Spring! is almost here. My neighbors, the PDAing humping cooing mourning doves thought so, or perhaps they are just hovering for warmth and swearing why a day hits 70s for a high and <20F for low. I can’t tell, do not swear like a bird, luckily.
If C drama ever is crazy enough to remake Lolita soon, please cast JIN!DONG. No matter what they put on him, he instigates those notty thoughts concerning some hot bookish uncles. Yes, even in very silly looking pjs.
Picture book of behind the scene for Disguiser is out and the damn lucky fangirls r showing off the pretty:
fanning self. shoot me now.
More 少林问道/ ShaoLin WenDao pmping:
I have started the consoling/embracing self if drama in any way sucks, I still have this^. The folks luring me on the Monks and Monsters train (THANK YOU!) are all insanely excited about this show, pushing this up notches in my expectation. This should air in April?! hopefully as the OP and EP MV are officially out:
I do not like the ending song, the singer is inadequate; the song, uninspired, but any visual of the actors, absolutely captivating esp our angsty monk Zhou YiWei.
I have a growing thing for Zhou YiWei, without him, even this following trustworthy cast of Huang Xuan, Wang Qian Yuan, Wan Qian (<3333), ShuiLing, I even like the younger actresses Xu Lu and Janice Man…. Tribes and Empires/海上牧云记 seems too much a C Game of Thrones wannabe.
Such intensity, never a hair off.
If one has the misfortune of watching some Mingmarysue, Huang Xuan made crowd pleasing passable leads look horrifyingly talentless, has never failed to impress in the acting department.
Wan Qian is my Jiang Xin before Legend of ZH. Super talented, period lovely, criminally underrated.
Janice Man started off as a conjoined twin bff of Angelababy, young magazine model-idols. I did not pay much attention to her through the years, but she has done edgier local stuff and been alright in them. She has quite a face with nothing jarring and foreign/plastic, generally works in periods. She is trying to inch in the C market and this is a great start.
Not planning to read the novel, C fantasy historical is not my cuppa. But I loved 蜗居/Dwelling Narrowness, as close to a daring social commentary C contemporary PD曹盾 Cao Dun is attached, very much.
Those putting Nirvana in Fire on some pedestal are wowing at the cinematography gushing this may threaten its reign of the best C period of late. Ha.
In the void left by Monks and Masters, I am craving some melodrama with a spiritual bend preferably w a tender monk and chance upon a period arthouse C movie Eternal Beloved (terrible quality but haz subs!), not masterpiece but watchable enough based on a forgettable short novel gingko gingko 银杏，银杏
If, in our next lifetime…you could not remember me, I will be the one saying, ‘Your tea is getting cold, let me pour you a fresh cup.’
I have heard Miss 俞飞鸿/Faye Yu is cast in ZhouXun’s upcoming Qing period catfight epic Legend of RuYi/ 如懿传, along with
郝蕾/Hou!Lei!
ShuiLing
Guo YuanYuan
Crystal!Zhang!
Even Song Jia! ( has been debunked)
Even if half is true, this is still the most beautiful congregation of C period goddesses who can mostly act. PD 汪俊 is the director and he has worked on many on my very short list of quality, enjoyable C dramas ( Honey Bee Man, 蒼穹之昴, Wu ZeTian 1995). Esp his PDing on 蒼穹之昴, the most tastefully gorgeous Qing period I have seen. This is making life hard, I do not enjoy the original novel, but I must watch it for ZhouXun alone, even after the meh Red Sorghum, and worst yet if they cast a rumored Victoria Song (plz hell no)
younger ZX in Da Ming Gong Chi
Congrats WallaceH, you have survived another dumbest C idolperiod. Just don’t do them no more. How about fighting for a role in the above sure fire period hit?! Suits your savvy career moves but not too ambitiously above ur capabilities as a supporting himbo, rumor has it he is moving way up casted in an Ann Hui movie based in the 1940s, against 周迅, 蒋雯丽, 叶德娴 , all planets above him terrific actresses, he needs them to improve and be tolerable to me, which ends up not being true, it is EddieP, but rumor is good, work on it, like fight 4 a hot scheming emo eunuch in legend of RuYi.
