Would a kiss be too much to ask?

Mary / luinel-kaya / kdramastuff

[cdramastuff]

To My Shore - Episode 15.

[nemsilei]

Such a raigebaiter, can't get mad at him he's very fun to watch

[numerodix]

“Your Highness, are you testing me or trying to win me over?”

[cdramastuff]

Wang Duo on the set of Veil of Shadows.

[cdramastuff]

Wang Duo on the set of Veil of Shadows.

[cdramastuff]

Wang Duo on the set if Veil of Shadows.

[mutantfactor]

Fangs of Fortune

"Maybe one day, you will meet someone you see as an anomaly. At that time, you'll need to make your own judgment. Your eyes lie. But your heart will tell you the answer."

[lansjue]

VEIL OF SHADOWS 月鳞绮纪 dir. Edward Guo, 2026.

[cdramastuff]

I promised to give you my life. Just take it.

The Blossoming Love - Episode 27.

[foxglovefairy]

So many of the views in the drama are to die for (or maybe ive been copped up in my house for too long)

[cdramastuff]

[dangermousie]

The original:

The remake:

OK, here we go:

the originals all look adult. So much of the remake is kids playing dress up.

Zhao Liying and Lin Gengxin had insane chemistry; it was insane to such a degree that it gave their ship a huge following despite being, objectively, kind of a mess writing wise. Here, there is none between LYR and HYTT (also that forehead kiss omg. I was Team Yan Xun on my rewatch but even I melted completely there. Here...yeah whatever.) It's giving peak "Hey, I just met you, and this is crazy. No, you can't have my number, there is no maybe."

Let's talk acting. Or lack of the same. Li Yunrui acts as well as Lin Gengxin did (or at least I am not cringing watching him.) I have already ranted about ZKL's frozen model face so let's talk about HYTT. Now, Zhao Liying is a big deal but even when we compare HYTT to your average decent performance, I am going ???? because she seems to think bugging eyes means emotion.

This scene was the culmination of the entire drama in PA and the reason it worked was because we watched these characters make choices and have the world deprive them of choices, all to lead to this confrontation where love and friendship and damage and enmity merged. Here, we open with this so other than PA nostalgia, I should care...why? Maybe if it was more emotional but as is...

It's very much that whole "we got McDonalds at home" meme in drama form.

PS The main thing it's making me want to do is to rewatch Shen Li.

[kdramastuff]

[cdramastuff]

[cdramastuff]

Yesterday, a day before the release of Rebirth, Ice Lake trauma came back to me in horrible flashbacks. I remember dreading the finale weeks before it happened, and the feeling of hope slowly leaving me as the final episodes aired one by one. How people went from joking about the show probably ending at that exact scene to accepting impending doom while trying to distract themselves with the happy chapters from the books. How the leads were destroyed even worse than the viewers. That shit had me crying for weeks before the final episode and then for weeks after, and I literally had nightmares about Chu Qiao treating Yuwen Yue like shit for no reason at all. Princess Agents' finale fiasco is the prime example of "You had to be there". Extending episodes and filling more than half of screen time with recaps then cutting scenes of the leads to promote side characters, Zhao Li Ying not being aware that the show would end at that very point in the middle of the book and then crying for hours after shooting the scene, and company stocks plummeting after the outrage following the finale. They had to apologize and state that they did that crap to leave material for the second season, which never had a chance to happen with the origin cast. I don't think there's any way to describe what I felt when the screen went dark and the credits started rolling right after Yuwen Yue drowned in that shitty lake. Usually, when there's a crappy ending, one is disappointed and somewhat angry. That show left me hurt and feeling terrible for the cast, and their interviews made the grief even worse. I took it very personally.

Now that I finally decided to see what kind of discussions surround Rebirth, it's mostly people who haven't been through the horror of the original series hoping for no romance between the leads because of the age gap. And seriously, no romance, in the sequel starting from the Ice Lake, the point where the heroine finally realized how horribly she fucked everything up (the series made her choices come off extremely unreasanoble, so much so everyone felt bad for the dude, in a female-centric show). Honestly, the fact that they cast a 17 y.o (at the time of filming) as the warworn general who is about to embrace romance with the man she considered her enemy, now that she lost him and finally figured the things he did for her all along. Deciding not to focus on romance between the main couple and focusing on ending war and getting rid of slavery could make sense, but not after the shit the original series put the viewers and original cast through. Since everyone was left devastated and hoping to see the united kingdoms / marriage / kids, all that jazz, the sequel / another adaptation / starting from the 'iconic' Ice Lake has no way to go around the romantic side of the story. And here we are, with a 17 y.o. paired up with a man 10 years older. In a show that will go further than the one where the leads were that one couple of hot 28 year olds with such extreme chemistry and charisma that made everyone overlook literally all flaws of the production and be glued to the screen till the bitter end.

So I clicked on the first episode. And, as promised, it does show the freaking Ice Lake at the very start. I was relieved to know that the scene with the new cast made me feel nothing at all and didn't hurt me one bit. Based on the trailer, I know the show is going to retell the previous events as well. But. I can honestly tell, I want nothing of that. This is seriously such a weird project to me. It did remind me of the insane ensemble of the original series. How can one ever compete with THAT. I know, this new show is supposed to be a better adaptation of the books, as there's rights to the books, the writer is involved, and the characters get to keep the book names. But. Turns out I'd rather keep a shitty adaptation ending at ice lake with THAT cast, than move on further with the new one. Also, if we are redoing everything with new names and new angle, why do we even start at ice lake.

[cdramastuff]

This coat is both thick and heavy. I don't want to wear it. But I have an idea, which can keep both of us from the cold.

[cdramastuff]

Wang Duo on the set of The Blossoming Love.