sideblog on my media consumption journey. mainly chinese and korean stuff, but can get pretty random. i had an archival plan and now i'm just winging it. if i can't find that gifset, i make it myself. main @theslowesthare
The First Jasmine has engineered a male interest who is stalking his girl and it's unequivocally the healthiest and most necessary thing he could be doing
i don't think people asking for duan xu becoming immortal understand what she show is about. i know the ending of the book, whether they follow it or not is a different matter but the ending where they live forever in the spirit realm is completely off the table.
the whole show is about simu being technically in stasis until she meets duan xu. she is a shade, she has no love, no joy, no colors in her existence, she doesn't live, she just exists. and she hates it. that's why she loves and literally takes vacations in mortal world. she loves living things. the whole point is that people she loves leave her, her 22 lovers, her parents, people die and she doesn't, she just keeps going and that's fate she wouldn't wish on anyone.
the spirit world arc wasn't just about simu being afraid that duan xu loves her but she was driving him away because she didn't want to trap him in her world. he is her ray of sunshine, she doesn't want to trap him in her darkness - literally what yan ke did to her and she hates him for it.
These two continue to destroy every party they attend, including their own engagement. Absolute power couple with devastating side-eye (I know, I know, they never start it, but they do end it)
It's the biennale Love Like the Galaxy rewatch in this household and it still hits all the right spots! If anything it's better - all the crumbs they spread all come together when secrets unfold. The last few episodes were rough but not last-quarter-of PoJ rough.
Niaoniao's freak being matched by Zisheng is everything.
Because it was confusing in the novel and somehow more confusing in the drama, this is what happened in Pursuit of Jade (spoilers, obviously):
Wei Yan was in love with a childhood friend and was supposed to marry her. She suddenly married into the palace as a consort (Novel: this was because her cousin, the empress, was losing power to another consort so they sent her a cousin to help). He never had an affair with her, but this is the only woman he ever loved.
Wei Yan and his brother-in-law, Xie Zheng's father, were friends with the crown prince. The crown prince already had a son, Qi Min, and because of this the line of succession goes Crown Prince - Qi Min - go back up the tree for other sons of the emperor. However, the emperor has been favouring another prince recently and he can always switch crown princes. So Wei Yan, when drunk, says, "Why not just replace the emperor?" This is treason, so bad idea.
Because of this threat, the former emperor frames Wei Yan. He drugs Wei Yan with an aphrodisiac first. It seems like Wei Yan slept with a maid instead of his One True Love, but the emperor still pretends the consort is pregnant. The emperor starts interrogating the consort.
Wei Yan and Xie Zheng's father are supposed to defend a city from another attacking nation. General Xie is already there with the crown prince, Wei Yan is bringing food/reinforcements. Wei Yan hears about what is happening with the consort and turns back, but he gives Fan Changyu's father, Wei Qilin, the tiger tally so that the troops and food will still arrive.
The Sui family claims the tally is fake. The city falls, General Xie dies along with the crown prince, all the blame is pinned on Wei Qilin. Back at the capital, Wei Yan realizes this is all a plot to kill/impeach him. The consort lets herself die in a fire in an attempt to save Wei Yan. Wei Yan goes scorched earth and kills everyone, deposes the emperor, and installs a puppet baby emperor, Qi Sheng.
In the chaos, the crown princess, afraid that Wei Yan will kill her son too, sets the palace on fire and burns Qi Min's face and then hides him in the Sui family. The real Sui kid is dead.
At this point, Wei Yan's #1 priority, besides having All the Power, is keeping the consort free from blame. So he lets all the blame fall on Wei Qilin, who fakes his death and takes the identity of the dead Fan son. Wei Yan's sister, Xie Zheng's mom, realizes that she knows too much, so to save Xie Zheng, she commits suicide. Now she's not a threat and she hopes Wei Yan will keep her son alive (he does).
