[Current Mainland Chinese Drama 2019] Ming Dynasty 大明風華

[sssf]

54 minutes ago, Takingthehighroad said:

I am so disheartened with this drama's progression. Gosh, how I loved it in the beginning. But then I was excited about Royal NIrvana, too. 

 

I had thought that the son would return & become a benevolent ruler - where or where did I read that? The entire lineage of that family was toxic & cruel, to their own family & others ('cept for the one who only reigned a year, ZJ's father). I knew ZJ was cruel, too, but that wasn't really shown, reeling me in to what I thought was going to be a wonderful historical drama. Maybe it's the word "historical" that misleads me, especially in Cdramas. I always end up so disappointed from about midway on...

 

The part that moved me the most was when the two sisters were together & RW was reliving their childhood. I can say RW never swayed from her true self - she never quit loving her sister. That scene showcased Tang Wei & it was the only scene that moved me to tears in the whole drama.

Me too. I thought he would return and be kind and benevolent ruler but hope. He killed the one person who did the right thing Yu Qian. 

Yes I cried too with the scene between the two sisters. RW did all she could so that her sister could died peacefully. But how she aged was alittle odd too. Anyway this whole drama was all odd . 
 

I like TW but some of her acting in this drama was cringe worthy. 

[Le_Amarant]

3 hours ago, Pia-mia said:

Characters became so unlike their usual selves (for example: ZJ became a shadow of himself, crown princess became a hysterical grand empress dowager). Or, they were bad and became even worse (abusive SX and her doormat son, anyone?).

 

This. There was a lot of character assassination going on. ZJ's mother was a great mother-in-law and then after his death, she suddenly became an unreasonable shrew and nightmare MIL? RW and ZJ's son was a literal idiot, then a spoiled brat, and then an unhinged despot. I feel like the scriptwriters made characters do an 180 for the sake of having drama. There was no reason for RW and ZJ's son to be that terrible of a human being.

 

As for RW letting her sister slide - so she can let her sister do whatever with no repercussions, but RW is more than happy to sever ties with her son?

[Pia-mia]

12 hours ago, Le_Amarant said:

As for RW letting her sister slide - so she can let her sister do whatever with no repercussions, but RW is more than happy to sever ties with her son?

I also thought it was strange that RW would give up on her son when we have just seen 10 episodes of her trying to get him back. Is it that easy for a mother to give up on her child?

[Le_Amarant]

@Pia-mia  RW said that her son had turned bloodthirsty and "like his dad" (?!) and XB told her to stay away from her son and mused that perhaps they should've left him to die in enemy territory because it would be better for the nation to not have another bloodthirsty Zhu despot on the throne. RW also said a bunch of things to her son that made her come of as really resentful of ZZJ and the Zhu family.

 

I don't know what this drama was supposed to be about. The way the last few episodes played out changed my view of what the drama was in the first half. Now ultimately, the drama seems to be a super dark family saga that portrays how bloody and terrible the Zhu family was.

[sssf]

I think this might be the last post for this drama. As mentioned previously, I wasn’t really looking to watch this drama. But after some initial great reviews I decided to start. 

Once started, I was pleasantly surprised by the great acting by the lead roles (Grandfather, Crown Prince, his son and the 2 uncles and RW and even her sister). 
 

Early part of the drama was very engaging. It had the suspense, the comedy, the romance and the deception. I particularly liked the comedy mixed with the seriousness of the drama. Once again I thought the Grandfather and Grandson had such great chemistry and their acting was excellent. 

Then after they all died, the rest of the crew just couldn’t deliver the level of acting like the first half. It was as though there were 2 dramas in this (as someone previously mentioned). 
 

Anyhow my memory will be with RW and ZJ during the early stages just before they got married. 
 

Thank you all for sharing the journey of Ming Dynasty. 
 

ps : still so many unanswered questions left hanging 

[Pia-mia]

5 hours ago, Le_Amarant said:

@Pia-mia  RW said that her son had turned bloodthirsty and "like his dad" (?!) and XB told her to stay away from her son and mused that perhaps they should've left him to die in enemy territory because it would be better for the nation to not have another bloodthirsty Zhu despot on the throne. RW also said a bunch of things to her son that made her come of as really resentful of ZZJ and the Zhu family.

 

I don't know what this drama was supposed to be about. The way the last few episodes played out changed my view of what the drama was in the first half. Now ultimately, the drama seems to be a super dark family saga that portrays how bloody and terrible the Zhu family was.

