mione

yang kang does play the villain, and no his character does not have a happy ending. this is the beauty of jin yong's fictional characters since he gives karma to characters who deserves them. even the nice/good characters are not glorified as saints.

fun fact: yang kang's villainous character has a huge impact on his son in the second instalment of the condor trilogy (in case you become interested in watching the other adaptations from the condor trilogy, yang kang's son is the main character in the second instalment).

yang kang and mu nian ci

i agree when you said "if you’re a huge fan of wuxia/martial arts this would be your cup of tea" because the story, written by author jin yong (or louis cha) is considered as a wuxia classic and those who have been longtime wuxia fans would already know this story. jin yong is like the chinese version of shakespeare and his works are very popular throughout asia and some parts of europe. i think that unless you know where the roots of the story this drama was adapted from, it would be hard to enjoy it due to its complex "jianghu" character development —just like how some of shakespeare's fictional characters (mainly the villains) are considered quite controversial, such as macbeth...i thought he was quite stupid just like how you think yang kang's character is "stupid".

this drama was made to cater to the condor heroes fans, therefore i think it is unfair to compare it to other chinese historical dramas, especially since other wuxia/historical dramas/novels are heavily influenced by many of jin yong's works/fictional characters.

legend of the condor heroes is a classic story since the 1950s and is nothing new to those who knows the story/or have watched the other adaptations. therefore, it would be fairer to judge it against other adaptations rather than other historical dramas; the director made it clear that this is a remake of the 1983 drama adaptation (on a low budget) because he felt dissatisfied with the other adaptations as they were unfaithful to the novel. the instrumental theme song in this new adaptation is actually from the 1983 version. michael miu, who played huang rong's father in this new adaptation actually played yang kang in the 1983 version and he rose to fame because of that role as well; it's a nice change imo.

personally, i think this is the second best adaptation since the 1983 version and the director has successfully reached his goal. it deserves its high rating and this is proven to be deserving too since its rating on duoban is also high (duoban users are known to be very harsh. most of the dramas that are considered as good on MDL mainly has low ratings on duoban and this shows how picky the c-netizens are...minus the fanwars).

by all means i'm not trying to offend you or change your opinion about the drama/story. but as a fan of the condor trilogy, i was just itching to explain :')

would've given it a higher rating, but towards the ending it was disappointing :/

i would also like to know, since i watched the last 3 eps raw:
did yi han actually sleep with qing qing?
or did qing qing just took a photo of them together in bed?

it's been 3 months since you've commented but it's never too late to recommend, right? :')

not sure if you've watch these two (but you most likely have already watched them haha), but i would recommend boss&me and my sunshine because together with love o2o, they're all written by the same author and the stories actually link together if you've read the novels.

for me, the romance is pretty satisfying because the story really makes you only care for the main leads and not mess with your heart due to "second lead syndrome". pretty much the story will be going in the direction that you wish for.

as for love triangles, this depends on what your lvl of a "love triangle" is because in season 1, our mc is not just herself (xiao tan), but she also lives as qu tan er.

s1 -
mo lian cheng + xiao tan = happy ending (they're our main couple and also the ones that makes this drama shine. their relationship starts a bit rocky because of qu tan er's past connection with mo yi huai, but as lian cheng finds out about xiao tan, he warms up to her and even accepts her modern views and judgements. for a cdrama, they're chemistry is pretty steamy haha)

qu tan er + mo yi huai + qu pan er = sad ending (qu tan er and mo yi huai has a past together, but they're destined to be apart. mo yi huai ended up having to marry qu pan er but he does not return his feelings for her, so for qu pan er it's a one-sided love. in season 1, i'd like to believe that yi huai and tan er are the pair because after their deaths, they still think about one another, which is pretty tragic for them.)

s2 -
i thought i would be pretty disappointed in season 2 because generally they cannot meet the expectation of season 1. boy i was wrong though. instead of xiao tan's character being the interesting one, this time it's mo lian cheng.

mo lian cheng + xiao tan = happy ending (they have their fair share of being jealous in this season because lian cheng has two identities in this season, one as lian cheng and one as liu shang (who is played by another actor). then, of course, there's the real "mo lian cheng," you'll have to watch it to know what i'm talking about lmao. (but as a viewer, i find it very funny every time lian cheng is jealous of "himself"). their story is not as light-hearted as season 1 but it's still light-hearted and enjoyable (season 2's story is a bit darker than season 1).

qu tan er + mo yi huai + qu pan er = sad ending (tan er didn't appear until close to the ending for like a few minutes for closure (if i remember correctly) because i think the writer wants to give a chance to develop mo yi huai's and qu pan er's relationship more, despite it still ending in tragic. but qu pan er's character is less annoying in this season because she is able to show a softer side of her in this season compared to season 1.

