The mistakes that made KMLM sink

Oh, a rewrite thread!  I LOVE reading through all your thoughts and ideas!

Y'all want a dark version, with a Happy Ending? I'll give it a go:

Episode 1

Bring all the flashbacks here. Make it an episode so the audience can get the feels for the whole tragedy.

Happy Mei Lin, running around, making cakes. Parental love so important a theme, so let's show all the lovey scenes of happy family here.

MRJH before he changed--a solid general, listening to his father telling him to go capture the enemy, also some show of his favoritism of the 2nd child. His going to say goodbye to his beloved mother, who was ill. A lurking resentful Elder Prince. He turned to his evil assistant, "Is everything ready?" he asked.

Fade out.

That whole sequence of Mei Lin sleeping and fire breaking out is played out here. Show mama's death too! Or papa yelling out, "mama's in the kitchen! I have to go save..." and he caught on fire there. Mei Lin's desperation is shown here, running with screaming crowds.

MRJH's scene of not hurting the citizens even though they were attacking, PUT IT HERE. He'd battling the fire with his men when the pretend-citizens of the Elder Prince started a riot. Here we should see the Wei Bei army not fighting back, per their General's orders, but those freaking pretend-citizens know martial arts! One of the general's men should notice this and maybe it's the one who later died  (can't remember name) in the forest fight episode. General Pang? 

The first episode should end with a montage of Mei Lin picking up the fake WeiBei emblem and of the horrendous beating of MRJH.  She was screaming revenge, but we see them breaking his legs while he was throwing up blood. 

The set up has been set up!

Episodes 2-4

We can have the iconic Gothic beginning of those first episodes here, minus the flashbacks except for the shooting arrow into her knees scene.

MRJH was a broken, a bit crazy, very ruthless man now. Mei Lin was a ruthless, cold (but with a slight warmth towards helpless kids) assassin now. 

The Momai poison can still be used to "control" the assassins but instead of her special blood cannot take the cure, I'd make it where it was very hard to find it. But it could be done. MRJH as Shadow Master explained it to his sidekick, "She's going to die anyway, so why bother to have the cure? We need her dead to get our revenge. Give her an honorable burial when it is done."

Then they met in the bathtub. They kissed as shown. The MRJH shown in these episodes was no innocent babe like the Happy Village scenes of 15-19.  I want him to keep this persona for a while--a bitter, unrelenting man, attracted to his assassin but still needing to sacrifice her.  So I WOULD TAKE OUT the part where she came to decision he wasn't the culprit for now. Too early. We need the push and pull of their sexual chemistry here. But I love the part where he stood up. That should end that episode as a cliffhanger.

But the clues were there and she was* picking them up as she went checking out her target during her nights. The CP assassin. Her picking up the real Wei Bei emblem.  Maybe hear him in the red wedding robe talking to his mother. His words at the end of the scene, "If she overheard, that's not good. She's too smart to let it go. We'll have trouble." The bed confrontation here was hot because she was in her underclothes and his hand was under the blanket feeling her up, LOLOL. I'm keeping that, LOLOLOL. It's too quick for a real bedroom scene since we need the sexual tension going a bit longer. Let's have her bite him again while he gave her a second kiss, while FEELING around the bed for clues if it was her outside that door.  I want this bite thing a repeated theme to get to that point where he told her later not to bite him when he kissed her for real (as a lover).

The scene should end with the cat bothering them and he mentioned the "Wild Cat" reference, wiped his mouth, walked out because he had stuff to do that night besides bedding his Mei Ren. He should warned him to stay in her room because "wild cats could get poisoned."  A CLUE, Mei Lin, A CLUE!

Cliffhanger: Mei Lin touching her lips and saying to herself: "He doesn't sound as crazy as he appears."

****

I'm ending here since I need to go off to work. Will continue soon! 

@Regina de Sá  

I think you quoted the wrong person lol...I didn't say anything about trump. 

