Where to start? Without ruining the story for those that haven't seen this or heard about it, in summary it's about 2 people that fall in love in the mortal world, the 2 are cultivators from different sects, however, along the way, the 2 sects eventually go against each other for reasons that are revealed along the way. The conflicts lead to lots of secrets being uncovered as it makes the 2 leads of the story dig deep into their own past and memories to find out about their "past lives". If you're unfamiliar with terminology used in these kinds of Chinese dramas, I would highly recommend this site here, it definitely helped me a lot in understanding Xianxia / Wuxia dramas as different words are thrown around a lot.
So onto the review itself... *MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD*
Plot
This was one the best characteristics of this drama, the plot was just amazing, it was executed really well from start to finish. This drama made me feel emotions for the 2 leads of the story. I really felt how conflicted the characters were when they were forced to make decisions. From Xuanji finding her 6 senses along the way to falling in love with Sifeng to then becoming his enemy for the sake of love. The writer of this drama really takes you in for a ride.
The story starts off with Xuanji meeting Sifeng quite early on actually, it's not one of those dramas where you have to wait until episode 20-something until the 2 main leads fall in love, nope, this one is almost love at first sight which was refreshing to see, you really do get 50+ episodes of romance in this drama.
There's a few plots in this drama and each one brought different emotions to me, Xuanji is introduced at first as the ditzy female lead who was born without her senses (you find out why later), she meets Sifeng from Lize Palace who becomes her friend and helps her find her six senses again. Then the story develops deeper where Sifeng finds himself falling in love with Xuanji but is not allowed to fall in love (it's a sect rule) so tries to keep his distance from Xuanji but Xuanji is so relentless even though she has no clue what love even is - you get a few episodes of her constantly chasing him around not knowing that she actually loves him too, it's super cute to watch. Then the story develops even more when secrets are unveiled about their true identities and that's really when the story goes from 0-100, I'm not going to spoil what happens but the last 15 episodes had me in tears.
Only thing I didn't like about this drama was that Sifeng is constantly hurt because of Xuanji, yes, it's all for love and because he loves her so much, he's willing to sacrifice himself but almost every episode or every other episode he is either struck or stabbed or spitting blood because of something. By the end he's even so close to dying, it just breaks my heart every time to see a man so loyal, so in love - we all need a Sifeng in our lives.
Characters
Oh boy where do I even start with this? Sifeng and Xuanji were excellently portrayed by Cheng Yi and Crystal Yuan. The acting was so amazing that I was surprised these 2 haven't been in bigger projects previously. I heard that it was this drama that made them super popular in China and damn right they deserve it! The chemistry between the 2 in this drama made it what it is. At first glance I wasn't too sure about them but they really portrayed character development really well,
Crystal Yuan's role as Xuanji was stellar - when you pick apart the character of Xuanji, you have her ditzy self at the beginning, then you have the her when she regains her senses and falls in love, then you also have the cold, heartless God of War persona as well, so many different facets of a personality in this one character.
Cheng Yi as Sifeng was equally amazing - he doesn't quite have as many different personalities to portray but just him at the beginning being cold under his mask because he's not supposed to fall in love, then becoming friends with Xuanji, Ling Long and Min Yan realising what true friendship is. Then you have later on when he becomes leader of Lize Palace pretending to be evil because he doesn't want to hurt Xuanji, that was amazing.
More characters to mention that I absolutely loved - Ling Long is Xuanji's twin sister, the sisterhood between them was so endearing to watch also Ling Long as a character throughout the drama, she gets captured by the obsessive Wu Tong and has to play a different character at that point as well. There was also the Flying Snake (Teng She) played by Bai Shu - hands down my favourite character besides the 2 main leads, Bai Shu portrayed the arrogant, selfish, gluttonous, spoilt Flying Snake so well, he hates Xuanji to begin with as she forces him to become her spiritual beast so he becomes under her control but he eventually becomes friends with her and really cares for her deep down, so much that he even goes against the heavens for her. If I had to describe him in one word it would be - tsundere.
Although I hated this man, I have to mention Wu Tong was an ass of a character but also one hell of a character, he was obviously evil as I hate him so much but I really felt sorry for him at the end, this man is obsessed with Ling Long right from the beginning when he was part of his sect, even when he turned evil and joined Sky Hall, he is still obsessed with Ling Long. What really got me was when he was about to drag Ling Long into the black hole (yes there is a proper name for this but I forgot what it was) and he just couldn't bear to so he pushed her away and saved her. Although he was obsessed, he was just a man that was in love with her in the wrong way, he captured her and tried to force her to be his - it was when he said he realised that he didn't want revenge all this time, he just wanted Ling Long to look at him where all my hatred for this character fell away. Another evil guy I hated was Hao Chen / Bailing - gosh he was toxic, he pretends to be good to Xuanji as her senior in the mortal world when really he is the one that caused all this mess. I know at the end that his intentions were to protect but how wrong he was, I truly hated this guy.
I have to say though, everyone casted in this drama was amazing - there's just too many to list and talk about individually.
Sound/Music
I never usually pay attention to soundtracks in Chinese dramas because they kinda sound similar but I absolutely adored the music in this. You have the sweet romance tunes come out when there is one of those cheesy love scenes but you also have this epic music (the one from the opening) when Xuanji activates her God of War powers and fights everything. I don't know the name of these songs but they fit the drama so well.
*MAJOR SPOILERS*
In summary, this drama was AMAZING, I loved all 59 episodes of it. I was hooked right from the beginning, I was addicted to the relationship between Sifeng and Xuanji, I felt all kinds of emotions when they fell in love, when Xuanji actually realised that yes she does love Sifeng, when there was misunderstandings between the 2 because of people like Wu Tong and Bailing, when Rahu Ketu was revived and there was conflict between Xuanji and him internally, when Sifeng sacrifices himself in the heavens to stop the furnace being destroyed all because he doesn't want to forget all the memories he had with Xuanji, when Rahu Ketu finally realised that he doesn't want to destroy everything for revenge and split himself and Xuanji again, giving half of his heart to revive Sifeng, when Xuanji spent everyday with Sifeng's comatose body at the end for him to finally awaken and the marriage scene. Oh my god, perfect ending.
One final thing worth noting about this drama - it doesn't leave you with a sense of confusion at the end. A lot of Chinese dramas tend to leave the endings "open ended" as in they play a scene that seems to suggest an ending but they let the audience interpret for themselves what happened. This one doesn't and concludes perfectly, giving us a happy ending. I heard there's going to a season 2 but no idea how there is going to be a season 2 with the same characters, I feel if there is going to be one, it'll be with different characters.
Would highly recommend watching this one if you haven't already or you're new to Chinese dramas, it definitely didn't disappoint.
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