mione

it’s the third and last installment from the condor trilogy, however the story takes place many, many, many years after the characters from the first 2 installments died in the war. some of the characters from the HSDS are direct descendants (or in a way linked to the characters) from the first 2 installments.

you will see familiar mentions of things related to the jianghu world as well, such as the sects, the nine yin manual and the swords (given the title haha). with that said, the characters from HSDS are more complicated and complex than the first 2 installments.

out of all of the listed actors, im eyeing on jackson yi’s future works the most because he has shown how great of an actor he can be through his representative works such as the longest day in changan and better days. if jiang jinfu was once dubbed to be the next hu ge (to which this failed miserably due to his bad life decisions), i reckon jackson has a great chance to be at hu ge’s lvl in a few years time since he is still young. the other actors are doing a great job too (such as the actors from the untamed), but perhaps they haven’t shown their fullest potential yet due to the lvl of difficulty of the roles given to them, such as song wei long who i feel still look a little stiff and boring on the screen.

i concur! :D
would probably add chen xing xu as well.

i agree with your comment. i especially cringed when er xi was teasing how ‘wei wei’ is a 32C. zheng shuang is defs not a 32C lmao. she’s almost anorexic-looking tbh :(

and i sort of disagree with vcr since i don’t believe that zheng shuang is pretty for chinese standards. if she were, she wouldn’t have sought for plastic surgery. since the start of her career, she has been criticised a lot by c-netizens for her looks and this became more apparent when she looks different in every drama that she participated in. zheng shuang mentioned herself that she felt insecured about her looks when she was still dating zhang han, but tbh netizens had a play in this too (as we know how brutal the internet can be). it was some time last year when she became vocal about how she regret becoming an actress since she is now doing it more for the money rather than passion (which explains why people are also pointing out her bad acting chops). she said that she rather be an internet celebrity so that she can be more herself.

if we are talking about chinese standards, i think a better example is yang mi, this is why she is so popular among fashion brands. although personally, i still think that yang mi is too skinny and that her diet method is very unhealthy. whatever works for her though —i just find it stupid that fans think she has discipline to stick to her strict [unhealthy] diet (since she is setting an example for her fans, intentionally or unintentionally, i think it would be more acceptable if her diet method is healthier). she was on this tv show for the new year where she ate only one strand of noodle in front of the camera and said it was tasty. but srsly, what can you taste from one strand of noodle? :’) it’s crazy to see what actresses do to maintain their “skinny” figure.

tbh, i didn’t like the presence of er xi either, but i can understand why she was given the screen times: her company was trying to promote her, plus the screenwriters saw potential in using her character for fillers for the drama to last 30 eps.

i’ve been rewatching this drama several times. have seen the flaws in it too but i keep my rating of 9 since it’s quite faithful to the novel (with the exception of the development of some supporting characters).

if this storyline wasn’t your cup of tea, then chances are the second season will disappoint you because it’s pretty similar —the plot is just a little darker, but the humour is still there. season 2 will also answer some questions from s1. plot-wise, i prefer s2. humour-wise, s1 is still the best.

[spoiler alert]






the ending is happier in the second season though :)

there's liu ying and mu ci, but

[spoiler]
they're love story is somewhat tragic.

no, dongfeng’s story from tmopb should not be taken into account when you watch elod. when tmopb was filmed, the production team did not have the copyrights to the pillow book (which is dongfeng’s story) and so most of what you see of dongfeng in tmopb were to some extent not based on the novel (but were rather script written from scratch with some ideas borrowed from the original novel and included in the drama for the sake of having a secondary couple + to promote yang mi’s artists namely reba and vengo).

the reason why people are saying to forget about tmopb when watching elod —this is because the production team finally managed to buy the copyrights of the pillow book in order to turn it into a drama and so to enjoy the dongfeng story entirely on its own, their story from tmopb should be ignored; the minor difference between tmopb and elod is that some important characters from tmopb were not able to reprise their roles in elod (with the exception of yang mi who made a cameo) + both dramas were directed by different directors (so you may notice some quality differences). the real timeline of dongfeng’s lovestory in the novel actually takes place during bai qian and ye hua’s wedding, so this might answer your confusion as to why ah li was already born in elod.

track at 49:48 :)

https://youtu.be/rItjmCApETk

maybe watch ep 1-3 for character introduction and then skip to ep 19 (of the 63 eps version). imo, the previous eps are just to show the relationships between the characters and how the circumstances between them lead to the future events in the story (so while it’s good to watch it to understand the roots of the unfolding problems, it’s not really necessary if you want to skip the boring dialogues imo).

