[Mainland Chinese Drama 2018] The Rise of Phoenixes 凰权·弈天下

[skibbies]

36 minutes ago, dito said:

 

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夢裏不知身是客

夢裏不知身是客

“打算給我什麽樣的死法？”幽沉大殿昏暗燈火下，她雙手撐桌，將一張笑意嫣然如迎風薔薇的臉直直湊到他麵前，“鴆酒？白綾？背土袋？賜刀？”

“你想要什麽樣的死法？”他自斟一杯，動作穩定，清冽酒液微微傾斜，倒映那女子迷蒙眼神……多少年她活得雲遮霧罩，到死都不願被他看清。

“怎麽痛快怎麽來，我是說，對你。”她笑，溫柔挽起袖子，向他攤開手掌，“讓賤妾最後伺候您一回吧。”

他笑一笑，薄唇一抹譏嘲弧度，漫不經心將酒壺酒杯交給她。

酒色碧如玉，皓腕凝霜雪，一線深翠自纖纖指間瀉落，落在白玉盞中琳琅有聲，四周很安靜，錦帳繡幔沉沉垂落，隔絕了世間一切喧囂。

包括宮闕玉階之下，近在咫尺的叛軍的呼嘯和廝殺。

屬於她的，叛軍。

那些硝煙和血氣仿佛被阻攔在很遠的地方，不入那兩人之耳，寂靜中他們仔細尋找聆聽彼此的呼吸……沉靜、安詳、幾乎相同的頻率，在金鼎香爐嫋嫋輕煙裏，曆曆分明而又抵死纏綿。

將酒杯在手中輕輕轉著，她低問：“不怕我下毒？”

“這座暗殿，多年來從無人進入。”他淡淡道，“而這壺酒，陳放在暗格之內，也從無人動過。”

“至於你……”他平靜的抿一口酒，沒有繼續說下去，眼神冰刀一般劃過，那笑意是刀尖上的寒芒，不動聲色。

她無聲笑笑，出神端詳自己的手指，從被騙入這座密殿開始，她已經經過了天下最懂毒的藥師、最擅暗器的巧匠、最懂暗殺的殺手的重重搜檢，別說一顆毒藥，便是一根汗毛，如果不屬於她自己，也早已被撿了出去。

確實，此刻，沒人可以對他下毒，以翻轉這不利於她的局勢。

不過……

她淺淺笑起，眉梢眼角盈盈一彎，竟然是俏皮可愛的弧度。

“有沒有覺得胸悶？”天生帶著水汽的迷蒙眼眸望定他，霧氣後看不清她眼底真實神情，“有沒有覺得丹田刺痛？有沒有覺得逆血上湧，正在倒衝著你的氣海？”

他也望定她，臉色漸漸泛了微青。

“這密殿自從落成，重重護衛，確實沒有人進來過。”她負手踱開幾步，回眸笑看他，“但是，落成之前呢？”

他震了震。

那一年密殿初建，從圖紙設計到宮殿落成，他都未曾讓她插手，隻是在完工後，帶她進去看了一眼。

猶記當時，集英殿前梨花落如輕霜，她銀色裙裾輕快拂過月輝皎潔的地麵，旋一朵流麗燦爛的花，月色花影裏她扶著廊柱含笑回首，他瞬間被那恬然笑意擊中。

彼時，情意正濃。

便是在那樣飄散梨花清香的脈脈夜晚裏，便是在那樣雙目交視的微笑眼神中，她纖纖十指拂過酒壺下的暗格，布下多年後的暗殺之毒？

那一笑溫婉，那眼波嫣然，那梨花落盡裏攜手的溫暖，原來，都隻是幻夢裏一場空花？

他尚自沉浸於和她分享秘密的喜悅，她卻已不動聲色為將來的生死對立留下伏筆。

原來，她從來都是他的敵人。

不知道哪裏在痛，又或者哪裏都沒有痛，隻是有些什麽東西，琉璃般的脆裂，隱約間似乎聽見“哢嚓”一聲，不知道哪裏碎了。

相遇不過大夢一場，你我皆是過客。

緩緩抬起衣袖捂住唇，一點鮮紅染上衣袖，他目光沉冷無聲抹去，而她不知何時已背過身，背影挺直而纖秀，他注視那背影，突然覺得，有一句話，現在不問，也許就永遠沒有機會了。

