Though I’m not a goddess, I live by this motto, “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”

@Bosuji has been bugging me for almost a month now to open a thread for “Lighter and Princess.” Since she rose to the challenge I gave her to write an explanation why L&P was a good drama for Bitches of the blog to discuss, I’m giving her an Open Thread… and myself more work to moderate the thread. 😑

Please join her. Her write-up is down below.

To entice some of you, here are gifs from zhoufei’s tumblr.

source: zhoufei’s tumblr

Enjoy the show!

🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸🌸

Write up for BOD – snippets and impressions from LIGHTER AND PRINCESS that might catch some BOD reader’s eye ;-p

The screen is filled with blinding sunlight, a field of wispy yellow grass swaying in the breeze, there stands a boy blond haired looking into the distance and a girl dark haired, looking at his back, both in white, across a tall, black wired fence running endlessly, to the left and right.

The first dialogue we hear from disembodied voices with a haunting score underlining it ..

– Betrayers will go to hell (a female voice in reverb)

– (a deep bass male voice replies also in reverb)
“Just consider me a betrayer, anyways it’s not binding to me.

it doesn’t matter if I go to hell.
I’m experienced.

I’ve never loved you.”

This stark contrast between the talk of hell and betrayal with an idyllic vista as backdrop, is further heightened by a haunting score as though coming from some deep cavern..then it hurtles off…

The drama pulls back like a slingshot and releases one right into the heart and core of the show – to give us a glimpse into the raw gut of the drama yet to unfold for the viewer, a medley of fast cut shots, of where it will take you, things to come, before it is sealed shut; and one finds oneself adrift in an aircraft’s sanitized silence and cool blue interiors, carrying two passengers back to Shanghai (from the US – it was a 13 hour flight).

Main Lead FL, Zhu Yun’s eyes open (floating in and out of a dream). Her outward calm belies her inner state (the whirl of images in her head and the voices), she’s reached for her purse and taken out a piggy key ring which she caresses – some totem, a memory?
A handsome suave gentle Xiujhu appears, who seems to be very close to her but we don’t know who he is :
BF
Close friend?
Cousin?

She looks out the window with vacant eyes, on the ride back home after her parents receive her warmly- she’s meeting them after 3 years, but her expression is pensive at best; it doesn’t seem like a joyous celebratory reunion, a homecoming trip, she seems listless and resigned..we haven’t caught a smile on her face yet, her parents are not commenting on this lack of enthusiasm, but chatting away happily with Xiujhu.

We learn that she considers Xiujhu as just a friend (even though her mom has her gears clicking and lets her know that she’s hoping they’ll get together and tie the knot. He’s a catch!!)

Mom is established as a benign, well meaning dictator who has always done things by the book and steered the course of her child’s life leading her to the path she thinks is suited for her – to success and a good and comfortable life.

“Youre not a little girl. Your 25 years old. We have different things to do in different stages of life. We should study hard in school, after graduation, we should work to build a family. Now that you have a stable job, you should change your focus. I think Xiuzhu has good conditions.”

“You disliked him for his poor grades.” Zhu Yun quips .

“That was when he was a kid. I think Xiuzhu had a very gentle and considerate personality. This kind of gentleness and consideration is not something that anyone can do casually.”

And then.. Just then …the scene is jolted away : from the cosy, comfortable interiors of a warm family home where food is on the table and gentle folk are gathered, to a prison!
Metal, doors, grills, clanks and striped uniforms ..
That haunt of all things looking for correction .. Crime, injustice, punishment,

Hands fold and put away prison clothes, pick up a golden lighter.
LIGHTER!! THE lighter??

We see the hand sign the release papers : Li Xun

The first sentence of the show in a Voiceover has already launched for us the main male lead, we can safely presume:

“Li Xun
No. 1 of Applied Tech Class 1, Computer Science Dept.”

We’ve also heard his deep voice resonate, and call out, like a yearning : “Zhu Yun” in the empty school grounds where she is alone and spinning like a top (in the dream sequence)

(A melancholy song rises on the soundtrack, and we see the released prisoner stride out..
Into the cold blue evening light?

(lyrics) “Don’t know how I’ve been there..Nothing ever changed.
Have you ever changed?

It’s been so long ago,
I’ve been walking so long.”

The camera angles catch a handsome man with a hardened, gaunt face, an intense, inscrutable gaze looking straight ahead, (buzz cut, prison hair never looked so good before) walking down an empty road.. Dressed in all black.
Tall, wired fences on both sides mark out the prison where he must have spent the last 3 years – the time our FL spent far far away.

No time was lost..the story has hit the ground running..

You know that these characters will be twined once again.

The promise of “goodies” has already been set, for those who like shows where they ask:
MyGoodness what the heck happened here!!!

Those glass shards of memories that sped through Zhu Yun’s head have our appetite whetted.

Zhu Yun’s mom, her home, her station in life, is such a far far land from this desolate place this man has walked out from. Where has he been wandering? What hell? What betrayal? What love?
There was a flame from a lighter, and there was a steamy passionate kiss.. there were snowflakes and laughter as they twirled together, tear soaked faces .. And there was a shriek of despair, wham of violence…

If this isnt a beginning that has your heart pounding hard, the angst keening in the OST music; the “realistic dialogue” and “rich photography” giving off the aroma of mature themes; of bites of realism (of course drama-world adjusted realism – not Vittoria De Sica or 400 Blows realism 😝) then this probably isn’t going to be a show that’ll speak to you.

