The Grand First Episode Project. . .

[skylee]

A veteran member of the Chinese-forums (he does not come back any more, it seems) has just recommended 大女当嫁 to me. He said it was really good (真的不错,所以我才推荐), and that it reminded him of me (我看了就想起你了).

I have not seen it, but since he wrote to me to recommend it I think it must be quite good.

Has anyone seen it?

Here is the link -> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F81FH0tEHLI

PS - I saw 3/4 of the first episode. I don't think I will go on.

[ansileran]

Wow ! You guys are great !

Now I have some ideas of new (at least to me) Chinese series to watch. I was getting sick of Taiwanese soappy romance. I'll try watching the latest First Episodes to follow the project though I won't be of any help since I probably won't understand half of it if there are no English subtitles...

Please do keep it up !

[renzhe]

Welcome to the project!

Please have a look at the the index thread to find suitable shows, and don't forget to leave a comment in the corresponding thread when you've watched a show to tell everyone what you thought about it.

BTW, some of the shows have English subtitles, it's all listed in the index thread, as well as the difficulty of each show.

[roddy]

Seriously, you can be a huge help just by posting questions about the stuff you don't understand - that'll get more people watching, both to help you out, and as they realize there's plenty to be learned. Plus you'll be telling us how great the shows are.

Even just a 'watched this, not bad' gives the topic a well-deserved bump.

[ansileran]

So far I've only watched Taiwanese romance series because they usually are easy to understand when subtitles are missing... And I find them untertaining as long as the girl isn't too stupid. I'm not sure they should be made part of the project since I'm probably the only one here who likes this kind of stuff. Here are a few I watched that aren't in the list (or if they are, sorry, I probably missed them because I didn't recall the Chinese title) :

Devil beside you (Rainie Yang, Kingone, Mike He)

Why why love (same cast)

Romantic Princess (Angela Chang, Wu Chun)

Meteor Garden (F4, Barbie Hsu) Taiwanese adaptation of Hana yori dango (Boys over flowers)

Mars (Barbie Hsu, Vic Zhou)

ToGetHer (Jiro Wang, Rainie Yang)

Hi My Sweetheart (Show Luo, Rainie Yang)

PiLiMIT

[rob07]

Thinking about watching 大明宫词 next, someone recommended it and gave me a copy of the CD set. Anyone seen this?

I haven't watched a historical series yet and I feel like it is time (not counting 走向共和 as historical as it is quasi-modern and also not counting 射雕英雄传 and 天龙八部 as historical since I understand that some historians don't accept all the finer details of the plot as being accurate).

I see the 清朝 series 雍正王朝 is down as the forum recommendation for historical series, but I feel like going a bit further back. And 大明宫词 focuses on 武则天, China's only female Empress (ruling 690-705), I'm interested to learn more about how she managed that.

I'm not sure they should be made part of the project since I'm probably the only one here who likes this kind of stuff.

Well, there's clearly an audience for it. It might even include me if you make enough interesting posts about it! ;)

[roddy]

Hey, when you're picking random Chinese TV shows, one person liking it is actually considered a head start.

[ansileran]

Well, things are a bit hectic for me at the moment, but I should have time in two weeks to rewatch first episodes of these series and then open topics about them... We'll see then if they are worth adding to the project or not ^^

I wouldn't mind watching something else, but given my very limited Chinese vocabulary, I'm stuck with teenage romance...

[roddy]

Just post them as an Official First Episode - we don't have any barriers to entry. I think we even let Rob07 do some . . .

[rob07]

I'm sure there are some older posts on this site from a number of people that enjoyed Meteor Garden. I'd certainly be interested in reading a write up for that show.

[ansileran]

yeah, the Taiwanese version is pretty cool I think (this is the third I've seen) and it's the closest to the manga. I will have to rewatch it, to make sure I don't include too many spoilers and don't get the versions mixed up.

[ansileran]

I've a question : how do you look for transcripts (I'm not sure this is the right word...) ? I would like to find text files of the dialogues of thoses series, but I don't even know how to look for them. I guess Chinese sub files would be fine too... Are there specific websites for this ? Or do you search on the net using the Chinese words ?

[roddy]

Some suggestions here. But often they just don't exist - who, after all, is going to make them?

[ansileran]

I'll just have to make them myself then... Going through the episodes in slow motion to write them down from the traditional subs...

I also wonder who makes the English subs ^^ afterall, it doesn't benefit them, since they can understand it in Chinese already ^^

[roddy]

There are various fansub sites - I can't remember the poster's name, but have a search for the 爱情公寓 First Episode - the guy who started that ran a site where people were doing the English subs for Chinese shows.

[ansileran]

when looking for subs, do you look for .srt + title (I do that for .torrent) or do you search for "subtitles" (however that's translated into Chinese) ?

I like the idea of making multiple languages subs

[ansileran]

I think people making subs are amazing... It's such a hard work... I've some to make for German movies and keep finding excuses not to make them ^^ I'm too lazy ^^

[Gleaves]

I made a list of all these shows on douban. See here.

I wanted to have quick access to all these on douban, but at the same time I didn't want to add all 76 to my "to-watch" list. Douban can be good for figuring out actors/directors and then cross referencing them with their other works. It can also be a good place to read some reviews/discussion in Chinese on your favortie shows.

I was not able to find one show, #28 Drunken Master Zhang San. I might be able to manually add it, but haven't tried yet. I have a random Zhang San movie filling in that spot.

[ansileran]

If you just want summaries or cast informations, you can try wikipedia in english, or just google it ^^

[renzhe]

I've been very busy recently (still). I should finally have some time to breathe in January. Thanks to everyone for starting new threads. I'll try to work my way through them these days.

Anyway, I'm still slowly making my way through 武林外传, but I've been itching to start watching something new and fresh. Here are some options I've run across:

iPartment (爱情公寓), second season. It's not finished yet, but the first episodes should be coming out around this time. This one was quite popular. In the new season, three characters were replaced, and this sadly includes 美嘉.

手机, based on a famous movie. The movie was quite funny, don't know about the series.

婚姻保卫战, a marriage-themed series featuring 陆涛 and 夏琳 from 奋斗.

金大班 -- I've seen a bit of this and it's really terrible, don't watch it! It's a Fan Bingbing ego trip.

These are all very highly rated. Perhaps somebody else has other suggestions? Since we've all enjoyed 武林外传 so much, I'd also like to try some other shows by the same people.

Unfortunately, it seems like verycd has clamped down on downloading new shows, and they have their own youtube-like service for newer shows. We'll have to improvise in the future.