Wei Yan marries his already-pregnant wife and claims Wei Xuan as his own, but he's not his child and he prefers his nephew, Xie Zheng (though this preference doesn't mean he's nice at all. In the novel he lets Wei Xuan torment Xie Zheng pretty severely, probably to "toughen him up" or whatever, we see this in a flashback in the drama.)
Everything is basically chill for 17 years.
Xie Zheng takes back the city his father lost and kills all the citizens of the other country within it. This is 1:1 revenge, it's what the other country did to them, but that is why his reputation is so bad and why he's surprised that Fan Changyu praises him at his fake funeral.
The Sui family wants to rebel, and Qi Min, hidden within them, wants to use their rebellion to claim the throne for himself. The Li family also wants this so they can finally get rid of Wei Yan. The Sui family leak information to Xie Zheng in an attempt to drive a wedge between the two of them.
Xie Zheng starts to investigate the truth. Now this is where the drama was so strange and blamed Wei Xuan for the assassination attempt. It was Wei Yan in the novel. Let's just pretend he did it in the drama too because that makes more sense. Wei Yan is so desperate to keep his secret that he tries to kill his own nephew to bury the truth.
Wei Yan, fearing the truth will finally get out, tries to kill the entire Wei/Fan family, as they are the last real witnesses. This is why assassins come for Fan Changyu. General He, who has been in very sneaky contact with the Wei/Fan family, receives the Letter of Evidence and they commit suicide in front of him to save their two daughters.
And I think that explains everything. So the Biggest Bad was the former emperor, who tried to frame Wei Yan. Wei Yan still sucks because he killed many, many people to keep his secret. Wei Qilin, Fan Changyu's father, was innocent. The Li & Sui families are guilty of attempted rebellion. Qi Min was the true heir to the throne.
In the little extra scene at the end: Wei Yan gets to try again, he marries his one true love and everything turns out better. In this version, Fan Changyu and Xie Zheng are jokingly betrothed from birth and end up together as before. I think the point of this extra was actually for the author to assure us that even if Xie Zheng had a happy childhood, he'd still be weird and intense.
Djimon Hounsou’s character in “The Longest Day in Chang’an” should’ve been dubbed by an African-Chinese (they exist!) person, not only for representation’s sake but also because Black people have distinct voices that other races don’t have. That’s my two cents.
I mean...the point of dubbing in drama is actually usually to homogenise accents and voices, not to create racial/locational distinctions. So...
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ETA: Okay just so I don't come off as being flippant about this. I honestly think that you have to manage your expectation regarding things like this in cdramas. Aside from their entertainment value, dramas are a tool of propaganda in a country like China, which is the reason why censorship is a thing and there is such a controversy around Zhang Linghe's pretty boy general image recently that even the CCP got involved. Why do you think CCP cares what fictional generals look like in a drama? Because it reflect the trends and definitions of masculinity in real life, and China does not want to create or convey an image of its men being in any way feminine, which is why CCP has to condemn pretty actors wearing make up playing fictional army generals in an idol drama.
Being aware of that, you can't expect this kind of racial/diversity representation, or even, for example, for a Hui actress to play a historical character like Consort Rong, because it goes against the messages that the government would like to promote. Yes, a drama like Longest Day in Chang'an is going to show the diversity of races that did historically exist in this period of the Tang dynasty, but that showcase of mixing races is more to serve the purpose of conveying how prosperous the Tang dynasty was (look how rich and powerful we were, even all these foreigners wanted to come and trade and live here), not to give opportunities and representation to actual racially-diverse actors, or to celebrate diversity in and of itself. Ethnic and racial diversity can exist in dramas because ethnically and racially diverse people have always existed, but they are more often than not played by Han actors (at least in terms of ethnically diverse characters) and dubbed by actors speaking standard accents, because the message is other ethnic groups are just lesser types of Han. Han supremacy and the assimilation/conforming of non-Han groups into Han identity is actually the point. This is why ethnically diverse actors like Dilireba rarely actually play non-Han characters. This is why they're not going to go accurate on the representation even in a drama where there is diversity like Chang'an, because the representation is not the thing that actually matters.
