A Surprise

There has been a slew of dramas which started out promisingly and only to end with great disappointment!BUT Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty does no such thing, its captivating, intriguing and exciting from the first episode! The character development of the character is great, especially LLF, the ML, from a hard and arrogant man to a mature and developed gentleman is quite pleasant. Though there are female interests in the drama, they never became a handicap to the drama's main storyline, which I am very grateful for, as the genre doesn't warrant romance in it. This drama is definitely about two men, the Male Leads and the strange cases they encounter. I am so looking forward to the Second Season! Meanwhile, I shall rewatch the drama this weekend.....

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Is it one of the best dramas of 2022?

A dream of Splendour started out as one of the best dramas .. it was smooth sailing and very pleasant and beautiful to watch. Constantly leaving a smile on one's face, and the sweet moment shared with FL and ML was quite a scene to watch. Flurries of excitements and peppered with intrigues were gold. Not only the romance between the ML and FL were great, but so was the love-hate relationship between the father and son. The three women and their strive to survive and make a mark in the male-dominated world were admirable.

Then came Ep 30 and thereafter things gets a little too exciting and a little bizarre and not to mention a little too repetitive not to mention several trope-y misunderstandings between the ML and FL. Somehow the father and son relationship was left unresolved, and wasn't clear if the father did try to have his son killed (Perhaps someone can clarify this point for me). I felt rather like hanging in midair where their relationship which started so good and full of sparks and dynamism, giving one a feeling like it's a supporting story to the drama, ended up completely flat.

From a rating of 9 dropped to 7.5 (feeling generous),.... What started out so full of promise then takes a nosedive towards the end. What a shame, it has joined the rank of the Dramas this year which started out great and ended on a low note. None of them is the actors' fault, which they did their part brilliantly, but the scripts and sometimes directions.

1. Autumn Ballad
2. Who Rules the World
3. Cry me a river of stars
4. A Dream of Splendour

Ending for a drama is so important as how you tie the knots.... if there is any loose ends then it's just a waste of an effort of what could be a very entertaining light-hearted drama.

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Almost a good drama

The 73 episodes of The Story of Minglan is too draggy.... IF they had made into a 40 episodes series it would have been perfect! They have a lot of scenes which are totally unnecessary and doing it for the sake of making the series a long one is just waste of time and money. IF you are wise you just fast forward some of the episodes or skipped them entirely.

Minglan supposedly a very intelligent person who can predict and foresee what's going to happen and can find a way out of predicament she is in.. at the same time she can be the most stupid person in all of Sung Dynasty. When she is stupid there is just no way of describing it except verging on idiotic.

I blame it on the writer/ writers who wrote the script! What could have been a really good drama turned out some of the most stupid scene in dreamland. I would keep an eye up for the name of the writer for future avoidance. IF you want to make someone smart and intelligent, you make sure the character is consistent all the way. It only shows the lack of understanding of the what the main character demeanour. You don't write a scene just because you have to... IF Minglan were in the real world and behave the way the writer led us to believe, she would have died in episode 20 if I feel generous,

I know China is turning out more than 500 dramas a year and even though there are plenty of stories to tell out there, but one thing for sure, is the lack of really good script writers. Minglan could have been a really entertaining to watch, but all it take is a few badly senselessly bad and stupid scenes to bring the series down... Its like you got passed the first bad one dn then it picked up again and then it just pushed you over the cliff with another bad one and gets better and then presented you with another bad one. If you want to write about a intelligent and smart person, then I suggest the writer should read Langya Bang and finds out how brilliant story are told and how smart character should be.

What I do love about the Story of Minglan, is the loving interactions between Minglan and Gu Tingye, the best couple I have seen in Chinese Dreamland, which almost always filled with virgins right til the end. Thank god Minglan isn't a she virgin after her marriage.. Love the main couple.

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Alas! More than a decent drama

I can't find any glaring flaw in this drama. The storyline is really good and the script is pretty well written and its meaty. The two young leads may not be brilliant but their performance has been better than I expected! The rest of the characters plays just a s big a apart with their own stories, Love CSS parents, and the grandmother, her uncles and brothers and BFF. They are just Stella ensemble giving the drama far wider scope and more inclusive in every way.. As far as Part 1 goes, I am more than happy!!! Let's hope the Part 2 will be even better. PI am looking forward to a brilliant ending!!

