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@liztai@hachyderm.io oh you finish the show already?

@geraineon it's actually a rewatch, my second rodeo. So I have watched it already actually. But I have forgotten most of the plot points. I am down to the last 2 eps

@liztai@hachyderm.io had no time to watch anything. Maybe I'll start this weekend

@chu@climatejustice.social the best adaptations! (No bias!) @liztai@hachyderm.io

@geraineon @liztai

I have to agree. I tried the 2014 adaptation of 神鵰俠呂(I can't recall the English title, but it's the one with little dragon girl and the really annoying Yang Guo).

I called it quits after the brothel scene. It got so ridiculous. I feel like the 80s and 90s era ones really understood what JY was trying to get across compared to some of the later, higher tech/budget remakes.

@chu @geraineon ikr I always lament that modern cdrama audiences, especially international folks, just don't know what they are missing. Seeing shows that have bad acting and storytelling raised to unholy levels makes my blood boil a little

@liztai@hachyderm.io @chu@climatejustice.social the problem is, a lot of these older shows are inaccessible to international folks because they are hard to find, and if you can find them, in Cantonese with no English subs...

@geraineon @liztai

Most of this is on Youtube now I think. I don't know if they are subbed or not though. I'm a canto speaker so I don't usually look for subs in Canto. ICdrama has a lot too.

People in HK revere JY as a minor deity so they put a lot of effort into portraying his novels.

@chu @geraineon haha minor deity! I totally understand why. I wish I spoke Cantonese - ironic since I live in KL. It would have helped me enjoy more TV shows
I get by with my Mandarin and Hokkien, both which are not super great

@chu @geraineon I wish Gu Long was as revered. I like his stories - it's often darker and grittier

@liztai @geraineon

Do you read Chinese at all?

@chu @geraineon nope because I didn't pay attention during People's own language classes but I speak relatively well and can understand intermediate Mandarin.
Figured with four languages rolling in my head my brain has had enough
But I plan to take up HSK classes soon to finally push my Mandarin up to better levels.

@liztai @geraineon

I started to learn Chinese 5 years ago when my daughter turned 3. I was determined my kids would learn it so I learnt it with them.

Drama watching was a super important part of that, esp the Mandarin learning. I can mostly understand it now...

I would take screen shots and get my friends to explain what things meant.

For fun, I'm writing a two language story set in apocalyptic times, 300 years after the fall of modern civilization. It's been fun trying to write in not my primary language.

@geraineon @chu I remember trying to watch Pledge of Allegiance badly but ah man, pure Cantonese Chinese subs... Fortunately it's now available on Youtube with eng subs. Woohoo.

@liztai @geraineon

Is it any good? I thought that was a mainland production

@chu @geraineon I couldn't watch as it was in Cantonese with no subs then, so I can't say if its good. But the premise was Intriguing - a corrupt security official loses his memory and turbs over a new leaf as he finds out more about his old self.

@liztai @geraineon

I take it you're not talking about this. What show are you referring to?

Can you share link?

https://mydramalist.com/691821-brotherhood-of-blades-shadow-of-mountain-and-river

@chu @geraineon oops crosswire! I mean Relic of an Emissary. My brain does this sometimes

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWWM7d10LOwaUA4ntRXCRKZ0VMTm-h6nf&si=xdNnwl6539dYzXTj

@liztai@hachyderm.io @chu@climatejustice.social OMG this one!!! This is probably the last HK drama i watched before I stopped watching TVB. Do I remember the plot? No. But I do remember very homoerotic sexually charged bathing scene between two men. Should do a rewatch...

@geraineon @liztai

That's awesome.

90s TVB was just the best. Yay to pushing boundaries, no to censorship.

It's a shame the HK entertainment industry is what it is now.

@chu@climatejustice.social the best HK dramas are in the past, alas. I think it's around the 2010s that quality took a nose dive. It was already steadily declining by then @liztai@hachyderm.io

@geraineon @chu Yea agree. It was sad to watch the cardboard sets

@liztai@hachyderm.io @chu@climatejustice.social yeah. And with mainland's ever changing lines of what's acceptable and what's not, i feel like there's less and less interesting shows

@geraineon @chu ikr. People blame Xi but I think the one responsible is an overeager Napolean trying to impress the big bosses... And then with the actors' careers being destroyed by tax evasion allegations or photos taken at the wrong shrines. I would be popping xanax every day if I was a cdrama actor

@liztai@hachyderm.io @chu@climatejustice.social I have an essay in me that I'm too lazy to put on paper about authoritarianism+desire to control, fandom organization (and how it feeds into both the toxicity and also builds fear for fandoms ability to organize) and qinglang... Ahaha. Anyway. Yes, well. The mechanisms in place for people to overinterpret things carefully.

@geraineon @chu sigh yes. Oh so frustrating they could have the potential to be the next hallyu wave but because of this cdramas these days feel so recycled and bland that when shows like Mysterious Lotus Casebook comes along people are like a thirsty man running after a bucket of water....

@liztai@hachyderm.io @chu@climatejustice.social hahaha yeah. I feel like wow, standards dropped. Anything that's halfway decent, will get lauded. I mean, yes, I enjoyed Mysterious Lotus Casebook but that level of quality should be MORE COMMON!

@geraineon @chu omg I feel your comment hahaha.

We tolerate far too much with cdramas today

@chu @geraineon you and me both

@chu @geraineon Yeah Hokkien might as well be a different language. Don't have written langugage and worse,e the Mandarin words don't match. I mean, have you heard Hokkien? It's absolutely weird lol

@liztai @geraineon

I like to think of them all as different languages.

What's the difference between a language and a dialect?

Languages have armies.

If you have a border to defend, your own currency, a head of state, you can call what you speak a language. If you got taken over, you're a dialect. Why is Catalan a dialect of Spanish and not it's own language?

If you drop a swede into Finland, I'm told they can understand each other just fine. You drop a Hong Konger into Beijing, no way (though now everyone has to learn Mando but 20 years ago less so).

If China wasn't conquered the way it was, for sure each of these would be rightfully considered their own languages.

But alas QSH conquered everyone and unified the written language and burned everything else. So we can communicate on paper but not face to face.

@chu @geraineon apparently my ancestors left China when they lost the war with the Manchus. So we speak a rather old form of Hokkien - Zhang Zhou variant, I believe. My ancestors supposedly left around the 1600s.

@liztai @geraineon

Wow. I hope you are able to record some of this and share with the world. There's a girl on YouTube who makes Toishan videos and I feel like we are instantly related.

We speak mostly standard HK Canto here but I grew up speaking Toishan. I should actually find more TS people to speak with so my kids can learn some.