mookiehyun

If one only relies on weibo for casting 'news', Loverboy is the sizzling piece of holy Tang-monk meat everybody exc TR wants a bite.  All we know for sure is he's chilling back home in Wuhan, spotted partying everywhere in fanpics all over weibo and 'reading scripts' after Mulan wrapped. His name is popping up in every drama under the sun in preproduction. The most ridiculous being Goong 3: FengMi+HongShi r mentioned in same breath as the main quartet MUAHAHAHHAHA.  Then there's the up in the air one of Hawick, YaYa, YH transplanting to a modern TongHua adaptation (really I can count 2 or 3 or 4 TH adaptations in production atm GEEZ)now that the censor bureau is cramping down on period 'non-historicals' making Lonely Spring Court a possible no-go.  There's one potential pairing I'm praying to happen, even for the evil stepmom of a writer Fei Wo Si Cun's East Court (Sealed with A Kiss WTFery will never be easily forgotten here): YH + Wang ZiWen, an up and coming U25 C actress I'm keeping a very keen eye on.  She's still under the radar but with the smartest resume amongst her peers, popping up in EVERY genre possible, her work portfolio has the greatest balance of serious and trendy; silly popular idol vehicles, critically acclaimed blockbusters and indie artsy gems.  If u've asked me, she would've kicked LSS to the curb as RuoXi because there's a vivacity firing under her demure looks,  the often talking point of SS' sore lack of.  Wang's eyes, even with those horrid circle lens can wax poetic.



She earned some serious brownie points as a noob in Sheng Si Qiao/生死桥 (Lit. The Bridge of Life and Death), a drama adaptation of my favorite Lilian Li novel growing up.  She is DanDan, a fav character of mine in all of Lilian's novels. Needless to say I'm harsher than normal when watching and was prepared to jump at any stabbity chance.  She's green in it and wearing circle lens in a period drama is my HUGE peeve, but she's got the aura of the character pat down, impeccable casting by PD all around.  And what a seriously true to novel adaptation!   It's one of the best drama adaptations of any piece of novel I've seen in Cdrama,  even with new characters added on and filling plots out to enrich a full length drama epic.  The dedication and perfection in every painstaking detail in adaptation was only seen in the rare BBC masterpiece equivalent.  That said, it's not for entertainment, it's super angsty, no glimmer of rainbow for ANY of the characters,  tbh many times you'd wished them killed and RIP instead of living the hell.  At times it's draggy, bare in histrionics, brilliant ladyPD has no care of pacing it for an easier catchy watch, putting all her eggs in the basket of reviving the time and place and the fine artistry of Peking Opera.  RL artists are allowed to showcase real performances, often most of an act of opera.  The supporting cast is a list of the who's who of living national treasures.  It's a feast for the eyes with any care to historical accuracy, and for an art geek, it's glorious crack. I need a rewatch.



She's scene stealing most lately in the Great Magician, the sly-est political satire cloaking under the slapstick farce, a true storytelling 'magic' trickery.  She's the prettiest of the cast, esp when Zhao Xun is unbelievably haggard to play the love of their llives of both Tony and Sean.


I watched an episode of ZJZ's New Journey to the West 2011 last night.  It's not as headdesky as I thought in content, but severe acousticophobia alert: ZJZ is using his bloody inappropriate background music LOUD and 24/7 EVERY FkING SECOND OF THE EPISODE. EVERYYYYY! Lord, have mercy.  There are dense text st fr the classic, then the remaining lines r too modern, typical.  One of ZJZ's 'strength' is he's going to 'dramatize' any book clunkily page by loyal page.  There won't be much editing/adapting the dry text into a proper screenplay.  It's not an issue here, I'm just saying out loud.

Guess what this is:

The main issue:  Art direction and CGI are HORRIBLE (above: Cow Demon)  This looks exactly the same as things 30/40 yrs ago.   $1 billion RMB and u r giving us this crap?!?!?! I wasn't expecting anything, but hope u have pages of excuses for ur bankers, ZJZ.
Despite it all, I may still continue, for the insane amount of big star cameos! FSF has never looked more smashing and I've heard he's doing an endearing job with his role as the mystical hero, 3rd eye all seeing Erlang Shen.  He can be Pegasus Seiya in this get up. I approve!


In other news: me gusta HXM as the Legendary Sung hero General in the movie The Patriot Yue Fei:


This is no longer news: Peter Ho is BAMF!Hot in blood and grime.



And the armory of ovaries-bursting, he can be a toad underneath but still hot:

This is the Han Xin,  Duan YiHong: he's a household name in CN, but you'll have him staying close to your heart after ChuHan


The Consort Yu played the mistress/spy in the last stretch of 3Kingdoms, I don't get GaoXiXi's taste in his ladies, she's too ordinary plastic for me:

but they do look OTP-ish here: