任是无情也动人

Finally took the time out to do the latest HSR story update this weekend. I had already read the spoilers online, and accordingly adjusted my expectations. The results were...pretty much as expected.

( Re: the climatic let down )

( Re: rant about the Xianzhou )

Eh... with that off my back, I want to reiterate again that there are good parts of this story, both in this part in and of itself, and as the coda of the entire Amphoreus arc.

( So, the good: )

So that's pretty much it for HSR. I pulled for Hyacine and E2 Castorice to fill up the meta Remembrance team, which should hopefully last through the 4.0 arc with its JP themed setting. This is all using saved up pulls, so didn't actually spend any $$ on the HSR side.

Oh, and the events that came along with it... I've only played a few matches of Currency Wars, but it feels pretty fun. A breath of fresh air from the Simulated/Divergent Universe, which has gotten rather boring.

Anyway, part of the reason it took so long for me to do the story update is because I have also been splitting my daily play time with Genshin. *sigh* It really is taking me back to the days of GW2 and the time investment needed.

( RE: Genshin thoughts )

So, I have finished the story and also browsed through the v1 model/kit spoilers for the next patches new March 7 and Dan Heng new forms.

( story )

( upcoming banners )

Played the story quest for the collab today, and speaking as someone who only barely knows anything about the FSN side aside from the basic premises, I kinda liked it.

The story didn't go deep into the FSN side lore or anything, but did fill in bits of the HSR side lore. Length and pacing was ok to me. Some people complained about the silent film parts, but I wasn't too bothered since I was actually almost ready to play it without turning the voice volume back up. :p (I guess it's cuz none of my favorite characters were featuring.)

For the characterization, I can't say much about the FSN side, but from what I've read online, there weren't too much complaints about the them being OOC or anything, so I think the writers probably played it safe.

Of the HSR characters, I mostly want to mention that I liked Aventurine's parts. In my personal taste, he's much more likeable here than for most of the actual Penacony arc (understandable, since he was under a lot of pressure and trauma there). I also like the fact that it emphasized that for all that the IPC has a bad rep, Aventurine is very sensitive and respectful of other peoples free will. You'd think this is something obvious given his slave background, but all I could think of was the irony considering the vast amount of fanfic that has him cast as stalker/controlling bf/ignoring or denying consent (this is usually when he's in the top role). He also very obviously acts as the brain of the team in the story quest, which is another irony when I recall all the fics that cast him as a brainless beauty that relies entirely on luck (this is usually when he's the bottom). Just...eh.

Also nice thing is that we got one of the collab 5 stars for free: Archer plus his lightcone! (Well, the lightcone was due to meeting the criteria of making enough pulls on the concurrent Tribbie banner.) Similar to Dr. Ratio, it seems like the damage numbers for the freebie is pretty good too. Single target quantum element is also a role I don't already have filled, so double-yay. ^_^

Afterwards, there's not much I'm looking forward to up til the new March and Dan Heng. I don't have high hopes that they'll show up much in the next story patch either. So... it's gonna be a long wait.


Addendum:

Played a day of the new gameplay event, and I gotta say, of all of my DPS, Anaxa is the only one that's crushing it all so far. It's unfortunate that my older DPS like DHIL and Jing Yuan aren't able to keep up with the times. But it's surprising that Castorice, which is a 3.0 DPS as well, wasn't able to keep up as well. Not enough damage done fast enough, especially since she's built for slow speed stat. Whereas Anaxa is able to sync well with half the buff lines - speed, break, ults. Tsk... Since he's also someone I like the design of, it makes me tempted to pull for his eidolons when he gets his rerun.

I just finished the main storyline mission last night, and have been still excited about it since then!

Ok, the first half of the story was boring and tedious. I get they were necessary as setup for the later parts. But it felt like a bunch of monologues one after the other. But! The last...1/3-1/4 of the story, just, wow! The climax this time was excellent! I would even say it's the best one so far: 3.3 > 3.0 > 3.2 > 3.1.

I know some people complained about how Aglaea's death almost completely took place off screen. We don't even get a cinematic about her dead body or whatever. But eh, I feel like we already got a glimpse of that during previous cinematics about the prophesized end of all the heroes involved in the Flame Chase quest. What I did like was that the story used the short segment related to her death to further develop her character. At first the audience is led to believe it as caused by the remnants of her humanity, ie. her mortal weakness and soft heart (which we'd all thought had been worn away). But then we find out that nope, there was no soft heart involved, it was a PR plot she masterminded herself, using her predicted impending death as a tool to destroy her political enemies and a catalyst to spur the growth of her protege. So yeah, still the same old Aglaea.

