Ashes of Love (2018)

It's best to watch this drama with a split brain

On one hand, it's this disaster Romeo and Juliet romance of angst and will-they-won't-they and conflict and death and "I will literally die for this love" tropey xianxia drama stuff. If you've seen Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms or Love Eternal or the million other massively popular gods and romance Chinese dramas, you've seen this. This is our main couple.

On the other, it's this refined Hamlet of court intrigue, asking interesting moral questions such as "if my father is a genocidal tyrant and I have the ability to overthrow him, do I have the responsibility to do so, despite my filial piety obligations?" and "should I continue to care for a fiancee that has cheated on me with my brother because I still love her?" and "is it really true that to achieve justice in an unjust world one must commit unjust acts?" This is where the second male lead resides.

And yeah, I care very much more about Runyu's storyline than literally anything our main couple of doing, and that's not to mention the fact that those two did extremely shitty things to Runyu while they are pursuing their "forbidden romance." Apparently cheating on your fiancee is okay if it's true love, and asking your brother to annul his engagement because you want his future wife is okay if it's true love, but it's wrong if you want justice when your own mother dies in front of your eyes.

Anyway, the acting from everyone is top notch for such a mainstream blockbuster drama. Yang Zi pulls no punches during her crying scenes (she cries and I'm automatically on her side despite the fact that I don't agree with her side), Leo Luo embodies the ethereal and gentle immortal that has been living in the public Chinese consciousness for eons but has never been able to be brought onto screen until now. Deng Lun needs a lot of work, you can tell in a lot of scenes he is out of it and not acting at all, and his posture is terrible, but he's still okay. Everyone else? Wonderful, keep up the good work. Also, give the VFX team a bonus please, because everything finally looks phenomenal.

Leia Mais

The 'Unfair treatment' in this story really pisses me off.

Let's just say that I got into the drama thinking it will be interesting for the main couple, but turns out I was severely disappointed. I first came across this on Youtube, because they uploaded a scene on there, so I wanted to give it a try, because (1) I love the back ground music that was played in this drama, and (2) Another Xianxia / Fantasy drama that looks interesting, but then it turned out that watching clips without the entire context of the story can be so misleading.

Well, before I get into this, first, I do NOT recommend this story if you think it's similar to Three Lives Three World's because it is NOT similar at all, not in terms of where the main love in Ashes of Love is concerned... Three Lives Three World's (Ye Hua and Bai Qian) is 1000000x better than this crappy love story! I can't believe people compare this to Three Lives three world's, Ten Miles Peach Blossom... And they even said Allen Deng (who played Xu Feng) is more handsome than Mark Chao (who plays 'Ye Hua')? Well, how we perceive 'handsome' is subjective, to me, I don't think Allen Deng is handsome at all.... Mark Chao is better looking than him, but this is my opinion

I got into this drama (Ashes of Love) expecting it to be good, and I was keeping an open mind about it, and it did started off okay but as the story kicks in, I just feel so bad for my fav character (Run Yu) in there.

So, let's just let me simplify this for those who haven't watched it...
- Jin Mi (Female Lead) who doesn't know what 'romance love' was (because of what was placed into her at her birth by her mother), was engaged to Run Yu before she was born. And when she was asked, she accepted the engagement on her end with Run Yu because she also likes him, even though it's the 'platonic' kind of love...

- Jin Mi takes things for granted, she doesn't cultivate herself by working hard to get stronger, but instead cheat her way out to gain a higher immortal level by the help of others, that was so annoying of her....

- Well since Jin Mi is the female lead, and Xu Feng being the male lead, the romance goes in their favour....

- Run Yu love for Jin Mi is no less than how Xu Feng and Jin Mi "loves" each other.....

- The Uncle Moon Immortal said he loves both his nephews, but obviously you can clearly see how bias he is, since he favoured Xu Feng (being the legitimate son) on his end...

