Let’s Shake It 2 has begun streaming on Youtube here. Two new episodes come out every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. I’ve watched the first three episodes (MGTV VIP gets six extra episodes) and unfortunately with a different production team, it’s inferior to the first one in almost every way. Th overall premise of the characters having to constantly adjust what they’re doing in the Sui dynasty to make sure they still exist in the Tang dynasty is a lot more interesting than the first one, but the pacing is really off, and the only jokes that work are callbacks to the first one. Also Abu’s costumes are not nearly as cute as in the first one.
If you had to pick a show about a humanlike soul trapped in a catlike body, I would go with I’m a Pet at Dali Temple which has worse acting but is at least fun.
Thank you for your prompt quick review.
With Rise of Phoenixes, maybe they shouldn’t have chosen this particular novel to adapt to drama? Too many changes to appease the censor may have had too much adverse effect on the drama?
Ruyi didn’t look quite right to me from very early on. Aside from the camera work that seems inferior to Zhen Huan from a few years back. (Ruyi stills were a lot more beautiful than the drama). Plus I don’t see the need to do palace concubine dramas so frequently. And Qing ones had been done a few times in a row in big budget productions. Can’t they at least change the dynasty?
I agree! I like a good female-centric palace drama, I think quite interesting things can happen in them, but when 17 British billion such dramas are shoehorned onto the screen in the wake a few popular ones… well, it begins to feel like an interminable throwdown for the Empress Championship Belt.
There’s the issue of selling a drama, of course. No one wants to make a drama that won’t sell, and trends are a part of the process. Still, I hope there can be more of a balance between trend-following dramas and potentially trend-setting dramas. Which is VERY easy to say from the position of a person who doesn’t have to function in the drama industry, I grant you.