“你……可有愛過我？”短短幾字，問得艱難。

她頓了頓，半晌回首，巧笑嫣然，吐字清晰。

“沒有。”

深殿內一陣窒息的空寂，長窗外一朵開得正豔的秋海棠，突然無聲萎落。

“好。”良久之後，他終於也笑了笑，傳聞中的容顏絕世，此刻笑起來竟也不比那萎落的花好看多少。

他不再看她，眼神卻已漸漸沉斂，突然輕輕拍掌。

隻是那麽清脆而淡定的一聲，大殿內餘音猶自嫋嫋。

遠處突然響起排山倒海般呼嘯，像是海浪在颶風卷掠下猛然豎起，厚重如牆般橫亙於金殿之前，刹那壓下步步逼近的殺戮之聲。

他微微笑著，不用看也知道，那些縱橫道路，那些宮闕角落，都會在那掌聲落下後湧出無數黑色暗流，那是他暗伏下的精英軍隊，會用閃耀寒光的百煉兵刃，迎上那些妄圖踐踏皇權，將血汙軍靴踏上玉階的叛軍。

事到如今，深情蜜意抵不過你死我活，而他二十餘年珍貴心意，再不能用來澆灌這朵帶毒的罌粟。

容得她翻覆到今日，也夠了。

“哎，我還是輸了。”她探頭向殿外看了看，語氣輕鬆，“真可惜。”

“是啊，可惜。”他輕輕咳嗽，咳出血絲，“你看，即使你多年前就留下了這著殺招，即使你要了我的命，可是你的大成帝國，還是注定要崩塌於今日。”

“沒關係。”她笑，“能和您共死，就是我的榮幸。”

他看定她，她笑容婉約一如初見，他掉開眼，五指一緊，掌間玉杯砰然碎裂。

鮮血涔涔裏他漠然對著空氣道：“來人。”

大殿四角立即鬼魅般閃現數條人影。

她抬眼一瞥，平靜轉身，密密長睫垂下，遮住晦暗變幻眼神。

那些難以出口的秘密，便隨這一身長埋吧……

聽得身後他語聲清涼，字字斬金斷玉。

“帶她下去，押入暗牢，三天後……”

他閉上眼。

“淩遲。”

 

http://big5.quanben.io/n/huangquan/2.html

 

Reading it again now....I don't think its FZW and NY...correct me if I'm wrong...

Hahahha it actually IS an excerpt from the last chapter. I guess it does encapsulate their relationship pretty well.

[Liting1]

Hello! I haven't followed up on this drama but this is disappointing news for those who are hooked! Just a heads up! 

 

 

[skibbies]

I came to say that too! They've been doing hilarious massive cuts since ep 2x (it was minor cuts before), the ratings actually went up because the slow beginning were paying off/tighter latter arcs. I've never actually watched their prime time slot before, yikes that editing and moving airing time. 7.30, 7.40, 7.50, 8.00, 8.10, 8.20, 8.30. (partially due to CCTV news, partially because that's just how they do things). Most of their dramas this year haven't been doing as well as they hoped. TRoP did bottom out though.

[pristineqi]

2 hours ago, Liting1 said:

Hello! I haven't followed up on this drama but this is disappointing news for those who are hooked! Just a heads up! 

 

 

 

 

I grew to like the storyline, plot n the OTP alot.

[tendrilsofwind]

I installed this unblock youku chrome extension to watch the dvd version on iqiyi. I caught an episode of the tv version one day and the cuts were so bad. From what I hear, the netflix version will be the most complete out of the three because there won't be government censorship. 

[Liting1]

7 hours ago, pristineqi said:

 

 

I grew to like the storyline, plot n the OTP alot.

If you have Netflix, you are able to watch the full episodes since they bought the uncut version. 

