Filming Starts for Period C-drama Guardians of the Dafeng with Dylan Wang and Tian Xi Wei

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• Taking a novel and gluing a whole new character to it (and the FL at that) sounds like a recipe for disaster.

  • Koala isn't fluent in Chinese so you shouldn't 100% trust her news because she most likely get her news from random yxh accounts and articles. Tian Xiwei is playing Princess Lin An, who is definitely a character in the book. I also see no fight between fans for first billing because this is a male-centric drama like Joy of Life and Sword Snow Stride.

    • LOL. I think Koala's Chinese is way way better than everyone else visiting her blog. She translated the famous Chinese novel into English which is the original source for the high-profile Yang Zi's upcoming costume drama. You can even find her version of translation, Long Lost Forever, on this website, if I'm not mistaken.

    • I'm quite sure my Chinese is better than Koala because I've called out the wrong hanyu pinyin (it's Song Zu Er not Song Zhu Er, 祖zu3 is not pronounced the same as 煮zhu3）on her site a few times and she does report fake news and rumors a lot without a lot of discretion.

      That said it's no biggie and she may just be using Taiwanese dialect or speak non Standard Mandarin as a secondary language to English.

    • @Anon, Taiwanese use traditional Chinese, the real authentic Chinese characters. Simplified Chinese characters created by the CCP destroys all the beauty of Chinese characters and the inherent qualities. Who cares about Roman spelling of simplified Chinese? Using Roman spelling to judge if someone is good at Chinese or not is so ludicrous. All the antient Chinese literature was written and recorded in traditional Chinese, not the soulless simplified Chinese. To interpret many well written Chinese novels with plot setting in antient China needs good understanding of antient Chinese literature. People familiar with traditional Chinese actually have stronger background to do a better job. LOL

    • Are you familiar with Hanyu Pinyin? Simplified or Traditional doesn't matter, the word 祖 is pronounced as Zu3 not Zhu3. My own Chinese teachers from primary school and high school were Taiwanese and one would occasionally pronounce words with a Hokkien lilt (she says Fire as Fuo instead of Huo, haha) and it's understandble because I myself am Hokkien and have parents who speak dialect/imperfect Mandarin.

      Point is Koala's Chinese isn't Standard Mandarin thus she is not fluent in Hanyu Pinyin. You are being annoying with Taiwanese arrogant attitude that Taiwan is more traditional Chinese than China (religiously maybe, but does Taiwan have Harbin ice sculpting? Jingdezhen porcelain? Tea harvesting from Wuyi Mountains where Lapsang Souchong, Puer originate from? Hakka roundhouses? Goat herding? Yak butter tea? Beijing or Suzhou opera? It doesn't, because Taiwan mostly has Fujian immigrants and South Chinese immigrants do not encompass the culture of the entire China). That was the byline of the KMT authoritarian government under Chiang Kaishek who forcibly Sinicized Taiwan under martial law for 40 years during the White Terror. If Taiwan was so Traditionally Chinese and more Chinese than Mainland China why did they have to force Taiwan's Aborigines to adopt Chinese names (Amei, Alin and many other Taiwanese singers are aborgines with long non Chinese names) and execute a lot of Japanese immigrants who married Taiwanese people during the colonial era? It is all fake and a scheme to act more Chinese than China as if they can pretend to be the real China on the island of Taiwan, laughable. Did Chiang Kaishek shift the entire Forbidden City to Taipei or did he build an ugly replica museum that will never be listed on UNESCO world heritage sites even if KMT stole Chinese artefacts? Fact remains that Taiwan has 0 Chinese Unesco heritage sites like the Terracotta Army or Great Wall, and no matter how much Taiwanese folks claim they "preserve Chinese culture" there are thousands of security guards stationed at historical sites in China doing that, or Mainland archeologists poring over SanXingDui or other ancient tombs. Taiwan should focus on preserving their ancient Aborginal cultural sites like Sun Moon Lake and not claim to preserve Chinese culture because KMT cleared out the Forbidden City museum and fled to an island with all the gold from China's treasury, that's theft.

