So... I just finished this drama and I have a LOT to say.

Note: there will be some minor spoilers in here! And, many typos! Because I was very passionate about how I felt about this drama! I have a lot to say! Bear with me!

Before diving into this review, I want to make clear that I'm so happy so many people enjoy this drama! Chinese wuxia dramas go highly unappreciated and are rarely praised to the extent of this drama. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. If you love this drama, that's great!

With that being said... I've pulled my hair out trying to figure out what all the fuss has been about for this drama.

First things first, the story of this drama feels incredibly odd. There really is no major "conflict" throughout the entire drama, instead many small ones that sporadically occur and get resolved quickly and get all muddled together. And any conflicts that DO occur happen not because they should. What I mean by this is how the plot fails to connect together, the resulting effect of one scenario loosely ties in to the next. For instance, the beginning involves Mo Yuan... and then he just isn't in the drama for 30 episodes. This causes the drama to feel laggy and have zero suspense, because the audience is just constantly expecting what's inevitably going to occur. Further, when something does happen, or a character triggers something to occur, their motivations should align; that's how a story can make sense. I was expecting a big twist or revelation or SOMETHING for everything to all of a sudden make sense, but that never happened.

Now let's talk about characters. As there's no clear conflict that drives the story, you'd expect the characters to be a major reason you'd want to keep watching... but NOPE.

Let's start with Si Yin/Su Su/Bai Qian. I didn't really have a problem with Si Yin other than the fact that she was pretty boring. Honestly, the entire first "world" the drama takes place in is pretty dull, so it's pretty hard for her to make me care. Then, we move on to Su Su. I probably like her the most out of the three, as she's the only one I really felt emotion for. I truly felt pity for her because of the treatment she got as a mortal. As for Bai Qian, she's probably the biggest disappointment of all. She's promised to be an older, wise, witty, strong goddess who kicks ass and drinks all the time. Unfortunately, we get an immature and feeble character who isn't strong to anyone unless she's bullying other women. Legitimately, she only turns "hard" and "strong" when it comes time to use her power against other women (not that some of them don't deserve it, but we'll talk about the "villains" in a bit). She acts rude to what feels like 3/4 of the female cast. If you don't believe me, look at the fact that she immediately becomes timid, soft, and loses all her characteristics when she's around Mo Yuan, Ye Hua, any of her disciple brothers, the king, her brothers, Li Jing, etc.

What's worse than Bai Qian's character, is the relationship between her and Ye Hua. This is probably my biggest problem with this drama, and I've bumped the rating low to a 6 because of this. I haven't seen any reviews really addressing this, so I'm scratching my head wondering if I watched the same drama. Ye Hua borderline sexually harasses her in nearly the ENTIRE third "world" portion of the drama (in the episodes from when Bai Qian reawakens to near the damn end). Ye Hua will jump on top of her, hug her, kiss her, and flirt while she's literally PUSHING him away, exhibiting uncomfortable body language, or telling him to STOP. Is this some kind of unfulfilled fantasy for some people? Is this just a young demographic? Am I in a simulation? Anyways... it's not until near the last ten episodes this changes, and Bai Qian begins to reciprocate affection. Even though her feelings changes that doesn't excuse Ye Hua's behavior prior, and the type of message this sends makes me disgusted. This easily could've been changed by toning own Ye Hua's actions to stop when Bai Qian says no, or just directing Bai Qian's character completely differently. This may seem like an exaggeration, but with such a large audience, dramas need to be aware of the kind of behavior characters act in, even if this medium is only fiction.

Ye Hua doesn't really have a personality, his sole purpose is really to be in love with Bai Qian/Su Su. He used to have somewhat a personality before he meets Su Su, but this pretty much dissolves. Instead of character progression, this character only reverses backwards.

As for Feng Jiu and Dong Hua, they're... fine? They didn't do much harm, but I don't think they added much to the drama either. It's just a stone-faced Dong Hua being chase by a whiny Feng Jiu.

Now we have the villains. I'll be damned if I ever find a drama where the villains aren't some petty jealous women who are jealous of the main lead because they're not as pretty or they don't have the main lead's man or god knows what other stupid reason. Nonetheless, these villains are dumb as hell, they have a stupid motivation, and they are not menacing at all. A villain should be providing a threat, a conflict, an obstacle that stops the hero. Instead, these villains just fill up screen time and provide a major eye roll.

Despite being nearly 60 episodes long, none of the side characters get very fleshed out. Instead, they remain very one-dimensional and forgettable. They're there for the purpose of providing "plot" to the main characters. Albeit, there are MANY, MANY, MANY side characters, so it's kind of hard to make all of them memorable anyways.

Now, on to acting. I've seen Yang Mi in countless dramas, and her acting isn't really anything spectacular or worth major praise, and here's no exception. I think her performance here is adequate, she pulls off the three different characters and cries when she needs to. Mark Chao was pretty decent as well. He can pull off a large variety of expressions convincingly and you can clearly see him acting two different characters. Honestly, I wasn't really blown away by Yang Mi and Mark Chao's chemistry. I don't think it's bad, but I feel pretty underwhelmed after hearing endless comments over how amazing their chemistry was.

However, one thing that bugged me throughout the drama is how awkward the dialogue was delivered. Particularly with the side characters, they literally feel like they are just flat out reading the script in front of you. This isn't really to the fault of the drama, as these character's voices are dubbed so there's no avoiding of this problem.

For cinematography, this drama looks pretty good some scenes but then looks like completely crap in others. The costumes can be overdramatic and look incredibly silly. The CGI is god awful, I'll just put it out there, but when has CGI in Chinese dramas really ever looked good?

But yes, this concludes my rant review of Eternal Love that probably nobody's reading!