As much as I enjoyed Go Princess Go, you need to follow a certifiable hit with real work… selling some lame game is a waste of your time and mine… and a Louis Cha male bi/gay villian coupling with the hero so against the grain obviously LC is not informed nor paid copyright, awfully tasteless (just as another C adapt of Legend of Condor Hero has started production tactlessly on LC’s birthday to draw attention to its lameness, that PD attached… hopeless.) LC is still furious with Tsui Hark casting ultimate screen goddess Brigitte!Lin! for the role which frankly she did a fine job in androgyny one do not have to limit her as a particular sex, but yes, sprouted all the popular AU of a ‘bromance’ with hero Ling HuChung there which stole the thunder of the canon in the original masterpiece, one of LC’s finest… Happy 92nd birthday Mr Cha! Forgive Tsui Hark, at least he has aesthetics, not that I blame you for not even harboring an aorta of emotion towards Trollyuma.
Sigh, but this ^ looks yum.
This too, kinda. The cast of Truth/ Through the Mystery/穿越谜团 is on a variety show promoting.
I am towards the end of my good will with this gorg specimen. I truly am happy for him happily in love, but often, real romance do not translate well to reel (and vice versa), please can you stop working with your gf/wifey and separate work and play!!?!??! Fact is, this is a matter of taste, it is not personal, but most fans of yours, are not fans of her acting. Different strokes, different folks and while you like to be conjoined to her 24/7, many do not enjoy watching. It breaks my heart I liked Princess JieYou enough in every aspect except her performance. Their followup C suspense thriller, Through the Mystery/穿越谜团 the one they fell in love in, has a stellar supporting cast, PD and four writers attached I have read smartassy from, and still my loverboy fan buddies, much more lenient than me already had been crying banshee it is not watchable after 2 eps and could not continue, giving it the benefit of doubt main culprit is massively chopped up by censors and aired as a webdrama which was not the design. I loathed every frame Miss Zhang is in it, when face looks artificial, piling on a wig disaster and cakes of makeup when u r not playing a bride of Chucky mannequin but a human being (not ghost) is scary, even just the bits in an MV:
Sad thing is, nobody cares much either way good or bad, for a gorgeous promising young actor with used to be quite maniac an online following, his super cute and witty fanbase, a valuable asset of his stardom, has suddenly vanished (lol wise of them, I must say). He is currently working on another Cmodern I see no hope in good because the lead actress (Zhang Meng) is AWFUL. Loverboy, remember when back in college you used to romance the talented Song Jia on screen in reputable CCTV version of masterpiece theater ?!?!?!?????????????????????? What happened (can u at least change management)!?!?!?!
Another case in point real ≠ reel : Nicky and ShiShi. Their wedding pics though, SO PERFECTLY, EFFORTLESSLY GORGEOUS and just right amount of playful and cute why can’t they bring a whiff of this magnetic vivacity in their acting nowadays!?!?! I rub off some happy from them in real life just w staring at these 2 favs of the pictorial. TGIF!
mookie 
You know. I actually encountered a blog that praises Liu Shishi and Wallace Huo’s performance in Imperial Doctress and diss Huang Xuan because he’s not hot enough. Talk about shallow.
Oh just one?! XDDD Frankly I am very embarassed any young lady have to watch this blindly lured by LSS/ WH because they dun know better, regarding it as an any enpowering lady drama and leaping to this as any/only yardstick essaying anything about the condition of woman/ society/ morality during Ming whatever. That opinion is mainstream, biased fan is biased. LSS is hopeless in my bk, WH is close to that pile. I am guilty as charged myself w my share of shallow but, within reason. LSS’s acting is excruciating in every frame/scene, fact. WH’s character is bizarrely terribly written with lines, swearing, straight out of a Tidoldrama and he is exactly approaching as such to my saddest astonishment. Mise en scene, these characters need to act and talk within confines of Ming social mores to be fleshed, no attempt whatsoever. Even the glossy clothes the fans r praising to no end r just straight lifted pirated from online shops as it is trendy 4 the youngsters to travel to historical sites and cosplay, many of the shop owners have presented evidence I’ve seen, they should sue TR.
Thanks for the pretty! 🙂
Isn’t it funny how ‘Monks and Masters’ still manages to make itself felt. I’m begining to wonder if that particular hole will ever be fully filled…
Gosh, ‘ShaoLin WenDao’ looks grand! And granteed to stab you right in the heart, sigh. I’ll take your cue on whether it’s worth the angst but it sure looks very tempting.
Everyone and their dog seems to be in awe of the ‘Tribes and Empires’ trailer. Fantasy as a whole is very hit and miss with me. There has to be some substance in the story as well and not just loads of pretty pictures. Might give it a go if the buzz is positive, though my taste doesn’t generally tend to align with what is universally gushed about.
