#the advisor's alliance

[the-wintry-mizzenmast]

肖顺尧 Xiao Shunyao as Sima Shi 司馬師 in The Advisor's Alliance (大軍師司馬懿之軍師聯盟 / 虎嘯龍吟)

This was the first role I saw him in way back in 2017, and I'd forgotten about him entirely until Mysterious Lotus Casebook, and I looked him and a lightbulb went off in my brain. "Oh, he was the hot son," I thought. (Sorry, TJC fans.)

I have always been of the thought that Yaoyao needs to grow out his beard, he does look quite good with a goatee.

[dangermousie]

If someone were to ask what my favorite historical cdrama is (ie not fantasy, real historical place etc) - the answer would be The Advisors' Alliance, a two-season masterpiece that follows the rise of Sima Yi as he and eventually his sons navigate through the rule of Cao Cao, Cao Pi, Cao Rui and Cao Fang and eventually establish the Sima Dynasty.

The first season covers only up until Cao Pi's ascension and the second season the rest.

This drama is smart and beautifully filmed and incredibly acted. There are politics and fights and interpersonal relationships that are very very complex. Romance is deeply tertiary (though Cao Pi x Guo Nuwang are one of my all time fave secondary OTPs of all time) and this really is not the drama to watch for traditional eye candy. Cao Pi is my jam to a ridic degree but he's vvvv much an adult warlord, not a pretty young dude; even those you normally think of in terms of idol looks, like Tan Jianci, look suitably historical and non-idoly:

And oh, this drama would never ever ever in a million years pass censorship nowadays even if they changed their names to fictional ones. There are no good guys here - there are different flavor of monsters, monsters than can love and compose poetry and joke but monsters nonetheless (because they are feudal warlords and their women) and yet from the safe confines of the screen you end up loving some of them a lot - it really is pick which monster team are you.

It feels realistic about the uniform horribleness of those in power and their motivations the way no cdrama past 2019 is allowed to truly be (Eternal Brotherhood and JoL2 are about the only exception and I think it's because in further parts they will walk some of it back or just sidestep it, leaving it implied - it does not confront it head on the way TAA does.) And yet and yet and YET God, I loved some of those characters so so so much!

I mean, my favorite scene in the entire first season is Cao Cao's last sword dance. The aging warlord is a monster - murderous to seize power, terrible father, terrible friend etc etc and yet I love him. He is so magnetic, so smart, so larger than life that you believe this is a man who could establish his rule and bring down a dynasty. I watch his last sword dance and shiver because this is a relic of a bygone era - a man who outlived all his rivals and friends and he's on top of the world but he mourns his lost world and his lost youth - all his achievements legendary but behind him, him about to join the past with all the people he loved and hated the soldiers watching him not even born when he did all his feats. This scene conveys the end of an era very few things do.

[zhoudadudugongjin]

If I had a penny for every time Liu Tao played a hot girlboss wife/gf to a flimsy gremlin of a scholar-strategist malewife, who also has a deeply homoerotic friendship with a sad little man he's trying to help become the crown prince I would have two pennies. Which isn't a lot, but it's weird that it happened twice.

Oh and there's also Guy played by Wang Jinsong who has a long and complicated history with the aforementioned asshole father:

Anyway the point of this post is that if you have seen either Nirvana in Fire or The Advisor's Alliance you should definitely check out the other because you would definitely probably enjoy it very much.

[nemainofthewater]

Haven't we always wanted to see an adaptation of a novel we love? Cast actors in our heads, wondered how impressive action scenes can be translated from page to screen…

(…complained when the adaptation inevitably messed things up…)

There are 4 polls looking at adaptations from (web)novel to drama:

-Animated (already complete and found here),

-Danmei (live action) (link to poll here)

-BG/het (Live action) (link to poll here)

-Other/Ensemble (Live Action) (the poll that you're reading!!)

There is not a baihe category because as of yet there have been no Baihe adaptations.