mo jing xuan + jing xin = happy ending (it was predicted since season 1 that the writer was going to somehow pair these two together and yes the writer did just that. they're pretty cute and i'm just glad that mo jing xuan was given better outfits than the ridiculous outfits he wore in season 1 because of low-budget production haha.)

hope this helps!

because this was screen-written by the same person who wrote the eternal love, my expectation of this drama is a little harsh. i'm giving it a 6.5 because there were too many similarities to the eternal love despite it having a different plot.

note: i have not read the manhua, so my thoughts are purely based on the drama.

love by hypnotic felt like a shadow of the eternal love and that makes it less refreshing to watch. even the setting and characters are quite similar. they even mentioned dongyue kingdom and used the same colour palette for the settings, so i'm assuming the writer was hoping to attempt to make this a similar series as the eternal love...which makes it more disappointing because despite some tweaks here and there in the plot and characterisation —it did not meet the expectation of the eternal love. of course, i might be wrong? idk, but that's just my two cents.

however, i cannot ignore the chemistry between the leads —the spark is there. acting-wise, i'm not too critical because i know these are pretty young and new actors. hopefully with time and more experiences they can improve and not disappoint viewers in the future.

this drama defs had a higher production budget than the eternal love 1. it would be interesting to wonder: if love by hypnotic was produced using the budget of the eternal love 1, would it still be well-received? and considering the success of the eternal love 1, would it be more popular if it had the production budget of love by hypnotic?

i think another beauty about the "it's not just I love you" is that it's a realistic situation in that era/dynasty. people rarely married for love in those times and if there is any kind of love before the marriage, they're most likely going to be parted by their families, who would rather marry their child to a person of high status or wealth (this is nicely depicted through minglan's sisters' marriage; some worked out, some obviously didn't) .

the nice twist in minglan is that both minglan and tingye were treated like shit in their family, and when they married, their marriage wasn't seen as something 'special' or something to be proud of because they were somehow both of 'low status' in their family. of course, they did not care and lived their life righteously and ended up being a power couple :D

following Just_Zentoshi's comment, i think it happened around ep 64 or 65 :)
it's such a turning point for the father imo, you can sort of tell he has regrets. but as a man in that kind of society, it's hard to act fair.

tbh, i don't think runyu was 'waiting' for his 'unborn fiancee', but rather he was put into that position without a choice and he knows it himself and was willingly to live that quiet and looked-down life...until all was too much to handle and he decided to fight back and start all of the schemes which led to his rightful ending imo. it was his punishment for all the wrongs he has done despite being treated unfairly from the start —this cannot ignore the fact that he did commit crimes.

from the start, everyone could already see that jinmi's father and the wind immortal were never going to have children (especially the heavenly emperor because he knows that the person who jinmi's father loved was jinmi's mother). by betrothing runyu to a yet unexisting 'child' was basically a trap for runyu to never get married (and the happiest person here would be the heavenly empress) because when he does it is likely that he would have children and that would put xu feng's position at risk of becoming crown prince (it would also make runyu powerless because his life was technically controlled by the heavenly couple through a never-happening marriage). these things were not explained, but it's basic knowledge when it comes to these types of drama and royal families. imo though, it was already quite obvious how these characters were feeling towards each other and why they feel the need to set up these things. jinmi, runyu and xufeng were literally chess pieces used by the heavenly couple and were the ones who started all of the mess because of their jealousy and greediness.

maybe you can try the eternal love? there are 2 seasons so far, the 3rd should be coming in 2020. both seasons were equally enjoyable imo, which is rare for chinese dramas these days :)

i'm like resisting myself from starting any episodes because i know waiting for new episodes would be such a pain (since i know for sure i will be enjoying this drama). so far, is it good? :')

lmao that’s a first for someone to say that they want to borrow my comments...i don’t know how to react or feel about this xD

ahhh, it’s a little hard to explain it any other way and idk how else i could explain it because when i watch a drama that has similar storylines i just kind of know it by the way it has been portrayed onscreen or in novels. i guess it could be open for interpretation and it depends on what rebirth means to you and how it works in your imagination (it won’t be open for interpretation tho if the writer or director explains it very straight-forwardly (such as describing and showing the process of the rebirth), but in aol jinmi was just shown to have been reborn without showing a process so we can use our imagination on this one :)

i have a friend who told me this and i thought it was quite clever (though not 100% accurate because there’s really no way to find any accuracy in topics like rebirth lmao). she said that jinmi’s rebirth could possibly be something like what happened when she entered the mortal realm for redemption (in which she did not remember anything from her immortal identity. but when she returned to her immortal identity, she could still remember her mortal identity and the things she has done). we have to think of this in reverse for the rebirth case. i’m probably the one not making sense this time lmao. ...are you lost?