- When Xu Feng and Jin Mi first met, he was so arrogant towards her, and he even abused Jin Mi of his powers, by turning her into objects to abuse her with... People call this romantic and appealing? -_-

But to put this into perspective, what I hate about this story (and yes, I am talking about Xu Feng and Jin Mi) is.... The writers did a lot to try and justify their love as something 'natural', and that Jin Mi chose Xu Feng on her end, when in the end, it turned out to be the biggest lie...

When Jin Mi have to go down to the human world to do the trial to experience these hardships, Xu Feng went after her to follow her and he even 'SELFISHLY' asked his uncle, the Moon Immortal (which is a Love Deity) to tie the red string around their ankle to pair them up, and you know what this looks like? It's 'manipulation'! Because I'm sure we all know the story behind the power of the red string right? He have the power to make them fall in love if they are tied together by the red string... So considering all this, and it was evidently shown that there was this invisible red string around their ankle when they were in the human realm, it actually gave Jin Mi a chance to "fall in love" with Xu Feng, and that feeling carried back to after she did the trial, and it really frustrates and annoys me how she keeps using her time in the human realm (when she did the trial) as her love for him, when I'm like "NO, it's not.... It was all manipulated", the writers expect me to see their love is natural and true? Are you kidding me?!

Run Yu loved Jin Mi and he is willing to wait for her to love him back in return, to me Run Yu is the most interesting character in this series, he's suffered so many injustices, and mistreatment in this story that actually makes me feel for him. He never wanted anything on his end, not the throne, not fame or power.... He just wanted the woman he loves to love him back... And to me, what he did later on is justifiable, because if Xu Feng did NOT even respect Run Yu's feelings in all this, why should Run Yu consider his feelings? It's only fair...

The thing I hate about Xu Feng, is, he's selfish, yet people / fans still love him and praise his love for Jin Mi... When, he actually used the power of the Moon Immortal to make their love possible... Xu Feng said he feels sorry for what happened to his brother (Run Yu) one minute, yet not long later, it shows he doesn't really mean it...

When Xu Feng found out the date of the engagement between Jin Mi and Run Yu is drawing near, he asked to meet Jin Mi and took her virginity... That's just disgusting imo. I cannot understand how fans can find that scene is romantic... Run Yu and Jin Mi is still engaged, for goodness sake.... So, can they NOT wait until their engagement is called off first?! Did they respected Run Yu's feelings at all when they were doing it? Run Yu is still mourning the death of his mother, how she was killed by Xu Feng's mother! Yet, he saw the whole thing... the woman he loves with his whole heart, making love with his brother, where he once consider him as his dear brother! What I got out of this was, the brother (Xu Feng) literally stole the love of Run Yu's life (Jin Mi) and his fiancé! If this was IRL, this is actually scandalous, and people call that romantic? And even during those time period, they would have been criticised heavily (or be locked up in a pig cage), and yet, people call that love and romantic and support them? Well, ofcourse it will be like this, since the writers only care about Xu Feng and Jin Mi's happiness... Don't do this people, normally, if people are engaged, you should learn to step back and not do anything, or at least wait until the engagement is called off, that's called respect, and that's you for doing the right thing, if that uncle cared for Run Yu at all, he would have not encouraged Xu Feng to chase after her, and stealing Run Yu's fiancé while he knew clear well how Run Yu felt for Jin Mi ..

And Xu Feng have the audacity to come to Run Yu the next day, saying in he's sorry for all that has happened to him(Run Yu), and then when Run Yu knew that wasn't the real reason he came to see him and asked him to get to the point, he was like... "I can give you anything, the emperor, etc etc, but I can't give you Jin Mi".... And you call that feeling sorry for Run Yu?! Isn't that Xu Feng contradicting himself here?!

Honestly for me, I hated how Run Yu have suffered so much on his end... I hated how Xu Feng said he's sorry but his actions shows me otherwise... I hated how the Uncle Moon Immortal reprimanded, and other reprimanded Run Yu telling him that, "Xu Feng didn't do anything wrong to you"... I'm like... "Oh my god, are you serious?! So you call stealing the woman he loves is not doing him wrong?! Having sex with the woman he loves while he's still mourning for his own mother's death, and they did it behind his back is not wrong?!" Please tell me that jerkish uncle did not just say all that?! Because are you kidding me?! But it DID happen in this story...! And honestly, I would have respected them if they have waited.... And not hurt Run Yu and not consider his feelings at all... But in the end, despite they knew all this, they still did it, and it was Xu Feng who initiated, makes me lose all respect for him, them as a pairing...

