#《神雕侠侣》 2005

[meilitan]

[watch-grok-brainrot]

So, I started following a bunch of c-drama blogs and I really want to get into it. Where would you recommend a newbie start? What's your favorite show? 😃

Oooh. Uh... i don’t watch that much C-drama. I really don’t think I do? I watch more C-drama than I do other things... but uh.. i’m mostly slow. 

Favorite show? Nirvana in Fire. Hands down. Best pseudo-period C-drama. Do I think you should start there? No. uh. yeah. get some sense of structure and tropes and what not first. 

I really don’t know where to start. I started probably with Legend of Condor Heroes when I was 10ish? I still remember being really excited by a girl dressed up as a boy jumping on people’s shoulders. I loved Jin Yong wuxia the way a lot of people love tolkien. 

Then the next major thing I watched was Princess Pearl 还珠格格 (1998 with Zhao Wei and Ruby Lin and some dudes i can’t remember) and with it I somehow got my parents to let me binge watch 像雨像雾又像风 and 情深深雨蒙蒙. I’m not sure if you can find either of the latter two titles easily. But one stars Zhao Wei and the other has Zhou Xun and Chen Kun. I enjoyed both of them. I was also 15 when i watched it. 

I watched a TON of wuxia dramas between 2000 and 2005. Anything adapted from Jin Yong titles I watched... so 笑傲江湖， 神雕侠侣， 射雕英雄传， 倚天屠龙记, 天龙八部. I also read the novels... But after a while I got sick of the industry cycling the same 10ish IPs... so i stopped paying attention. 

Oh! I did watch Meteor Garden which I loved. but it was part of a craze in like 2001-2005ish. I tried to watch other chinese/taiwanese adaptations of manga... i liked mars. couldn’t get through watching 战神. 

Uh.. in 2014/2015 ish there was a cdrama called tiger mom 虎妈猫爸 that i thought was hilarious. It had Zhao Wei (previously mentioned) in it. I loved it. very modern drama. idk how good it is all things considered. I also liked my sunshine 何以萧笙默. but that’s because i like the way the leads looked. it was a very mellow drama. sad, melancholy. i watched some other stuff with 唐嫣 in it. 

Then i watched NiF. NIF is SO GOOOOOD. I cannot begin to explain. After NiF, i watched the Disguiser. Which was also good but it suffered from not being NiF. NiF sets the bar and the bar is HIGH. I also tried watching ode to joy and never finsihed it... 

Where to start? The Untamed seems like a good fit for many people. Since Nov 2019, I have watched: 

Eternal Love, Ashes of Love, The Untamed, Ever Night, Dating in the Kitchen, Word of Honor, Love o2o, King’s Avatar, Love and Redemption, And the Winner is Love. 

I recommend Untamed, Ever Night, and Word of Honor. Word of Honor comes with warnings that the plot isn’t compelling and it gave a friend nightmares due to treatment of a disabled character. Also, Ever Night is only season 1. Things are not done. S2 is very very different. I cannot get through ep 1 of S2. but S1 is so delightful i don’t regret watching it. 

Eternal Love was ok but the female lead can’t really act. Some of the side characters are interesting. It was a solid not awful. Dating in the Kitchen is modern and cute and a little contrived. Love o2o was really sweet but really boring. It was good bkgd noise for gif making. King’s Avatar was a bit more compelling than Love o2o but long and i wasn’t paying that much attention. It was ok enough i guess. They’re both videogame-centric. And the Winner is Love isn’t great. Love and Redemption was a bit better than Eternal Love but annoyed me at many points. 

I do not recommend Ashes of Love. It is pretty at points and Luo Yunxi is a delight. There is a side ship that’s cute. Everything else about it can burn. 

What is on my list/WIP:

Joy of Life -- i like it so far. i’m about 6/7 eps in... but got distracted. 

Sleuth of Ming Dynasty -- i also like this a lot. 8 eps in. doing it as a groupwatch. 

Legend of Fei -- 5-6 eps in. Fun so far. got distracted by Word of Honor. oops. 

Rise of Phoenixes -- 3 eps in. really good but i need to be able to focus on it... and i’m bad at focus lately. did i mention i’m obsessed with word of honor? 

The Romance of Tiger and Rose -- hear it’s cute. I have it DL-ed. haven’t started. 

Things I have on my hard drive:

Legend of Miyue, Dance of the Phoenix, Fights Break Sphere, Douluo Continent. IDK if i’ll watch any of these but I’ve heard good things about Legend of Miyue. 

I don’t know if i’ve helped... but i tried. Orz

[meilitan]