and it’s okay for intruding. you weren’t really intruding tbh because this page is open to the public anyways :/

“and I never “assumed” or would even “think” of anyone else being biased or narrow minded bcoz of a show and it won’t be wise or mature of us to say such things bcoz of a drama.” —correct me if i’m wrong but you literally said in one of your previous comments, “i can clearly see that ur opinion is quite biased regarding xe feng's character.” ...im aware that you couldve said that because i did mention that ,”perhaps i was already a little biased before i had started the drama because i really loved xu feng's character in the novel,” (and im not denying that i couldve been biased) but your reply is considered as ‘assuming’ because you said “i can clearly see that” so it makes your comment look like you’re saying that i am biased. altogether, this doesn’t support your statement from the previous comment because you, too, also “assumed”.

were you being immature and unwise because of that? well, not imo because it was your freedom of speech, whether it’s related to a tv show or not. and so my “i think” was also my freedom of speech :/ if you really do think that it’s immature and unwise to let someone be aware that maybe theyre being biased then it looks like we’re both immature and unwise :)

/facepalm/ should i be offended that you suggested me some good faith when you don’t even know if i believe in faith or not? this is a rhetorical question btw...

are my comments confusing because english is not my first language? well, im not sure because i can’t really judge my own comments... :/

i have no intentions to carry on this “discussion” anymore too because we’re both not coming into any conclusions since we can’t seem to find any rationality in our exchange anyways.

i hope you have a good day. cheers! xx

omggg i totally agree with you about chinese paladin. it was an enjoyable drama, but was frustrating to watch because of how bad they treated/portrayed liu yifei's character :s

i wouldn’t have known about the argument that happened “in the last drama” because i cannot read your mind, so it was still creepy to “test” my patience... :(

there’s a difference between directly saying someone is narrow-minded and thinking someone is narrow-minded. i was simply just showing my opinion (and of course to make you aware that the way you worded your statements from the discussions could make you appear to seem narrow-minded (and biased)). i’m not trying to accuse you that you are narrow-minded. i did make it clear by saying “i think,” so it wasn’t an assumption and i didn’t conclude that you’re narrow-minded either :/ and in case you missed it from my previous comment, i literally said “i have no right as a stranger.”

hmmmmmmm, i disagree with “only time will tell who is actually what.” it’s true to some extent but depending on the context it is used in —not in this context though because if i hadn’t told you then you wouldn’t be aware of how others might be perceiving your comments. this is probably the reason why there was an argument in the last drama for you.

haha if you’re gonna watch a historical drama, especially anything involving royalties or the palace, polygamy is unavoidable because that was how society worked back in the days xD

well no, the fact that you told me that —made it creepy...people don’t go around testing other people’s patience especially when we’re not at an intimate friendship stage. that’s weird :/

i won’t comment further about runyu and xu feng because it’s never ending if we keep discussing lmao. and i will comment no further about why i think you were biased or kind of narrow-minded about the story/character because i can’t change you and i will not because i have no right as a stranger. different people, different opinion, i’m sure you would agree on this one :)

well, princess agents. i haven’t read the novel and don’t think i ever will. tbh, i didn’t like the drama. not only did it have so much violence but the way they portrayed and treated the female characters were as if they were not even human. when it first aired, i questioned why it was even adapted into a drama in the first place, moreover with awareness that young people had access to watch it while so much violence was shown, especially against women. surprised me more that china agreed for a plot like that to be aired :/ i agree that women in medieval times could be treated badly, but that drama was too much for me + plus the cgi was horrible lmao. and i’m not saying that violence cannot be shown in dramas/films, but there should be limitations. i watched deng lun on dad, where are we going and the little girl he was being a trainee dad for watched the drama. she’s pretty young...and already exposed to a violent drama like that. it’s inappropriate imo.

it’s personal preference as well. genres like princess agents aren’t my cup of tea. i was also mainly put off by the fact that the original author of the novel plagiarised from several other authors, so part of me didn’t want to support the production. same thing with eternal love and weiyoung: these two were lucky tho cause i enjoyed weiyoung thoroughly, while the second half of eternal love became interesting for me. but that was all, nothing special or charming considering that they had mary-sue characters :/

i want to make it clear that i was not losing my patience and i don’t see why you need to “test” my patience...? that’s actually kind of creepy... (?) x’D if i did make you feel uncomfortable for my seem-to-be-impatient reply, i apologise (?)