And the Moon Immortal is such a hypocrite for saying all this to Run Yu, because he was the one who encouraged Xu Feng to chase/steal Run Yu's fiance, since they are only engaged and not married... -_- And when it came to Xu Feng being badly wronged, he will speak up for him and say something like: "That's impossible! I know him since I watched him grew up, he will not do something like this, you all must have wronged him!" and I'm like... "Wow...... so you only saw Xu Feng grew up and not Run Yu...."? -_-

To be honest, for me, I actually find the second leading couple, Liu Ying and Mu Ci love story to be far more appealing than the main leading couple (Xu Feng and Jin Mi) and would much rather focus on them instead. In the overall, what I can say to simplify my feelings is, characters that deserves a happy ending, got an unhappy ending, or they died... Characters who don't, gets their happy ending...

Why did I say this is so unfair? Well....
- Xu Feng who died can come back alive.....

- Jin Mi, who died later, can ALSO come back alive....

- Mu Ci who dies can't come back alive?! And I felt like the writers just want to kill him off to give that pairing a tragic one... But they can revive both Jin Mi and Xu Feng because they want to give them a happy ending... So stupid and illogical imo.

- The writers have Jin Mi find out the things that Run Yu did, and she wouldn't even let him explain or believed in him, but when Jin Mi found out it was "Xu Feng" who killer her father, she would believe in him, etc.... BUT what I hate about this the most is that... Jin Mi NEVER found out that her love for Xu Feng and what they've been through in the human realm was only made possible because of 'manipulation' by the Moon Immortal (Love Deity), yet, she never found this out.... But she used this as her reference for "loving" Xu Feng because of what happened in the human trial -_-

The only redeeming thing for this drama for me is, Run Yu can return to being his kind and gentle self in the end, because that is a first step to his healing process, and at least Kuang Lu and the dream deer is still by Run Yu side in the end, and that allows me to crack my own happy ending, thinking Run Yu will return Kuang Lu's feelings because Jin Mi doesn't deserve Run Yu's love and devotion...

The only thing I love about this drama is:
- Leo Luo, I have to say did an excellent job in portraying his character that made me fell in love with this actor, and it's also the first I've seen him act, because he can really play emotional scenes well on his end, and shows that he really poured his heart and emotions into acting these scenes.
- Zhou Ting Wei as Mu Ci, I love this character back story, and wish he didn't have to die to be honest, since I hope he could have a happy ending, I guess, the useless Xu Feng couldn't save him with his "High Fire magic... -_-"
- Yukee Chen as Liu Ying - She did a great job with her character here, and it's nice to see her love story with the character Mu Ci, again I wish they have a happy ending, they deserve it, but the writers is horrible for mistreating them...

But you know what, I just realized that after searching through Leo Luo's profile that these three actors played in 'And the Winner is Love', so I immediately went and watched that drama afterwards, and imo, between 'Ashes of Love' and 'And the Winner is Love'.... 'And the Winner is Love' is the REAL WINNER for me! Because what I want for Run Yu, i.e. someone who cares for him, someone who speaks up for him, him loving a woman who deserves his sacrifice and love... He got in 'And the Winner is love', so I am glad, I felt like I can take that as an extension to an AU happy ending for "Run Yu" who happens to be played by Leo Luo as Shangguan Tou (in 'And the Winner is love').

Background Music (5/10): I love the background music "Unsullied (不染), that's the ONLY song I love in this drama! I didn't know it came from this drama at first, since someone used this song on a Wangxian MV, which I came to love this song.

