“Bu Bu Jing Qing” Confuses Fans, Rumored to Have Alternate Endings
Bu Bu Jing Qing <步步驚情>, the long awaited modern sequel to the popular time-traveling drama Bu Bu Jing Xin <步步驚心>, finally began airing on April 22. However, the first few episodes triggered much confusion among fans, who were perplexed as to how the sequel related to the love story between Maertai Ruoxi and Emperor Yongzheng.
In the prequel, Bu Bu Jing Xin, a white-collar worker named Zhang Xiao (Cecilia Liu 劉詩詩) accidentally travels back in time to the Qing Dynasty, where she becomes Maertai Ruoxi and finds herself involved in the political intrigue of the palace. She falls in love with Fourth Prince (Nicky Wu 吳奇隆), who becomes Emperor Yongzheng, but fate forces them apart. Ruoxi later passes away, causing Zhang Xiao to be revived in the modern world. Wondering if her experiences were all a dream, Zhang Xiao visits a Qing Dynasty museum exhibit and discovers that she really did exist during that time.
In a surprising twist, the Zhang Xiao in Bu Bu Jing Qing has no memories whatsoever of having lived during the Qing Dynasty. Instead, the first episode shows her avidly watching Bu Bu Jing Xin on her television. Intrigued by the love between Ruoxi and Yongzheng, Zhang Xiao finds an interest in Qing Dynasty history and takes to visiting a museum about the Qing Dynasty palace. There, she meets Yin Zheng (Nicky Wu), a man who bears a strong resemblance to Yongzheng. The resemblance brings tears to Zhang Xiao’s eyes.
Though a similar version of the museum scene was shown in Bu Bu Jing Xin as well, netizens expressed their confusion about how the scene in Bu Bu Jing Qing is meant to be interpreted. Since Zhang Xiao has no recollection of her Qing Dynasty past, it makes no sense for her to cry upon seeing Yin Zheng at the museum. That she later follows him to his company and applies for a job there makes her seem more like a crazy stalker than a woman searching for her lost love.
Was “Bu Bu Jing Qing” Censored?
Another perplexing situation was the removal of a classic line from Yongzheng to Ruoxi: “If you can’t come to my world, then I will go to your world and find you.” This sentence is even featured as the tagline on Bu Bu Jing Qing’s promotional posters, and was meant to be uttered by Yongzheng prior to his death.
However, the line does not appear in the TV broadcast of Bu Bu Jing Qing, though it is heard in a sneak preview released on Tencent Entertainment prior to the official air date. In the sneak preview, Zhang Xiao also remembers having traveled back in time to the Qing Dynasty. Because of the difference between the preview and the official broadcast, netizens speculated that Bu Bu Jing Qing had been censored before its broadcast on Zhejiang Satellite TV.
In response, a Zhejiang TV employee maintained that Bu Bu Jing Qing had not undergone any censoring: “In order to ensure the requirements of fans and viewers and the show’s authenticity, not one cut was made after we received the release from the producer.”
The drama’s production company, Chinese Entertainment Shanghai, was not willing to comment on the matter. Nevertheless, it was previously reported that the number of episodes had been reduced from 39 to 35.
Some netizens surmised that Bu Bu Jing Qing’s storyline had been changed to accommodate the ban against time-traveling dramas, which SARFT put into effect in 2011.
Multiple Endings Filmed for “Bu Bu Jing Qing”?
At a recent press conference, Nicky Wu revealed that the cast had filmed multiple endings for Bu Bu Jing Qing, and that he himself did not know whether Zhang Xiao and Yin Zheng would end up together.
Producer Karen Tsai (蔡藝儂) confirmed that Bu Bu Jing Qing indeed has several possible endings. “We did this because we didn’t know how to bring it to an end,” she explained. “It’s like Fourth Prince says in Bu Bu Jing Xin: ‘The beginning of this story is up to you, but the ending is not.’”
Bu Bu Jing Xin filmed more than one ending as well, according to Tsai. The alternate ending reveals that the driver who crashed into Zhang Xiao at the beginning of the drama and sent her spirit back to the Qing Dynasty was in fact Nicky Wu’s modern-day character. However, this ending was scrapped because the producers feared that portraying a problematic driver, which is a rampant societal issue, would reflect badly on Nicky’s image.
“Bu Bu Jing Qing” Trailer
[vsw id=”_Wsgz1A1qYQ” source=”youtube” width=”500″ height=”375″ autoplay=”no”]
Sources: QQ.com; Hexun; Sina.com; Sina.com
This article is written by Joanna for JayneStars.com.
but she remembered the head pin..
I just want happy ending. The videos uploaded on YouTube are very confusing. There are different versions on the 1st two episodes.