 Regina de Sá:

Hi, dear friend Unbeliebubble. Thank you so much for always exchanging your insights with me. All points of view are welcome, I'll not laugh at the interpretations, as expressing ideas is, above all, exposing feelings that are in the heart. I don't intend to refute the interpretative questions you raise, because they are based on a personal vision that I respect, we can love whatever we want, even if it doesn't have the seal, the stamp of quality. It'll be more dynamic for our dialogue to address technical issues of building a narrative, with its arcs.

Hello Regina, It is always a pleasure to reflect on what we've been watching. 

Yes.  You are right the writers deliberatly ignored legal system and the ruler's will was almighty. Sending the message that crime pays? I couldn't agree more. The unfairness is blatant in this drama. 

I agree with you the modernity and the relevance a work of art makes its value until today. 

1 abuse of cliché : 

Repetitive death of ML ? This is the principal topic of the series: they are represented by the undying flower, wish are resilient and immortal. 

Reappearance of LM as "savior of the homeland"? ML and MRJH images are shortened. I agree, this is too drastic in comparison with the begining.

YQ's appearance in the battle, giving him credit for the victory. MJH becomes secondary in this context? No I don't think so. I never gave credit to this cunning man, who was colluding minutes ago with general Wu, to again force Mei Lin into forgiving him. All he does is schemes. 

Forced deaths of beloved characters (Big Guy and Qing Yan) 2 Lack of internal coherence? All C-Dramas do it. I was waiting for it. The sidekicks we love always die. 

We don't know what MJH and ML's revenge plan was, hatched over 10 years? Yes, we know. MRJH's plan was using Mei Lin to spark the public outrage so that the emperor had to reopen the Qinzhou mass murder case. He had the "Shadow works faction" as a reinforcement. It was never going to use it to attack Crown Prince. He trusted his fater. Mei Lin Revenge plan was to slay the culprit of Qingzhou massacre. She was never able to do it. She let MRJH lead the aperation and became a support to it.

2 Absence of character characteristics:

Key characters were disfigured beyond recognition?  Yes, they have been weakened. This is tragic. The Emperor was always an idiot. He had the appearance of might, but he was manipulated for years by YQ, without him knowing it. Anyways, he would have disregarded it if he had the suspicion, like he did with Crown Prince. This is why he fell in love with a teenager, because psychologically he was dumb. MRJH and ML, yes was weakened. But LM was not psychologically stable either. She was some one who never knew erotic love. She fought with ML at the very beginning and she knew ML could outmatch her in martial arts. After that she was rejected repeteadly by the love of her youth. She chose the dark side to feel alive.

4 Circular writing:

The narrative went in circles? Yes, it wasn't surprising like in the beginning. 

Forgotten Characters:

Master of Shadow? Yes desappeard with the revenge of MRJH.

Consort Yin ? Yes desapeared with CP.

A-Melodrama ? All the characters became weak. Except for the cunning Yin Que.

B-The scenes with ML's supposed corpse are not convincing? There is a reason. In the novel MRJH takes another rotten corpse and parades with it in the street, feeds it ... Meanwhile, Mei Lin is in coma. I understood that the screenwiters did not want to showcase those disturbing scenes. So they scripted the Mei Lin in coma dug by MRJH and after that to reconnect with the novel, they recreated the body exchange by stealing it. Drama S+ and rotten body : dont co-incide.

C-LM and CP in prison? I agree, beautiful but unadmissible morally speaking. 

Thank you Regina for stating your point of view :)

 SnapDragon:

After her fake death, the maids and the big guy decide not to body-snatch her. Instead, they tell MJH everything, and he gets to be there when she wakes up. This way, they don’t have to be apart. Their separation after her fake death annoyed me so much, I couldn't understand at all why she was hiding from him. 

It annoyed me too. We had already spent a lot of time with them being apart and I felt like if she didn't want to be with him anymore they should have at least had a proper conversation about everything. 

