mione

i used to enjoy seeing him onscreen since hi my sweetheart days. the sex scandal and the bad breakup totally ruined his image lmao

he just made another phony-sounding apology post to grace smh.

https://www.jaynestars.com/news/show-apologizes-to-grace-chow-in-lengthy-post/

“I couldn't figure out the purpose of her character” —haha, that’s because qin sang was never an important character, nor was she a love interest of lu ping in the novel. the screenwriter just messed things up by adding romance to a story that needed no romance :s

there were actually rumours that cheng xiao’s company paid for the screenwriter to write a role for cheng xiao to be fl, in which the end result was to develop a character like qin sang and turn that character into a fl material. both parties obviously denied the allegations. but either way, the screenwriter clearly stuffed up and cheng xiao, unfortunately, is on the receiving end of getting backlashes.

romance of the condor heroes was unfortunately a mess. but what can we expect since yu zheng usually messes up his wuxia dramas lmao

lunzi fans, good news —you might enjoy this HAHAHA :')

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtgaqgEGeac

judging from the comments on MDL and other netizens from other sites about the romance being horribly developed in the drama, i hope the screenwriter learnt a lesson from this project and not mess with the original source (the novel) ever again. moreover, it was probably a big mistake to develop an insignifant character like qin sang over a character like su tang in the first place :/

also, to give the female lead role to a newbie actress like cheng xiao is another mistake. perhaps the production team believed that with arthur (famed from ever night) paired with a popular idol would make this drama a hit. from the criticisms the drama is getting, clearly this marketing strategy did not work. imo, cheng xiao should start with more supporting roles as a way to have more acting experiences. given that this is cheng xiao’s first drama as fl, not only is it unfair to other (slightly more) experienced actresses who are probably better candidates, but as this was classified as a big production —i think it is too much for cheng xiao. hopefully her other upcoming dramas show some improvements and i hope arthur’s agency will do a better job at picking projects for him next time. this drama was a waste of his talent.

it’s probably the worst part of the drama because the screenwriter WANTED to add romance to the drama with a stereotype that viewers will like it because a majority of viewers are females...therefore we want romance —it’s pretty ignorant tbh. cheng xiao’s character was not even supposed to be a FL to begin with as her character had no importance at all in the novel. the only female character who was close to the ML (in the novel) was actually su tang. there were arguments between the production team and the fans of the novel —that if the production team had wanted to add romance, then su tang would be a better fit. i have not watched the drama, so i’m commenting base on much knowledge about the novel.

before this drama was broadcasted, the screenwriter and cheng xiao actually got a lot of critisms because of those reasons.

lmao “plot holes as big as China” x’D

totally agree!

i think the reason why the 2008 version became successful —was more likely due to hu ge's and ariel's popularity at the time. they were also the onscreen couple that netizens love from tian wai fei xian. prior to finish filming the 2008 condor version, hu ge also got into a big car accident (which explains the scar on his eyelid now). as a result, the filming crew decided to wait for his recovery to continue filming; so we can say the production team went through a lot together in order to make the finished product. i guess, people watch it and like it as a way of supporting. additionally, as it was also produced by tangren media, it's quite obvious that the drama was made to promote their artists 'using' a well-known wuxia story to get the attention of wuxia-fan viewers. i think this was also a major reason why they changed yang kang's character and allowed him to redeem himself, not only for a twist from the original novel character, but also to make his character a bit less hateful to promote yuan hong haha. honestly, if i did not know that the story is based on jin yong's novel, i think the 2008 is not so bad on its own.

the 1983 is still the best to date. however, i think the millennial generation would find it as a hard watch because of its dramatic-ness and of course low-quality resolution. this 2017 version is a good adaptation for the millennial generation if they care to take the time to understand the roots of the story. i like how the director of the 2017 version stuck to the dramatic-ness of the 1983 version, however had the actors tone it down to suit the millennial gen's aesthetic and their preferred acting style. i'm also actually glad that this was a low budget production as well because they used very little CGI so it helps keep the authentic-ness of the wuxia theme, which i feel has sort of been mislead and lost in dramas in the past decade or so (as xianxia is popularised). although, one minor thing: i still think barbara yung is the best huang rong haha.