      Taiwanese hosts and actors talk in a 撒娇 act cute voice or add unnecessary non-standard exaggerated kawaii inflections like 不是啦!没有啦! 好可爱哦！ that are inspired by Japan.
      **As someone who wants to see Taiwan be independent, Pro-Taiwan folks must realize that if they want Taiwan to recognized as an independent country, they need to stop shilling Taiwan as the rightful government of Mainland China or the preserver of Traditional Chinese handwriting or values. Taiwan has its own aboriginal culture that has nothing to do with China and those aborigines got genocided (the same thing the West accuses China of doing to Uyghurs except Taiwanese Chinese also forced Aborigines into the mountains like Alishan hence some are called 高山人) by Chinese immigrants who forced them to give up land, learn Chinese, adopt Chinese names. Taiwan's culture was NOT Chinese to begin with, like how America wasn't European until colonization occured and forced native Americans to give up their language, religion, way of life. Also Taiwan used to be a Japanese colony for 50 years, Japanese influence irreversibly changed Taiwan and the infrastructure exists today. It's really disingenuous to claim Taiwan = Traditional China and that is mostly an old KMT marketing tactic to sell themselves at the UN as the rightful government of China in exile. The current DPP government is using the Aborigines as proof that Taiwan is not China and has nothing to do with China in its bid for independence.

    • Some people maintain a website because it’s a hobby but they have real lives offline so they don’t sit and check every little detail. Koala Unni has been writing for ages and the only blogger left who has been around since the beginning. The fact that you don’t know that not every Chinese speaking country uses pinyin is telling. Also, the lack of respect you show coming to someone’s blog and making rude comments says even more about your character. It’s just too easy to hide behind a name on the internet and behave badly. If you don’t like the articles just go somewhere else then. Or maybe, since your Chinese is so amazing, you can just go to Weibo and read it all yourself.

    • @LizzyD

      Sigh, I AM the only one left, aren't I? God I feel so old lol.

      I miss Javabeans, Girlfriday, Thundie, Dahee, ofsevenseas, Kaedejun, and more - all you all you know who you are.

      Unni owes you a buttercake for your lovely defense of my "not fluent Chinese". XD Or just a buttercake cuz I lub you and need some real world girl bonding, too much Koala teens TEENS-NESS in the house recently I want to spork myself with a dull spoon.

    • I only watched a very few Chinese dramas . I don't speak any asian language . Perhaps because i'm an ignorant french woman . My english is just average , i should say "bad" , but it's what it's left from my old highschool days . But i stand by O'KOALA as she let me post comments here since years, and she never judge me about it . I began to read her blog since 2007/ 2008, and i'm still amazed by the profusion of her posts per day . Even if i'm not agree with her everytime, I don't know how she does it , but as an old lady ,i will just say this : RESPECT ( french way for boomers to show admiration ) . A lot of bloggers have left the boat since years...

    • @Anon, preach your long ass essay to your beloved communist leaders and send a strong message to them: Taiwan isn't part of China cuz Taiwanese Mandarin isn't Chinese! LOL

      You're so twisted! Your lengthy rambling is full of fallacy that I'm even too lazy to point out one by one. I don't think debates in on single drama thread can correct your twisted mind interpreting Taiwan and China! I have no idea where you picked up your Chinese language. I, someone with complete education in Chinese from preschool to college with very high passing scores (equivalent to the US SAT) to enter a prestigious univ. in Taiwan and also an avid reader, am pretty sure Koala's Chinese is pretty decent! I didn't agree with Koala all the time. But Her good knowledge of Chinese is a fact that I can't be in denial simply bcuz I have different opinions from hers sometimes.

  • @anon, such narcissist. Start your own blog if you can do it better to your satisfaction. Coming here to denigrate someone’s translation and tooting your own trumpet is so classy(sarcastic). You could have stopped at your second paragraph. I am so much better….”
    So RUDE.

