Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

Aha! Here’s the first big ancient drama of the year! Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities or used to be called Mirror Twin Cities (镜双城) has confirmed its broadcast date! It is based on the novel written by Cang Yue (Listening Snow Tower). It’s the first novel in her Mirror series. Persisting war in Central Plains forces optimistic Miao girl named Na Sheng to leave her home and wanting to escape the chaos of the world by going to an otherworldly fairy land, known as Desolate Clouds. During this journey, she meets many interesting characters, including our male lead, Su Mo, who is a blind masterful Puppeteer and carries around 2-foot high puppet he refers to as his brother, A Nuo. But is Desolate Clouds really a peaceful utopia as told from generation to generation? I guess not because what awaits our heroine is turmoil and bloodshed among many races and peoples.

Above is my quickie summary of the novel… and as you know…drama might be different. Viki Summary: In a world populated by powerful gods and warring mortals, two enchanted beings meet in a peace-filled realm: They are Su Mo (Li Yi Feng), a prince of sea gods, and Bai Ying (Chen Yu Qi), a princess and descendant of a mighty sword deity. They are immediately attracted to one another and begin on a romance, unaware that they are effectively crossing enemy lines and sparking animosity between two warring factions. Their actions anger other deities and Su Mo is eventually expelled from the realm. Overcome with grief, Bai Ying attempts to put her existence to an end by jumping from a magnificent pagoda.

However, three tender-hearted female deities intervene to save her from a cruel fate, although she falls into a slumber that lasts for years, leaving her father devastated. She eventually emerges, but under a brand new guise. When Su Mo becomes the sea emperor, he goes in search of his love – but fierce battles are raging in multiple realms, putting the future of both the sea world and the sword folk at terrible risk. Can they save their respective worlds – and can love bring them together once more?

Airing 1/16~

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  1. 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

    Wow, it’s been so long since Li Yifeng filmed an ancient drama!
    I’m so here for this! Yifeng looks wonderful as the Prince!
    I wanna know his beauty regimen — he doesn’t look much older than many years ago when he was Baili Tusu!

    So nice to see Zheng Yecheng and Liu Haikuan too.
    They’re really good actors who don’t get enough good roles, so I look forward to seeing them here.
    They look really handsome in the photos too!

    Will watch this drama for sure yay! 🙂

    • 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

      I was about to say, his styling reminds me of The Legend of Chusen. Lol.

      I do like the supporting cast members a lot!

      • 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

        Yes, you’re right — looks very much like Gui Li from Chusen! 🙂
        Yep the nice supporting cast helps a lot too.
        I don’t know anything about the original story, so I hope the script for this adaptation is good!

        The special effects and hair/costumes look quite nice…
        The sets and styling remind me of Ashes of Love (which was a great drama)…
        If the special effects look as nice as Ancient Love Poetry then I’m happy…

        • 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

          The script…

          Rattan’s author recently posted her dissatisfactions over how her novels’ drama adaptations, excluding the drama Rattan. Pretty much similar to novel fan and many viewer complaints. She didn’t mention scriptwriters or directors.

          A few professional scriptwriters took offense. One, in particular, kept on posting jabs. My impression from these posts is, “As long as my employers are satisfied, who cares about the viewers?” Netizens dug out this ratings of particular scriptwriter’s works – pretty much all around 5 out of 10. Some said that this is Mirror’s scriptwriter.

          Scriptwriters in China do face a lot of restrictions. They are also easily replaceable. This writer doesn’t have a good track record, but who knows, maybe…

        • 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

          Thanks Keekeepod for the information! 🙂

          I think it’s bad form for the scriptwriters to have bad attitudes to the original novelists, because without the story from the original author, there will be no drama adaptation of the work.

          I get that scriptwriters in China have many restrictions because of censorship, but this is no excuse to have a rude attitude and disrespect to the original author and the drama audience. The rude scriptwriters are basically biting the hand that feeds, because without the original author and the ratings from the drama audience, the scriptwriters will be out of work (if the dramas continue flopping).

          There have been many drama adaptations that respect the original work and respect the audience. Rattan is a good example since it wasn’t adapted by the original author, but did a good job and the audience response shows this.