lmao i've never felt so exhausted watching a c-tv show x'D
they completely ruined this season. bye bye 亲爱的·客栈 haha

season 2 is probably the best one.
don't bother with season 3. i'm up to ep 6 rn and i honestly cannot stand landy for her unprofessionalism and lack of mannerism to the guests + han qingzi for being a cry-baby :s

update: I don't understand how landy managed to climb to top 3. they shouldn't have eliminated ruby but eliminate landy instead. she's more helpful and rational to housekeep the inn. evidently [spoiler alert] from ep 6, ruby had to help landy with her situation, in which she (landy) handled very unprofessionally smh. an employee should always place the customers as their priority. landy puts herself as her first priority in this case :/ like what???

another update: I really don't see the purpose of casting landy and han qingzi on the show. they're so lazy! they only enjoying sitting around, laughing, chatting and eating. ??????

looks like i'm the first to make a comment on this page.

i've seen the previous 2 seasons (because the format is similar to hyori's homestay). the first 2 seasons were very promising and heartwarming as proven from the enjoyable interactions between the hosts and the guests. sadly, this third season was not executed very well imo. they sort of changed the format and made it all about the competition between the "employees" and this made the atmosphere of the show very awkward. the whole purpose of the show is to be inviting and "dear" (as expressed through the title 亲爱的·客栈), but this was totally lost in the third season. perhaps the production team wanted to add more drama to this season compared the first 2 because people nowadays like the drama. unfortunately, the tension added to this season made it unbearable to enjoy.

i like liu tao as an actress and i'm sure she's a wonderful person too. however, as an innkeeper (specifically in this third season) she is not doing a very fair job. perhaps without her husband running the inn with her, she's unable to relax and appears very stubborn and impatient.

my dissatisfactions from watching 3 eps so far:
1. i feel like there is a bit of favouritism between liu tao and the employees. to be blunter about this: liu tao favours wu lei too much (this is not strange because many seniors in the industry loves him. he's not a "nation's little brother" for no reason). this builds a barrier and makes liu tao seem a little too biased when she evaluates the performances of the other employees. the most annoying part is that i feel like she has something against zhang han...?

2. i understand that chen xiang is given the role of the manager because he was a regular member in the first season, so he knows how to run an inn. i'm okay with this. however, what i'm not okay with is that —judging by seniority, i think ruby should've been given the manager role even though she has no experiences or whatsoever. the production team could've trained her behind-the-scenes, or maybe don't invite her on the show at all. liu tao and ruby sit on the same lvl if we're judging them from their celebrity status (and ruby can be seen as a senior to liu tao since she debuted earlier and is a few years older in age as well), so it's sort of problematic to see liu tao (and sometimes chen xiang) acting super bossy around ruby + expecting ruby to be on the same page as them.

3. i feel so sorry for ma tianyu. while i like landy as an actress, i think her behaviour on this show was quite selfish and rude. i'm not sure if it's because of her young age (errrrm...i'm only a year older than her, yet it's so obvious to me...), but she appears to be someone who can be very pretentious and a bit ignorant. the part in which they had to pick the rooms (in which ma tianyu didn't get to pick because his score was low), she immediately chose room 3 when wu lei told her that room 4 would be a bad choice, which means that room 4 was left for ma tianyu. this would seem okay IF they had not had the cooking competition before that in which ma tianyu helped her with her food, so she ended up receiving a higher score than ma tianyu. anyone with some common sense would know that in situations like these, it would be more appropriate if landy chose to give room 3 to ma tianyu to show her appreciation for his help. but when she figured that room 4 was bad, she was quick to change her mind without feeling apologetic to ma tianyu AT ALL. this behaviour from her was quite disappointing because if she had not been helped by ma tianyu with her food, her rank wouldn't have been higher than his, therefore she wouldn't even have the luxury to pick a room. talk about being ungrateful...

