Cdrama Updates: There Was A Spirit Sword Mountain, Royal Nirvana, The Listener, Sniper

Hope everyone is doing well! I have one more week left to my vacation. Pants are getting tight now. LOL.

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Drama Updates: Sniper, My Roommate is a Detective, And the Winner is Love, The Chang’An Youth

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Movie Reviews: Legend of the Demon Cat (Cmovie, 2017) and Detective Chinatown 2 (Cmovie, 2018)

I visit the China Film Insider website ever so often to read about the latest movies and last month had read an article about how currently the most popular movies in China are those with “buddy love” storylines. I’d been noticing lately that a lot of the movies and series I have started to prefer as well have had a strong bromance and could see why they would do well.

Good examples of the bromance element can be found in Legend of the Demon Cat and Detective Chinatown 2. Because both movies are basically buddy cop murder mysteries and had a lot of common elements, despite taking place in different time periods and being different genres (historical drama versus modern comedy), I decided to review them together.

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Tribes and Empires: Storm of Prophecy Discussion Post Week 7: Episodes 73 – 75 “Finale.”

I’ve been reading a lot of discussion since the last post about Tribes and Empires running out of money (true!) and who’s to blame. A lot of rumors. It’s hard to say. This is director Cao Dun’s first venture into ancient fantasy series so he is ambitious and has an artistic vision and didn’t realize many costly things. It’s hard to entirely blame him because he’s well-loved by the cast and we were all wow-ed by the first trailer Tribes dished out. Weren’t we? At least now many realize a good drama isn’t just about the directing but a combination of directing, writing, and acting. Whether or not Huang Xuan’s scenes were cut, we can’t verify, but I did watch Zhou Zi Wei’s interview where he admitted that he shot the drama and then was told they could only give him so much and he replied that he didn’t need to be paid because acting out emotional turbulence like Shuo Feng in itself is a mark in his acting career. The opportunity cannot be exchanged for money. So everyone in the cast suffers in one way or another, not just any one actor.

If they are lucky to get funding for another season, let this first season be a good lesson for the production company about budget management (!!).

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Tribes and Empires: Storm of Prophecy Discussion Post Week 6: Episodes 61 – 72

So we only have one more week of Tribes and Empires totaling 75 episodes because they only shot up to Huang Xuan’s ascension to the throne. What will they do from here? I don’t know because it’s not a small project. The novel writer wrote on his weibo that he has big dreams for Tribes (on the level of Attack on Titan and Lord of the Rings) but the project lacks funding so he’s looking for ka-ching!

As of 12/26, the drama online views have hit 7 billions. 😀 Hunan has also sucked it up and will air Tribes starting 12/29 on TV.

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Entrepreneurial Age’s Official Trailer: Huang Xuan’s journey from nobody to somebody

I confess that I rarely finish a trailer for a modern Cdrama but I sat through it for Entrepreneurial Age, surprisingly not dog-blood and looks pretty good with plenty of close-up shots and wide-shots for background and beautiful scenery. Huang Xuan cleans up well in his successful days and Angelababy looks perfect in all her own scenes. Zhou Yi Wei has hair here, lol, opposite from his down-and-dirty look in Tribes, and he’s paired up with Song Yi. Waiting for crackling chemistry from both pairings!

Merry Christmas to all! ♥♥♥

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