Ala Bette Davies my mind told me : Fasten your seat belt, this will be a bumpy night.

Red Flag – Green Flag – Toxic – predator – masochistic FL…there’s been a lot of smear on the show and that’s fine.

I don’t agree with those labels, and I’ve finely combed through the show several times looking for signs / proof of many of those labels.
However I’ll accept them because I think for each person, different parts of our brain and cognition get triggered, by the same signals and portrayals, given we have different life scripts, and different expectations from a Drama watch.

That’s what I’ve always found fascinating about Dramaverse. The wide wide variety of it.. Sometimes completely opposite spectrum viewers will click with each other like hot buddies over a show and then completely repel one another over another!

I would love to take apart and unpack a lot of the bullet items I list below.

Dispelling the Red Flag – Toxic label for Li Xun

Pointing out the Diff between Li Xun as experienced by his co-characters
🌟- / ZY mom
🌟/ Ren Di
🌟/ Gao
🌟/ Zhu Yun
🌟 / Old Lin
🌟/ Fang Shumiao
🌟/ Volleyball Captain
🌟/ His sister
🌟/ Xu Lina
🌟 / Fang Zhijing

🌟🌟and as seen by the viewer (Dramatic Irony feast)

– Checking out the basis for labeling Zhu Yun as spineless.
– Old Gao Camp vs Li Xun Camp
– The opening sequence medley
– the many hues in which the word PRINCESS is used by Li Xun for Zhu Yun – it’s connotations and the varying reactions it induced in her throughout the show

But it can’t be done unless there is an open thread on the show, and enough excited people watching it too

I found a small community on MDL in the general comments section of L&P..
Where I’m currently enjoying sprinkling my thoughts and giving an alternate take on the characters / plots / acting / actors etc.
It’s been interactive so far..

BUT it’s here I hope to read and chat more, I will keep an eye out of course.. If one day a richer convo can be had here.

I respect the quality of convos here at BOD

Final Note :
I HAVE been SMITTEN by the BRILLIANCE of L&P … so much so that it’s made other dramas on the line (as of now) look uninteresting and pale in comparison.

I echo many of the L&P fan’s addiction to the show when I say “L&P has damaged me for dramas”
;-D

At the same time I have been puzzled over why for many it did not click.

A reason I thought of, for those

– who have dropped it .. inspite of being initially interested ..
– or those just didn’t get the point of it,
– who couldn’t tune into the ‘sizzle’ in the convos between the lead characters;

a reason for the many who got tired, bored, dropped the show

WAS that it required being conversant in a decent dose of Computerese (software AND hardware / Coding / Apps / Internet / Hacking / IT industry / future of IT etc details ,,, which played a BIG role in the “juice” and “thrill” of the show.

The entire dramatic suspense moments pivoted on ‘understanding’ even if just at basic GK (general knowledge) and current affairs level the world of computing / IT / computer hardware / game design / App and Website design / hacking / programming / viruses

(The show STARTUP wasn’t that solidly hinged around ‘knowing’ the jargon of the discipline).

There is so much ‘technicalese’ in the long convos amongst the characters, that it would require unpacking :

SPOILER ZONE

SPOILER ZONE

SPOILER ZONE

– when and why Li Xun wins the Blue Crown Deal (the entire presentation for bidding)
– why it was a Herculean feat by Li Eun to have “rewritten” the bid AS WELL as the coding for the final website design
– how Zhu Yun (ZY) was discovered and what was she up to at the Xiaobei computer lab
– how Xiaobei was so shallow and silly in her understanding of the website design
– why it was a genius leap to have come up with the App for Blue Crown over Website of Blue crown (Li Xun’s vision for future of Smart Phone use when 4G is moving into 5G soon)
– Li Xun’s ability to see the future of how Apps / Internet use can be harnessed for GREATER GOOD of humanity
– the brilliance of dreaming of a future for medical Science and reducing the rate of cancer deaths by 1% (propelled by the all consuming grief at the death of his mother) and HOW were they going to go about it … and why it needed deep pockets and backers; to see in it the immensity of the idea’s scope
– how Li Xun exposes the weakness of Fang Zhijing’s Star Award winning product
– how the Invincible General Game was turned around from being a laissez faire product to a product for nerds / geeks and found its niche following
– why it was a HUGE touching moment when ZY purchases (with her own money) the HOST component and is trying to assemble (Titan) while we see LX has gone “shopping” for the same after taking the day off and not even intimating what he is upto (shades of O Henry’s Gift of the Magi)
– what was the Blind Box Game’s allure (why it bothered ZY but all the males were cool with it, including her ‘green flag’ artist beau Xian) and why it would take 6 months even for any COPY to be made, unlike how easy it was for Old Gao to have copied Invincible General
– the significance of LX financing the Blind Box Game and becoming a majority shareholder at Flying Heart.

And last but not least amongst this listing is WHY it was clear that Old Gao was bright BUT mediocre, his goals materialistic … while Li Xun was a visionary, an institution builder