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China just shows it too can make a great fantasy movie

I found out that Creation of the Gods took five years to make, and their selection of young actors to play the main characters in the movie and the training they all went through .. needless to say, drew a deep curiosity to watch the movie. I am glad to say I wasn't one bit disappointed! I am so impressed with the movie. From the brilliant acting from the old cast, the familiar cast and the young cast they all excelled and made this movie superbly entertaining! The animation is just amazing 90% of it.. not to mention the high-quality production value invested in the movie, and I was totally enamoured!! It's so real, I felt like I was watching the mythology that my mum used to tell us as our bedtime story when my siblings and I were toddlers.

I have watched a few movie editions and dramas (Investiture of the Gods) and none really did the novel justice, until Creation of the Gods. This is one Chinese fantasy movie I will recommend highly for Chinese and non-Chinese alike. A word of warning though, if you are not exposed to Chinese Mythology you need to prepare yourself for a ride!

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Its a start

What started out as quite an interesting drama, the two male leads are quite cute and the restraint affection for one another is also very nice too. The million dollars question here is how did it get from nice and interesting to hating this drama in a short span of 13 episodes, actually by the 9th Episode I kind of screaming blue murder. The script has so much potential but the writer botched it up and turned it into a shit of a drama.

I can ignore an Emperor in disguise as a commoner to do investigation himself and away from the court for a long period of time, but the scenarios that really stink up the drama when the Emperor can be powerful, greatest swordsman and an intelligent on hand, and the most useless and powerless man at the same time, who couldn't even fight against a bloody ball-less man. Isn't wuxia the hero always live a hero and die a hero? AND the other male lead is completely useless and turned into a vile and disgusting character. .

This is not the reason we want to watch and read about a wuxia drama? This is just weakly written with potentially interesting ideas for plots that actually failed to amount to anything it promised.

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WHY OH WHY!!!

When I started watching it, I was so excited. WoW!!! Another great Korean Drama.. I love the characters and their chemistry and their flaws! The two male leads bromance chemistry is just beautiful, between Yo Han and Ga On, how the older being protective over the younger. The baddies are bad you can almost hate them and wish they were run over by a steamroller. The storyline is way more exciting than anything I have seen in Korean dramas so far. The plots are so interesting as they build up towards the final quarter, and then towards the end of Episode 12, shit happened. What happened? All the beautifully build up plots and storylines just fell out of the bottom, they just turned into waste. All that expectations all that hope and excitement just turned into one big disappointment! Devoid of logic and a clear explanation to all the things that happened. And things just happened for the sake of drama. I think it's the case of the writer/writers trying too hard and failed to deliver the goods.

If they have kept the plot unusual and simple like they always do in Korean drama and that's why we love them, it would have worked so well, and I would have given it a 9.2 even, but what a disappointment! Am I going to continue? Hell, of course, I have invested so much of my time in it, at least I will see it till the end. But now, no matter how fantastic the ending is, it's going to be a non-event because the tidal wave that we ride on died around episode 12 and there won't be a THUMP on the beach, but a mild flat trickle..... We were building to expect a wad, but we got only a trickle.... Not nice. Not nice at all.... What an anti Climax!
Love the acting though.... even Ga On whimpish character that makes you feel like slapping him over and over again.....

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What a surprise!

When I first started watching this drama series, I gave up after the first episode mainly because the ML Sui Zhou or rather Fu Meng Bo's modern Taiwanese Mandarin, which seems a little out of place and out of synch with the Ming Dynasty backdrop. I decided to move on to watch other drama series, and after a few disappointing and let down by other dramas, I decided to go back to SoMD (Sleuth of Ming Dynasty). This second time around I decided to give it a chance, I mean, after Ancient Love Poetry, how boring can it be? I am glad I was right in giving it another chance!

I found myself totally enjoyed SoMD, once I got used to Sui Zhou mumbling accents by the 2nd episode, and even fall for his ramrod-straight character! Then Derren Chen (Tang Fan) was just brilliant and in character, as he plays the soft and effeminate character opposite the butch and brawny Sui Zhou is just marvellous. Their chemistry is simply amazing and the discrete flirtings between them and the spats they have just made you smile, they fought like all real couples, they should be given an award for the Best Couple in the dramaland. All those comic moments were timed perfectly and both leads delivered them so well.