 SnapDragon:

All in all, some of the arcs really dragged on and seemed pointless, like the Emperor and Concubine Yan, and Xiyan arc.

I'm still not sure why they included this part/the love line between the emperor and the concubine. It really did not serve the story any purpose. 

 Olive4213:

Do you think these mid-progress  show derails and bad endings have anything to do with complying with government requirements?

Honestly...I'm not sure. The way the original story this is based on was written, it would only be able to be a mini-drama, not the type of drama that KMLM was if they kept everything. However, I have mixed feelings about this because they have seemed to be more relaxed about some rules this past year and there are only a few elements in the original story that might have needed to be removed due to government requirements. 

 Regina de Sá:

5 Forgotten Characters:

●Master of Shadow: so essential to the plot, as soon as he appeared, he disappeared.
●Consort Yin simply disappeared. Initially she had a role in the CP plot.

Yeah, this was weird... 

 Regina de Sá:

We don't know what MJH and ML's revenge plan was, hatched over 10 years.

They could have given us an episode or half of one explaining this. It honestly felt like he really didn't do much for 10 years other than have people train ML and then come up with this assassination attempt and that was it. That's very odd. 

 fancy:

It's fine :)

Thank you :)

 Regina de Sá:

No, idn'

Hi, fancy, I was responding to @Unbeliebubble, but as his response is long, the system does not accept quoting, so I decided to respond in a dialogue of his in which you were in and that way you would also see my response.

Ohh okay, that makes sense. I enjoyed reading your response. 

 fancy:

I love your changes. This was so good.

Thank you! I like this kind of exercise; I feed on bad writers, bwahaha.

OK,  Episode 6 and 7

The jail scene.  We have 1) CP wanting to end Mei Lin's life before the Emperor decided to look closely and investigate her background and thus, the Big Fire.   2) XiyanGreenTea with his "oh must save her, let's feed her with Special Three Day Dead Poison."   3) MRJH rethinking his failed plan.

MRJH should be furious here. His TEN YEAR plan just went kapoof. He had not expected his brother's move of accusing her as Xiyan spy and taking her in custody before hurting him, MRJH.  He was furious at Mei Lin for failing in her attempt because she could have just gone all out, no one could have stopped her, so why had she hesitated?

In jail, Mei Lin was tortured but she refused to admit she was a Xiyan spy. She kept saying she was there to kill MRJH because he burned her city. Her staring at Clown Prince with those fearless and dead eyes scared him and he went off. He told the man in charge of defense (I'm forgetting names: the one who had the secret army who also was part of the designer to frame MRJH of the fire. Is his name Zhang???) to find a way to off her without connecting it to him (Clown Prince). Mei Lin, who had pretended to faint, overheard an important thing--"get rid of your Momai assassins before the emperor starts investigating."

That night we have the same scene of MRJH peering at the tortured Mei Lin, who was whispering Se Bu Liao while caressing the Undying Flower. He whispered back, Se Bu Liao. I liked the scene where the meaning of the Undying flower was explained to him and he so callously walked over and crushed them. 

I would like him to come out of his study after thinking a bit and catch sight of them again, crushed but still alive. "She did save me from that assailant," he said. "I suppose I owe her that much. Besides she hadn't killed me yet, as ordered," he added and laughed that crazy manic laugh (heh, I really like him a bit demented). 

His sidekick Qing Yan told him, "She's calling your name in prison, wanting to see you."

"That's new." He thought a moment. "Her being dead right now wastes all my effort. She's still of use."

"How? She wants to kill you. She's been trained to kill you, my Lord."

"I guess I'll go listen to what she has to say."

Later that night, the meeting. We have the attempted murder (poisoned flower cake) of Mei Lin and Mei Lin fighting back with the chain. MRJH and Qing Yan helped her and QY took the assailant away (same as in drama).

MRJH leaned really close. "Want to try to kill me now?" he whispered.