SPOILER AHEAD:

ep 19 is when the leads start their story in the mortal realm and where they actually fell in love and the tension of the story slowly begins there (even though prior to entering the mortal realm, there were already conflicts).

if you start from 1-3 & 19+, then you will have only 41 eps to watch. if that is still too many eps, perhaps you can start at ep 45 because that’s the turning point for everyone in the story. but then you won’t understand much of the plot and the characters’ actions and behaviours and how their relationship turned out like that.

if by watching from ep 19 or 45 cannot convince you to go back to watch the previous eps to have a better understanding of the story then perhaps this drama is just not your cup of tea :’)

note: when i first watched it, i skipped a lot of the first half (except for the mortal realm part since it was entertaining to me) because it was sort of draggy. but after finishing the drama and seeing how invested i was in the characters, i went back to watch those eps/scenes that i skipped and see why they play an important part to the story.

adding to saoki’s comment, love and destiny takes place yearrrs before eternal love :) so before ye hua was god of war, there’s jiu chen who was god of war.

also note that while eternal love was adapted from a novel, love and destiny was not. it was written from scratch by the screenwriters so the plot seems more solid than eternal love imo. fun fact: the character of jiu chen was especially written for him + this is his first small tv screen project.

i feel so old because i actually recognised all of the actors on your list :’)

looking at your watch list, i assume you don’t watch hong kong dramas? when you feel like giving it a try, then i recommend beyond the realm of conscience, as well as can’t buy me love (they’re produced by the same person with a majority of same cast).

while these two dramas are nowhere near the high-quality lvl of minglan, but judging from the year they were produced, they were the best of its time for genres like minglan.

beyond the realm of conscience is a very palace-y drama and like all tvb dramas, they’re very romance-based with some political intrigues. while can’t buy me love involves people from the palace as well, the focus are the princesses of the emperor —it’s more of a romcom while beyond the realm is more like a melodrama. both dramas are set in the tang dynasty.

the drama/story itself is more of a slice-of-life, so it doesn’t entirely focus on romance (although there is romance and it’s at a satisfying lvl, not cringy and not boring). personally, i like the pace of the romance in this drama because it feels more authentic and the FL+ML —they don’t glorify romance as a fairytale, which most chinese dramas inherit (nowadays) imo. the story mainly focuses on minglan’s everyday life and how her character grows as a person/as a woman of that society surrounding the events that happens in her life.

thankfully i have notes for future rewatch purposes, so in case you want spoilers of the FL’s love life, here’s the timeline:

romance-wise, scenes before Ep 21 focuses on the FL having a crush on the second ML (who shows interest back), but due to some circumstances, she made the decision to let go of him. note: but this doesn’t mean that she hasn’t crossed path with the main ML yet because they’ve known each other since young....or more accurately, she was a little kid and he was a teenager lmao. one thing that might bug you though would be the ML’s ‘mistress’ (a modern term of it would be girlfriend) who he conceived 2 children with to much of his father’s dismay and disappointment. that mistress doesn’t pop up on the screen a lot though and honestly, she treats her children like chess pieces and eventually the ML got sick of her; they actually separated before the ML’s and FL’s romance start to blossom. another note: we cannot expect the ML to be a man who hasn’t loved anyone in his life at this early stage of the drama because he is a lot older than the FL, so it would only make sense that he has some sort of experience in his love life.

between ep 23 -39 shows the progress of our FL’s and ML’s romance, including his ridiculously entertaining ways to propose to her.