• I'll check out this drama. Dylan Wang is pretty fine. But I still couldn't finish one single drama of his so far. Tian Xiwei is sweet looking. New Life Begins is pretty boring because of the plot/directing, the same issue with most of the C costume dramas. I didn't get to finish either. Unlike some other more experienced actors whose dramas I've given plenty of shots to watch but ALL failed to finish, I'll give these younger actors chances to see if I end up liking them or not.

  • Oh come on, you didn't even finish Love between fairy and devil 😝😝😝
    Seriously, he was glorious in it. New Life Begins was indeed boring.

    • Hey yo! I did try to watch LBFAD FIVE times! FIVE FIVE FIVE FIVE times! LOL. But I still had to drop when they started to swap bodies. I flinch at that weird concept between a female and a man. I did watch Esther Yu's following drama with Zhan Bin Bin. But dang again her voice turned me off. I was able to watch more eps of Dylan's next drama Unchained Love but somehow didn't get hooked. He's fine nonetheless. That's why I'll give this new drama a shot.

• The princess Tian Xiwei plays is in the book which is translated into English https://www.novelupdates.com/series/nightwatcher it's a minor role because the ML has a harem/no fixed FL (like Chu Liuxiang the classic wuxia, I hate such novels) but because they can't have a philandering ML espousing playboy values in Cdramaland, Xiwei's role is upgraded into a bigger meatier main FL role. The side cast of secondary FLs who orbit the ML is very strong e.g. Zhang Miaoyi the lead FL of When I Fly Toward You is one of the orbiters and Mao Xiaohui.

  Point being, Dylan is definitely top billed and this is one of the rare big budget IPs (especially since China's economy is flagging) and S+ productions that are ML-led 男频视角. This is also Dylan's first clear role upgrade after exploding in popularity in LBFAD, his modern drama with Bailu was signed before LBFAD aired and didn't really pay him well because his agent tried to reject the role after. Hope they adapt it properly because the Nightwatcher novel is very popular and has modern to ancient time travel elements, I'm so disappointed by Legend of Anle and how boring the plot is despite the gorgeous cast.

• can somebody summarize to me what the hell is going on in this comment section?

  • LOLOL... a no-name person (aka "Anon") trying to teach Chinese here in an English language Blog site. You can ignore all of "Anon" nonsense comments. hahahaha....

    • Her English sucks at many points. If she wants to educate ppl how to interpret Chinese in English correctly, at least she's gonna be good at both languages. But nope! She lashed out for a trivial matter and overextended her essay just to denigrate Taiwan that is totally irrelevant to the C drama we discussed. So obnoxious! Lol

    • @Somebody, I replied to your argument properly and you can't refute my points so you attack my English and claim I'm "denigrating" Taiwan? How? FYI I've visited Taiwan a lot to know the culture well and never been to China, I also expressly said I'm Pro-Taiwanese independence 台独 because it will protect Hokkien & Minnanese culture.

      Nevertheless it's highly annoying that so many Taiwanese and foreigners or laymen influenced by KMT propaganda like you love to arrogantly claim Taiwan is more "Chinese" than Mainland China because they don't know any better and don't realize the Chinese immigrants to Taiwan are mostly from Fujian or Guangzhou. I myself am a Southern Chinese diaspora and I wouldn't dream of saying I preserve traditional Chinese culture better than people like Ayanga the Mongol singer, Ding Zhen the Tibetan horseman who went viral, Li Qin the actress who majored in kunqu, or Zheng Yecheng who majored in Chinese opera. My culture isn't Chinese at all since my ancestors immigrated to a Westernised country eons ago. It would be better for Taiwan people to face up to reality that they are not China or Chinese in values, they are diaspora Chinese that should have assimilated into local Taiwanese culture but didn't because Chiang Kaishek forcibly sinicized Aborigines and Japanese in a bid to pass off Taiwan as the real China at the UN with US help. Taiwanese aborigines were treated with contempt and forced to give up their culture by Chinese immigrants and the KMT until recently, and only because the DPP and mainstream Taiwan now see a use for them and their Aborigine culture as a new marketing tactic to distance themselves from China by saying "Taiwan deserves independence from China because Austronesian Aborigines were the original inhabitants and not Chinese immigrants".

