JoleCole's Station

The mysterious and much anticipated release date for Legend of Lu Zhen has finally been officialized and finalized! Get ready for some action on Sunday, May 5th at 7:30 p.m. Beijing time. I feel as if a heavy burden has lifted off my shoulders now that the release date is officially confirmed by many sources and is fast  approaching . During the course of the initial broadcast, I hope to be more active in my blogging. If you sense that I'm awfully silent on this drama, it means the drama utterly fails to sustain my attention. If I'm super active, it can probably mean two things: I'm totally hooked or I'm totally pissed. LOL. I'm praying the latter won't ever happened.

Since Legend of Lu Zhen will be airing soon, Hunan TV has been releasing a series of 1-minute trailers to catch  viewer's attention. Each teaser trailer has its own "theme." I would like to dedicate this post to these mini-trailers and will do a continuous update as Hunan TV releases more during the next few days. Please check back often! I think my excitement for this drama is building up again! Yeppie!

Fellow White Tofu and Zi Xuan fans from Chinese Paladin 3, I think we will finally get our "happy ending" in this new romantic comedy scripted by Tong Hua. Yep, you didn't read the name wrong. Tong Hua is none other than the famous author of the highly popular Bu Bu Jing Xin. Wallace Huo's Huajie studio and Tang Yan's studio and the production company of Sealed with a Kiss are joining forces to bring us some laughter in The Perfect Couple . Oh yeah, add another magic variable into this equation is the director of Too Late to Say I Love You! Zeng Lizhen will be the director of this drama series. I largely attribute the success of Too Late to Say I Love you to her keen eye for depicting powerful emotions onscreen. The story will take place during the Ming Dynasty. Wallace Huo plays an aristocratic gentleman from a prominent family who specializes in weapon production while Tang Yan plays a girl from jianghu (community of martial artist). Check out the recently ...

We have a very very good chance that Legend of Lu Zhen will air in May, possibly May 1st. The probability of it happening is nearing 90%. Hunan TV announced that Legend of Lu Zhen will be the next drama to air once their current modern drama finishes. Why hasn't Hunan TV announce an official date yet? Well....They tend to cut and edit episodes based on current ratings. If a drama does well in ratings, they will prolong the broadcast of the series by cutting shorter episodes and adding longer commercials. The modern series being aired right now has above average ratings, so I don't know how many episodes Hunan TV plans to cut for that drama series.

Lu Zhen treats Gao Zhan's wounds after their third meeting After multiple false alarms and misinformation, there are some "positive" signs that Legend of Lu Zhen will be airing "soon." Based onHunan TV's bad record, the definition of "soon" may  mean weeks or months. The latest rumors indicate two potential release dates: May 1 and May 12.  Though we should take all rumors with a grain of salt, I think there is a little truth in these rumors. Hunan TV is actually starting to promote Legend of Lu Zhen by inviting the cast to a popular variety show, Happy Camp. Chen Xiao, Zhao Liying, Qiao Yinliang, and Yang Rong will show up in Changsha on April 26 to record an episode of Happy Camp. Now this bit of information is a very convincing indication of its pending release! Being a Hunan TV invested project, Legend of Lu Zhen's TV rating is a big concern for the station's executives. The drama is garnered toward the younger audience, particular...

My fellow fans of the HuoZi (Wallace Huo + Yang Zi) collaboration, we finally get more screen time of them on the official episode of Very Quiet Distance. In this interview, Wallace Huo revealed many tidbits about his personal life, including his childhood, first love, his rumored relationship with Chen Qiao En, and etc. My favorite part of the interview is Yang Zi's personal disclosure of Wallace Huo's real life character on the Battle of Changsha film set. To my surprise, Yang Zi and Wallace Huo despite their 13-year age gap have become fast friends after their three-month collaboration. Wallace Huo uses the Chinese term 忘年之交 wang nian zhi jiao describe their personal friendship. This term usually applies to two people with a large generation gap becoming extremely good friends and sharing great rapport. I often associate this term with a young person forming a close-knitted friendship with someone from  his/her grandparent's generation. I guess Wallace Huo sees h...