What are your thoughts on Huang Xuan’s ‘Hunter’? The trailer looked pretty good.
I do like Tribes PD a lot, he has several drama and movie hits very spot on… more precious is he has a super keen eye on picking actresses bringing the best out of them and the female characters in his work are very colorful. i am not that much a fan of GoT to begin w so i will be the odd one watching this 4 actors/ PD mostly. Lol the fans r being quite snarky already on just the excitement they r using wolves instead of the usual huskies/ samoyeds… reminding the kiddos of The Promise: looked grand as well in trailers but w a joke of a story it was one of the stinkiest bomb in c period movie.
I am not to the point i will get excited for Huang Xuan anything though afterall i have last seen him in Legend of MiYue, then MingDoc both insultingly stupid marysues no great acting is gonna negate the foul. Hunters is promoting itself as a CN Sherlock Holmes too much and that writer has not done anything worthwhile… this seems too much a load. I will give it an ep always but it is a very hard genre to please me. Red, Disguiser all have foibles w the scripting i cant ignore.
Tribe and empire looks really good, great cinematography and I also love nirvana in fire too so I would not or cannot compare them together since they both are different in genre and storyline, one is dark fantasy like and the other is political palace martial art like so their quality fit their type of genre separately… Love nirvana and and can’t wait to see tribe and empire… Hopefully it’s as good as the trailer show
The fans of NiF r still not over the obsession, that is y they used it as some standard of perfection.
I hope this one had better writing than Nirvana though, i was not impressed at all.
The ShaoLin Wen Dao MV above (the first one, not the OP+EP one), is it official or fan made? It looks like the latter, and if it does — wow, Cdramas fans talent never ceases to amaze me. Very well made. The accompanying music sounds like a Buddhist chant in Hindi. Soothing, but at the same time very appropriate even for the fighting scenes shown. The whole vid feels rich too.
I’m also one of those drawn by the Tribe and Empires trailer :D. It looks very sophisticated and raises my expectation high. I’m wary though that the actual drama may not live up to it, as often happens. I hope, hope, hope it does and shows how fantasy dramas should be made (and slash Ice Fantasy left and right bcz I can’t stand GJM, lol).
Princess JieYou is my favorite among the ones airing in 2016 so far, the only one I managed to finish. While the CGI is laughable, cinematography is well done and acting is solid all round IMO. Zhang Xin Yi was OTT in the first few episodes, but her acting improves when JieYou moves to Wuxun. I was actually quite disappointed with the plot, as it focuses too much on the romance and palace intrigues, while it could’ve explored JieYou’s role in maintaining the balance of power in the area back then, for instance. But the acting job made it for me, and Yuan Wen Kang is particularly mesmerizing! He’s been in the industry for a while and I just got to know him. I even watched some Imperial Doctress episodes where he was in, and his presence was so much stronger than WH/LSS. I still randomly rewatch some random Princess JieYou eps for him 🙂
Surprise surprise, I am quite sure that is an official MV trailer, the bgm should be on its soundtrack and I could be wrong but it is surely a chant in Hindi. Not that C rabid fans could not create sth as amazing of coz i never underestimate them! 🙂
Tribes looks like a tonne of $$$ is poured in and put to good use. I am hoping and hoping along with you, but this is an 80ep epic, and if truly aiming at GoT caliber of CGIs, cost will be astronomically unreal as this is still first and foremost a C marketed drama. I do not need it to look as spiffy always, but a great script please!
OHHHHH!!!! I am gonna word your every word on Yuan WenKang, he stole the show in Princess JY for me, my eyeballs are too often glued to him even when my bias YH is on, shame on me haha. As for ZXY, I am shallow, and so for me to overcome her plasticity, she needs to be more than improved, close to impossible to replace flawless because i have been exercising my imagination replacing her face/ acting w JiangXin for one and SOMUCHBETTER. Imo she is atrociously overdoing the cutesy, or perhaps the futile attempt of playing the princess young and bubbly but that is a feat impossible even for better actresses in their 30s who did not weird out their face excessively and thus weathering their looks with sad plastic surgeries. So, on one hand , I trust ur word she is better as plot wont require her to, completely agree with you I would love to explore the life of Princess JY’s ascension and lesser the weight on the romance, but that would also translate to less of the better hotter actors for my eyes and more ZXY’s face. I need some time to be away from the bad taste after 10 or so eps of her here and give it another go!