The plots are not numerous but they're not lacking either, and they are all pretty well written and tight! That makes the drama so much more of a joy to watch! All those great moments and storylines made me forgot all the shortcomings and some flaws I noticed earlier.. it is that entertaining!!!! One of the best Dramas thus far in 2021. SWEEEEETTTTTTTT

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Disappointing!

It was going so well, love the actors, a fairly decent production (except for continuities fall short in some places). The cases and plots are pretty good. And I was really enjoying it until Episode 7. I just stopped instantly when I saw something glaringly unforgiving and impossible even in drama (which is fictitious anyway, a stranger (the assassin) walked into the constabulary unescorted and roamed freely!!! OH BOY, that is just one HUGE STUPID mistake that ruined my enjoyment so far. Please use a bit of the brain and a little initiative to think of a better way to let him slipped into the building, just that one silly mistake has made me stopped watching the series. And the leading lady character can only be characterised as a slut in that period setting, it's ok for a girl to sleep as many men at the same time these days, and no one will bat an eyelid, but not a Tang Dynasty's noble girl, no matter how liberated she is!

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Alice, Oh Alice This is not a review but a commentary.

In Korean Dramas, and also noticeable in Chinese dramas, where intimate touches of hands and body contact between male and female are a taboo and they made it a BIG deal and the kissing are rarely encouraged and almost stilted. Its great they have kept the highbrow on morality, and sex is nothing to be sneezed at. I should be paying my deep respect for playing the big brother.

Alice is a drama with very interesting storyline with complex plots, and could have been very entertaining. BUT there are a couple of nagging issues that made couldn't make me like it more than 2 stars. One glaring issue I am sure a lot of viewers agree and that is the issue of incest. No matter how hard the team of three writers try they couldn't explain successfully the incest issue. Time-travelling and crossing the the multi-dimensional universe can't changed anything, at the end of the day they are still mother and son. Nothing will altered that fact.

I wonder what were the writers and the director thinking when they told this story? INCEST is not a taboo and rising and touching is? IF this is what Korean's social moires and culture allows, then it shows that they Psyche of the Korean is deeply disturbing and extremely unsettling. I am sure it's not. I am sure the production house are trying to push the boundaries and show how open they are, but they have stepped into a territory that is not only a cultural taboo but also against biological science no go territory.

This series just simply disturbing and makes me sick in the stomach, and to mention, shocking!

Three writers and I am sure three great brains in drama telling couldn't see the pitfall they walked right into when they dug all on their own is amazing. This is even more disturbing. I would never fall in love with anyone who looks exactly like my mother, no matter how beautiful she is, it's just that I do not suffer from Oedipus complex.

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What happened?

The drama started out brilliantly! The ML and FL were great through out and their chemistry were one of the best I have seen, though the FL voice was irritating at first but soon got used to it. The storyline and the pacing was really good, though the main scenarios were nothing new but the the twists and quirkiness made it fun and refreshing to watch. Then came to episode 28 things starts to get a bit wobbly and iffy and a lot of fast-forwarding even before that, and by the time it hit episode 30 I was struggling to keep my interest going. I carried on watching for the sake of the ML and FL as the script and scenes began to deteriorate fast, and then came to final episode, which is the biggest let down! It was just about one of the worst endings there is in Chinese Dramaland, and there are a lot of those around. From a 8.5/10 from Episode 1 to 30, plummeted to 6.5/10. Has it not been forthe great ML and FL, I would have scored it much less, or not even bother to finish it.

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Fairly goodl

The drama started out rather intriguing and very engaging, the build of the story was very impressive, truly in the Wuxia style (even though I think there were just too many XianXia elements). The storyline though predictable ( kind of imbued with lots and similar characters of Nirvana in Fire) but is quite entertaining. I love the friendship and camaraderie of the youths formed along the way (I assumed they were in their teens and some of them are just way too old to play the teen roles, which I am prepared to overlook as I am so used to already in C Drama and K Drama) The build-up of the characters too were great, and it went on smoothly until some 32 episodes later I realised none of the youth characters has achieved any greatness, and that is more than three-quarters of the way through.. but soon after the story just plateaued and it just went flat right to the end! So much potential for a fantastic and great drama ended with a bunch of rather unremarkable youth who only managed to stay alive because some of the villains woke up from a trance and saved the day.. and Guess what? Like Who Rules The World, again, they gave up their non-achievement and their sworn duty and travel the Jiangsu... So Love Like The Galaxy is still the Best Wuxia drama in recent years, (post Nirvana In Fire) .. Autumn Ballade, Dream of Splendour, Who Rules The World and now The Blood of Youth are the promising Dramas with some of the worst ending in recent years.