      My heart goes out to the Aborigines because their ancestral traditions have been 90% wiped out and younger generations can't learn native languages well because Chinese and Hokkien is more useful. Successive Taiwan governments either want to Sinicize them (KMT who is ironically very popular among aborgines due to bribes) or exploit their propaganda value (DPP which doesn't care about their welfare otherwise), and 99% of deluded foreigners see Taiwan as a Chinese entity or call it the Real China without caring about the existence of Taiwan's Aborigines who got genocided. It's appaling. I don't care if people think it's excessive to discuss this because people who never been to Taiwan don't understand its history well but shill Taiwan = China because they think the Forbidden City replica museum that Chiang Kaishek built in the 1960s to house stolen Chinese artefacts is evidence that Taiwan was historically Chinese or something. Lol

    • @Minnanese, who the heck are you? You made comments each time by a different name. I have no idea whom I have been replying to. LOL.

      You sound so inconsistent! You actually sound more Chinese than Taiwanese. Pro independence of Taiwan isn't equivalent to denying the historical fact that Taiwan has been influenced by Chinese culture for at least several hundred years. Don't mix up nationality identity with culture identity.

    • Please spare me @Somebody 🙏🙏🙏, because my english sucks too 😉but i enjoy so much this blog since years that i can't help to interact with all of you . I'd like so much to write perfectly😭 , but english wasn't part of my university cursus ( French and Spanish civilisation and litterature ) . But I forgot a lot as i graduated in 1995🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️ .

    • Lol all you can do is accuse me of being "Chinese" as if it's a slur but isn't Taiwan full of ethnic Chinese too? I already said I am Chinese diaspora and my ancestors immigrated 1 century ago. I also said I am Pro Taiwan independence and think the island originally belonged to Taiwanese indigenous Aborigines so Taiwan is not Chinese. You and many US shills are so weird, you want Taiwan to be independent from China but at the same time want to claim "Taiwan is more Chinese than China" for geopolitical reasons (Mainland China only got recognised in 1970s by the UN despite US efforts to protect the KMT government in exile) Don't you see the contradiction and irony? Taiwan ISNT more Chinese than China, it started out as an Austronesian Aboriginal island and got colonised in whole by Portugal who named it Formosa and then Japan. It's a cultural mishmash and I love how unique it is, I just wish the ethnic Chinese in Taiwan stop arrogantly claiming to be "more Chinese than China". It's like someone in USA saying they are "more British than the British" because their ancestors came from England and they drink tea. Cringe. Americans will never be more European than Europeans even if their ancestors came from Italy and they eat pizza OK? The pizza in US is nothing like the pizza in Italy. Same goes for Taiwan.

      Koala knows where I am posting from as I am not using a VPN. I am not in China and my English is much better than most Mainlanders anyway.

    • @Cahill, I wasn't referring to you regarding English. My English sucks too since I'm not a native English speaker. I was responding to this Anon (aka Minnanese or whatnot with multiple account names lol. I'm so confusing!) who wrote up lengthy pointless essay to lecture ppl how Taiwanese Mandarin isn't Chinese.

    • I know @somebody, i was just joking . Trying to speak ,read, understand or traduce another language is something great even if we make mistakes . Trying to learn to communicate with different cultures it's being tolerate . Sorry if you misunderstood . I defended O'koala .

• Culture is important but in everything moderation is needed . Don't forget that we are living in a planet called Earth , we are just pixels in the universe , so no need to fight over traductions . Why are people all over the world becoming so sensible about their culture, history,... to the point of being intolerent ????