"Is that what you want?" Mei Lin mocked, her voice hoarse from lack of water. "I think best under torture, my Lord. I think you're hiding something from me." She looked at his legs. "From many people, in fact."

"And what is it to you?" Jing He asked, intrigued.

"As I said, I think best under torture. Two assailants in two nights, and both from your brother. Everyone hates you and wants you dead. You're already no longer in contention for the throne, so why are you a threat still for the Clown Prince?"

They eyed each other. "Why are you asking for me?" Jing He asked.

"Save me and I won't kill you yet."

Jing He's eyebrows shot up. "Don't save you and you won't kill me at all."

"But other assassins will. How many can you take down without me?"

"Are you offering your services?"

Mei Lin drew closer. "I've been poisoned to kill you. I'm beginning to wonder why you and not the Clown Prince."

"I think you're thinking too much."

Mei Lin smiled. "Save me and maybe I won't kill you yet. And I get to kill your assasins-to-be first."

Jing He considered for a bit. "But you've been poisoned."

She shrugged. "I can take can of that. Se Bu Liao." She grinned. "I won't die without you, my Lord."

Jing He laughed and left. Mei Lin murmured to herself, "I know why I want to kill you. I want to know why killing you is so important to everyone, including my Shadow Master."

Episode 7

This episode covered Jing He's meeting with the Emperor to plead her case and the whipping. I think that one is awesomely dark as it is.

Again, his restrain from whipping Mei Lin too hard confused her, made her think again, "Why?"

OK, he carried her injured back to his palace. Here's the part I never understood--how did Xiyan Green Tea Prince get to enter as he pleased? After all, carrying out, Jing He had declared "This is my woman." Head-scratcher here.

I do think it would take longer than what they showed for Mei Lin to heal! First, she was suffering from Momai poison. Then the torture. Then, the whipping! Come on! 

I will have MRJH moving in her rooms. He was courting death at her hands but there you have it, it's a BDSM kinda relationship, LOL. He puts medicine on her bare back like in the drama. He told her she could be his meiren if she wanted to and she threatened him with a knife. He laughed, unperturbed.

Someone knocked and said Xiyan Green Tea was asking permission to check Ms. Mei Lin and he'd brought some Xiyan meds. JingHe rolled his eyes and allowed it. Mei Lin put down her knife and pulled up her top. JingHe sat down indolently and waited. Xiyan Green Tea Prince burst in and well, we get the "I'm here to save you" comedy act.

Later, we will have the conversation between Jing He and his own physician about Mei Lin's poison, but I want it done in front of Mei Lin, so she was listening in. The antidote was tough to find--Dragon Whiskers (or whatever it was called, LOL). Meanwhile, if they could find that special red beans (whatever they were called, LOL), she'd be okay for a while. Jing He knew where to get the special red beans (Luo Mei had some). Outside of Mei Lin's hearing, Jing He told Qing Yan, he would get those beans. Meanwhile Mei Lin was thinking she needed to get those beans by tracking down her assassin bros and thus find the Shadow Master herself.

When she was alone, she would take time to compare the two Wei Bei emblems. She found out the one she'd been carrying around was fake. If MRJH's emblem was the real one and hers was fake, then could it be MRJH wasn't the real bad guy? Then, who was?

But first, she had to look for beanie antidote or she was going to be too sick to find out the truth. She needed to play along with Jing He for now while she recuperated a bit from all those injuries.

1) MRJH showing his infatuation publicly are good scenes here. The dance -- eh, I could take it or leave it. It was beautifully done, but did it fit in the narrative? Not sure. But I must admit when he snickered, showing his dimples, I turned into a puddle LOLOL. And it was fun watching him sit with her during her punishment, getting his personal maids to fan and move her weights for her.

2) Luo Mei comes a-calling. An excellent fight scene. Luo Mei established that those weren't Xiyan fighting moves, which showed her knowledge of fighting skills.