from ep 40 onwards, they become married and obviously live as husband and wife. in case you want to know if they break up with each other half way through: the answer is no (pretty rare for that to happen as a married couple in period stories anyways). but they do argue, and that’s pretty normal for married couples :’)

if you’re hestitant on whether this might be a feel-good drama or a big mess of a drama, fear not, this drama has the most satisfying outcomes for likeable characters and the resolutions for the events that happens in the story will leave you satisfied too (it did to me at least haha). if by romance you wish to see something like a happy family formed and a lovey dovey couple, then this might be your cup of tea because our FL and ML eventually form an amazing family together.

great list! makes me want to create my own list too, but so hard to pick :’)

2010: Can’t Buy Me Love (HK)
Honorary m.: Grudge: The Revolt of Gumiho (KR), Assorted Gems (KR)

2011: Scarlet Heart (CN)
Honorary m.: In Time With You (TW), New Tales of Gisaeng (KR)

2012: Phantom (KR)
Honorary m.: Rooftop Prince (KR), Queen In-Hyun’s Man (KR), Witness Insecurity (HK), Be Careful With My Heart (PH)

2013: My Love From the Stars (KR)
Honorary m.: Prince of Lan Ling (CH), Master’s Sun (KR)

2014: Battle of Changsha (CH)
Honorary m.: Sound of the Desert (CH), Boss & Me (CH), Line Walker (HK), Swipe Tap Love (HK),

2015: Nirvana In Fire (CH)
Honorary m.: The Disguiser (CH), Love Me If You Dare (CH), Go Princess Go (CH), My Sunshine (CH)

2016: Descendants of the Sun (KR)
Honorary m.: W (KR), Love O2O (CH), The Mystic Nine (CH), When a Snail Falls In Love (CH), The Princess Weiyoung (CH), To Be A Better Man (CH), House of Spirits (HK)

2017: The Eternal Love (CH)
Honorary m.: The Legend of the Condor Heroes (CH), Lost Love In Times (CH), Strong Woman Do Bong Soon (KR)

2018: The Story of Minglan (CH)
Honorary m.: Ashes of Love (CH), Story of Yanxi Palace (CH), My Story For You (CH), The Eternal Love 2 (CH), Bpoop Phaeh Saniwaat (TH)

2019: Hotel Del Luna (KR)
Honorary m.: Go Go Squid (CH), Put Your Head On My Shoulder (CH), Love and Destiny (CH), Big White Duel (HK), Barrack O’Karma (HK)

I have yet to watch The Untamed, which I have a feeling will replace Hotel Del Luna. I’m just really slow on catching up with dramas now that I’m older haha. And if you notice, most dramas I watch nowadays are the feel-good ending type of dramas because life gets stressful as you’re older haha. I’ve been more drawn into Chinese dramas in the recent years though, so my experience with kdrama and taiwanese dramas are not as extensive anymore :( I’m trying to watch more thai dramas, but I’m still trying to get used to the concept of lakorn (the angst and drama drives me nuts lmao).

dw, they’re the same...i think :’)

yep, sui he was wandering in the area that she was banished. from the way she was behaving, she was not sane and eventually, she got herself killed when she curiously entered that cave.