Rewatch Value (1/10): The ONLY rewatch value for this is the pairing Liu Ying and Mu Ci and their scenes together. Ofcourse I will want to watch this for Run Yu too, since he's my favourite character in there, but rewatching his scenes will only mean I am watching him being unfairly treated in the story, so I will rather rewatch 'And the Winner is Love' instead...

What I learned from this drama?
- Never trust a clip when you don't get the full context
- Don't let the high ratings by others to mislead you to thinking this is worth the time, 63 episodes is a lot of episodes, it's better to watch something that is worth your time IMO.

Leia Mais

This Drama is so good that I have to leave a review of recommendation for everyone to watch it

Story: We all know that Chinese historical drama has many episodes. The story process is moving at a very slow pace, but trust me it will become very interesting later. Even though I was hooked in the first episode of watching. This drama will make you ride an emotional rollercoaster with no end. You will experience all kind of emotions while watching this show. The greatness of this drama is knowing how to develop the characters in the drama. Because they all experienced conflicts in their life, towards the mid-to-end, the character shows off their maturity after the realization which I really like.

Acting/Cast: There are literally no words to describe it. The acting and casts are WAY more than Awesome. They really did a good job of expressing their character's emotions. Yang Zi, the main character literally became the character in the story by portraying her innocent, cute personality, the little girl in the Flower Realm that doesn't know what love is, later on, she shows the audience how her personality and heart mature in her acting. Yang Zi also displays her splendid chemistry with Deng Lun, the main guy making everyone feel the real romance between the two characters. The pain, sorrow, depression that they portray really touch the audience heart and you could really feel them. After watching all 63 episodes, There's nothing that I dislike about their acting. I also want to give props to other casts as well. Each cast has their own color and kind of character to portray and they all make me wanna cry my eyes out.

Music: The opening song of the drama really got me hooked. The lyrics, melody really explains the drama a lot. When there are sad scenes with the music theme playing in the background. That adds more feels and make me cry like a river. Other songs are good as well.

Rewatching Value: Well, I already am rewatching the drama. It's so addicting and sad to know that it is officially ending. This drama is so good that how many time I rewatch it, I won't get bored. The drama overall is so good. It literally ties everything together and answers all of the unanswered questions that the audience had. This drama is really No.1 C-Dramas of all time. Once you get into Ashes of Love, there won't be any way out so be prepared and grab your snack in hands ready!

Leia Mais

It's bomb af

Y'all not going to lie the otp here literally has one of the best chemistry I've ever seen!

The story is really good I was hooked at episode 1 and that's pretty rare. I've read the novel and will say that the show is a lot better because we the viewers are able to see more and understand more about the characters and how things came to be. Reading the novel it's really good but most things are up to our imaginations so the show really did a good job in maintaining similarities with the show while having differences. Although I got to say i kind of wished that they didn't try to promote the demon princess and night's guard that much, the story would've been a 10 for me but those 2 constantly appearing literally every episode dropped it to a 9.5. Oh also lets not forget about the amazing costumes/designs, cgi, & flawless acting. One thing though if the ending today for episodes 62-63 is not satisfying enough for JM then I'm going to have a serious talk with the production team. (;
The ending is really satisfying all the loose ends were tied up and it was just so cuteee!

The acting is just indescribable it hooked me right away. Also the leads really outdid themselves cause I've seen YZ, DL, and LYX's acting before but here they BLEW me tf away. They did so well that I'm positive no else will be able to do a better version of the character JM, XF, & Night. Oh let's not forget about the loyal and funny Pu Chi, Moon Immortal, and last but not least the lovable flower realm all of their acting are so convincing ugh I just need all of them along with the leads to be casted again in another show together.

Music it's really good and what surprised me even more when I searched it up was that one of the versions were sung by both YZ & DL isn't that so cool? Also check out the eng subbed version on YouTube if you can.

