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Hooked since episode 1! The two main actors improved their acting skills a lot from their past works. The storytelling here is also very captivating :D

Been eyeing this for quite a while now.
Hopefully there will be english subs soon :(

LOL, you’re too funny. Bye :)

Oh wow, okay. Now, no need to shit talk about that “somebody”. That’s so rude. She didn’t murder your family.

I find SOYP more harem-intense. This drama is treating us very nicely so far because of ML’s faithful nature after showing interest in FL :)

This drama is set in the Ming Dynasty. Not Song. It’s literally stated in the first line of the synopsis.

I’m re-watching this and episode 5 got me again :’(

Li Ba drunk and pouring his frustrations at the dinner table is so heartbreaking! Really, really love the child actor who played ZQ too.

WOW, no need to sound so worked up. You’re making it as though I’m trying to force other people to agree with my opinions, which I’m definitely not.

In case you missed it, I did write a line warning people not to feel offended by my comment. You’re the only one taking it to heart here by acting so defensive.

Well, since you’re not going to talk on this thread anymore, I hope you have a nice day. And I’m sorry if I “offended” you, somehow. Au revoir :)

There's a thing called freedom of speech right? I'm only using this forum to voice my opinions because this is the only relevant page for me to do so. You will find how shocking and different c-netz' opinions on YM's acting is compared to international netz' opinions. My opinions are already very lenient as an international fan because I do enjoy watching her on the screen. But she really needs to up her game and start picking more good scripts instead of restricting herself to Jaywalk to boost the other artistes using her popularity. She has done enough. Popularity does not last forever. As an actress, it's more important to continuously craft her acting skills and to earn a good reputation in that skill. This reputation will help her in the long run in her career. Popularity doesn't do that.

Evidently, actresses like Liu Tao, Sun Li, Qin Lan, Zhang Ziyi, Zhao Wei and Jiang Rulu are known and respected very highly because of their excellent acting skills. Many of them don't have good/wow-factor scripts to back them up (and if they do, such as Liu Tao with Nirvana in Fire, at least they're recent works). Their acting skills really keep them relevant in the industry. Even Zhao Liying is trying to get good scripts and to work with award-winning directors...even though her acting is meh.

With YM reaching 40 in a few years time, she needs to open herself to more roles to prove she has the acting skills. I honestly wouldn't mind if Jaywalk's productions are bad if they have good acting. But unfortunately, I do think they lack good scripts and acting skills so it's really a big yikes. So they either need to up their game in the scripts or the acting. Her most recent representative work is Eternal Love, but the reputation of that drama is not very good because of the original author of the story. Therefore, people (in China) still think that her best work is Jade Palace Lock Heart and Chinese Paladin 3. The number of time co-stars, colleagues and fans keep making references to the song she sang for Palace every time she appears on the variety show really shows how her time in the industry has really aged and she is in a position for a new project, a very good one, to proudly say that this is her new representative work. It has almost been a decade since Jade Palace Lock Heart, so she's really overdue for creating another project with a wow-factor to keep her acting reputation relevant.

You may disagree with me, but I'm free to say whatever I want. And I'm not here to create an argument or cause tension within the fandom. If you don't like my comment then simply don't reply to it in the first place instead of telling me to "leave it at that". if you want to have a friendly discussion with opposing views, I'm happy to continue this conversation though.

re: "If the drama is bad even fans will express their disappointment and hope for better projects."
...And this was exactly the reason why her fans who gathered together, who has stuck with her for the past 8-10 years decided to call-out Jaywalk and attempted to boycott her upcoming dramas with the studio.

re: "an actors acting heavily relies on the dramas definition of the character, if you don't find the character interesting then you can't attribute it to bad acting, an actors acting skills does not diminish but varies based on how much depth the script demands."
...I disagree but also agree. It really depends. For example, actresses like Shu Qi and Fan Bing Bing...honestly, most of their movies has really bad storylines and the box office aren't always great. Even Andy Lau and Louis Koo falls into this. Their advantage is that they win the audience because their acting skills have reached to a level where they're able to really make their characters come to life, no matter how bad the scripts are.

It all comes down to personal preference.

The Negotiator also had great ratings during its airing too, but the overall quality of the drama was, well....mediocre. It's Yang Mi's popularity that is currently carrying out the interest of viewers. Give it some weeks or wait for the drama to finish airing and then you will see my point.

I'm not trying to hate on this drama and I'm not asking you to agree with me either. Like I've mentioned, it all comes down to personal preference.

It has nothing to do with the drama not being within their interest, but the boycotting stems from obsessional fans who demand Jaywalk to produce better dramas (SE included) and give their artistes more diverse roles and to work with more different artistes outside their 'circle'. I love the artistes from Jaywalk, but even I'm getting sick of seeing the same faces together on one screen at the same time.

While a good script cannot guarantee a hit drama, it does contribute to potentially becoming a hit drama. One of the reasons that made The Legends and Legend of Fei not-so-good dramas was because they apparently did not stay faithful to their respective novels (can apply the same reason to many other dramas, sigh...). Before airing, Legend of Fei also had a lot of controversies about the FL's and SFL's fans having a beef about screen-times and etc. Besides, Legend of Fei was supposed to be very wuxia-based; avid wuxia fans would've been very disappointed with the quality of the drama and the acting, considering it mediocre. Frankly speaking from my observation, it's very hard to produce a good-quality wuxia drama nowadays because a ton of them was already produced back in the 80s and 90s. And during those times, the fight scenes were mostly carried out by the actors, rarely needing stunt doubles. Unfortunately, actors these days rely too much on stunt doubles and CGI... What you see in wuxia dramas nowadays are basically recycles from the 80s and 90s dramas.

