IQIYI trailers: the YAY and the HELL NO!
IQIYI had its conference and released a ton of trailers so I am gonna single out only ones I loved and ones I hated.
TERRIBLE: The three I am gonna single out as the worst all seemed teehee shrill, dumb as a particularly dumb rock and…I was gonna say directed at tweens but I have been around tweens and that is honestly an insult to them. The Legend of Rosy Clouds, The Unclouded Soul and The Whimsical Return truly make my eyes roll so hard, they are on the floor somehow.
Rosy trailer was SO bad that the drama went from super anticipated to hell no I am not watching within a couple of minutes. What is that and can I unsee? Between ADWAD and Rosy with LYT and Feud and Rosy for Joseph, both of them are on incredibly thin ice. I like them but nobody can survive being in stuff that bad that often.
Soul? Hou Minghao what are you doing?! Why?!? (Not getting into Tan Songyun since the last drama I saw her in was equally unwatchable.) It’s like a live action of kids cartoons on a kid network and I am not saying this because I am trying to be creative about complimenting their whimsy. They are both excellent actors but here? All I can say is stop mugging like this, it’s gonna give you wrinkles and fillers can make you bloated.
Return - I had no expectations but somehow it was even worse than that. If there is a winner (loser?) for worst trailer released, that was it.
So, now that I’ve had my daily sip (or bucket) of haterade, which ones did I actually love?
Sword and Beloved looked great - very much a Cheng Yi drama but in the best way, not what is this weird pastel travelogue way of The Journey of Legend. The shot of him carrying her out through a ring of armed men now lives in my id.
The Mo may be a rare “woman in business” drama that makes me rabid - yes, I am chuckling a little at Yang Zi trying every profession in every era but it just genuinely looks quality and focused on ink making which is something I find genuinely fascinating (unlike flowers or cloth or jewelry, none of which interests me much.)
Fate Chooses You - with Ren Jialun and Wang Herun looks amazing!!! This is how you do fantasy, awful messes in my “nope” column. I could feel my blood blooding and my heart hearting. Seriously - it’s everything I like in one package.
The Ingenious One 2 - first season was one of my faves and this looks just as good.
Overdo - my number one winner trailer. I watched this and I want this NOW!!! It’s an adaptation of a Fei Wo Si Cun work and it looks it - throwing me back to the glorious era of Too Late to Say I Love You and Siege in Fog and their unhinged hot warlords and unhinged women who love-hate them. Also, both Zhang Linghe and Wang Churan rock the Republican era aesthetic and have the vibe for it (well, we are gonna ignore that ZLH hair is of course modern because that is always the case 😂)