Let me tell y'all I'm addicted to this show since it came out and this again is another first where I can not stop myself from watching the raws, which never happened before. HSALF probably is all of the first where I'm addicted like crazy, so impatient even when it airs faster than others shows 2epsiode a day, guys I literally have watched almost all of the bts and it's still not enough for me. Just a Warning prepare them tissues! Like y'all don't know how many times I wanted to jump in & hug one of the characters because of how badly they were schemed against( there are annoying schemers that I really want to slap) or how their life just plain sucks to the point where you're just like how can someone have that much of toxic people surrounding them. I'm amazed at how the production team really wants to torture and throw in all the angst and pain that they can but still do it so well that it's addicting. After this ends I know for a fact that it'll be hard to find other shows that are up to par to this. My bar/expectations for shows are now all the way up there this show is literally giving the others a run for their money lol. This show is literally my first love that I want to be with forever! Oh yea y'all don't forget to check out the bts if you're like me where you need to see more of the leads adorable interactions. ^_^

Overall yes I recommend this show and do try it out if you can. Easily a 10/10

Leia Mais

I was not into their love story

I have given a second chance to Ashes of Love, because I'm fan of this genre and a bit obsessed with the fantasy stories about heavens and demons realms.
The drama is very beautiful. Cinematography is on top.
I was not into love story unfortunately.
Female lead has lack of character development. Even thought I was prepared to the kind of insensitive women, but expected other line. She didn't persuade me in her feelings toward male lead.
Male lead is a bit blind to other's feelings, like also has lack of emotional intelligence.
Second male lead is too much obsessive with the female lead. Triangle clishe here.

In general the writer has missed up the romance line between three of them. It could be better, but 4 of 10 overall, not good, not bad, somewhere in the middle.

Leia Mais

Some good parts, but a repetitive plot

Wow, I don't know how to review this.

The good:

1) Deng Lun and Yang Zi's chemistry. The lighthearted scenes between the two of them were the BEST thing about this show and they were sooo fun. I wish this show had been a twenty episode modern romance, not this long and dragged out mess.

Xufeng reminds me a bit of the main guy lead from What's Wrong with Secretary Kim. I loved it when Xufeng was being tsundere or jealous, it was so funny. The scenes where he grieves for Jinmi, especially near the end, were also amazing.

2) Luo Yunxi and what he did with his role. He was SO good. I'm totally going to watch the upcoming drama, Immortality, coz of him.

He played this ambiguous antagonist figure. He starts out as a quiet, gentle and kind person, who is picked upon constantly by the cruel Empress, causing him to be isolated, without many peers or connections. It makes him very lonely. He immediately falls for Jinmi, who is lively and kind to him.

The episode where the Empress then kills his birth mother before him was amazing. Some wonderful acting there. I felt for him when he debased himself and begged on his knees. That was the turning point in his arc, where he got darker and darker.

I really hated the Emperor and Empress that I didn't even care that he was turning immoral. I was just so glad that the Emperor and Empress got their comeuppance.

Luo Yunxi was able to convey Runyu's complex motivations, making you both sympathize with him, while also feeling more and more uncomfortable with what he does. It was really sad that he was still so lonely all the way at the end.

The bad:

1) The pacing. It was so uneven. This show started off really strong in the first few episodes, and it's quite fun to watch, but then it lags, and around episode 30, it gets so slow that I put it on 1.5x speed, and then in the end I ended up skipping all the way to episode 45, which is when the good stuff happens. Then I skipped all the way to the last three episodes. This leads to my second point:

2) Overly repetitive plot points. You know, you can only make a character die and revive ONCE to make dying have an effect. In this show, characters die and come to life all over the place. It just loses any emotional weight. What's the point? I barely feel anything when I see a character die. I'm just waiting for them to come back to life again.

This was not the only repetitive plot point. Jinmi and Xufeng's romance just about made me want to bash my head into the wall to end it. Their love story basically goes like this: they grow close together, Jinmi realizes she can't be with him due to various reasons and draws back, Xufeng chases after her, they get close together, Jinmi realizes she can't be with him... You get the gist. I literally exclaimed, 'Are you kidding me?!' when I skipped to episode 60, and they were STILL DOING THIS. After Jinmi and Xufeng both died and revived, after 60 episodes, they are still at this hot-and-cold, two-steps-forward, one-step-back mess. Many of the scenes could have been cut, many of the mini arcs could have been more succinct. A lot of the characters have repetitive plot arcs.