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One of the worst...

I usually hold Korean recent Dramas in high regard, and occasionally one or two in recent time has disappointed me.. And Young Lady and Gentleman I thought was really entertaining and actually good. Then after episode 10 or so it began to start unravelling and went downhill gradually at first and then it just accelerated to the end. Korean drama rarely goes beyond 20 episodes, but this one went on to 50 torturous episodes, and with more than an hour per episode they were clearly out of their depth! What on Earth were they thinking? It should have been 20 episodes at max and the storyline would have been tighter and more interesting, rather than bombarding the viewers with shit.

The FL lead, on my god, a 24-year-old, behaved like a retard 16 yo school girl all through the drama!!! WHY? Selling that 'Cute' girl to the boys? REALLY?

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A pretty decent Wuxia drama

As I watch this drama, I was so impressed with the storyline, the pairing of the ML and FL was surprisingly good as they are very convincing and well matched. I couldn't wait for the next coming episodes and decided to become a VIP member of WeTV... The fighting scene was fast with very very little slow motion shots, in fact hardly, made it that much more exciting than Sword Snow Stride which inundated with slow mo shots which spoilt the momentum of the drama, like many others too. That's pretty good.. Everything was going just fine and edging towards the best drama of 2022, which could have easily won.

There are a few points in the quite a good drama that fall short of being a great drama are as follows.

1. It took too long for Hei Fengxi to find out the real identity of Bai Fengxi, that is dragging on a bit, which lead to my suspicion of my final point. If they bring it earlier on there will be so much more great material...

2. The leads fuffing around too long in Yangzhou, and we hardly see anything of Qingzhou, which would have made a great balance in the drama.

3. There are 40 episodes for the drama to pace and pan out the storyline which could have helped with a lot of curiosity of Bai Fengxi background, in stead they pushed all the building up towards the ending in the last couple of episodes, reminds one of a 200 metre dash towards to the finishing line, too quick and too rush, took all the excitement of the ending away.. And the ending was just too soft, like the air finally left and ends with a flat soft ending, anti-climax no less. And visually it also looks a bit rushed too, not as refine as the previous fighting scenes.

I wonder was it because they were pacing it for a 60 episodes instead of 40? That's why they rush towards the end? Oh well...

The rush-ending does remind me of another recent very decent drama, The Autumn Ballad, which was such a let down... in so many ways....

But still Who Rules The World is still an enjoyable drama....

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What has business got to do with it?

Let's talk about the positive side of drama. The male lead is excellent! As usual, he delivers the best and his adaptability to the mood of character is amazing, From slightly cocky, to a touch of humour and cold when they all need to be without overacting or reacting. As for Dilraba, this is the first series I have seen her in a modern drama, and I think she is very suited to play a modern sassy lass than an ancient period drama. Her acting is very convincing. This is a light romantic drama and both are great. The chemistry between them is great. . The costume styling in this drama is the best by far I have seen in any of the modern Chinese dramas and even better than the Koreans, well done!!

NOW the bad bit. The business side of the story, but that one is unbelievably bad! The way the story is told and unfold in drama, which half of the drama talks about is completely illogical and unbelievably bad. I shan't go into it as it will be a long list of gapping non-sensical scenarios. You need to tell yourself that this is just a load of bullshit drama, not meant to make any sense. The logic behind the romance does not make sense at all, there is a huge trust issue there. The writer obviously creating a drama based on nothing. To be honest, if Song Lin is really the maverick that he was in the beginning, he would have won the invasion of the wolf, and not even been involved with Zhao Feng in anyway. Basically the storylines on both, romance and business suck big time.

Then the second couple, the boy knows exactly what's the boss is like, and made no effort to clear the misunderstanding? And the meddling Qin Qing? A friend I can do without.... heart in the right places but lack of understanding and logic.

Who wrote the script? She or he should never write again!

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