Okay, this post is to thwart the heavy hands of censorship and bring more publicity to the efforts to silence art. C-dramas have been on a fantasy, wuxia, and xianxia (combo of the two) novel adaptation kick for the last decade that it’s no wonder the last few years productions have start tapping into BL novels in those genres. BL (boy love) is exactly as the genre title says and has a huge following not just from the LGBT community but from straight women who love the bromance even if its actual romance. It started with BL mangas in Japan in the 90’s and has really spread out to all written genres and BL fantasy novels take Chinese fantasy history which is big on swordsman bromance anyways and crosses into romance. There have been about 50 BL novels adapted into C-dramas these last few years though every one has changed the BL aspect to male friendship, added female love interests, and kept the story line and world building.
The biggest BL novel adapted into a C-drama has to be 2019 hit The Untamed (陈情令 Chen Qing Ling) starring Sean Xiao (Xiao Zhan) and Wang Yibo. I only became a Sean Xiao fan recently from his singing side of his career so was planning to watch this soon. Fans of the source novel boycotted the drama after the core BL romance between the male leads was excised and random female pseudo love interests/supporting roles inserted, but the source story was so good and production did a great job with all else that the drama was a huge hit. Sadly The Untamed (and other BL source material dramas) may be no more as this weekend C-ent is reporting that the Chinese Broadcast agency is finally cracking down on BL adaptations even if it has no BL in it – ones submitted for approval will be denied, ones approved will need re-review, in production dramas are to be halted immediately, and finished airing dramas will be pulled from streaming. Dang someone has too much time on their hands.
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This is sad news. CCL is one of my favorite dramas. I have watched it multiple times and still can't get enough of it. I am a huge fan of Yibo and I love Xiao Zhan. After the success of CCL they have been shooting many BL dramas, I feel bad for the cast and the crew.
*CQL
would have something to do with Xiao Zhan's unintentional great scandal?
What scandal
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.scmp.com/magazines/style/celebrity/article/3075420/xiao-zhan-scandal-why-millions-chinese-shoppers-boycotted
It’s an absolutely fascinating read on the Chinese idol industry and CFs.
Lololol 10 months ago maybe but no, the dramas being targeted are way beyond dramas starring Xiao Zhan. Also it's been too long since the funniest scandal of 2020. It was watching an implosion in slow motion.
"Women who love the bromance even though it's actual romance" no we love it even more because it's not censored or some subtext queerbaiting and actually show diversity in our love stories. Is this your homophobia showing?
The Untamed does NOT have 2 female love interests. The love between the two male leads is pretty obvious actually. Koala you have a lot of misinformation. Please fact check before you write
Dear Mia, BL or its earlier derivation Yaoi was the rise in art form and genre I lived through. It's specifically written by women for women who want pure man-man romance with a genesis on the bromance of boys in high school or later extended to the swordsman in wuxia world. It's not homophobia to discuss the allure of the genre.
If you're looking for diversity in love stories, ask if you're as into girl love novels and dramas? If so then that's great! :-) I love diversity, but no sub-set genre of romance has as devoted and tight following as BL (over girl love, transgender romances, poly romances, etc.).
The Untamed does NOT have two female love interests. Please fact check before publishing
I said I didn't watch yet but reading the news there are female leads and the drama does not have the original novel BL element so I drew that conclusion.
https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv743735/
https://www.sohu.com/a/325353434_100261412
http://www.bajieyou.com/new/e12e903926fa4ce9b254cde32657eb89
There are no female love interests for either lead. There's a woman XZ's character sees exclusively as his big sis (and who is both married and dead at the start of episode one) and the only other female of their age is set up as a potential interest for XZ's brother like character. Neither XZ nor WYB's characters have any other love interests. The assumption here without fact checking calls into question the rest of the article, bc it's that blatantly wrong.
The two main women in the story have pretty clearly sisterly relationships with one of the male leads (and basically no relationship of any kind with the other). Both of them even have romantic attachments to supporting male characters, to underline it. Other than that, there's some passing flirting with a few relatively minor side characters, who either are or later get married to other men. So the main leads really have no female love interests at all.
Wait...aren't there some BL cdramas in production now though?
There are no romance with a female lead in The Untamed, the production actually tried their very best to make it as gay-coded as they can possibly get away with. They changed the script and honored the gay romantic love between the two male leads after the novel fandom threatened to boycott.
It's such a shame CCP censorship is at it again. The Untamed is a pretty decent adaptation of the source novel. Quite possibly the most popular and profitable LGBT fiction IP in the world so far.
"straight women who love the bromance even though it's actual romance" yeah i'm sure, lots of these kind of homophobic women visit this site as evidence by the homophobia I encountered in one of the Queen Cheorin post here
frankly, the love is not actually in the drama. I mean, they have subtlely but nothing comes off it, their friendship isn't even as dramatic or as beliveable than another character. WWX and his senior relationship is way better developed and sad rather than LWJ and WWX. The 3 friendship between people that end up in tragedy is the better love story.
I think it also because the acting isn't even that good.
I don't think it's that bad but it's mediocre and the fans keep deluding themselves with love story by expanding the drama to the fanfiction genre, it's not even that romance as a romance drama or even as friendhsip drama. Other drama has better "are they in love in 2 male friend character" better
Imagine being this deluded and obtuse that you cannot see the romantic love between the two male leads. The romance in The Untamed is more obvious and beautifully portrayed than some canon LGBT relationships in Western shows (which don't even have the problem of censorship).
I would like to be this privileged in seeing love portrayed in a drama that I think "fans are deluding themselves with the love story" when so many queer Asians can see the love story and feel deeply represented by The Untamed.
Cry more
There really are some obtuse people in this world. Some of my friends told me frankly that without me telling them about the novel and plot, they can't tell that the two male leads are supposed to be in love.
I don't think fans are deluding themselves, but the censored adaptation really leaves alot up to interpretation.
Well The post said they thought the other characters has better romance，the one three way is that blind swordsman stories which is between 3 guys. Rather than talked about the queer, it mostly just the drama is not that good.
Probably the acting. The main lead just not that good.
I knew Thai day was coming. All BL fans knew but still. FOL. ??
This**
An update:
In late 2020, the anime for the source novel of The Untamed (Mo Dao Zu Shi 魔道祖师) was pulled from all streaming in China. It likely portended what is coming.
https://k.sina.cn/article_6484011210_1827a28ca00100b85v.html
I really recommend watching it ASAP in case it’s pulled from international streaming services as well! It’s on Netflix and YouTube. HIGHLY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED from a person who doesn’t really enjoy xianxia or advocate for C-dramas all that often.