WH and LSS are not naturally born actors, unless they work super effectively hard, it is not gonna happen they will hold a candle against peeps who are clearly born with it naturally, Huang Xuan will never be idolpretty ever but against them, he looks as attractive, alluring, innocently in love, then the later losing of mind (by writer mostly) whatever his character requires of him every beat. WH/LSS are still shakingly fidgeting over every frama, chance hitting of an emotion that could work not even per design/thought/skill but sheer luck or the tactile muscle memory/ exp of numerous years in front of camera. IT is beyond sad when I am sure that arc with Yuan WK should wring angst for OTP shippers thus fabricating some fake tension whatever and swing some 4 OTP intensity yet every comment I heard of from sane folks like you are WOW YWK is SOOO FINE! lol I might watch just those eps he is in, I saw that gif of him literally ‘stealing the thunder’ and my arse is laughed off!
LOL, I shouldn’t have underestimated the Chinese production houses like that. But there have been too many cases where the fanmade videos are far more visually and emotionally pleasing, and intriguing, than the producers’ works. The Shaolin MV is quite beautiful. And the chant reminds me to the opening score of Life of Pi, which I love until now.
Isn’t it true about YWK in the Imperial Doctress — I notice he’s gaining tens of thousand new fans, and I find it amusing that they have been fawning all over his “manly look” in ID, despite the unfortunate hairstyle 😀 :D. I hope this newfound fame doesn’t go up to his head and he continues giving good performance and picking up good scripts that can showcase his talent and skill.
I didn’t watch the Imperial Doctress, save for the several episodes with YWK, but based on comments on various blogs and forums, Huang Xuan gets widespread admiration for his acting. (Well, he already got noticed in Mi Yue, but ID cemented it). Many change ships to his character and LSS, thanks to his convincing portrayal. I’ve also seen many crying buckets for the abrupt swift of his character in the later episodes, which is seen as a sloppy work of the writers/editors.
Totally. Lovely brilliant fanvid is always litmus for a worthy C drama for me. I was lured into the fandom by them in the cases of Disguiser and Red lately. It is also a lil fanvid that prompted me to check out Monks and Masters after hearing about its awesome (my best C drama of 2015) Even if drama has shortcomings, usu there r some merits ( Ferryman, Darker, GoPrincessGo…)
I will give that modern thriller thing w the Princess JY gang a try soon… lol evrn if just to see the super gd veterans and YWK
Well next to WH and LSS, HX just shines swimmingly on acting alone. I have no problem w ppl critizing his looks r not suitable 4 period ie not period gorgeous (imo in the usu more stifling conservatism, a harmony of proportions is required, ie no feature too large or small and HX has smallish eyes and a wider nose) which I concur, at least he looks handsome in moderns or manguo looks, but WH would easily trade for HX’s chops w his set of pretty features easy I bet. Plus in a proper historical, say really essaying the Ming emperors in ID, HX’s plainer looks add to the authenticity. As long as he is not playing some godlike most beautiful on earth and realms y not.
I knew beforehand I could not stand the writing because this crap on authenticity on both the emperors… this is what getting a fraction of the C fans paying SOME attention in history classes as teens bloodboiling. WH’s Zhu Qizhen in RL was a useless douche and a hair fr losing the country in the Tumu Fortress battle, captured. It was entirely his imperious head’s fault. It was the credit of his much cautious bro Zhu QiYu (HX’s character) and the able minister Yu Qian holding fort. Yes he was kept in house arrest (but treated v well, during which he had many concubines and dozens of offsprings) and not able to retain rule after rescue but y should he?! WH’s Zhengzong was lousy and witless, y risk losing Ming sovereignty AGAIN?! Easy logic , just not to ZZ of coz, coup while bro was grieving after ZZ possibly poisoning bro emperor’s heir, the tacky likes. So for a writer not only romancing a hero out os a terrible nasty emperor for Marysuing but demonizing a comparably well respected emperor as well for such a worthless plot… I want nth to do with it.
The song in 少林问道 preview was breathtaking. Totally had me right when it started playing.
First time hearing of 蒼穹之昴, color me intrigued. It is a Japanese collab?
Yes! It is J collab, I can deal with its slow stately pace when aesthetics is PERFECTION. Historically quite accurate, just meticulous.
少林问道 is showing in April, I’ve heard, you will hear from me either way. I’m trying to contain myself to not be disappointed yet I CANTWAIT