          I’m feeling a bit wary about the Mirror Twin Cities drama now, especially since the scriptwriter has a bad track record…

          If anything else, at least I can watch the drama for the good-looking people, special effects, or even just listen to the nice songs like watching an MV…

        • 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

          Some LYF fans are “advising” novel fans to stay away from the drama because it will be very different from the novel out of “necessity”.

          Those angry scriptwriters seem to often look down on the IPs they are adapting. Reminds me of starving writers all over the world throughout the centuries wondering why their own masterpieces are ignored by the populous.

        • 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

          @keekeepod:

          Thanks for the warning! 🙂
          I guess I’ll just watch this drama without thinking too much about the script (I haven’t read the original novel so I don’t really know the original story anyway)…

          Mmm yeah I see what you mean about looking down on the IP — I’d thought the scriptwriters should have more respect for the work and the populace, but who knows what goes through their minds?

          Considering that the audience is the “paying customer” of the product (art, novel, film, etc.), it’d make more sense to keep that in mind, right? It’s like those blockbuster movies that do a lot of market research to cater for their target audience and then makes millions of dollars at the box office.

          If only the arrogant scriptwriters thought more about the audience instead of treating us like idiots, then maybe their dramas will get better ratings and then they can get better pay and projects. Series like Nirvana in Fire, Disguiser, and the more recent Ashes of Love had the original author consult or write the script, and these dramas got great ratings and made a LOT of money (and catapulted the lead actors to huge popularity).

          The Untamed was adapted by not the original author, but it stayed to the general spirit of the novel. Yes there were changes but with China’s heavy censorship, it was definitely a decent adaptation that made HUGE money and turned Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo into huge stars…

          Too bad the BL adaptations are fully banned now, because there were many upcoming dramas that I wanted to watch but unfortunately they’re not allowed to air anymore…

        • 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

          Other LYF fans are saying that this is basically an idol drama so viewers shouldn’t expect too much.

          Even without government regulations, production companies can choose to make their dramas drastically different from the IPs. They usually don’t reveal the reasons, often leaving novel fans confused, frustrated and angry.

          The Untamed wasn’t going to respect the novel. It did, eventually, because the script was leaked during production. This led to a huge novel fan uproar and a major PR headache for the company. The complaint went up to Tencent Entertainment president(?). Author threatened to revoke the licensing. Production company capitulated probably because they believed the cast didn’t have enough fan power to push the drama into a hit.

          Immortality was likely planning to lean more on lead actors’ fans than novel fans. This is all academic now.

        • 9 thoughts on “Mirror: A Tale of Twin Cities with Li Yi Feng and Chen Yu Qi confirms broadcast date in January

          Yep keekeepod I totally agree with you!

          I will always be thankful to the Untamed book fans for their great efforts that made Tencent take notice and fix the script. I heard that originally the production company wanted to break up Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji and pair Wei Wuxian with Wen Qing like WTF. I’m so glad that the original terrible script got leaked and the loyal book fans protested! Otherwise it wouldn’t be the nice version of Untamed drama that we got.

          Eh yeah, production companies often rely more on the lead actors star power to attract audience instead of respecting the value of the original work. They forget that it is the great story of the original work that inspire the loyal following in the first place! If they actually respect the work and the fans, then they already have a huge audience to support the drama. If they made the drama well, it will also attract new audience who want to see well-made productions with good story, direction, acting, etc.

          Unfortunately many studios just want to make quick money and think that crappy productions can achieve high ratings just by star power alone. Well if the leads are SUPERSTARS then maybe yes, but I’ve seen many examples of dramas with super popular actors but still get bad ratings because people don’t want to watch terrible dramas despite liking the actors…

          Yes I will often check out new dramas if I like the actors, but if the dramas are terrible I’ll drop them anyway because I rather spend time watching other well-made series. There are sometimes very good dramas that don’t get a lot of exposure because the actors are not so famous, but the script, direction, or acting is actually very good. Example being Love in Between which was a really decent drama (although they ran out of money half way through production and so some parts like the ending were very rushed).

          As for this Mirror drama, if it’s not too terrible, then I’ll keep watching because I’ve been on drama drought lately, but if it’s really bad then I’ll probably drop it anyway and wait for other dramas to air. I remember there were many ancient dramas being filmed last year so hopefully they will come out soon and then I can have some nice things to watch… 🙂

What do you think?