As for the slow unravelling about the truth history of the Sky people and Hyacine's lineage was paced fairly well, in retrospect, even if the first half was slow. The "twist" in the story was of course not unexpected, because we all know there was gonna be a twist and most likely, the good/evil bits of the legend is not gonna be the truth. However the actual true history that did came out wasn't too cliched (I was honestly half expecting the hero of legend to be more of a villain, or maybe even completely unrelated to the plight of the Sky people), but it holds up to its internal logic and is quite understandable, and very thematically appropriate for a (Greek) tragedy.

The climax boss fight was very well animated. I brought what I thought was a pretty good team, but still got stomped in Phase 3. I am not even sure if I hit all the major animation/story dialogue triggers in that fight... might need to search up some videos of it online to make sure I didn't miss any cool sequences.

Then came the story-side climax of Cipher's death. OMG! Here all this time I thought she was just the catgirl fanservice and gag character. And looking at reddit, I was not the only one who thought this. But as it turns out, she is the actual MVP of Amphoreus. Forget AtlasKephale. It was a f*cking thief who held together the world for the last 700+ years with her f*cking lies.

Looking back, the previous depictions of Cipher takes on a whole new meaning. She was chided by her fellow heroes for disregarding her duties as a demigod and fleeing all conflict... but now we know that's because she was already literally carrying the world on her shoulders, and her death would cause it all to fall apart, so of course she wouldn't risk conflict when she can run. Aglaea couldn't understand why Cipher suddenly turned her back on their friendship and couldn't stand to live in the same city anymore... but now we know it's precisely because of their friendship that Cipher couldn't run the risk of anyone getting to close to her to realize the Grand Con she was running, because the world must believe her Lie for it to remain Truth, and so she had to go into self-exile to minimize anyone getting close to her.

And now, at the end of the Grand Quest, when all the other coreflames of the old gods have been claimed and the heroes are so close to resetting things into a brand new world... Now, finally, Cipher choses to enter the conflict, set herself as bait for the Flame Reaver, and essentially sacrifice herself for one last gambit. She dies alone, with almost no one to know the truth that it was her who truly protected Ohkema up to this time. But she still bought enough time for Hyacine to take up the mantle of the sky and bring down the protection of her rainbow, and protected the last coreflame for our heroes to finish their task when we get back to the city.

Like, I was previously thinking of pulling for Cipher because I really like her art design. But now, I am totally all for Cipher as our catgirl woobie goddess!! *squee~~*

Ahem, other stuff I liked about the story... my boy Dan Heng finally remembered his dragon form!! LOL. It's like the first time since the original Xianzhou arc (the brief showing in Penacony climax turned out to be a dream, after all). We also get to see him sync with the waters of Amphoreus, study with the priests of the local sea god, and learn how to use the magic waters to open travel gates (like, whoa?). I wished we got to see more of his fight as DHIL against the Flame Reaver, but at least we know he's probably not gonna die like the other local heroes did, what with him rumored on getting a new 5 star banner up next patch. Looking forward for that as well.

Had fun yesterday. There is definitely a reason people want to hear LIVE performances in person. Though, I have to say that to me, Zhou Shen's voice is still very much him, and recognizably alike to his studio recordings. (I know this sounds like a non-sequitor, but I have heard claims from other fans who go to his concerts that hearing him in person is a lot different/better than digital recordings in many ways.) I do feel the extra energy coming from his live performance, and from the ambience in general, not to mention the extra volume due to the state of the art sound system plus his (pretty powerful) voice. Like, if he ever has another tour stop in California, I would definitely try to attend again. But, that said, I do still think studio recordings have their own charm, mostly in the area of repeated or relaxed enjoyment. Just sayin'.

Anyway, I recorded almost all of the performances except for the 邓丽君组曲, because my phone was throwing overheating warnings at me, and I had to give it a long-ish break. Ended up with over 25 GB of video files. I've uploaded them all to bilibili, because youtube and other US apps are much stricter with copyright.

