I’m still rather perplexed that I went from nope to liking C-actress Wu Jin Yan thanks to one drama, but then that is the beauty of acting and of viewers keeping an open mind. You never know who may suddenly wow you. She recently celebrated her 34th birthday this week and in C-ent that’s like near ancient age unless she’s an established A-lister but I feel like she’s threading the needling nicely at this moment. She’s not the ingenue anymore but has gone through the ups and downs of hit dramas and missed dramas and reached her own comfortable spot. After The Double, if her next drama Kill Me Love Me with Liu Xue Yi is well made and received it’s going to be the icing on the cake.
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Happy Birthday Wu Jinyan!!
I really hope the script is good. I really dont want a disappointing drama.
I like Liu Xue Yi’s face, so should be a good match for Wu Jin Yan. Hope the story is good.
The Double was adapted from a very good novel Marriage of the Di Daughter. So it’s not surprising that it’s a hit. I mean you got to have very bad actors to mess it up.
Having said that, they did a good job although I am still quite disturbed by some changes Yu Zheng did towards the novel.
It’s very surprising when any adaptation of a very good C-novel is a hit, actually, because very rarely do Chinese production houses actually adapt the novel–rather than using its name and basic setup but inventing a whole other, much inferior, story.
I mean, it should be a no-brainer that if you have a well-written story that became successful because it was well-written, and you paid for the adaptation rights, you would want to actually translate that very good story into the drama script, but no. It’s surreal how rare that happens, and how often a talentless hack scriptwriter or producer thinks they can take the characters and setup a more talented writer established and yet write a “better” story. There are too many promising-on-paper adaptations to count that were ruined by that mindset, with “Untouchable Lovers” (also an example for how even good or role-appropriate actors can’t save a rotten script) and “Romance of a Twin Flower” just two examples.
Even “The Double” escaped only by a hair’s breath an “original” Bad Ending that would have sunk the whole drama, and as you yourself pointed out, Yu Zheng also made other changes that didn’t best serve the narrative; only luckily, the changes were small-scale enough that the core story was still able to shine through and earn its well-deserved success (helped along by the acting and cinematography, of course).
I liked her too, although The Double was not a big favourite for me. The plot of her new drama sounds even more interesting, so let’s see.
I drop both The Double and In Blossom after watched 1/3 of the dramas because I cant feel the chemistry and the story didnt draw me in. But I will try watch this drama because both are good actors.
The adaptation of The Double was fantastic but I’m nervous about this adaptation. The male protagonist in this book is VERY TOXIC. As in book TTJ toxic. So I know they will be rewriting his character quite a bit to make him more acceptable as an ML. I’m not sure how they’re going to rewrite so many of the kind of red flag scenes and still keep the original flavor.
“I’m not sure how they’re going to rewrite so many of the kind of red flag scenes and still keep the original flavor.”
Isn’t that a contradictory statement? Of course they can’t keep the story’s initial flavor if it no longer *is* the initial story; what is the appeal in polishing away a story’s edges and corners when they are what gave the story its uniqueness, and most likely its allure as well, in the first place? A sanitized story will only be a pale shadow of the original–so what is even the point? Why not create an original story, with all the correct flags, from the beginning?
Maybe people and production houses should just stick with the narratives and character types they are comfortable with, rather than extend to the uncomfortable narratives and characters just to whitewash them and ruin them for their original audience. Shouldn’t diversity be celebrated? Why not let diversity be, then? And if a story is too “toxic” or “red flag” for TV, then why the hypocrisy of still wanting to profit off of it with a sanitized adaptation? There are plenty of green flag stories to pick.
I don’t know the answer to your question. The story has certain elements that made it popular and the moneybags buy popular IPs is the best response I could think of.
It seems there are few good original script writers. MJTY was original and yes, so good until the ending. The writers didn’t want to step out of an old-school wuxia ending, which tells me perhaps the writers were not “young.”
All I know is, everyone who didn’t like one iota violence done to the FL by the ML (as in early XL of LYF), I laugh at the thought of presenting this dude to them. AHAHAHAHAHAHA. I haven’t read their version (synopsis) so hey, maybe they did change the whole personality. They did change Tan Tai Jin into Emo Boy.
I love WJY in historicals, so I’ll watch a bit.
I haven’t read the novel in question, and as I don’t know the context of the problematic issues you referred to, I have no specific opinion to express. Just a very general opinion that I can’t remember any C-novel story that was ever improved after a screenwriter’s “creative” significant alterations of plots and characters in the adaptation process (though others might disagree!). Personally, I find it particularly egregious when the “tweaks” overturn core elements of the original story and/or are due to censorship or indiscriminate commercialism (story integrity erased in pursuit of mass appeal). I just think it makes the final product a kind of frankenstein construct which either doesn’t function at all, or only functions in a limited capacity as the disparate pieces don’t fit together, or seemingly functions but is actually soulless.
I do wish C-dramaland would promote more original scripts, but I can see why the current screenwriters (mostly) aren’t up to the task of producing quality originals when they’re not even capable of adapting existing quality stories (except for rare cases like “Legend of Shen Li”).
AJ, It is a Frankenstein construct. Look at Fox Spirit Matchmaker. There was no reason to change the entire plot and yet the writers did. They made it incomprehensibly boring 😴. Somebody here explained something about the sponsors getting to demand more minutes for their sponsoree (is that even a word 😂. YES before coffee 😂)
Haha about the sponsorees, but you’re so right!
In all fairness, I can name *one* adaptation that had the original story completely overhauled/changed for the screen version, and yet, amazingly, turned out perfect–“Love Between Fairy and Devil”. But that was obviously a one-in-a-million exception (I think it was from the same production company as Fox Spirit Matchmaker, and clearly, their more recent adaptations have been far from achieving that lightning in a bottle again).
I’m also odd in that I mind even “small” departures from the source material–because they almost always end up being about stuff I care lol! Like making the original’s HE a BE (why even?), or like the ML in “Rebel Princess” was supposed to be the typical ruthless ambitious warlord type, and yet in the drama they made him a saintly loyal subject to a rotten dynasty! In the novel, he crawled his way up to becoming emperor, but they changed it for the drama. Even with a story like “Story of Minglan”, which everyone I know praised, I disliked how they “softened” the ML to make him more audience-pleasing (just one example–the warm, loving relationship he had with his concubine-born daughter was not only out of character for the man he was as described in the book, but was out of character for any period aristocrat in his circumstances). But yeah, it is what it is, and at least we still have the original books, which are like they should be. 🙂
Yu Zheng be working overtime to get projects for Wu Jin Yan.
Kill Me Love Me was originally Peng Xiao Ran’s “cake”.
Poor Peng Xiao Ran
Hopefully drama is good