3) Luo Mei's confession to Jing He and Jing He's reaction. I want to reinforce the fact that Luo Mei really believed Jing He's guilt and that was one of the reasons he was so cold to her (when he wasn't in their youth). He asked for those magic red beans antidote.

5) Since this was the episode with some comedy, I'd end it with the karate chop to his neck to put him to sleep because he wouldn't sleep with an assassin. BTW, I would not make him shy like in the drama. He just had too many rules and Mei Lin was tired of them, LOL. After he was out like a light, Mei Lin wondered if she should kill him then and be done with it, but loathed to be yet one of the assassins after this man. She was not going to be just "another" assassin. All these assassin all coming after him, including her, at the same time made her think there was something else going on here. 

Episode 8

Jing He woke up angry, sulking. I liked this scene. She touched him, getting his hair in order. He stood very still as she buttoned his outside top back on. They stared at each other and he licked the corner of his mouth where she always bit him.

The festival/date outside the palace. Jing He wanted to trap the minister and thus, get evidence. Mei Lin chose to help him because she thought that Minister had something to do with the shadow assassins. Like what? And could she get the antidote from him?

We follow the same set up in the drama--the cute date, the masks, the exchange behind the screen/pole, them being followed.  CP with LM doing their thing.  We got the Su Mo cross-dressing arc being played out, with XiyanGreenTea catching him in the restaurant. We have the fire, the escape, Mei Lin's confrontation with her "Shadow Master" and finding the red bean pills, the subsequent carriage scene. Let there be another bite, please :). And a funny line like, "Why does this woman like to bite me?" LOL

She woke up with those brushes in her hands and Jing He leaning over her. 

"Tit for tat," he whispered, and then leaned down and..."Nah, not gonna kiss you after being such a bad girl, going after Green Tea when I told you to stay put. You killed an entire group of assassins and my minister."

Mei Lin assured him that she saw him escape. Then she found out all about her hallucinatory incidence.

"Don't be mad," she said. "At least I'm healed for now."

Then Jing He threw the two emblems on the table. "Explain," he demanded.

"You searched my belongings," Mei Lin accused.

"YOU are my belonging," Jing He retorted. "Now, explain."

This is where Jing He realized Mei Lin had this all along and it explained why the people in her city thought it was the Wei Bei army that set the fire. She was probably the last and only witness alive who could help clear him. Oh, the irony.

The episode ends with Su Muo's death and Mr.GreenTeaPrince turning a bit dark in personality when he wowed to protect those he loved better. He went to play chess with the Emperor. Then he went to meet the Clown Prince.

****yawn goodnight, more tomorrow, heh, hope I didn't bore everyone to sleep too!****

Episodes 10-15 of drama

1) Luo Mei's jealousy, CP's chase of her and his intentions. He wanted her army too.

2) CP sending more assassins after Luo Mei (burned wrist arc).

3) Xiyan Green Tea's chess game and the manipulation of the ten beauties. This is important to show he's more calculating (notice I didn't say cunning) than we all credit him for. He wants Mei Lin away from his rival.

4) Mei Lin's burning her hand, being cornered in that room, MRJH saving her and the embroidery arc

This was a good character growth arc but put here so arbitrarily it just didn't sit well with me.

Here's what I'd do. She was trapped in that room, right? Why would MRJH need to save her? She was an assassin, for gadssakes. The Clown Prince knew this, so why did he even think of killing her like that? So it was the embroidery he was after. EVERYTHING JING HE OWNED, HE WANTED (to destroy or take for himself, right?). So he wanted to blame Mei Lin again--she just came out of jail recently after having admitted she went after Jing He as revenge because of the past. So, let's say, the assassin tried to set the place on fire (revenge--fire). Mei Lin SAVED the embroidery because she knew it was important to MRJH.

