“Joy of Life 2” Has Too Many Ads?

Despite strong viewership and unlocking a record-breaking 33k on Tencent’s Heat Index rankings – a measure of dramas’ popularity, “Cdrama of the year” Joy of Life 2 <慶餘年2> has been met with annoyance and criticism over rampant product ads.

Is Season 2 a Letdown?

Netizens raised complaints over the sheer number of disruptive product ads in the drama, noting that a 47-minute episode carried as many as nine product ads running for a total of 136 seconds, which even premium pay-to-watch subscribers were unable to skip, leaving many exasperated.

As an adaptation of the novel Joy of Life by Mao Ni, viewers also voiced out how the incongruen-cy of parts of the sequel made the drams seem like an “embarrassing comedy”, and suggested that it should have adhered to the original.

The genre-bending story, a cocktail of various elements from comedy to espionage which secured the first season’s success, sees male lead Fan Xian (Zhang Ruoyun 張若昀) returns to the capital after encountering a fake death, but second prince of Qing Li Chengze (Liu Duan Duan 劉端端) is unwilling to let him off the hook. Beyond their back-and-forth exchange of wits, the introduction of new characters such as the Empress (Yu Feihong 俞飛鴻), Northern Qi Princess (Mao Xiaotong 毛曉彤), daughter of Wang Qinian, Baba (Luo An 珞安) also roused discussions.

Echoing similar commentary, media reviews were unimpressed by the stilted humor so far, noting that even the new male actors who joined the cast were all comedy actors.

Source: WorldJournal