's no place where it feels done?
1. The drama is historical/Wuxia and not xianxia
= Historical
2. The drama is mature. Mature as in the characters are not too childish. Would prefer a drama with intelligent leads.
= It's slice of life, so you will see the characters grow up. But Minglan is more mature than almost any other FL in Cdrama. There's no baby voices here. She's can't fight at all, so instead, she just out-thinks everyone. There are several smart FL's in Cdrama (eg Yanxi Palace), but Minglan is easily up there amongst them in the top tier of intelligence, social adeptness and perceptiveness.
3. Would love romance or slight romance
= It's a growing into adulthood / revenge arc for half the show, then a romance. At the time, the ML actor and the FL actress were in a relationship, so the romance comes across pretty well.
4. I like dramas like Jou of Life, Niravana of Fire, Sword Snow Stride, Young Blood, The Blood of Youth type of series.
= It's not as explosive action as most of those. The ML can fight, and there are some fights, but it's not the focus of the show.
Can someone roughly say what this is about? Is it a mystery? A thriller? A historical biopic? A romance? A comedy? A work of propaganda?
I think it should be translated as "house." Which you can then consider as something like the phrase "noble house." I.e. different branches of a family who don't like each other.
If I'm right about this, then each time the subtitles say "three rooms," I think what they ought to be saying is "third house."
Mango TV does the same thing with other words throughout the show. They keep talking about "storage," which everyone is really interested in. I think the real translation of that is something like "heir," because what we really have is a number of royal possible heirs trying to climb over each other and be the most important / kill the others.
But mostly my problem is that I really did need the evil guy to actually pay for his crimes.
tl;dr - Solo is sick so his daughter makes him an over-the counter cold remedy. It's a penicillin antibiotic drink.
- I found Hochi, Shanggu, Qing Mu, Gu Jun, Feng Ran and Wu Huan to be really nicely drawn and acted characters that I looked forward to seeing on screen.
- Bai Jue was ok, but a bit too cold for my liking.
Negatives:
- Never before have I seen a plot so full of "Noble" sacrifices. This is not a positive. If one person in a couple has to, once in a show, pretend all is ok then go off and do something unilaterally self sacrificing, I'll be just about ok with it. If it happens repeatedly, it looks like the couple just can't talk to each other.
- Never before have I seen so many stupid people in a show. I'll give a special call out here to Mu Guang, who has to be the dumbest emperor I've seen in a TV production. How many times does he have to have his wife's lies revealed? And how come he has no sort of spy network or other intel that might tell him what's going on independently of Hoichi turning up and revealing it?
- Never before have I seen a plot so full of situations that might have been resolved if only one person in a couple just talked like a human being to the other.
- The massive set piece battle during the wedding had everyone who wasn't directly involved just stand around like statues watching. This is not how people ought to be reacting to immortals hurling spears at each other in the sky.
Super Negatives:
- My eventual conclusion was that the most evil person in the show was Tian Qi. For some reason the show never seems to really address this. But, while he was doing his big setpiece in the first third, we literally saw people die. And there's a comment that if he'd succeeded, billions would have died.
Anyway, the show was full of conversations that needed to happen, but didn't for no reason I could tell other than the plot needed people to be idiots:
"Hey, Hoichi, there's a good chance I'm an avatar of Bai Jue. if you bring back Boaxan, there's a good chance I'm going to die. Still want to do it?"
"Hey, Qing Mu, I've just found out I'm pregnant."
"Hey, Fengran, I do like you but I'm keeping a distance so my mother doesn't attack you."
"Hey, everyone, the evil queen was the one who killed Yuemi."
"Hey, Father, my Brother has let out loads of evil in the world, let's not lock up Hoici for it."
"Hey, WuHuan, I actually like you and want you to stay in my palace - the stuff with the phoenix is just a fakeout."
etc etc etc.
Anyway, the ML's ultimate plan was terrible. Despite Bai Jue treating Shanggu really badly to make their relationship end, she ends up just as sad after his death as she would be if he'd been nice to her. But now she has an additional period of heartbreak before his death to handle, too.