Seems it's been a minute since I last posted, as they say...

* Currently watching: 逐玉 | Pursuit of Jade (2026). It's 40 episodes and I'm on ep. 33. Overall I really like it. The leads are great. I'll probably finish it this week.

* Finished watching: 长安二十四计 | Vendetta of An (2025). 28 episodes, starring Cheng Yi, who is, I suppose, an acquired taste but he is a taste I have acquired. Sorry, he's beautiful in this.

Spoilerish:

And honestly, his beauty was kind of required to explain why his character, Xie Huai'an, acquires so many boyfriends during his vengeance quest. :D

So... I unironically loved this! At 28 episodes, it goes at a break-neck speed and perhaps the plot doesn't completely make sense, but I just fastened my seat belt and went along for the ride. It's got secret identities, wall-to-wall betrayals, a lot of violence (fairly brutal/bloody), and good fight scenes. Great cast. It's the 2nd thing I've watched with Zhou Qi in it, and I'm quickly becoming a fan. He's really good. The actor I will always think of as Marquis Yan is in it and looks HOT, no joke. A lot (or all?) of it was filmed on the same city set that was built for Longest Day in Chang'an, which is a spectacular set, and it looks amazing. In addition to Xie Huai'an's boyfriends, there are a couple of good female characters with plot importance. They don't get much focus, but I liked them. Anyway, I was in a bloodthirsty mood and this show fit the bill.

Content warnings: The aforementioned violence, ethnic outsiderism (depicted as infiltration by non-Han people as sleeper agents), children in peril, death of a female character as a plot point. Also, don't expect a happy ending. And the ending itself is abrupt.

* The other thing I've watched with Zhou Qi is 藏海传 | Legend of Zang Hai (2025), which one of the Discord watch groups is getting through. Man, this show. It started off so strong and smart, making good use of Xiao Zhan in the leading role. There was an interesting, strong female love interest, and a great undercover-and-revenge plot. Then the show unraveled in multiple ways, the least of which is the hokey DMBJ part of the story. A small set of us are gritting it out to the end of 40 episodes (we have 5 eps left) but the disappointment is greater because it began so promisingly! That said, Zhou Qi was great in it as the smarter-than-expected second son of Zang Hai's Enemy No. 1.

* Zhou Qi also has a main role in 大理寺少卿游 | White Cat Legend (2024), and I've watched a few episodes. It's a bit OTT and I wasn't strongly engaged, so I don't know if I'll go back to it.

* Non-Cdrama watching: On Netflix I came across シンデレラ クロゼット | Cinderella Closet (2025), a Japanese comedy-drama-romance about a woman and a cross-dressing man. It was fun, with an appealing cast, and I thought it handled the subject pretty well for something so short (12 episodes @ 20 minutes each). I enjoyed it.

* We watched Elio, last year's Pixar movie, and I thought it was really good. The world-building and aliens were imaginative. Every time I think, "this is the Pixar movie that won't make me cry," they get me in the next scene, I swear.

* The farmboys are filming their next season and have spent an intriguing amount of time in Xinjiang and have done a few livestreams to promote local goods. Most of them also have solo projects as performers, good for them. While waiting for the new season, I thought I'd run out of farmboy content to watch but no! Bilibili is the endless rabbit hole of extra scenes (mostly season 1) I'd never seen before, plus all of their vlogs and livestreams. It's become clear to me that when they weren't farming, they were vlogging/livestreaming practically every minute of their lives in season 1. And maybe in season 2, but I haven't gotten there yet because, y'all, there is so much content. (This is not a complaint.)

( Farmboys (small picspam) )