I was among the first batch of people to read Guo Jingming’s City of Fantasy (《幻城》) back in 2003, when I was in high school. To my younger self, the story was *heart-rending, and Guo’s language was mind-blowingly beautiful. I amused myself by imagining the novel as a TV series and building a cast in my head, matching every character with the actor who I thought could portray them best.

2003年，当我还是个高中生时，已经是郭敬明小说《幻城》的第一批读者了。在当时年少的我看来，这个故事是那么的令人心碎，而郭敬明的文字更是出人意料的优美。每当我想象着小说如果拍成电视剧，每个角色都会由谁来饰演，并在脑海中搜索着我认为最合适的演员时，总会感觉格外有趣。

But the day never came when I saw my fantasy show realized – until now, over a decade later.

但我幻想中的电视剧一直没有成为现实——即便到了十多年后的今天。

The new series, named Ice Fantasy, premiered online on July 24. It mostly follows the plotline of the novel, which tells the story of two half-brothers, Ka Suo – the prince and later king of the Ice Tribe – and Ying Kongshi. The drama of their lives unfolds against the backdrop of an everlasting feud, between the Ice Tribe and the Fire Tribe.

这部名为《幻城》的新剧已于7月24日在网络上首播。该剧大致遵循了原著的故事主线，讲述了同父异母的两兄弟，冰族王子(后成为国王)卡索和樱空释之间的故事。在冰族和火族经年累月的争斗中，两兄弟戏剧般的人生也就此展开。

Unfortunately, the show came a bit too late – at least for me – since I have long outgrown the taste for *sloppy sentiment, which is all that Ice Fantasy is. I have also grown a new taste for *impeccably lifelike computer-generated images, which is everything that Ice Fantasy is not.

不幸的是，这部电视剧来得太晚了——至少于我而言——长大后的我早已对那份多愁善感没了兴致，而这一切却正好是《幻城》的卖点。现在的我想在电视上得到的是无可挑剔且又栩栩如生的电脑合成画面，然而这却是《幻城》给不了的。

There is very little left in the show for me to enjoy, except for revisiting my decade-old *pastime by comparing the cast with the original characters. Some choices are *passable, including Feng Shaofeng as Ka Suo and Ma Tianyu as Ying Kongshi. But not every casting decision is satisfactory.

这部剧并没有多少能让我欣赏的地方，除了重温我10年前的过往消遣，将如今的演员阵容与书中人物一一对比。一些选角算是差强人意，如由冯绍峰饰演卡索，马天宇饰演樱空释等。但并不是所有的选角都令人满意。

For example, Li Luo (Victoria Song, 宋茜), Ka’s lover, is described in the book as an elegant and serene half-goddess. Yet in the show, she is A) a human being, and B) a tomboy who fights and *banters with men all the time.

比如，在书中，卡索的恋人梨落(宋茜饰)是一个优雅端庄的半神。然而在剧中她却是一个男孩子气的凡人，总是和男人们大打出手或是相互调侃。

Browsing through comments online, I found out that I was not the only one to feel this way. Many readers of City of Fantasy are talking about how awkwardly the new show has made changes to the characters and the plotline.

看过网上的评论后，我发现还有很多人和我有相同的感受。许多《幻城》小说的读者都在吐槽这部新剧对人物和情节的改编是如何地令人尴尬。

Shen Zhining, the screenwriter of Ice Fantasy, explained that to *adapt a novel onto the screen is like translating from one language into another – instead of interpreting the text word-by-word, some items need to be added or *omitted from the original in order to make the adaptation flow smoothly.

电视剧《幻城》的编剧沈芷凝认为将小说改编成电视剧就像翻译一样，要意译不要直译，为了让改编更加自然，需要对原作进行一些增添或是删减。

Despite its flaws, the new show is attracting a mass following: Only one day after its premiere, the first four episodes of Ice Fantasy were viewed over 300 million times, according to Shanghai-based media data company Vlinkage. Perhaps the audience was truly intrigued by the story, or simply watched it for the sake of *nostalgia. Either way, the numbers prove that the show is popular, and that’s probably all the show-runners ever asked for.

尽管存在缺点，但这部新剧还是吸引了大批观众：据设在上海的媒体数据监测公司Vlinkage的数据显示，首播后第一天，《幻城》的前四集就有了超过3亿的播放量。或许观众们是真的被这个故事所吸引，又或许只是单纯地为自己的情怀买单。不论如何，这些数据表明，这部电视剧大受欢迎，而这或许便是所有电视剧制作人想要看到的结果。