Fair warning: Several of them involve sing-along bits, where you can probably hear my off-key screeching. =P During the performance, I couldn't actually hear myself due to the projection of the sound system (and hence didn't know how awfully I was singing :p). But my phone, being much closer to my mouth than the sound system, apparently picked it up just fine. At a cursory recall: 若梦, 小美满, 花开忘忧, 望, 灯火里的中国, Wala li longla, 好运来 all have bits of singalong.


Also, when recording 达拉崩吧 and 不想睡, I panned a lot into the audience, because I found that scene to be very interesting.

I didn't recording any of the talking and bridge sections, mostly to give my phone a bit of time to rest and cool. The talking bits were all really funny though, and I will probably look into collecting the full recap from other people's recordings.


On a different note, this trip to Las Vegas brought back deja vu from my trip there last year...

The hotel (Excalibur) was still pretty good. I had an even better time with it, because I figured out their app, and could do check-in/check-out remotely without having to get in the long lines at the lobby. Also, the app provides a digital room key, so I didn't have to hassle with physical keys that can lose their magnetism at the most inconvenient times. A recommend for anyone who is traveling to LV.

On the other hand, food and drink is still horrendously expensive for the portions offered. A small soda or juice charges like $6...ugh. In the future, I would like to check out the Chinatown in Vegas, because that's something I've only heard of this time when doing research on travel plans. Unfortunately, it was too far to visit this time, but I guess in the future, I'd like to check it out.

Finally finished both the main Hoolay storyline, and the subsequent Wardance event quest. Jotting down some first impressions...

The storytelling I think is pretty stable and in line with the quality of the other 2.x chapters. That is, nothing egregrious stood out while playing, and the progression from segment to segment flowed ok. Focus characters of the patch got their moments to shine. The most obvious whys and wherefores were covered for. So, it was pretty good, IMO.

It's a short and straightforward story. We're shown the stuff happening, even where our protagonists are not present. So none of that mysterious speaking in riddles stuff that may or may not pay off shtick from Luofu 1.x or Penacony arcs.

The general online response I've seen so far (aside from the obvious haters and nitpickers), have generally been positive too. The only criticism I've seen from both the EN and CN side is that it's illogical for Jiaoqiu to have come out of the whole thing alive and "merely" blind.

I have to wonder if originally they meant for Jiaoqiu to be a 4 star character and die during this story. But when he became a 5 star, they had to write him to survive. (Because having a limited banner char who gets killed off, and thus no further appearances in future stories, after the banner ends would probably cause the people who pulled him for the design/backstory to riot.)

Now, it's obviously not a great piece of literature or anything like that. And if you want to nitpick, there are a lot of problems that can be found. But then, that could be said about any and all of HSR's stories.

Especially, the details that interact with the worldbuilding and setting setup, especially for what appears to be a complex "work-in-progress" as the Xianzhou Alliance, is an obvious problem area. I am still no clearer as to how the various government departments/factions/titles interact. Huaiyan seems to imply that Jing Yuan does have some sort of "command" over the 6 charioteer departments. But 6 divisions imply that Cloud Knight is one of them, so I guess he's referring to the Arbiter-General position being above them? But then he also seems to imply that this role can also be temporarily handed off to another Arbiter-General, as he was sitting in for Jing Yuan in that role while the 3 generals were splitting their work. Isn't this like the equivalent making the head of state of another kingdom your imperial regent? Bwah?

And then there's the whole stuff with Vidyadhara and Preceptor Taoran. Mentioned that stuff in the comment here.


What I didn't like about the main story is actually the constant switching of POV characters. It was fine in Penacony, because it only happened a few times. But here, it seemed like we're constantly switching POV, and then doing just a few fights, and then switching again. It's annoying, because each time it replaces the first slot of my team, and then I have to change the rest of my team setup. This also results in me losing any technique buffs I had up previously, which leads to using up a lot of technique point consumables. I mean, sure, it's not like I ever run low on this... but it just feels annoying after a while.

Like, I can get behind the fact that it's a good mechanism to let people try out new banner characters in overworld combat. But there's only 2 characters you need to do that for: Feixiao and Lingsha. There's absolutely no reason to force us to slot Yanqing, Yunli, or Jiaoqiu in the team, considering the former sucks and the latter two aren't up to be pulled. -_-

That said, playing Lingsha has confirmed my initial plans not to pull for her (not that I will have the tickets to pull for her next banner). She seems only good for superbreak teams with Firefly (which I don't have). As a generic healer, she can't even match my ancient 1.x Luocha.

