#li mo

Ooh I love this ask. I'm going to focus on directors who have a distinct aesthetic versus those who might be more adept at directing actors or structuring and pacing a show's narrative. I'm also only going to list directors who mainly work on full-length dramas versus minis.

Zeng Qingjie

If you haven't already checked out Zeng's other work, I'd highly recommend doing so. His dramas are romance novels in visual form and no one uses light and framing to capture intimacy like he does. He also gets major points from me with how he centers women characters and their feminine desire.

Check out: Blossom, A Familiar Stranger, Butterflied Lover

Yang Fan

As someone who loves horror just as much as romance, Yang's beautifully macabre visuals make my heart sing. His use of shadow is striking and atmospheric, and I love how good he is at designing compositions that evoke dread. And special shoutout to the genuine creepiness of his prop design, especially the masks.

Check out: A League of Nobleman

Guo Jingming

I have a love/hate relationship with Guo who in a way reminds me a lot of showrunner Ryan Murphy. His work is stunning, theatrical, and deliciously gay...but also a bit of a mess when it comes to plotting. He always puts on a show, however, and I think his strength as a director is how he wields dramatic cinematography and lavish production design to give his stories an escapist quality.

Check out: Fangs of Fortune, My Journey to You, The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity

Li Mo

Li's visual style might be the most subtle of all the directors I'm listing here but it's also one of the most emotionally resonant. His stories often take place against the backdrop of big city life and the way he uses space and scale really captures the emotional highs and lows of trying to "make it" as a young person.

Check out: Fake It Till You Make It, Days of Remembrance Past

Cao Dun

If you enjoy sprawling historical epics, Cao's work is where it's at. His use of high contrast, lower saturation, and sweeping camera movements across grand landscapes immerses the audience in the high stakes grittiness of the era he's trying to portray.

Check out: Longest Day in Chang'an, Tribes and Empires

Xin Shuang

Xin is by far my favorite director in the industry and I think it's because he knows how to translate his musical sensibilities into meticulously calibrated visual storytelling. Every shot has meaning and every scene has a lovely rhythm, the camera trained on the right subject with the right framing for the right amount of time before moving in just the right way. It gives his work emotional layers and delicately pitched tension.

Check out: The Bad Kids, The Long Season

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And before I close out, here are a few other directors who are newer to me but I'm excited to watch more because of their strong visual storytelling...

Wang Zheng (Ripe Town)

Yao Xiaofeng (Tender Light, War of Faith)

Zhi Zhu (An Ancient Love Song)

Zhang Ting (Legend of the Magnate)

Fan art I did of this manhua I've been reading for the last couple of weeks! This manhua has been living rent free in my mind and I cannot stop thinking about these silly goofy lil characters <33

It's a comedy-centric manhua, but it has its serious moments and times where its sincerity really punches me in the gut <:)

I loove the dynamic between the main siblings, Li Mo and Dao Mo.

Dao Mo is a relatively impassive person and gives off a cool-looking vibe at first glance, but that impression shatters as shenanigans happen, with him adapting to urban life after having lived in the mountains for 10 years and embarrassing Li Mo along the way. And as comedy comics are, he tends to dispel moments that are too serious with humor (also maybe as a defense mechanism when he feels genuinely moved by something)

Li Mo is a springy girl whose normal life crumbled as soon "that guy" came into her life. She does a lot of things with earnestness and vigor. She contrasts her brother a lot, very obviously pointing towards the yin and yang principle, and they make for a very entertaining duo. Though, as much as they goof around with slapstick humor, Li Mo really underestimates just how much Dao Mo cares about her.

Dao Mo repeatedly puts himself in harm's way to protect Li Mo and does a lot to give her a normal life, like damn, the boy tries so hard and fails when she starts seeing spirits. Li Mo began to acknowledge him as her brother slowly, and she starts fighting back the danger surrounding her as the series progresses. At the climax, she makes a major decision that changed everything, all with the single thought of "I want to be like him, I want to FIGHT." and BOI, the feeling I FELT WHEN I READ THAT CHAPTER WAS CATHARTIC

It might be simple, but god damn I love it when series build a mutual respect for both sides of the party, when they both acknowledge that they would do anything to protect the other from danger AND I LOVE THAT AUGH

They made it clear that Li Mo can stand on almost equal ground to her brother, she can defend herself physically, but when it comes to spirits, she can't dispose of them easily like Dao Mo can with his taoism skills. Also sidenote I love how badass all the women are in this story, like (points at dorks) DAMN THEYRE SO COOL I WANNA BE LIKE THEM

LATER DOWN THE LINE, WE GET A BIT MORE BACKSTORY AND THAT MADE MY HEART HURT WITH HOW EARNEST IT WAS ;O; Seeing the ending of that arc filled me with a sense of completion, we see just how much the characters' relationship has developed compared to the start.

Though, as much as I enjoyed this manhua and have reread it at least 3 times in the last two weeks, I do have some things that dragged me down while reading it. I think I got "combat-fatigued" from all the fight scenes in the story. Like, maybe because it was my first time reading it and I just really wanted the plot to happen faster bc I wanted to know what happened next and I binged it in a day, but I just skimmed through it quickly and was quite bummed when a lot of the chapter numbers (nearly half iirc) was focused on the combat, and the big baddies getting bigger and bigger-

Next was the typos in the translation. I could ignore some of them bc my brain just, autocorrects the dialogue ig, but sometimes it kills my immersion in the story.

Wang Yibo as Li Mo in All Tomorrow's Parties

73rd Berlin International Film Festival News

Wang Yibo short film All Tomorrow's Parties is nominated in Berlinale awards:

👑 Golden Bear for Best Short Film

👑 Silver Bear Jury Prize (Short Film)

ah so I rewatched it and it's a little depressing ngl

Li Mo is pretty shy and introverted who runs away from home to pursue his dream of becoming a poet but it doesn't work out for him :(

that scene from the trailer where he's contemplating about cutting his hair (idk why they didn't show it in the film)

it's more like cutting his hair was a metaphor of him leaving his dreams behind. eventually he cuts his hair and drops being a poet to work at that factory :(

(in the last scene it seems that it's been a while since he's been back and that he's befriended xiao zhou who's different than him in the sense that she's more outgoing so I guess he started opening up and getting comfortable around her)

this was my interpretation but I'm probably not quite right