[ForgottenSoulx]

15 hours ago, skibbies said:

@Wotad Maybe spoiler that? since not everyone would want to know novel ending.

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That's the thing, It ends up being romance-centric at the very end, but it's not that they didn't do other stuff. I don't particularly like "forced happy ending" which this kind of seem like, but when I got to the end, I kind of didn't care and I just want them to be happy lol. Being an emperor means a lot of responsibilities and having to answer to a lot of people. They did that, for like most of the book (doing stuff for other people). I mean Ning Yi started out being power-hungry but at some point he changed, and getting power was just a means to keep her safe and have her be free and do what she wants. (because his dad wants her dead)

 

She needed to die for people who want their kingdom back to stop. If she dies, there's no more figurehead. Ning Yi dies because he can't actually marry her, he couldn't before because she was the enemy, and if he forced it, she wouldn't be happy. So he made do with uphelding the promise to travel with her and see the world. Also because lot of books have people being emperor and empress and it can feel overly idealistic. (Fuyao ends up as the empress for example, but Fuyao as a character is even more mary sue than Zhi Wei)

 

 

nothing i said is spoilers that's my thoughts 

 

Hello! I haven't followed up on this drama but this is disappointing news for those who are hooked! Just a heads up! 

 

im not sure this romance drama will do much better tbh

[mrsj3n]

They gonna cut from 70 episode to 56 episode???

Will there be a proper ending like that?

ARGH!

 

I hate to invest so much time to watch a drama to have it cut and have a weird ending!!

 

I'm starting to hate the 7th Prince.

Omg 

Why is everyone so scheming??????

 

[mrsj3n]

Sigh... with this episode..

Spoiler

 

My heart breaks... 

My eyes red... 

 

I'm broken.

[mrsj3n]

Aargh!!!

 

DVD version and TV version has so much difference. 

 

Tv version is up till 54 episode. Does that mean that they will wrap up by 56?????????

 

DVD version is episode 46 and so much was not aired on tv!!!!!!

 

I wonder how much have I missed and I'm not willing to rewatch it now! Aargh!!!

[skibbies]

They edited out a lot of scenes to finish airing by ep 56 yeah. That's why I've been rec'ing the DVD version.

[CatWhiskers]

Can someone kind hearted please PM me the DVD link. I only have the TV link to watch and it is irking the hell out of me. The cuts are horrid! What a disgrace to the whole team who put in so much effort!!!

[mrsj3n]

2 hours ago, CatWhiskers said:

Can someone kind hearted please PM me the DVD link. I only have the TV link to watch and it is irking the hell out of me. The cuts are horrid! What a disgrace to the whole team who put in so much effort!!!

Yeah. I felt cheated and horrified that they decided to shorten the story just because of low ratings.

I'm a fan of the story although some parts do irk me but it did not stop me from watching!

 

@skibbies that's so annoying!!! Everything is rushed now. 

[skibbies]

2 hours ago, CatWhiskers said:

Can someone kind hearted please PM me the DVD link. I only have the TV link to watch and it is irking the hell out of me. The cuts are horrid! What a disgrace to the whole team who put in so much effort!!!

Try unblock youku extension to get pass the region restriction and search 天盛唱歌 dvd on iqiyi? I think videos have been taken down left and right by netflix.

 

Hunan TV is used to being rating king and they've been doing pretty badly this year, so I think they want to rush for another drama or two to have something to show for at the end of the year. I've been incredibly annoyed by their editing for weekends, in what world is 16mins an acceptable length? Oh well, it's for the best. Hunan TV fans have been mocking this drama for its low ratings since its broadcast.

 

The next drama might do better since it has a lot of melo elements that keep people watching, but good god why does a contemporary show need 70 episodes too, wtf?

[mrsj3n]

@skibbies I still think it is an insult to the actors and actresses to have their hard work cut short just because of poor ratings.

 

It's definitely not a drama for everyone but it is not that bad. 

It's just like a cuisine that needs slow cooking to get the flavour and be enjoyable for people who can appreciate. 