as for run yu, i (personally) wouldn’t say he got a semi-okay ending. if any, he’s ending is worse than sui he’s —death is an escape for these characters. before sui he was officially banished, she had threatened xu feng and jin mi to kill her because she would rather die than be humiliated because of her crimes. this is a similar case to run yu, when he was ready to die because of qiong qi. but xu feng saved him and told him to redeem himself by taking responsibility —that is, he took the throne, therefore should continue to fulfil his duty instead of throwing the throne to xu feng just because he (run yu) didn’t win jin mi’s ultimate love. for run yu, living and being the heavenly emperor is his punishment. the ending scene of him is very, ermm, how can we describe it? poetic? lol idk xD but if you rewatch that scene, you will notice that run yu is sitting on his throne, but the hall is empty and dark. standing in the hall with him is kuang lu who says to herself that she will always be there for him. and though she is obviously standing right in front of him, he doesn’t really care that she is there. it is not verbally expressed, but this scene sort of signifies that run yu is still living in his world of “redemption” and it’s quite obvious that he is somewhat still in ‘love’ with jin mi because he couldn’t accept any other women into his life. additionally, even though he is still the emperor, he has lost the respect of his subjects/ministers, as represented by the empty hall. the empty and dark hall does not only represent that, but it also represents his loneliness and other complicated feelings. in the ep in which xu feng saved run yu from qiong qi, run yu said something along the lines of he doesn’t care about his reputation anymore since he was going to die anyways (because of qiong qi). the fact that he is still alive and still the emperor (without any respect from his people), this is a humiliation but he accepts it. back to sui he —this was something that she did not want to live with which might explain why she became crazy. run yu, obviously, had to go through the humiliation and to take responsibility for his past actions, so i wouldn’t say his ending was semi-happy. in fact, it’s quite sad and pitiful (to me, at least).

i think we should question: what is respect? personally, i think sui he believed that she had respect for xufeng, but in reality she didn’t know how to respect him in the right way. if by hurting the person that he loves and lying to him while taking the credits of other people means showing respect to him then that’s just laughable imo.

i think her ending was deserving. perhaps if not for her obsessiveness over xufeng, she would’ve still been sane enough to keep living at the place she was banished. besides, xu feng did make it clear to not kill her unless she does not know how to redeem herself. for her to be killed in that cave —she brought it upon herself. no one forced her to be in that cave. she entered the cave herself and was unluckily caught by that insane man.

thanks for replying! :D
oh dear, i might give this drama a pass (for now) then. rather skip the headaches and watch something more light-hearted haha

helllooo,
i just happen to see this review and thought that as a condor trilogy fan, it would be nice to give you a bit of a bg in regards to the unrealistic-ness of the story and characters.

first off, it’s not meant to be realistic :’)

i’m not so sure if you’ve watched the other adaptations, but if you have not then perhaps starting with this 2008 version was not the right choice because it’s not the best adaptation of the original novel. the pace of the story itself is supposed to be sort of dramatic and what people nowadays call a one-in-a-lifetime sort of cringy feeling. but this adaptation failed to do that because they made this version more lighthearted in my opinion. there were also lots of script changes and character developments. the inconsistencies of the pace of the story could be because of hu ge’s car accident which took him a lot of time to recover, hence production was stopped. but they didn’t want to change the actor and waited for him to recover. without the car accident though, fans of the condor trilogy would have already prepared for the fast storytelling in the beginning first 4-5 eps because that’s the way it was originally told even in other adaptations.

the original novel was written by an author named jin yong and he’s pretty much like a father figure to wuxia lovers and many (or maybe almost all). the condor trilogy is no doubt a classic since the 1950s to wuxia fans so unless you’re a big wuxia fan, i think it’ll be hard to enjoy such stories. nowadays, wuxia stories and dramas are influenced from many of jin yong works and if you’re a wuxia fan, you might notice that many characters from other dramas have made references to characters from jin yong’s stories. jin yong is like the chinese version of shakespeare. when we think about shakespeare’s works, his characters are seen as pretty gullible as well —romeo and juliet for example and how they die.

if you’re willing to give this story another chance, personally i (and many other wuxia fans) believe that the 1983 version is the best drama adaptation. the only downside is that it’s quite old, so you will barely find HD videos of it. if you opt for a more recent adaptation, then the 2017 is the second best in my opinion because the producers tried to stay faithful to the novel like the 1983 version. they even gave tribute to the 1983 version by using their theme song (inst. ver) and invited michael miu, who played yang kang in the 1983 version, to play huang rong’s father in the 2017 version. the yang kang portrayed in the 1983 and 2017 is also closer to the novel, which i think the 2008 (intentionally) failed to portray since they wanted viewers to see another side of yang kang (one which he cares to redeem and know that he is wrong).

no ill intentions for me to make a comment. i’m really just bored from quarantine :(