Anyways, back to Jaywalk.... The problem with Jaywalk is that those obsessional fans are concern about the ratings and critics that the company receives. They're bad. And very low compared to other companies. One of their worst dramas included The Negotiator. If you look into it, the decent/most popular drama from Jaywalk, Eternal Love wasn't even fully produced by Jaywalk. The studio only invested in the production. With such a reputation, not many critical-acclaimed or award-worthy works to show off, the obsessional fans are urging the studio to change for the better (from their POV).

TBH, over the past few years, Yang Mi's acting quality has gone down by a lot too. For example, so far, I don't find her performance in SE outstanding or memorable at all. If you've watched her older dramas from when she was younger, you will notice how expressive and charismatic she was. I don't blame her for Jaywalk's current situation though, because she's not the CEO of the company (the obsessional fans just don't understand how the business world works, and showbiz is a tough world). She's just merely the founder and is one of the shareholders. The problem mainly lies with the investors, who wants her to be the face of their product, typecasting her; they don't care about the quality, they only care about making money by using her popularity. My only major complaint is that Yang Mi doesn't seem too picky with her work. The works she has appeared in recent years feels like creativity is dead.

At the end of the day, it's all personal preference, I guess. Good know you're enjoying this drama. Unfortunately, I just don't have the same spark towards it.

WOW, thanks for the super long and detailed response!

I think you're right about jian jian's character. Now that I recall, I think there was a scene where she said she has learnt that separation is part of life. I'm going to re-watch the drama and keep in mind of the points you've made. They seem very logical :D

The 3 kowtows analysis you made is very interesting. I'm not Chinese so I know nothing of their customs. Like you've mentioned, I simply thought the kowtows were just a sign of respect and nothing more. That scene will definitely leave a different impression on me when I re-watch the drama.

The photo analysis is also very interesting. Although, yes, maybe you might be stretching it a little HAHA. But there is a possibility that it was part of the directing. There's nothing wrong with letting your imagination run a little wild ;)

I'm going to express an unpopular opinion on this page after watching a few eps of SE. Please do not feel offended. But I think Jaywalk Studio should really reflect on the quality of their productions from now on, especially the stories they choose to adapt into a drama/or choose to invest in. They simply don't have any wow-factors other than having beautiful and eye-candy actors. At most, their works are just decent, paired with Yang Mi's popularity. The only production that had a wow-factor was Eternal Love. But the original author plagiarized the story from other authors, thus dropping the value of the drama. I do believe that YM is really wasting her talent filming these poorly-written dramas. The artistes from her company also deserves better.

Although the cancelling culture is toxic, I can see why some people wanted to boycott this drama. While the company might be making big bucks from these productions, the reputation of having a quality drama from the company is close to zero (or maybe I'm being too critical).

That's a good point you made there about the character growths between LX and ZQ! I'm curious to know what you think about JJ's character growth because when I watched the show, she seemed like a pillow made ready for anyone to find comfort on her. So, I couldn't really understand what the writer was trying to convey through her character. I honestly think the drama would've been fine without her character too, LOL.

I think some people (myself included) were just put off aboout the romance between JJ and LX because they called each other "brother" and "sister" for so many years. But after reading the comments on MDL about the cultural differences regarding the way the term "brother" and "sister" is used, I didn't feel their romance was weird anymore, nor is it incest..which many people asserted when the drama first aired. However, I do agree with Ashu that LX was a bit forceful about his romantic relationship with JJ. And like you said, his relationship with JJ partially contributed to his sense of security.

I think I might need to re-watch the drama because I missed the foreshadows you mentioned. What were they?

Just binged 1-17.

I dare to say...this drama is a lot better than Minglan... :)

Is this drama similar to Minglan in the sense that ML and FL will be faithful to each other until the very end of the story? Or is there going to be polygamy inserted (because it's historical...) where the ML will have to engage in a relationship with other women too?

It looks like a great drama but I'm really over the polygamy sh*ts after Yanxi and Ruyi :')

Maybe you can try Chef Fang? I haven’t finished it yet but so far it’s pretty light-hearted and it fits your listed criteria. Hopefully you’re not too picky about the fresh-looking actors or the low budget though ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit: And maybe don’t watch it with an empty stomach or late at night...you’re gonna crave for some good food LOL.

Man, I just finished watching her on Survivor Games with Bear Grylls from 2015. And damn, she is strong (ep 10 was such a big blow for her)! Her chemistry and teamwork with Bai Jingting was also very touching. I've already liked her as an actress. But after finishing SG, my likeness for her has gone from a scale of 7/10 to 9/10. Big respect to her and the cast of SG!

I think chances of Wei Da Xun re-appearing on the show is unlikely because of the dating rumours surrounding him and Yang Mi. If he were to appear on the show again, then Yang Mi will likely not be part of the show anymore, which is a loss for the production team since she is the one garnering all the views and popularity to the show due to her big fanbase and fame in China.

TBH, I highly doubt that Fan Bing Bing would even have a chance to appear on Chinese TV shows in the near future since she's "cancelled" by the audiences ever since her tax evasion scandal. Pretty sure she's keener to work behind-the-scenes now too, like her beauty business and stuff.

I do think it would be interesting for Leo to be part of the show though, since he's quite a hilarious and hardworking guy haha.