These polls are using the novel’s category, so something that is seen as a BL tv series might have been adapted from a non-BL novel, for example, and therefore will be in ‘Other’ instead of ‘Danmei’

Best can mean what you want, either most faithful or most able to translate the feel of the novel even if elements have been changed.

NB: A series of polls looking at best Jin Yong novel adaptation has already taken place

[lyselkatzfandomluvs]

Liú Tao 劉濤

For the variety show 王牌對王牌

Bringing back my Nirvana in Fire 瑯琊榜 FEELS! Mù NíHuáng 穆霓凰 !!!

(Which reminds me that her character in the Advisors' Alliance is the mother of both Xiao ShùnYáo and Tán JìanCì's characters!)

[popfishjr]

ARE YOU GUYS SEEING THIS SHIT???

[kakmem]

i need to make content of this drama before i explode

[kingsandbastardz]

Xiao Shunyao containing multitudes.

Even if he's technically using similar facial expressions, the vibe is different - and not just because of the costuming. Actors have to be malleable, I guess, so they can believably disappear.

[grand-theft-carbohydrates]

come watch my director's cut of Advisor's Alliance where i am painfully faithful to the historical record. season 1 will consist entirely of 40 minute episodes where sima yi spends all day in bed pretending to be paralysed. every few months, cao cao half-heartedly sends a spy over to check if he's still faking. it's basically just a formality at this point, he's lowkey getting a kick out of reading sima yi's increasingly improbably list of illnesses. this goes on for 10 years.

[moononmyfloor]

A Compilation of Chinese Period drama OSTs that are inspired by Classical Poetry- Part 3

Part 1, Part 2

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More in Confirmed List

8. The Long River

"Life Passes Like a Dream (浮生若梦)" (Ending theme) by Li Bai, performed by Wang Zhenhua

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9. Oh My General (2017)

Yang Lin [杨蔺] - Pride of the Fishermen [渔家傲] by Fan Zhongyan

I couldn't find a way to share an mp3, but you can find it here and listen from there.

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10. Dream of the Red Chambers (1987)

Source

Source

Sadly I couldn't find any other songs he composed based on the original poems for the drama, except the one below. If you know more, please do share! 🥺 🙏

Burial of Flowers

A famous cover by Tong Liya

I highly recommend listening to this chilling cover done for the kiddie drama version of Red Chambers as well.

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11. Romance of the Three Kingdoms (1994)

滚滚长江东逝水 Gǔngǔn Chángjiāng Dōngshì Shuǐ (The Billowing Yangtze River Flows East) by Ming Dynasty poet Yang Shen, performed by Yang Hongji

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短歌行 Duǎngē Xíng (A Short Song) by Cao Cao; performed by Yang Hongji

Extra: Rendition of the same scene in Three Kingdoms (2010) with Eng translation and in Advisors Alliance (2017)

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子夜四时歌 Zǐyè Sìshí Gē (The Midnight Song) Lyrics adapted from a Southern Dynasties era poem; performed in a Wu accent. Played during Liu Bei and Sun Shangxiang's wedding scene in episode 43. Source

A translated fanvid

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七步诗 Qībù Shī (The Seven Steps Poem) by Cao Zhi; performed by Liu Huan

(Aka the Bean Poem. Here's a nice comparison of the same scene in different dramas by another Tumblr user!)

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丈夫歌 Zhàngfū Gē (A Song for Men) by Luo Guanzhong; performed by Lü Jianhong

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There are more but this is all I was able to find :(

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12. The Advisors Alliance (2017)

In the same spirit (their version of Duan Ge Xing is already shared above),

十五从军征 At Fifteen I Joined the Army on Expedition by unknown Han dynasty poet, performed by Jin Yushan (金语衫) (not sure, Wikipedia says Jin Yubin) Here's a cartoon version as well.

The thumbnail of the vid is incorrect for some reason btw. It's from AA not 3K.