[tendrilsofwind]

Guys with the recent episodes out, I am going to allow myself to hope for a happy ending. The DVD episodes have been straight fire this entire week.

 

Spoiler

There's only nine episodes left and I know we all saw that scene with Ning Yi and Feng Zhiwei together where he has a mustache. He doesn't even have a mustache yet!!! This means that the mustache scene is way towards the end where they are happy. Furthermore, with the introduction of the older brother, that whole avenge your country burden is somewhat alleviated. 

 

 

[mrsj3n]

The recent episodes have made me more confused than ever to be honest.

 

 

[etelou1]

On 9/11/2018 at 6:01 AM, mrsj3n said:

Aargh!!!

 

DVD version and TV version has so much difference. 

 

Tv version is up till 54 episode. Does that mean that they will wrap up by 56?????????

 

DVD version is episode 46 and so much was not aired on tv!!!!!!

 

I wonder how much have I missed and I'm not willing to rewatch it now! Aargh!!!

Nope, Pretty sure this drama goes into the 70's before it ends...

Spoiler

Her mom and brother dies at the 50 episodes mark so there's more story to be told 

 

ONE MORE DAY UNTIL IT SHOWS UP ON NETFLIX!!!!!....

[MikiRei]

On 9/11/2018 at 8:01 PM, mrsj3n said:

Aargh!!!

 

DVD version and TV version has so much difference. 

 

Tv version is up till 54 episode. Does that mean that they will wrap up by 56?????????

 

DVD version is episode 46 and so much was not aired on tv!!!!!!

 

I wonder how much have I missed and I'm not willing to rewatch it now! Aargh!!!

 

Yeah. Hunan TV has decided to cut its losses - DESPITE the fact that ratings have been rising back up again. 

 

They've condensed it even further to 56 episodes. 

 

I've been following the DVD version which is the uncut 70 episode version (though I heard it was originally SUPPOSED to be 100 and to get it approved, they cut it to 70 episodes) so I really don't care either way. 

 

They've cut WAY TOO MUCH in the TV version - it really isn't worth watching. Just stick to the DVD version. 

[MikiRei]

So I'm now up to episode 58. I thought I'll give my 2 cents. BTW, by episode 58, I mean the DVD version which is the version I've been following since day one. I didn't bother with the TV version. 

 

Firstly, I've never read the novel. I only started reading the novel after started following this drama. 

Secondly, I know NO ONE in this show. I literally found this after doing a search for more period dramas after watching Fuyao. My mum was watching Yangxi at this point but I was a bit sick of concubine dramas so wanted to find something else and found this on a list of most anticipated drama. The trailer looked good and it was using original voice, not dubbed over, so that excited me and here I am. 

 

Starting with the pros of this show. 

1. Acting is top notch. I love the little details each actor added to their character - particularly the emperor. Him periodically picking at his own ears or when he gets agitated and waving his subjects out of the room. Chen Kun and Ni Ni being able to convey all their emotions through little movements with their hand, or tiny twitch in their facial expression. I can't get enough of it. I enjoy the acting immensely. Even the supporting actors are top notch. 
    
2. 3D characters and character growth. The fact that the antagonist is not truly evil or that the protagonist is not truly good, it truly reflects that humans are complicated creatures and there are multitude of reasons why people end up doing what they do. 
    
3. Language. Some people complained about this , that it's TOO classical Chinese in its dialogue that people find it hard to follow. This is coming from viewers within China which DEEPLY confuses me. While Mandarin is my mother tongue, it's more a secondary language to me at this point since I grew up in an English speaking country. I haven't even attended primary school in a Chinese-speaking country and I still have no trouble following the dialogue. Once or twice I did have to rewind to read the Chinese subtitles and think about it and then realised what was going on but other than that, 95% of the time, I'm following. To me, the language and the dialogue adds extra atmosphere to the setting. I didn't mind this
    
4. The second guessing. Everyone's plot are never iron clad. Human minds are hard to read. This show really depicts just how difficult it is to exercise and expand control politically. 
    
