Round-up of new dramas in production: July 1st, 2021

Brotherhood of Blades concept poster

A round-up of dramas that have just started filming, mostly rom-coms and xianxia romances,  without their own posts yet.  Which ones are you looking forward to the most?

Brotherhood of Blades: Shadow of the Lands 绣春刀·山河之影 (lit.)
Cast: Zhang Yunlong, Sun Yi, Chen Ruoxuan
Executive producer: Lu Yang
Directors: Li Yi, Cao Hua
Screenwriters: Li Yi, Xu Yiliang (Princess Jieyou)
The first drama from Lu Yang’s Brotherhood of Blades universe, it’ll cover the founding of the Ming dynasty and the formation of the jinyiwei.

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Top 10 Youth With You 2 Stages

A round-up of my top ten stages for Youth With You 2. The show had it’s ups and downs and really dropped the ball on the collaboration stage, but it still has some of my favorite Chinese boy/girl group stages in years. It pains me to know that there isn’t yet a sufficient system for performers in China for so many talents in front and behind the camera to create stages this beautiful more often.

10. Mama Group A is the most well-rounded group of the whole competition that might be better than whatever team that debuts. It has the best vocalist of the show (Xu Xinwen), the most performative rapper of the show (Xie Keying), a great dancer (Lu Keran), a slightly weaker all-arounder in Jin Zihan, and an all-ace all-arounder in Wei Chen. All five members are versatile. They all have unique looks and personalities that nevertheless are harmonized together. My only complaint is their hair and make-up makes it hard for them to give good face.

MAMA
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“Live Stages” Round-Up

None of these people are even in the top nine and they all need to debut.

I don’t think I’ve ever stanned as many people (30+) in a competition as I have in Youth With You 2. Despite its flaws, it has really lived up to its theme of the “No definition girl group”. They didn’t try to define what a girl group should be, nor what any member should be, and as a result everyone has the opportunity to shine.

I know iQiyi disabled the embedding but this group is too sexy and powerful for me to not start with this. I especially recommend Lu Keran, Zeng Keni, and Ge Xinyi‘s focus cams because a lot of their fierceness aren’t shown in the full video since too many of them are amazing at the same time. There’s also the dance studio version here (this show has the best studio camerawork).

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