Love and destiny, disregarding the horrid English title, is truly wonderful drama with engaging plot, fantastic acting, nice visuals (even though I noticed that some complain about their, especially male, hairstyles) and music and surprising lack of traditional plotholes and horrendous editing. Even though the ending was a bit rushed it still retained the coherence of the story. Love and destiny is genuinely worth your time.

The story is not original, of course. On one hand, there is the mythology, on the other hand, as far as I know, Love and destiny was the director´s third (?) attempt on the three-lives-same-love narrative. Not to mention is a love story in Chinese fantasy realm, there is only so much originality you can put in it. All its genres have their set of narratives, stock characters, subplots, motivations etc. Love and destiny, however, does a great job in delivering them. The drama plays around and subverts nicely various tropes and clichés connected with this type of story (and generally fantasy-romance drama), making them seem a bit fresh and more realistic (nice example is of course main couple falling into the overused category of older powerful male & young naive girl; but also Shi San-Si Ming story etc.).
So you don’t have to turn your suspension of disbelief on maximum, accepting the fact that "the plot-said-so" is a valuable narrative device and instead you can enjoy the logical and wholesome journey and interactions of well-rounded characters (not only the main leads but also side ones ).
Most of the characters have an inherent flaw, or at least dominant trait that determines their behaviour (being it rigidness, pride, low self-esteem, inability to let go of the past or laziness) and moves the plot. The value of character, so to speak, is then based on their ability to understand this flaw and, at least try to, overcome it (apart from the ML, of course; I do like him but he is quite set in his ways… well, he is the ML and not the youngest of gods). If they try to, overcome it or at least accept it, they are the "good" guys (not only main cast, but also side ones such as Lin Mo sister). If they remain blind - you have tragic ones (such as the Queen of Shang Ling or her daughter) or the bad ones (even though it can be argued that even those are mostly tragic). Again - quite normal narrative device but in the dramaland not so common, unfortunately.
There is quite a number of “bad guys”, however, not one of them is truly evil – even the villainess is portrayed with enough empathy to accept her actions (what I enjoyed is the fact that her obsession with ML is not her only motivation. I would be happier if they omitted it completely or played down even more but still, she has her aspirations and dreams (and traumas) that are independent of ML. And she is rather bitter when they turn into naught. She is… a career woman, so to speak. And yes, we could complain about the fact that the only truly ambitious woman is the bad one, but I think it is better to just note it as a representation of the culture.). Not to mention the God of Thunder – finally an arc where having different opinion (than the main couple) does not mean to be evil. And I must admit, as the story progressed, I came to like him quite a lot, especially his unintentional comedy.

The story itself is engaging – it consists of nice and quite balanced mixture of comedy, tragedy, love, fantasy, action, and a bit of mystery. It is essentially a bildungsroman – the story of a girl growing up into adulthood, responsibility etc., but also of an old man overcoming his occupational burn-out mixed with depression and PTSD. Apart from their individual journeys and common rom-com, there is the arc of demon tribe and great wars, side love stories and all the little bits from everyday heaven realm life which are truly endearing and help to evoke the stagnant time of the Heaven, where the life span is measured in ten of thousands of years. On a side note; the timeline, generally, is wonky and I had quite of lot of trouble to determine whether it was hours, days or years that passed between certain events. Can be annoying but in hindsight, maybe intentional.

The only real problem I had with the story is the ending. The last arc, in contrast to the first two was unbalanced, relied quite a lot on telling and even though you could understand why it happened the way it did, it still felt a bit rushed (in comparison to other drama in similar situation still a very good job). I guess this was due to technical issues and various… bureaucratic reasons and not because of laziness or fatigue of the authors.

As for the acting… it was just fantastic. No awkwardly standing actors with absurd dialogues acted out in a manner of four-year-old. Even the "cute" (i.e. kitschy) ones were bearable, the speech and expression human - so refreshing!
Love and destiny is quite often more about showing than telling, as it is supposed to be with visual media. (Chang Chen was in this regard a treat, of course - to convey so much with so little - truly wonderful!) The only sad thing is that I find it so strange, even though it should be the standard for acting profession, should it not?
As for the chemistry, I enjoyed it quite a lot, whether they were silly, flirting, serious or in love. Especially their interaction in ep 50 and 51. Big applaud to the actors and the director & screenwriter for embodying the whole thing without much description (that came latter from other characters, unfortunately... but still) or even dialogue.
On the side note – I was surprised to note that so many viewers were unhappy about ML appearance, or age. I think, as many others do, he was perfect for this role, which is the most important. As for his looks, I personally enjoyed that he doesn’t look like a 15-yo lead singer from a boy band but still - I think his (or anybody else´s) youth, beauty or attractiveness should not have such an impact on rating a show.

Overall, it is a worthy addition to the world of Chinese fantasy drama that should set standards for acting and character development; if nothing else.