3) Evil characters who are evil for the sake of being evil. The Empress' arc was pretty much just her being progressively more and more evil until she finally gets her comeuppance at episode 40. FORTY. And then she's still around for convenient deus ex machina reasons. Ugh.

My overall opinion: could have been better. Other shows did it better.

Leia Mais

As my first ever review on mydramalist I would like to dedicate it to Ashes of Love as it is one of the best dramas I have ever watched.

Story: The plot of this show was absolutely remarkable. The character development shown is unlike any other drama I’ve watched before. Watching JinMi grow from a naive young woman to a mature woman brought so many laughs and so many tears all at once. The love story between JinMi and XuFeng was beautiful and tragic. I couldn’t have asked for a better story than this.

Acting/Cast: The cast is to die for. YangZi and DengLun have amazing chemistry. I’ve watched a couple of DengLun’s previous dramas like Because of You (also another great drama that I recommend checking out, but I ship DengLun with YangZi over SunYi), Princess Agents, and Sweet Dreams. Plus DengLun is super attractive and does such a great job at playing his character. YangZi on the other hand is a new actress for me. I’ve heard of her over the years but never tried to watch any of her work, but now I will definitely check them out and any future ones (same with DengLun). Also, let’s not forget LeoLuo who did a fabulous job at portraying RunYu. I got so frustrated and angry at his character yet also felt pity towards him at the same time, so I am stunned by how well LeoLuo portrayed his character. Also Kathy Chow, holy cow. I remeber watching her in The Legends of Condor Heroes 2008 and her character back then was a very sweet, gentle woman, so I was shocked to see her play TuYao. Never have I ever despised and hated a character like I have TuYao, so props to her on portraying a character so well. Plus, I must say the actor for moon immortal (my favorite and absolutely adorable side charater) XiaZhiYuan did such a great job for a new actor. He was able to make the moon immortal so loveable and you could also feel his pain when seeing JinMi and XuFeng apart. He was probably one of the most relatebale characters on the show.

Music: Words cannot even define how I feel about the OSTs. They’re absolutely beautiful and heart wrenching. Never have I loved any OSTs like I do with these. My favorite has to be “Unsullied” the directors played this song and all the other songs at the most perfect (aka heart wrenching) moments. Everytime I hear it I think about this beautiful couple and story. Also “Unparalleled in the World} duet version is just as great. Who doesn’t like an OST sung by the main two leads it just makes you love them even more. I remeber when I first saw the OST I was floored “they act AND they sing?” Makes it just that much better. The music used matches perfectly with the events going on and emphasizes the emotions.

Rewatch Value: I know with some dramas it’s unbearable to rewatch it. Been there before myself and it ain’t fun. But fear not this drama won’t cause that problem. There’s so many good, light hearted moments and sad moments you could put on an infinite loop and never get tired of. I myself am in the process of almost finishing rewatching it for the first time after finishing the drama only a week ago. That’s how much I love it and I’m not tired of it at all.

Overall: Highly recommend you watch, you will not be disappointed. To those of you who have watched only a few episodes and want to drop it because JinMi is being “stupid” or something along the lines of that. Just be patient, there’s a reason why it’s like that and it’s so you can see the character development and once you actually watch a few more episodes you won’t be able to stop. The drama is very well written and addictive and don’t worry its not a classic wuxia ending so you don’t have to be so disappointed and now want to invest time into the characters.

Leia Mais

Are you bored of watching boring storylines, actors that can’t act, bad cgi, not that great of a costume/design, and most importantly no chemistry, well no need to look anywhere else this show is it, it has none of the factors above.