4. i love wu lei, but i think he's taking the competitions too seriously. i do admire that he is hardworking though :)

5. ALL THE EMPLOYEES ARE TOO COMPETITIVE and you can tell that it was stressing them very much. there's nothing "dear" about this show anymore as none of the employees helped each other wholeheartedly. there was very few teamwork. they only care about their personal ranks, as well as to impress liu tao. why call this show 亲爱的·客栈?

6. i'm not very familiar with han qingzi, but her presence on the show seems pretty useless even though she has been part of season 1. why was she even re-cast on this show? so that she can receive even more hate from netizens? i feel bad for her when I look through the comments made by other netizens, but at the same time I can't help but agree with the criticisms given to her. one would think that since she is experienced, perhaps she is one of the employees who can show leadership to the newcomers, but if we compare her to the newcomers (wu lei, ruby, zhang han, tianyu and landy) she looks like she is the most inexperienced when it comes to behaving as an employee in front of the guests. in other words, she doesn't really think twice before she voices herself and seem pretty ignorant about her surroundings and the things she's supposed to take responsibility for —a bit clumsy there.

so far, the only likable cast is zhang han because he is not afraid to be himself despite being put into a competitive environment. while he does try his best to do well to surpass the other employees, he does not act like the others, who do things in favour of liu tao aka the boss. i've never seen zhang han on reality shows before (+never really liked his acting either), but he's the reason why i'm continuing the show. i think his EQ is quite high and he shows himself as a calm, organised and wise person. the way he thinks about things seem very sensible and is the ideal model of how a business person should act. if given the appropriate training, i think he would make a better innkeeper than liu tao lmao.

honestly, I think all the employees regretted coming to the show. they looked quite distressed and burdened :/

not sure if they're still together as of may 2020, but around jan-feb 2020, they were still posting photos of each other on their weibo.

if you go to the legend of fei page on MDL, you might get a glimpse of people discussing about it because it would be rude of me to discuss that on PE page :)

note: of course, the speculations made are all rumours, and perhaps just for publicity from the PR team of legend of fei (because PR is PR, doesn't matter if the rumours are good or not). i do think that there are some truths to it though, such as ZLY thinking that legend of fei will be a flop lmao (which she indirectly expressed on her weibo).

somehow found myself wandering back here...

this drama was my favourite when it first came out! i was what? 10-12 years old? :’) i thought it had such epic characters and followed by chinese paladin (I), i began to have a huge crush on hu ge HAHAHAHA. on a serious note now —looking back, this story is very mediocre compared to what we get from xianxia dramas produced in the recent 3-5 years. nonetheless, it doesn’t make it less enjoyable for me because i love the cast and it holds a special place in my heart for being part of my early teenage years.

perhaps it’s because i’m an oldie now, but i do miss the vibes from old (ancient) dramas like this. many of the xianxia dramas nowadays are pretty over the top and too overcrowded with cgi. but as technology advances, we also evolve and improve, so it’s understandable. this is like the feeling of seeing kids nowadays watching dramas on their laptop or ipad screens, while we (the oldies) had to watch using VHS (or DVDs, which was the case when i watched chinese paladin) lmao. ahhh, the good old days <3

i think you mixed up zhu yi long with song wei long :’)

why did you delete your previous comment and commented again with this comment? :o

nowadays, auditions are more for the supporting and minor characters for big productions like this and most of the time they are likely to be competition from the same company. but it doesn't mean that other artists from other companies don't take any chances for opportunities to get cast too as production can have lots of investors and through the investors, they also have their say on who they would like to be part of the production. it's pretty much like making negotiations between business partners.