i also never implied that you were trying to force me to read the book, so please don’t take this too deeply. additionally, i think you should reread my previous comment again as i’ve clearly stated that i never intended to convince you to side with my pov, which is basically the same as “everything is different that's why the opinion and the way we perceive things are different.”

it might not apply to you, but there are people in the world who actually replies to comments while being narrow-minded. i don’t want to appear rude either, but as i was reading your previous comments, your idea of having an open-mind doesn’t seem so open-minded from my perspective. perhaps it’s the tone of your writing, idk. perhaps because english is not your first language? excusable and relatable because it’s not my first language either :’) i apologise if this might sound hurtful. i have no intentions to make you feel bad or anything; just want you to be aware of this because other people may not take it so lightly and may not think that this is just a simple “discussion”, but rather an argument (there are crazy fans out there that you do not want to come across smh).

i’m glad we’re finally (kind of) on the same page. i agree that “wrong cannot be considered as right.” :)

as for xu feng, i never said that there was no fault in his character. or if you can quote something from my previous comments about him being perfect, i’m happy to say i’m wrong.

i don’t see anything bad in being biased so why can’t you see yourself being biased in this case? the reason why i’m saying you’re biased is because all of your statements from the previous comments make it appear that you’re only thinking from runyu’s perspective, and this affected the way you’re perceiving the other characters. this is biased. if you were unbiased, there would be at least two sides to your viewpoints.

in case you feel like the atmosphere is kind of awkward from our small misunderstanding, here’s a heart for you :D <3 we can all be friends haha <3

having read the novel or not does not determine whether you and i are biased or not. you’re clearly siding with runyu, which makes you biased…being unbiased is when you have a neutral viewpoint. and evidently, you admitted, “no matter what u might explain to me i wont be able to accept that.” when one is unbiased, they will have an open-mind.

i’m not trying to convince you anything from the previous discussions —just wanted to share my perspective about the story and the characters. but if you’re uninterested and unwilling to be open-minded about the viewpoints that i’ve shared, then i’m backing out.

ashes of love was adapted into a drama because the novel was a huge hit in china, so the drama itself was mainly catering to chinese audiences. unless the chinese doesn’t know their own culture, why would producers have to add details to explain? the shows that you have mentioned, in contrast, were actually heavily promoted internationally and locally…and all of them had popular actresses such as yang mi, dilraba, tang yan and zhao liying, who are loved by many, many, many international fans so they’re an easy hit (and believe it or not, many people actually don't care how bad the story/character can be and they would still enjoy it because the drama has cast that they like + find favourable to see onscreen).

can i also say that i am offended by the fact that you’re assuming that my knowledge of karma is little? first off, you don’t even know me as a person to even make that judgement and second of all, it’s pretty rude considering the fact that you don’t even know if I’m religious or not to know enough about karma. each culture share different beliefs about karma, so I would advise for you to not say that to anyone else because it can actually be quite offensive…i’m trying to save you from any trouble for the future :)

and I’m sorry for the long comment, i couldn’t help it. hope this is not too long to read :) cheers xx

in response to your comment, i’m going to try to keep it short as possible since I’ve already covered up some of my pov in my reply to tsukushi makino.

“This story, each character is like a whole big mess tangling up with one another it's so hard to argue who is more right and who is wrong.” —well, tbh all the characters had their right and wrong moments. none of them were just right or just wrong. so I agree that they’re all flawed :)

i disagree about the yundan. in fact, i reckon it impacted a lot of her decisions and actions throughout the drama prior to spitting it out. i also disagree, very strongly, about “only seen/heard/read about it should be more than enough.” life is about experiences and what we watched from the drama was her journey of those experiences. yep, i agree that some of her decisions and actions may appear brainless, but no, she’s just having a lost of of identity and the will to control herself emotionally and psychologically.

i think you’re thinking too seriously about this whole love concept and perhaps too (pseudo)scientifically (?). it’s a fictional story and obviously there could never be a yundan in rl. the “love” that she was meant to not feel was simply just romantic love. this means that she can still feel other emotions. you have even said it yourself, “The feelings associated with love is, all sorts of feelings.” therefore, when romantic love was taken away from her, this made an impact on her other emotions too. it contains confusion and an act of rashness because her emotions are not balanced.

the “love” in this case cannot be seen as a whole word or be read or interpreted as it is. i have mentioned it before, there’s friendship love, romantic love, family love, and etc and what jinmi couldn’t feel was simply romantic love —nothing more complicated, nothing more complex like the 2 categories of love you listed.