I don’t think I can take tragic ending for them again. The ending for BBJX is so tragic I think I ended up using half a box of tissue while sobbing like a child gone mad.
Thanks J.H. Will check it out this weekend!
Puff: You are welcome. I posted it (the link) few times since yesterday for you and someone kept deleting it. That was not nice. 🙁
Thanks J.H. Just watched ep 1 from your link and it’s good. Totally different from the article, thank goodness, big sigh of relief.
Can’t belief I still have tears when I watched the first episode. Thanks again J.H.
Yes, J.H., the person is very mean. I noticed your post with the YouTube link keep disappearing.
thats a beautiful pic by the way. As much as I hate all this censored dialogue due to the restriction of in China. I’m watching this for Nicky and LSS because I love them together and I have been waiting so long to see them onscreen. The uncensored version is now being release as well so we can watch both of that
ok>>>……..lol
Where can you get the uncensored version?
Yes please can you post the uncensored version link – the official version really does not make sense at all!
At the beginning of the 1st two episodes she remembered who she was. She wanted to tell him about it, but she tripped and fell down (the power line on the floor) and she forgot her past life memory. That is my guess.
yeah a lot loved watching this tv film which is in the mainland of china>>>> but i haven’t watched it before
so i would like to watch to see if is good>>>>
She looked as excited as a wax doll.
Watched episode 1 and it is stupid. The characters are twisted and the plot is silly. Dont know if I have any gut to continue.
How can you tell all that after one ep? I think you should give the series a chance.
I am very confused which one I saw. I don’t remember watching Zhang Xiao watching TV in ep 1. So what version is that?!
Anyway the entire series is just wrong.
I hate the ban and it ruined everything. I can’t watch this anymore. :/ if this were to happen, I rather the first bbjx ended like the novel where they meet in heaven.
Bbjq is really confusing with the tv version and then the internet version. A lot of flashbacks on preview was not shown in the drama. It doesnt make sense right now.
quoting Sakuya over at spcnet:
“I just found out most of the Youtube videos that says “clean version” “uncut”, they’re all from the TV broadcast so it has the ad-libbed dialogue and TV-dream sequence. If you search “步步惊情搜狐完整版” which is the original version aired on TV Sohu, it will not show Zhang Xiao watching TV.”
so watching the 步步惊情搜狐完整版 for the beginning episodes might be better?
The kind soul who uploaded it onto youtube is the actor who is acting as Zhang Xiao’s ex-boyfriend, Huang Di.
Thank you for sharing this information. That was nice that he uploaded them for everyone to see. He is a kind soul. 🙂
Really? I am shocked if that is true since I have never heard of an actor from any series actually uploading series online for the public to watch.
By the way,the actor you guys are referring to is Sean Chen Xiang. He is a singer/actor. He sings pretty well. I just saw him in Hero with Micheal and Kevin and he was cool as the young general.
The original uncensored version has stopped uploading on sohu due to policy reasons. So devastating as the uncensored version makes sense wheras the tv version is frankly rubbish! Anyone know if original will be released on DVD???
No! No! No! Does it mean no one will be able to uploading them onto YouTube either? That’s not cool at all. 🙁
You can watch it at other sites. There is this one other site that you can watch Taiwanese and mainland series on. The address is:
http://sugoideas.com/
There are many many series that you can see on there too. I think they will be having BBJQ as well. Enjoy!
Also, just get the DVD set if you want to watch any series. IT is a big chore to watch series online due to the slow buffering and all.
Wait, they already have BBJQ and they are up to ep 10!! You can enjoy it now.
HeTieShou:
Thank you. 🙂
Yes, uncensored version is much better. I don’t watch mainland modern series, but I’m enjoying this so far. Oh the scene where they were walking, with each hand touching different side of the same red wall, longing for each other was brought tears…
Yes. I like this modern version so far. BEFORE This one – I haven’t found one modern dramas from China that I like. Taiwan makes much better modern dramas in my opinion.
HeTieShou:
I watch many dramas from that website http://sugoideas.com/
but the BBJQ on there right now – is it the original, uncensored version? Thanks for your help. 🙂
Thanks for your help. Why did they have to make it so confusing like that? 🙁
idk i think it had something to do with time travel bans and other stuff that happens behind the scenes we dont know about
Why did the government have to make such a big deal out of time travel issue? It’s just stupid. This is for entertaining purpose only. Any common sense person would know how to separate facts and fictions regarding history.
@JH,
You are welcome and I do not know if it is the uncensored version. I wonder what the differences are?
HTS, this video compared the 2 version… http://youtu.be/AEVkFG-ZBkM
Uncensored is so much better
Am watching and am very very confused. Anyway the version I saw had that line as well as everything so I suppose the version I saw was uncensored.
Why did they have to make it so different? Btw, can I ask if only the 1st and 2nd episodes are different?