You can't expect more from cdramas than what they are allowed to be.
I have some coffee in my system so I’m going to add —
Han nationalism is literally one of CCP’s central policy. There was just a BBC article that mandated teaching of mandarin in regions like Inner Mongolia. Why? Because the goal is homogeneity and assimilation, so those regions do not declare their autonomy (Tibet anyone?)
What we deem in the West as toxic masculinity? Likewise a state policy. If Xi Jingping has an ideology, it is neo-Confucian traditional gender roles. He has consistently spoke about how he thinks women should focus on family, and the censors came out in 2021 along with the dan gai ban to condemn “sissy men.”
(Like also to curb the influence of South Korea in the mainland)
Why was harem drama banned in 2019? With CCP specifically mentioning Yanxi by name? It does not conform with the historical image of peace and prosperity that the CCP wants to project.
(The CCP also has literally been accused of genocide)
So — if people can’t get past these moral hurdles (which is perfectly fair), cdramas are not for you. There’s a saying in Chinese — 睁一只眼闭一只眼 — one eye opened one eye closed which means selectively ignore and honestly, you have to do that with cdramas.
(I’m also going to say one additional thing about Pursuit of Jade, or Zhu Yu. Of course, we will never know exactly what triggered CCP’s freak out but if we follow the above patterns, its popularity — exceeding the popularity of even a popular idol drama — IMO is likely the trigger. Add that to the fact that idol and traffic actor fandoms cultivate extremely loyal followings of young people. The CCP is sending a message — we are still the boss here.)
As someone who grew up in/ came from a different dictatorship that was also acclaimed for its art - there will ALWAYS be a message in any show, book, song etc approved by the government for publication in any serious dictatorship (and in that sort of set up it has to be approved by the government. Otherwise you get samizdat type situation and that is not going to be a big budget show) even if the message isn’t always full on propaganda of X stuff but “merely” reinforcing or not going against X point of view. Any push back or rebellion you are going to see will be on the margins at best and/or very creative unless it’s something so niche and tiny the govt doesn’t know exist.
That is something that drives me mad when I see people who I think never lived under absolute rule ignore. You can’t go yolo! This is not how dictatorship works. My grandmother knew someone who got sent to a labor camp because he was a newspaper proofreader who missed a typesetting error that turned the dictator’s name into an insult. China isn’t nowadays the type of place that far on that spectrum but this is the type of set up - you cannot get away with what the government does not approve of. The end.
Not to derail this even further from the original ask but @dangermousie your point about how you can't just go yolo in these systems got me wondering if Lust Caution was ever sanctioned by China or was an entirely foreign/Taiwanese production. (Go read the Controversy section.) And it turned out, yes, Lust Caution was a joint production with Chinese film companies, and distributed in the mainland by Chinese companies. This means that the idea of the film was originally at least accepted by filming authorities in China.
But the film ended up being heavily censored, with even part of the ending edited, and the lead actress Tang Wei was completely blacklisted for years after the film's release. Yes, because of the excessive sex scenes, but more because she played a Chinese revolutionary who fell in love with a supporter of Japanese occupying forces and betrayed her cause for him. Notice that the actor playing the Japanese sympathiser Tony Leung was not blacklisted, whether because he's a man and a highly established actor to Tang Wei's newcomer status is debatable.
Regardless, at some point this production was approved to be produced by Chinese filming authorities, because they also shot in Shanghai which probably needed permission. The authorities would have seen the script with the sex scenes and the general outcome of the plot. But I would say as the film got more and more attention, particularly internationally, the need to exert more control became greater as well as the need to make an example of Tang Wei for playing a character who ultimately betrayed her country for a traitor.
The point is, even something previously tolerated can very quickly become intolerable - we see that now with every couple of years the rules of censorship changes seemingly on a whim - and (this is more important) punishment can, has, and will happen, also seemingly on a whim. So really you'd think 20 years later, what happend to Tang Wei wouldn't happen again but you don't actually know that, so artists really can't just go yolo.
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