Plot: You know how most shows are pretty boring in the beginning and only gets interesting around halfway or more, you will hook right from the 1st ep. it’s very comical. Then you 'll need your tissues ready for all of the emotional scenes will be brought out you’ll get happy, sad/heartbroken, frustrated, anxious and last of all it’ll make you crave for more on what’s happening next. I love how they developed all characters from beginning to the end, everyone changed significantly for the better or worse. The cgi and costumes were so well done that I’m just so amazed. In my personal opinion, this is the best love story I have ever seen portrayed! I did not, due to the side characters' stories got a little bit too draggy. The production devoted a lot of time to the side characters' background and love story - which, although interesting, takes the focus away from the main couple who were undeniably THE most attractive factor of the drama. Hence, it was a little frustrating. I've read the book for Heavy Sweetness Ash Like Frost (HSAF) so I could still understand what was going on, but I think that even non-book readers can still easily grasp the plot without sitting through all of the draggy scenes. For me though, the best part of the drama was the hilarious beginning, the adorable mortal arc, and the epic finale (I initially doubted this could live up to my expectations because there were only a few episodes left for the final arc, but the drama did a phenomenon job!). These were moments that will forever be embedded into my memories!

Acting: Hmmm what’s the word... ahhh it’s phenomenally amazing! If you watch it like seriously the acting will blow you away. I was skeptical if the casts in here can bring the characters to life since it's not easy task to do all the facial expressions and feelings in here. The leads had such an out of the world chemistry they’re literally the Perfect for each other. The acting here is so natural nothing felt forced or off. The cast was just perfect I’m sure some people will say that others can do better but like seriously who can other than this amazing cast from this amazing show?
Deng Lun is the BEST Phoenix we can ever ask for! Appearance-wise, he straight up walked up of the novel! His Phoenix eyes are honestly just what I imagined the character to have! Acting-wise, he completely sold the character to me! I actually love how his Phoenix is a lot softer than the novel's, who was more arrogant and proud. Deng Lun's Phoenix, on the other hand, was kind of dense (which earned him the nickname of bird-brain, ) but he was devoted and gallantry and the God of War in the sense that he fights his battle head-on. Deng Lun's eyes were so emotive and everytime Phoenix looked at Jin Mi I could feel myself melting into a thousand puddles. Deng Lun and Yang Zi have the best chemistry ever and their every moment on screen was electrifying! Yang Zi was also amazing in this. First of all, she is beautiful and I've never doubted her as the daughter of the Flower Goddess. It is actually amazing to watch her transformation from a naive girl into a mature woman throughout the drama, and I thought that Yang Zi did a phenomenal job on portraying both Jin Mi's humour and maturity. I think she is one of the best actresses of her generation. This drama has made me a fan of both Deng Lun and Yang Zi. I will for sure watch out for their future projects.

Costumes:I really enjoyed seeing how each realm had their own distinct style and how each were shown so beautifully. Little things like hairstyle, accessories, makeup, clothing composition, etc really add to the drama in a good way. they used different colours to represent each main leads’ nature, for example, JinMi is pink; XuFeng became the Demon God in the end, he is black; LiuYing is the princess of the Demon World, she has purple; RunYu is Night God from Heaven World, therefore bit of black mixed with his white colour; SuiHe is the princess of the Bird Kingdom, her colour is red with bit of yellow.

Music: it’s gooood, especially Sa Ding Ding’s version it was just so emotional to just listen to it. Oh boy when it was played in the show I literally got goosebumps. All the other ost were so good that I had to search them all up and added it to my playlist. Also it’s so cool that one of the version the song were sung by the leads Yang Zi and Deng Lun.

Animations/CGI/Production: As with every fantasy drama especially, a lot of animation and cgi needs to go into the production since the setting includes places like Heaven, Hell, and various other "realms". The realms were all animated so well. he cgi just gives it the right magical feeling. Another commenter mentioned this as well, but the dream beast that stayed by RY's side throughout the drama was animated so well. You could see all the details and the colors and everything was just so real.

Heck yea I’m definitely rewatching this amazingly true masterpiece many times. I don’t even know what am I supposed to do after it ends like it’s so so so hard to find a show that’s this perfect and I’m just going to say that this show is the best show ever to me it tops anything and it’s my #1 show. Totally, totally recommend everyone and anyone to watch this if they can but no pressure..