some directors take interest from the actors'/actress' previous works so they eye the actor/actress and see them as a suitable candidate for their new project (so auditions for main leads are meaningless to them). what usually happens is they would already have a list of potential actors/actresses that they want to cast in the main roles and do an elimination sort of thing during meetings with important figures of the production team. once they have their pick, other actors/actresses that they have in mind are basically just backups in case the selected actor/actress decide to back out last minute.

this is why we see some famous actors and actresses being continuously cast in similar roles throughout their acting career —which we call as 'typecast'. generally speaking, auditions for main leads happens more for low-budget dramas and in films (as the 'big screen' is seen as more advanced and budget tend to be higher than a drama). well-known actors/actresses also have a bigger network, so they have connections to which directors and screenwriters take favour in them and want to cast them in their project (also because they know that the actor/actress that they pick is marketable and commercially successful which will help bump up the viewership).

to put it short, actors/actresses who are more well known tend to get roles offered to them or they produce their own drama under their own company/studio and in turn reach out to directors/screenwriters that they've previously worked with. but this is also not always the case as it's also very easy for an actor/actress to not get any roles offered to them because they've been playing similar roles over and over again (so back to square one, they either have to try make more connections, or go to auditions to show that they can act). artists need a bit of luck, popularity and beauty to make it big in this industry. it's tough.

in this case, pearl eclipse is a production from jaywalk studio, partly owned by yang mi, so naturally she's cast as the female lead. some people are criticising her for her age because she's been playing similar roles for so many years. let's just say, even if she doesn't look like she has aged that much, some people are bored to see her on the screen with similar roles all the time. but she chose to typecast herself, so can't blame anyone; netizens are just brutal because they can be. my guess is that many of the supporting actors will be from her company for promotional purposes, to which this might either turn out good or bad because some netizens are actually tired of seeing artists from her company being seen on the screen together in so many projects (good examples would be reba and vin zhang).

i was not a fan of princess agents either. i’m also aware of the existing fan wars between the two fandoms. but thanks for your insight :)

tbh, if there were anyone to blame for the poster designs, i would blame the design department. clearly their graphic designers did not do enough brainstorming and are just recycling ideas. and then the fault would be on the head designer and the overall leader of the production team for approving of a design that looks similar to another actress’ work (it’s either they didn’t care or didn’t do enough research).

i do find some of jaywalk studio’s dramas to be enjoyable, but from acting to production execution —they’re always almost on the same scale. it’s as if they don’t want to step out of their comfort zone to do something new and would rather follow trends to be safe (because they care more about getting many viewers to watch —doesn’t matter if the audience will like it or not because at the end of the day they are making big bucks. js is not the only company using the same method). i wouldn’t be surprised if the posters for PE were purposely designed to look similar to zly’s poster (as they know the rivalry between the fans) and use this as a marketing tool, just like how they used plagiarism to promote/market eternal love.

HAHAHAHA, i mean, if you want to think of grandsons, maybe you can replace that idea with the swords? :’) they are linked to yang guo, guo jing and huang rong.

https://www.jaynestars.com/news/zanilia-zhao-fans-accuse-yang-mi-for-plagiarizing-princess-agents-poster/

funny. this drama hasn’t started yet, but there’s already a fanwar between yang mi’s and zhao li ying’s fans. i lowkey wish pearl eclipse will do better than legend of fei (because of the unfair treatment towards zly’s character by the production team), as well as because it seems like zhao li ying’s c-fans are too overly sensitive and just want their “goddess” to be no.1 ALL OF THE TIME. don’t get me wrong, i personally love both of them!

yang mi has shown great potential throughout her long acting portfolio, however i am quite disappointed that she will be playing this type of character again —was hoping to see something more out of her comfort zone and something more refreshing. it seems like jaywalk studio really like typecasting :/ nonetheless, i’m still going to watch this and show my support haha :’)