Feixiao, OTOH, is pretty nice as a DPS. She's going to be the one I concentrate on building next.


Eh... back to story. The Wardance event story I feel dragged on, even though I think it is probably the same length as March's training event. Most likely the reason I feel this is because... who the fuck cares about Luca? I mean, out of all the Belobog characters, he's probably at the bottom of the list of recognizable names. He doesn't even show up in the main Belobog story, just one side quest. So why is he getting a whole event that might as well be Luca Companion Quest v2? >_<

Yes, I get that his backstory as a fighting ring guy fits with the whole martial arts tournament setup of the Wardance. Yes, I get that Hoyo is trying to tell the story of the ultimate underdog climbing their way up the ranks, and it's hard to cast someone like Seele or Gepard as that much of an underdog competitor, even if they are a whole lot more popular as characters that people likely prefer to see. But. But. Why do you chose now of all times to use logic rather than marketing statistics?

There are a few parts of the Wardance story that I liked. The bit featuring the Caretwheel Temple. The appearance by Mr. Tails. Even the somewhat friendly/antagonistic relationship with Topaz. Just...not the main part with Luca.

And, like, I get the obvious Olympic memes and stuff in the Wardance. Hoyo overplaying with memes is nothing new. BTW, reading CN player responses to the story... it seems like people are drawing ties with the early day CN participation in the Olympics? Em. Have to wonder if that was what Hoyo was trying to get players to emphasize with? I mean, CN is currently contender for #1 spot in the Olympics. Yes there is discrimination, with regards to drug tests and stuff. But it's really hard to say CN is still the underdog. Do people still see themselves as such? Honestly curious.


Anyways, regarding the tie in between Belobog and the Xianzhou... I realize this was probably set up from the inception, since the coincidence of both places having major crisis events around 700 years ago is too much to be coincidence from a narrative point of view. But, it still gives me the feeling of "what a small world we move in". Though, honestly, I guess I should've been used to this, considering how much a lot of characters get reused all over the place to save designing new NPCs. (Poor Argenti, the brick that keeps getting shoved everywhere that needs a deux ex machina.)

Along with that, specifically regarding Jing Yuan, I feel like the poor guy has been relegated to background exposition tool for the whole update. Yes, this is because this patch is specifically meant to sell Feixiao, and thus she needs to have the limelight, and thus the other two generals, as her only equals, thus must be far from the limelight...

His part in the main story, is understandable, since he is the only one who can give a lot of the backstory and politics on what happened with Hoolay's original capture and incarceration. But at the end of the Wardance event, where he talks about his buddy the ancient hero from Belobog is... eh. Feels a bit shoved in there.

(Also, I want to make a note here. There's nothing in the story that states Igor whatsisname is Luca's ancestor. Jing Yuan used the term "descendant/后代" once, and clearly he's referring to a very general, generational inheritance sense. There's nothing that confirms an actual biological relationship with Luca. They just look similar and both just happen have a bionic arm.)


Anyway, 2.5 ended with us supposedly leaving the Luofu. But earlier in the main story cutscenes, it showed that Ruan Mei had arrived with Tingyun. I am not sure if 2.6 will involve flash backs to what happened there with our protagonist involved. Or if it's going to be just POV change of stuff that happened without our protagonists present. Or maybe we'll come back for them in 2.7?

The limited banner for 2.6 is confirmed to be Rappa, and the setting Penacony. The banners for 2.7 are most likely going to be Sunday and Tingyun (unknown in which order).

Personally, I am waiting for Aventurine to come up for reruns. As well as Dr. Ratio, because I want to get his lightcone. Whether or not I will have enough pulls by then... eh. We'll see.

Years ago, I went through a phase where I was into Alt history stories as written by western authors. There was Eric Flint's 1932 series and the whole genre of ISOT that followed it. There was a forum I frequently which often drew up long alt-history timelines based on various changes to real life history.

Of course, most of the stories/threads I enjoyed were centered around US/Europe/Russia/etc. Anything related to China (and there really weren't much) I ignored because it was obvious they are writing China-in-name-only due to cultural limitations. And then I lost interest due to too much 'Murica F*ck Yeah.

Recently, there has been a surge of alt-history stories on Chinese sites. Specifically, the [历史直播] genre has been sweeping jjwxc by storm. They're everywhere. The basic idea of it is essentially, historical education videos (similar to what you would find on bilibili) are getting broadcasted to various imperial china settings as a heavenly viewscreen, and the story basically consists of the info in those broadcasts, and reaction shots of various historical figures, and the impacts on various points of history.