The problem is that I just don't know where things were coming from. RW was entirely supportive of ZJ and his family from the beginning. When she was trying to pull him out of his stupor, she even said something like "you have me." It's hard for me to reconcile how she was 20 episodes ago and how she was at the end. The audience was shown that ZJ had reasons to take out his uncles. He only did so because they pushed him to his limits. RW made it sound like he did it because he could. How can she forget that her own sister contributed to the destruction of this family?

 

I've always been vocal about how much I like ZJ because his character was developed to be the male lead. If XB was developed to be the male lead, I may have ended up liking him instead. The point is that the show chose to go with ZJ and didn't really develop XB much at all. You just know that RW and XB had feelings for each other but there was so little to show that they truly had a deep connection the way RW and ZJ did. If the show wanted the audience to take XB as a serious rival to ZJ, XB should have been developed better as a character. 

 

I will be very cautious about reading synopses because the synopsis for this show gave me a totally different impression. The vibe I got was a story about a woman defeating the odds and finding her place in the world. If I had know that it would show how crazy people became and how miserably they died, I think I may have passed. 

[DMQB]

At the risk of crashing this thread, I ask where to watch this series.  It's listed in VIKI.COM (yes, I have a premium account), but says "no episodes".  I don't want to risk watching it on FallDrama.com, or similar, for fear of viruses.  Advice? 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

Diane 

[Le_Amarant]

@Pia-mia Do you think maybe ZJ's character was written to actually be a jerk but ZZJ's dynamite acting just completely changed the character for viewers?

 

Idk how else to explain it. The show is schizophrenic, that's what it is.

[Pia-mia]

2 hours ago, Le_Amarant said:

@Pia-mia Do you think maybe ZJ's character was written to actually be a jerk but ZZJ's dynamite acting just completely changed the character for viewers?

I think that’s a strong possibility. Although it was pre-produced, perhaps the show was continuously edited during airing when they saw the audience’s positive response to ZJ, leading to the problem of earlier events not correlating with later events, and ultimately the planned ending. Perhaps, we were supposed to be rooting for XB as RW’s true love and for RW to “escape” all along but actually got hooked on ZJ, so they gave us more ZJ. As mentioned earlier in several posts, there could have been two different teams doing the show, leading to multiple discrepancies. 

[Takingthehighroad]

4 hours ago, DMQB said:

At the risk of crashing this thread, I ask where to watch this series.  It's listed in VIKI.COM (yes, I have a premium account), but says "no episodes".  I don't want to risk watching it on FallDrama.com, or similar, for fear of viruses.  Advice? 

 

Thanks in advance for any advice

 

Diane 

YouTube has it but it hasn't been completely subbed yet. They do offer google-translated versions though until subbing is caught up. I personally only watched up until ZJ died & then only checked in occasionally. 

 

My drama-watching flaw is that I can't put aside what little I know of Chinese history. No matter the Yongle Emperor's intentions, no matter his contributions to history,  his actions only begot violence & betrayal. We can romanticize the history all we want but his offspring generations-down were just as cruel. It's such a mind-boggling part of history & also, eye-opening. But it makes one wonder about the "truthfulness" of some historians, since we know that Emperors took the initiative to only record what they wanted known. 

 

Zhu Ya Wen's superb acting kept me riveted to the screen for 40+ episodes. Once he left, the drama went abruptly downhill as well as my interest. 

[tamatriplej]

Hi, I'm new to this thread. Out of curiosity, I watched episode 63 and I regretted it   Still having a nightmare and bad day because of it   To ease my heartache I make a Fan MV for Zhan Ji x Ruo Wei couple. Not sure when it's going to be blocked on youtube. It seems it's very hard to find FMV of this couple. 

 

Here it is. Hope you guys like it

 

 

 

[PAISLEYTEAL]

How many episodes have been updated with better subtitles on youtube?

[roli]

I can only say: how disaponted I am with the writter and producers of this drama. Actors made the best efort for the story but a total fiasco....really mad about. I am not mad because of love story etc...I am mad because caracters and turn on the story it does not make sense or do justice to the caracters. Really disapointed. 

[Lovemymovies]

Can someone tell me what happened to the third uncle everyone died but i seen him leave with no more mention did i miss something google translation doesn't qite cut it but ill still watch and figure it out..