In the original novel, Gu Qingming never officially proposes to Xiang Xiang with a bouquet of red roses. The drama series romanticizes the relationship a bit more.  They actually "married" in haste with no formal wedding ceremony. The "wedding" itself was just a simple dinner with Xiang Xiang's family. Below is a tough translation of a novel excerpt of the wedding night after the family dinner which "officializes" Gu Qingming as Xiang Xiang's husband.

In a recent interview with Teng Xun, Chen Xiao discloses quite a few important plot detail about Legend of Lu Zhen. The details are both good and bad. First, I'll reveal some non-ending tidbits. As previously revealed in the 30-minute trailer, Zhao Liying's character Lu Zhen and Yang Rong's Xiao Huanyun (Yang Rong's original character name "Xiao Guanyin" has been changed to Huanyun due to SARFT's intervention) share an uncanny resemblance to each other. When Chen Xiao's Gao Zhan falls in love with Lu Zhen, Xiao Huanyun consequently interprets that Gao Zhan has only fallen in love with Lu Zhen because the latter looks a lot like her. Chen Xiao clarifies that though the two ladies may look "alike" in the story, but Gao Zhan's love for Lu Zhen is profoundly genuine and has little to do with her physical similarity to Xiao Huanyun. He further describes Gao Zhan is not as good and "nice" as what the trailer portrays. Being a devoted...

Attention to Battle of Changsha aficionados, I would like to present one funny tidbit about the shooting if you haven't learned about it already on baidu forum. I had wanted to wait until the official episode of this talk show A Very Quiet Distance to air before writing about it, but I couldn't resist the temptation to talk about it now! I just want to share the laughter. A few days ago, Wallace Huo was invited to be interviewed by famed host Li Jing. Yang Zi was the "surprised" guest.

It has just been revealed on Yu Zheng's microblog that there is some drastic cast changes for his upcoming project Da Han Qing Yuan 大汉情缘， which is based on Tong Hua's novel Yun Zhong Ge. Chen Xiao will no longer portray the kind and devoted Han Dynasty emperor, Liu Fuling. Instead he will play the conniving nephew, Liu Bingyi, who would sacrifice everything for power. Liu Bingyi is  the only emperor in Chinese history to spend his early toddler years in prison and would become one of the more successful Han Dynasty rulers. Su Qing, who previously acted as the child Empress Zhang in Scheme of Beauty, will play Liu Bingyi's love interest, Xu Pingjun.

After watching the official trailer, I am now completely 100% enthralled with Battle of Changsha. I usually try to avoid drama series set during World War II because they are just loaded with tragedies and melancholy. But I'm just superficial and just like to watch pretty guys in pretty military uniforms. Then I decided to read the original novel and got hooked. Anyway, the critically-acclaimed director, Kong Sheng, for this drama series definitely did not disappoint in his storytelling. I'm loving all the changes they made to the novel. I think this TV adaptation will surpass the novel itself. They greatly expanded the role of Gu Qingming (Wallace Huo) and added a lot more details to the development of the OTP. I can also tell a lot of effort has been put into executing the action scenes. There are also no bad CGIs battle scenes nor any cheesy romantic lines. After the sour aftertaste from watching The Swordsman and bitter disappointment regarding the release of Legend o...

SORRY READERS!! After a public announcement on weibo yesterday saying Legend of Lu Zhen would be the next drama to get aired, Hunan TV decided to flush their professional integrity down the toilet and pull out Legend of Lu Zhen from their March time slot. Chinese netizens on Sina weibo are fuming mad. I am furious beyond words and just wanted to tear them to pieces for giving us false hope. Everything seems so finalized yesterday. The weekly schedule on the official website was even updated to reflect Legend of Lu Zhen's episode broadcast. Numerous articles were released today to confirm this broadcast. I just can't believe they have the audacity to make such last minute changes. From now on, I'm not going to trust any public announcement from Hunan TV until I see the series actually gets aired!! I don't to make the same mistake for the third time!