This set up a relationship growth for the two of them. She did not know why she did it for him and he was "touched." The Emperor heard about this incident and openly wondered if the fire was set by the odd girl or...someone else. He noticed Jing He getting too protective of this woman. The Emperor would rather Jing He marry Luo Mei first (tradition, legal wife first, then the cheh--concubine). He gave Luo Mei the personal choose-husband edict. He "ordered" Mei Lin under house arrest to repair the embroidery.

At first, MRJH resisted this order but Xihan Green Tea accused MRJH of hurting the ten beauties and backed this punishment, saying she was his country's Mei Ren and needed guidance and reflection. Mei Lin was NOT stupid so I hated the drama using this device to separate the two main leads by sewing (geddit? Heh) simple discord. I'd rather Mei Lin SAW through this and went along with it because she remembered Su Muo in girl outfit (in my story, Su Muo's drag queen was also seen by her). So why was Su Muo meeting up with her "Shadow Master" and her assassin people. Also, she was remembering her fight with them--she did not recognize their moves or personalities. ANOTHER clue for our smart Mei Lin.

INSERTING a bit of @Unbeliebubble's notes here:

The scene where Mei Lin agreed to go with XiyanGreenTea Prince instead of stay with MRJH. Jing He closed the door on the waiting GreenTea and pushed her against the wall.

His gaze was angry, even deadly. " So you want to work with him? Let me remind you, since you left the imperial prison. whether dead or alive, you are mine. Relying on others will only hasten your death. The more you depend on them, the quicker your death."

Mei Lin smiled. She knew which button to push. "Don’t worry your Highness, I won’t rely on Prince Yue Qin. Zhang Yin plans to flee to Xiyan. And his female accomplice is hiding in the court of state ceremonial. Find her, and we’ll find Zhang Yin. However...I'm perfectly willing to cooperate with you if you're willing to do the same with me."

MRJH considered his options and pressed closer, chest to chest. The tension between them rose several degrees as they stared eye to eye.

"You don't tell anyone anything. You don't keep any secrets from me," he ordered, "and I'll allow you to go with him."

He opened the door and coldly told XiyanGreenTea Prince, "Her days are yours but her nights are mine. She'll be my Concubine as soon as arrangements are made." He did not miss the look of rage that flitted across GreenTea's face.

***

Mei Lin's confinement allowed her to investigate on her own because--superb martial arts :)  She was still nice to Green Tea because their past, though and they had the conversations about how they met, etc. She told him he should go back to become Prince Heir and he thought she was agreeable. Mei Lin was a bit tone deaf about this kind of stuff, being an assassin, so did not notice his excitement about this "agreement." At night, he stared at her window where he could see the two shadows of MRJH and Mei Lin. His grip on the window sill tightened.

"She is going to be mine," he muttered under his breath.

As Mei Lin did her embroidery repair at nights, she started looking at the threads really closely.

5) The hunt

The emperor ordered this for Luo Mei to choose. Clown Prince had other plans. Mei Lin, in her night sojourns heard about the plans and with references in the conversation, she began to figure out Clown Prince had something to do with that fire and not MRJH.

She went off to sneak to find Jing He to tell him but he was busy drinking with Luo Mei, who was confessing...again. Mei Lin didn't want to interrupt and went off. And wondered why she felt...jealousy.

This scene should mirror Mei Lin's rejection of Xiyan Green Tea, except here it was Luo Mei who was tone deaf because she was a border general and used to getting her own way. She told Jing He he just needed time to get used to her having her as a wife, that he couldn't have changed so much from how he used to be her bestie. He told her people changed and he definitely only liked weeds now.

And here we could include that beautiful confession Mei missed about the Undying Flower weeds. Luo Mei's expression should be flaming red hot anger, jealousy resentment, not the robotic "oh" we got from the actress.

The hunt scene should be as we saw them BUT

That fight in the forest? It was intense but the episode should end with them running off after Pang's death and then she threatened Jing He with her blade after their amazing fight to fend off bad guys together.

Why?

"Your fighting skills are the same as mine," she grounded out. "Who. Are. You?"

END EPISODE