I see a big contrast between the reviews from Asian vs US (western) show watchers, especially for story. This may have something to do with the big culture difference.

Let's look at the Story first, I think the most touching and tortured character in this show is not the female lead (Hua Qian Gu), although she indeed suffered a lot physically. The soul and the most moving character in this show is the male lead character (Ba Zi Hua). Ba Zi Hua is portrayed as a godlike, statuesque man suffering so much, on so many different levels. While I agree that the story may lack some details or depth, the essential points are all in there.

The social or public level: You need to first understand the context of their “forbidden love”. While the story is certainly being told in a fantasy setting, let’s translate it into a more “realistic” setting, can you imagine someone like a Cardinal who fell for a nun in his convent, or something sort of like that? Then you may understand how publicly scandalous the situation would be, if their love is revealed. Ba Zi Hua has to be responsible for his “sect” or his community or his group of people. This sense of responsibility haunts him throughout the story.

The religious/philosophical level: Ba Zi Hua is on a quest for “immortality” for a journey of a thousand year old. Personally, I don’t understand why people seek “immortality”, but there are people like that and they certainly have my respect. If he accepts Hua Qian Gu’s love, it means that he has to step down from the shrine, give up the efforts of thousands of years, and go back to a mortal ordinary worldly life. If you are in Ba Zi Hua’s position, will you be willing to do so? That’s why he suffers from constant inner turmoil.

The emotional level: why Ba Zi Hua fell in love with Hua Qian Gu? It’s not because she is beautiful, sweet, kind, and spiritually strong. Of course, these characters certainly help, but what really gets him is the “innocent, pure, and unconditional love” she offers. She pours out her heart and soul, without asking or even expecting anything in return. She doesn’t care if he knows, acknowledges or returns her love, as long as he is being well, that’s all she has hoped for throughout the show. How could anyone (at least a mortal) resist something like that? So now you may understand how hard it is for Ba Zi Hua to control his emotion or feelings toward her. This is a very tough job!

The psychological level/concept of love: people have different understanding or different points of views in this matter. There is a big issue in the story, so called “Sheng-Si Jie” (life and death calamity). Hua Qian Gu is the life and death calamity of Ba Zi Hua. Or we can think in this way, she is the biggest “trouble-maker” for him. In general, when people try to deal with troubles, they get rid of the “trouble-makers”, this is exactly what Mo Yan did in his situation. However, Ba Zi Hua made a different choice, instead of killing her, as instructed by his own Master. With an inclusive and benevolent mind, Ba Zi Hua accepted Hua Qian Gu, took very good care of her, raised her up, taught her everything, and hoped that she would become someone like him. So in fact, it’s Ba Zi Hua who first offered the “unconditional love” to Hua Qian Gu, although this type of love has nothing to do with man and woman. Unavoidably, Hua Qian Gu has to grow up and the problem comes.

The sexual level: OK, the love between man and woman, the story deals with this issue in a very obscure way. There are hardly any scenes showing the sexual desire of Ba Zi Hua toward Hua Qian Gu. Maybe there is one such scene when they were in their Illusion and dressed up in wedding-dresses, he was leaning over and about to kiss her, although the illusion was eventually broken by his will power and nothing really happened. There are also a couple of scenes in the end (in the last few episodes), however, it looks like some scenes were cut and the emotional flow of the characters was disrupted. Anyway, one can imagine Ba Zi Hua, at some level, must also suffer from the troubling issue of sex and abstinence.

Now, you can see how difficult, sad and mad situation Ba Zi Hua got himself into.  While he suffered so much from all these different levels, yet, he cannot show anything (so called emotionless) or do anything. So the whole situation is entirely hopeless and desperately sad. In the end, this could become a really good tragedy but I guess a relatively happy ending would please more people who watch the show.

Acting: the male leading actor did an absolutely exceptional job at playing Ba Zi Hua. One has to pay more attention to the emotions released from his eyes since he cannot say or do anything. The female leading actor also did a wonderful job too! The other supporting actors are pretty good too, especially Dong fang and Sha Qian Mo.

Music: I enjoyed the music very much, reflecting the hopeless and desperate atmosphere of the show.

Re-watch values: I would not watch the whole show again, but I really enjoyed certain episodes and watched them again and again.

Overall: a superb fantasy show, not occurring in a realistic setting (of course), but it will touch your life deeply if you could understand it. It will also show you different point views of many hard-core values of life.

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