5. Elements and details in the show you never thought too much about only to become immensely important further down the line
    
6. High production value. The costume, the set. Also, the make up. This is the first show that I'm not rolling my eyes when I see the girl trying to dress up as a guy. Zhiwei specifically thickened her eyebrows and all attempts were made to flatten her chest so it's as flat as possible. Her disguise is A LOT more believable. Having said that, it's not ironclad. Yeng Huaishi saw through it straight away and it was such a breath of fresh air. 
    
7. No dubbing. I cannot stress this enough. I feel like when they dub over the ENTIRE drama, it's really to hide the fact that the actors are not THAT good. In this show, there's really no hiding. In fact, the little noises the actors make adds to the characters. 
    

Cons:

 

1. The plot is a little too linear. Yes, you heard me right. The plot is a tad too linear. You can literally divide each main arcs into individual arcs e.g. Crown Prince arc, Second Prince arc, Minhai arc, Jinshi arc etc. That's fine but what I find as we went from one story arc to the next is it starts getting a little boring. If we look at how successful Game of Thrones is in its storytelling is that there are MULTIPLE arcs happening in parallel and that makes the "game of thrones" (and this show is its own game of thrones) even more complicated, chaotic but strangely, very realistic. Not everything follows in a linear pattern that starts and ends in its defined spot. 
   
   I felt that if they have interwoven each of the arc more tightly together, or some in parallel so that some interesting characters aren't only introduced WAAAAAAY further down the series, the plot would have been tighter. 
    
2. Too little romance. I literally wait and savour every single sweet moment we get between Ning Yi and Zhi Wei. Also, the novel had A LOT of source material that the show could have used  for the romance that would have caused way more fireworks. Perhaps some of the material in the novel was a little too raunchy for Chinese censorship, but still, I thought they could have balanced the political games a lot better with the romance that the audience were looking forward to 
    
3. And since we're talking about straying away from the source material, it's not like I didn't like the changes they made. I actually do like the changes they've made. (The source material had elements of modern age people ending up in the story and there were some really stupid parts like the scroll with the 3 hardest questions turning out to be stupid BuzzFeed like questions from the modern age. No, literally). It's just that the show could have used the source material's fanbase as leverage for marketing and extra viewership but by straying too far from it, they've alienated what would have been an easy fanbase and hence, higher ratings.
    
4.  The story started to lose a bit of steam towards the end. It almost feels like somewhere through the production, they were forced to make cuts and it looks like they started cutting more and more towards the end. What really disappointed me was 
   Spoiler

   the Minhai arc. Up till then, there was such big build up on just how hard it is to get rid of the Minhai governor. Was so anticipating a final showdown and yet, Minhai governor gets killed off randomly by his own sons. 

    

   Then his sons turned out to not really be THAT smart and gets killed off easily as well. Was a bit of a downer. Not to mention Hwachong randomly appeared and just.....Is there. Yeng Hwaishi is never heard of again. The novel goes into them two quite a bit. But nothing. It's like something's cut. Feels like the Minhai arc was really there to finally put some romance in and as a segway to reveal Zhiwei's identity. 

    

   But then, it's episode 58. There's less than 20 episodes left. When are they going to utilise Zhiwei's identity? She's the princess of the previous dynasty - that's it? NOTHING is going to come out of this? 

    

   Having said this, the few episodes where Zhiwei's identity was called into question were probably some of the best episodes and finest examples of acting I've seen. 

    

   The scenes between the emperor and Xing Zhiyeng were some of the tensest scenes ever.

5. Certain characters being introduced that SEEMS to mean they will play an important role somewhere down the line...and then never talked of again. Certain plot points that SHOULD be more important.....and then never talked of again. It's like they had TOO many ideas and at one point, and couldn't resolve all of it. Or were forced to cut some of it.

 

So anyway, that's my take. I suppose I'll re-evaluate once the series finish. I still say this is still one of the best period dramas I've seen so far. It's not perfect, but I wish there were more Chinese dramas with such a high quality production value. And also, can we PLEASE stop dubbing? I really can't stand it.