Leia Mais

Disappointment with ML(Xu Feng)

Every single character did their job best in this series. I really hated antagonists but felt sympathy when they met their retribution. This series shows how love can change people. It destroys you if u r too obsessed.

*Spoiler*

I felt pity for FL through out the series. So many people loved her & that love made her miserable throughout series. She was most genuine & innocent among all yet she suffered the most.

SML's manipulation was irritating but he was forced to do that he wanted to grasp whatever little was left for him. His hatred was understandable. His innocence was robbed. I was hoping for his happy ending with Kuang Lu.

*Major Spoiler*

ML's character was most disappointing for me...his love for Jinmi was genuine. Till ep 45, I loved his character but then it was simply frustrating. He was selfish like his mother. When his parents, his beloved guard & he himself got hurt, he was enraged & hated Runyu & Jinmi. But he never understood the pain & hatred of Runyu & Jinmi when they lost their loved ones coz of his mother. He only blamed them. But for his parents who were actually culprit, he was only sorry... How unfair it was. I hated him for his behavior with Jinmi after he was reborn. Jinmi never humiliated his love but he did that too intentionally. He never bothered to clear up misunderstanding. After his rebirth, his actions proved how selfish he was & didn't deserve jinmi.

My fav. Characters were Demon princess, MuCi, moon immortal, Yan yun & Kuang lu. Although it was happy ending for lead pair but it was unfair for Jinmi to be color blind coz of Xu feng.




Leia Mais

*****BIG SPOILERS***** that explain my points, so be warned


The story/plot of the show is ok. I feel like that they should have focus on other things more than the love story. Some of the other characters personally issues would have made the show a lot better if the extended it. Some of the parts were too slow, and others were too fast. I was so excited for this show but the ending for me was disappointing.

STORY:

Yes the story is mainly about the love ( Ashes of LOVE duh ), but I feel like the plot should have focused on Run Yu character more.
1. He was abused as a child.
2. Taken away from his mother
3. His stepmother is horrible to him and his father kinda of neglected him
4. His love is in love with his brother
5. Found his mother but neglected her
6. Mother basically died in front of him
7. He overcome his father and stepmother
and etc

Run Yu had the best character development I seen in the show. He was like a protagonist, but turned into an antagonist.

The title "Ashes of Love" is perfect for him.
1. he was engaged to a person he love
2. his love left him and all he had left was a broken heart

define Ash(es): "the powdery residue left after the burning of a substance." -google

His brother burned(took) Run Yu's love away and what was left was ashes (a broken heart). ( idk how to explain what I meant but I hope you somehow understand it ).

The show should have ended when Run Yu and JinMi got married. ep 45
I thought they were prefect for each other. Run Yu is dull in expression but felt love, and JinMi is dull on love but had lots of expressions. I was Team JinMi/Xu Feng but I changed to JinMi/Run Yu. No much chemistry between JinMi and Xu Feng anyway so who cares which one u ship.
I thought if the show ended there, it would been the prefect ending plot for an antagonist/bad guy.

The main characters, JinMi and Xu Feng, in my opinion the character development was poor, there were some development but nothing big for the main character. Someone can try to change my mind if you want, but I don't see much development.

I like ep 1-45, ep 46-59 was too slow, ep 60-63 when too fast.
(JUST MY THOUGHTS AND OPINIONS)

ACTING/CAST: the only reason I found this show out because of Deng Lun and Yukee Chen. Deng Lun was in Princess Agents, and Yukee Chen was in Princess WeiYoung.

I felt like Yang Zi's acting was lacking in the show. The way she carried out JinMi character was eh, JinMi did development but I don't know if it was the writer or Yang Zi's acting but the development of JinMi was so unrecognizable and plain. I'm only pointing out Yang Zi because her character is the focus of the show. But some of the other actors/actresses who kinda did a poor job too

MUSIC: I love some of the ost, most of it was not good tho.

REWATCH VALUE: I would never

Leia Mais