JoleCole's Station

Hailanzhu - The Pearl of Revenge In Love with Power devises the character of Hailanzhu to undergo some drastic transformation. Hailanzhu and Dayu'er grew up together in the great plains of Mongolia. The former is dubbed as the "Grassland Star of Disaster" while the latter is called the "Grassland Star of Good Fortune."  Hailanzhu's mother is the maidservant of Dayu'er's household. They shared the same father but are birth by different mothers. Because her of low social standing, Hailanzhu experiences quite a lot of hardships and often gets ostracized by her own tribe. Later when Dayu'er falls in love with Hong Taiji, Hailanzhu inadvertently becomes the love of his life.

Ever since photos have been leaking out of Da Mo Yao film sets, we rarely have any high quality photos of Eddie Peng's Huo Qubing. To my pleasant surprise this morning, some high quality photos were posted on Eddie Peng's Baidu Forum. I'm just amazed at how good he looks in his nobleman wardrobe. The parted combed-hair and the male hair ornamentation transform Eddie Peng into a very sleek young gentleman with an aura of grandness and regality.

The popular Chinese Television Magazine just dedicated a whole section to In Love with Power and conducted some short individual interviews from the writer and main cast, which included Hawick Lau, Yuan Shanshan, Ada Choi, Zhang Meng, and Han Dong. In these interviews, they give their take on how they portray their character. Below is Hawick Lau's interview translation. Hong Taiji - A conniving and manipulative emperor with a touch of loving softness 

Just when I'm running out of things to say about Female Prime Minister, Sina Entertainment News releases a series of new romantic stills I can drool over. I just want to scream "OH MY GOSH!! Sooo godly delicious to the eyes!" I'm already pretty hyped up about this series, but these stills just heighten my excitement by tenfold!

Character Descriptions Quite a few pretty ladies seem to have given their heart to Gao Zhan in this drama. I counted at least four major characters: Lu Zhen, Xiao Guanyin, Shen Bi, and Shen Jiamin. I excluded Princess Tong Chang because she has a mindset of a juvenile. I highly doubt anything romantic exists between the two. Besides these five women, I'm not sure how many minor characters will crush on him. Gao Dan is truly one popular guy! But what about our lovely Lu Zhen? Drama isn't drama without a complex polygonal love story. Let's add two or three guys into this complicated love equation for Lu Zhen. Muahahaha....

Due to the relative downtime I'm experiencing in mainland Chinese dramas, I've been surprisingly venturing back into TVB dramaland. Just a little caveat, I completely gave up hope on TVB's ability to produce any great series several years ago and would rarely watch anything from beginning to end. My expectations for TVB productions are pretty much NIL , but at the same time, my patience to endure their mediocrity is also very low. If I do watch any TVB dramas, they tend to be modern crime/detective series or just pure brainless comedy. Both Tiger Cubs and Three Kingdoms RPG fall into these categories.

Early this morning, Yu Zheng (producer) just announced on his weibo that Yun Zhong Ge (a.k.a. Song in the Clouds) will experience some dramatic changes in its setting. The historical context is removed to avoid references to the Liu royal house of the Han Dynasty or any prominent historical figures. The original historical setting gets supplanted with a wuxia setting. Liu Fuling is no longer a Han Dynasty emperor but a reluctant supreme leader of the martial arts world.  Our female protagonist, Yun Ge, becomes an orphan girl from the desert with no association to the famous Han Dynasty general, Huo Qubing. Other than the historical context of Yun Zhong Ge, the major love stories and scheming subplots should remain intact.

While I was browsing the Baidu Forum, I discovered this BTS video created by one of the crew members from the Female Prime Minister production team. This 4-minute clip features some new footage and shows the technical shooting process of the drama.

I'm sure everyone has their own set of memorable TV characters they never grow tired of watching. A few days ago, I saw a video documentary about the suicide of a famous 1980s Hong Kong TV actress, Barbara Yung, and I suddenly became very nostalgic. Her role as the spoiled, highly intelligent Huang Rong made a very deep impression on me as a child. As a result, I decided to put together this list (note: I actually have another list for my favorite characters in American TV shows). Though I lost count on how many dramas I've watched in my life, the number of characters that still ring loudly in my head are far fewer in comparison. I didn't really rank my favorite TV characters but put them in chronological order based on the year I first viewed the TV series.

After watching a bit of Wallace Chung's Tian Ya Ming Yue Dao (TYMYD) and noticed the hideous male costumes/hairdos, I got inspired to write about the stunning male costumes in Female Prime Minister. It demonstrates how costumes and hairdos, if done right, can absolutely transform an actor. I picked the Crown Prince Gao Zhan's costumes as the topic of our discussion because his wardrobe contains some of my favorite pieces. I think I'm on a "Chen Xiao" marathon or something because I've been writing quite a few posts about him lately. LOL. 

If I remember correctly, this scene is where Jinyu was waiting for Meng Jiu to respond to her love confession, but to her devastation, he didn't show up. My interest in Da Mo Yao/Ballad of Desert has been on hiatus in recent months due to the lack of news, photo release, and the secretive nature of the production team. But today the splurge of new images just reignited my interest. In the past few weeks, there were barely any high quality photos of Eddie Peng in his character mode and without the usual interruption of crew/production equipments in the backdrop. Since filming just completed, we should expect more photo releases or maybe even a trailer if SARFT finally decides to approve DMY for national broadcast in China.