At first, there was a couple I enjoyed just for the content of the historical broadcasts. Some of it is informative, China having such a long and colorful history, and lots of parts are literally were life was stranger/grander than art could be.

Then slowly, after reading so...very...many...of these stories, the problem of quality again becomes apparent. A lot of these are so very cookie-cutter, and often filled with inaccurate history directly copied off some wiki. So very few authors bother to research into the actual history, and instead use pop history (or the stuff from TV dramas *rolleyes*).

Even moreso getting on my nerves now, are the depictions of historical figures, which you could swap them for some modern rando and it wouldn't be a jarring change. Almost nobody bothers to respect the fact these guys are charismatic leaders, genius strategists, or career politicians.

I will throw out some names here.

秦始皇 is like the new pop star of history or something. So many authors dream of "saving" Qin by making 刘邦 and his famed historical supporters into Qin employees. Of 墨家 magically being able to take 《天工开物》 or even more modern texts from the Qing/Republic eras, and then directly move into 科举制 and industrialization within a single generation. Oh, and the ever present meme of giving 秦始皇 a world map resulting in Qin conquering the world (or at least Europe) in order to "save" modern students from having to learn English. Just... eh. Great fantasy, I guess?

Poor 汉武帝 often gets relegated into comedic relief. These stories/sections are often focused on 卫青 & 霍去病 and their military exploits. The political and economic achievements of 汉武帝 are often glossed over in favor of focusing on his 后宫, the sad fate of his crown prince, and the (historically nonexistent) "罪己诏" that "proves" he regretted his policies earlier in his reign. He's not my favorite emperor, but he sure gets my sympathies after reading too many of these stories.

And then there's 唐太宗, who I will admit beforehand is my favorite ancient chinese historical figure, and whom I'd written a term paper on back at Cal. Also one of the most admired emperors even historically speaking, by the Song literati, the Ming founders, and even more recent figures (aka. "自古能君无出李世民之右者，其次则朱元璋耳"). But unfortunately, he's now a victim of pop culture, often cast as minor character or even antagonist of modern Tang related dramas, resulting in a lot of smearing via fake history and rabid drama fans.

Like, 隋炀帝 is now getting whitewashed as a 明君 who's "工在千秋"? WTF? Depopulating 3/4 of the population is "工在千秋" for works that he neither succeeded in nor invented？

Like, 李建成 is now getting whitewashed as an excellent "守城之君" who would've done perfectly well on the throne? WTF? We're just ignoring the awful decisions he is on record for supporting during 李渊's reign? And making up "feats" to support his excellency in governance? Feats such as 李世民 having to make up for logistics on his own while on campaign rather than getting support from home? [/sarcasm]

Like, even when forced to having to admit 李世民 is an excellent emperor in the history of chinese leaders (because reality, people), don't think I don't notice various authors still keep trying to downplay his achievements by pretty much glossing over pretty much all the nitty details of his policies as ruler, and (again) focusing on the drama of his succession issues and his 后宫. Oh, and the overly used cliche of him worrying about how the future historians/public will view his 玄武门之变.

And also I have noticed that these "broadcasts", often times with various emperors, the story will stop at the end of that emperor's life & reign. With 李世民 they will often go the extra step of continuing to talk about Tang up through 安史之乱 or even late Tang. Like, I have to ask, what does that have to do with 李世民? It's impossible for him to fix stuff that happens a century down the line. So it's just an excuse for him to spit blood/get mad at his descendants? (Not that IMO he'd be that affected by something so detached as an nth gen descendant, honestly.) Oh, and the not-so-subtle implication that the problems of Tang as a 300 year dynasty are his karmic desserts for implementing 玄武门之变.

Just.....ugh. Writing up a defense on behalf of 唐太宗 is gonna be whole 'nother essay by itself.

I'll end this one with a couple of rec links for the rare diamond among the rough. ( recs )

Got to watch this in the theater today. Brought my mom and my cousin who was visiting us for CNY. Some thoughts...

The good:

- SFX is good, definitely on par with the average hollywood blockbuster; good to see the chinese movie industry getting this far. The space elevator scenes were cool.

- Heartwarming moments were heartwarming. Teary moments appropriately teary. It could be that I'm part of the targeted demographic (ie chinese) for the storytelling. But it did hit the right emotions when needed for me.

