torycoco

Great news! Part 2 has received its license too! Zhejiang online dramas (2022) #17. Just came out today

A lot of people are worried about the same thing because Youku has nothing else summer-worthy in their pipeline. Perhaps this is wishful thinking, but I do feel they'd go for the CNY window. 1) At their advertisers conference they said early 2023. 2) LYX himself said late 2022. 3) Tata has moved quite quickly on production (which is expensive). 4) It's very difficult for Youku to "win" summer since they have a smaller viewership base. Strategically, it's better for them to air their best stuff at a quieter time where they can get most attention in order to build out their viewership base. 5) Youku has shown willingness to air their heavy-hitters during CNY/Spring instead of wait - e.g. Immortality and Word of Honor were filmed around the same time and Youku rushed it so that it would get out before the ban on dangai vs. Tencent wanted to wait for the best window. Similarly, they aired the Blue Whisper and "won" Mar/Apr last year. 6) Finally, TTEOTM is pretty unique in terms of costume, dark characters which others are starting to copy. I think they would prioritize getting this out earlier than the other xianxia's in its portfolio which are more generic and less expensive.

CLARIFICATION - Reading a lot of posts here about 8 episodes being cut. Note that this is a MISUNDERSTANDING. The drama's screenplay was written for 40 episodes and it ended up at 50 episodes (34 part 1, 16 part 2) based on publicly available information so far. I'd say this sounds just about right as screenplays tend to pack way too much than can realistically be fit in 1 episode.

The license of part 2 was originally 24 episodes, but it was just an administrative placeholder - it also had a random title (which people initially thought was for Immortality). It's likely the production company applied for a license to produce before project details were finalized in order to speed up the processes because they can always change the title and episode count later.

Hey I think you've misunderstood. They didn't cut anything. The screenplay is written for 40 episodes and it's now 50 episodes. A lot of people are reading about a cut because the production company used 2 dummy licenses for part 1 and 2 totaling 58 episodes that had a different name and episode count. Why was this done? Probably just to speed things up administratively - they can get an approval to film before finalizing the creatives.

I think they must have been courting advertisers for a while now, even with a rough airdate? I imagine they're going to drop the trailer 2 days before airing. I think a lot of people are betting on mid to late Jan, right before CNY.

Could it be film instead of TV? I've never seen an actor being dubbed over by a VA in TVB dramas (this includes in situations like Bernice Liu where she had a pretty strong foreign accent when speaking Cantonese)

No worries again a lotta people were getting confused! I originally saw 40 and was disappointed (that would have meant cutting)

Hey agree with you here but don’t think it started in HK. I actually don’t think old school TVB productions were even dubbed (they probably used the on set track). You might be confused by the HK actors needing to be dubbed when they act in Mainland dramas because they don’t speak mandarin natively? (It’s beyond just an accent - although the characters are shared the spoken form is almost like two languages)

Nope no one knows. Only rumors. Even platforms only have a plan that’s subject to change

The first part is 34 episodes long. People keep circulating this photo that has a completely different drama above TTEOTM part 2. Even I got confused at first

No the report above is wrong. The first part is 34 episodes and second part is 16 episode, so 50 total. The screenplay is written for 40 episodes but it’s common for the final product to inflate by 25% so 50 episodes is just right. The original episode number is just a placeholder with a dummy title and episode count.

Actors are often dubbed because they have poor diction or voice acting (esp if they're not a drama school graduate). Or sometimes it just comes down to cost - the actor cannot free up a time slot and it's just cheaper to hire a voice actor who can dub the entire show in a week

I think both Youku and the production company said it'd be early 2023

There isn't a rule that it can't be 100% loyal to the source novel, but like in every adaptation, changes are made to improve the storytelling in a different medium and also to pass censors. If the source novel is a history book, there's no reason why it can't be 100% the same

I think it's just the color scheme which is quite unusual

End of March this year

you and me both

They didn’t change their name. Essentially Otter is a subsidiary of the production company owned by 南派三叔 or Kenneth Xu, the writer behind the Chinese tomb raider series

Yup she’s the one that says we’ll miss you to Bailu in the wrap video

haha MS wang