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怨歌行Yuan Ge Xing (Song of Regret) by Ban Jieyu, performed by Yeung Tung & Lu Moyi

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13. My Fair Princess (1998)

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14. Shaolin Wendao (2016)

Not a poem, but the ost is made out of the Mahayana Buddhist Sutra Da Bei Zhou/Great Compassion Mantra/Nilakantha Dharani.

This was one of the first songs I have listened on YouTube, even before I started watching Cdramas etc. It has always brought me great sense of calm and peace. Only recently, more than like 5 years later I finally found out where it is from.

Da Bei Zhou (大悲咒) by Jing Shan Yuan (敬善媛)

The scene from drama

Full ost:

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15. Journey to the West (2011)

Similarly, the opening ost was taken from the mantra of the Mahayana Buddhist scripture Heart Sutra.

Xin Jing (心经) performed by Yang Xiaolin

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My other posts

[the-wintry-mizzenmast]

@busarewski Yep, that's from Advisor's Alliance filming!

肖顺尧 Xiao Shunyao as Sima Shi 司馬師 in The Advisor's Alliance (大軍師司馬懿之軍師聯盟 / 虎嘯龍吟)

This was the first role I saw him in way back in 2017, and I'd forgotten about him entirely until Mysterious Lotus Casebook, and I looked him and a lightbulb went off in my brain. "Oh, he was the hot son," I thought. (Sorry, TJC fans.)

I have always been of the thought that Yaoyao needs to grow out his beard, he does look quite good with a goatee.

[dangermousie]

Cao Pi's death scene in Growling Tiger Rising Dragon - I loved that on the verge of death he makes that callback to how he wrote on her hand when they were young...

and his heir, Cao Rui, who has a relationship with his father as messed up as Cao Pi himself had with Cao Cao watches, his loathing for the woman who supplanted his mother, about to burst:

Cao Rui is someone no censor today would let pass - a cross between Caligula and Yeonsangun - who executes painters by the dozens for not capturing the likeness of his dead mother (until he poses for them in women's clothes as her) and who yearns for the love of the father who never liked him and would have killed him if it wasn't for the father's second empress who he loathes for replacing his mother.

The contrast between The Advisors Alliance (both s1 and GTHD) and nowadays is SO stark though this was made less than a decade ago. This drama allowed Cao Pi to be both good (he's genuinely brave, he genuinely loves his second empress, he yearns for his father's love, he's a hell of a ruler/warrior, he tries to save people he cares for) and terrible (he killed his first wife and almost killed his son, he did get rid of his brother, he did a ton of ruthless bad stuff) but that is what makes him feel like a real person and a real period noble and a real period ruler - and the new idiotic restrictions don't get that all the bad stuff he did doesn't make him any less competent or worthy to be king, it just makes him more believable.

PS In general, the level of realism in period cdramas went down drastically. The scene where Tan Jianci talks about the horror of his first kill and his terror of his own own mortality to his sister in law? Brilliant and I cannot imagine in today's drama.

[zhoudadudugongjin]

ugh i love them so much i want to eat them (the men not the grapes)

[nemainofthewater]

Best character surnamed: Yang

Come and vote for the best characters with the same surname!*

What does best mean? It's up to you! Whether you love them, are intrigued by their characters, love to hate them, or they're your '2 second blorbos whose personality you made up wholesale', these are all reasons for you to vote for your favs!

*note, the surnames are not exactly the same in all the cases, as often there will be a different character. I am, however, grouping them all together otherwise things got more complicated.

Propaganda is very welcome! If I’ve forgotten anyone, let me know in the notes.

This is part of a larger series of ‘best character with X surname’ polls’. The overview with ongoing polls, winners, and future polls can be found here

EDIT: I made a mistake and Yang Zi is the actress from Lost You Forever, not the character! Apologies and thank you to @marlo-noni for flagging it

[lyselkatzfandomluvs]

Xiao ShùnYáo 肖順堯

2024 Lunar New Year gala (2/3)

龍拳 dragon punch

[natstarbuck]