- I personally liked the attempt to be inclusive in the scope of the movie. Yes, the main focus were on the chinese heroes and their heroic moments, but that's just expected like we expect the americans to be the big damn heroes of american blockbusters. Aside from the main characters, there's certainly a better range of representation of nationalities, genders, languages... than many american shows (that make a big production of being diverse...)

- A new appreciation for a certain MV. =P

The meh:

- While I, being fluent in english and chinese, found the movie to be very friendly to me in terms of language, I can understand that other people might have more difficulties. There's a lot of english speakers in it, so chinese audience would have to rely on the subtitles just as much as the english audience would have to for the chinese parts. Can lead to confusion for people who can't read fast enough. Not sure there's a solution to this issue though.

The bad:

- The plot...eh, I was aware of the silly premise that was already revealed in the first movie, so went into this with the brain turned off. And there are certainly a lot of plot holes, and lack of explaining a lot of stuff the story just takes for granted but makes you go "what, what about...". Then in addition to that, there's some convolutions to the plot. As it is, my mom walked out of the theater not having understood several core elements of the story and I had to explain it to her.

- I had been reading other reviews that complained about the length, and I did feel the stress of sitting there for 3 hours (the last hour of which I was studiously trying to ignore the bathroom urge). There does seem to be some bits that I feel could have been chopped or simplified. Or maybe a shorter theatrical version and then a longer extended cut? That way you can sell it twice.

Overall: 8 out of 10 maybe? Would like to watch it again (main struggle here is my paranoia of going outside while COVID is still lurking).


EDIT: Want to add my cousin's feedback on the movie...

She liked it and felt it was better than a lot of American blockbuster movies she'd watched, in terms of SFX, theme, and drama. She definitely felt the distinctively chinese cultural differences in the movie, and felt it was new and interesting. For example the emphasis on family and community over the individual, and the focus of the sci-fi on megastructures and communal projects rather than the more western staple of starships/age of sail theme.

So the new Cantha expansion released on Feb 28, and I played a bit of it over the weekend. I haven't finished the story, but I'm about 4/5 of the way there. Have traveled a bit around all of the maps. Did 3 of the 4 map metas. Haven't unlocked the siege turtle mastery track yet but have played the other tracks a bit. So this is just a first impressions review.

( Read more... )

Overall: It's...ok. Mechanically not much of a game changer as gliding and mounts brought, but I suppose that's a good thing in terms of power creep at this point. Maps are nice if you have skyscale and can bypass a lot of the difficulties in navigation. Not much of a wow factor as PoF but fight mechanics feel better balanced. I will probably finish out the story on my main, do most all of the masteries and try those out, and then get the full specialization for mesmer at least. Though, not sure I'll still play on after that.

I don't think there's an official translation of the song titled《无所畏惧》 but it's probably close enough. The first time I heard this song as I was busy going over all of Zhou Shen's recent works, and at the time, it actually didn't really stand out to me among the sea of his other works.

Then the second to fourth time I heard it, I started thinking that the refrain was actually really catchy, even if the transition was a little awkward. But I still saved it into my playlist. Then the more times I heard the song, the more I liked it. Later when I started looking closer to the lyrics, I found myself liking the calmer starting part of the song too. And today I think I've been basically listening to it on repeat.



This is not the first of Zhou Shen's songs where this happened for me. For example, the same thing happened with 《和光同尘》 from my last post. I'm constantly upping the rating of various songs on my playlist, as they repeat on my playlist and start eating my brain, lol.

But can you believe that this was actually written for a cartoony game? It really sounds more appropriate as the main theme for a serious film or a TV documentary. Or as many users on bilibili have it, for stuff like this... (Huh, seems like you can't embed videos from bilibili here? Or is there something I'm missing?)

One more thing, found this behind the scenes video which I found interesting. Zhou Shen actually sang aloud for the filming of the MV even though he didn't have to (the boy just likes to sing, lol). The video shows that even without a microphone, his voice still carried through the mini orchestra. Haha, I guess that's what a degree in bel canto will do for ya.

Second addendum, found the English version of this song, obviously not sung by Zhou Shen. Man, the difference a vocalist and singing style makes. I wonder why they didn't just have ZS sing the English version too? I mean, he sings perfectly fluent English. (Was he too expensive to hire for two songs? :p)