I was so close to giving this drama a 9 but there were a few problems.

I didn't like the first few episodes, it seemed like the directing was off. During the introductory phase of the drama, the audience has to learn who these characters are and a bit of context to the background and circumstances our characters face. Instead, it felt like a nosedive into the first episode. No joke, I thought I was playing the incorrect episode when I first started this drama. Thankfully, this wasn't an issue that was so bad I had to stop watching.

At times, the editing can get pretty choppy and weird. I remember shots jumping from one clip to another really oddly. It's not a huge problem, it just pulls you out of being into the atmosphere of the drama.

The last gripe I have are the last few episodes. It really fell from grace; they made some pretty poor choices and it made me skip around the last 3ish episodes til we got to the end. I've heard that this was cut from originally being even more episodes. I'm glad they cut it but they honestly needed to cut it some more to eliminate some of the BS that they included during the last episodes.

Even though this drama clearly has some faults, it excels wonderfully in some areas!

The characters are really, REALLY good (especially Zhao Xiao Tang, I absolutely adored her!!!). Each one of the supporting characters has a distinct personality and various problems they face, and you'll actually be invested in them! A lot of the time I don't really care about subplots, but everything happening to the side characters felt just as important as the plot with the main character. This drama also did a really good job creating a super cute friendship between the roommates.

Mu Cheng He and Xue Tong's relationship is truly SO cute! It's rare to actually find a depiction of a relationship that is so healthy in dramas. Initially, you might expect a teacher-student relationship to be toxic but I'll assure you this one wasn't. The only thing I'm upset with is how Mu Cheng He's character developed. It seemed like we were so close to seeing how he grew as a person but we ended up not getting any of it. The audience wants to see "show" not "tell", but his character development ended up being completely "tell" which was unfortunate.

I also really like the atmosphere this drama created. It really felt realistic and a slice of life. A lot of dramas nowadays are over the top and fall into situations that are completely implausible. Here, our characters face real problems that the audience really might relate to. The drama also touches on important themes like family, friendship, grief, addiction, etc.

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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!

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Haven't watched the Japanese version of this so I won't be comparing the two :)

Story 8.5/10
The story develops pretty seamlessly and the pacing is pretty perfect, but that doesn't mean the drama doesn't have its problems. The drama carries through two distinct phases separated pretty much first half and second half so I'll frame my thoughts based on these two parts.
The first half involves the crime the synopsis depicts, and it's damn near perfect. What really steals the show the first half is the relationship between Jin Kang and Kim Moo Young. Just like Jin Kang, we have no clue what's going on in Moo Young's head but we slowly fall in love with him anyways! They have your typical "I hate you" turned "I love you" k-drama formula, but the way the drama does it feels more raw and less cheesy because Moo Young isn't your typical male lead. He's mischievous and you never know what he's thinking. I like watching a drama that has subtlety in what it's doing, it knows that it doesn't need to show in giant black ink what's going on for you to catch on but at the same time, keeps you just confused enough to stay curious and keep watching.
But once the crime mystery ends we enter into the second half of the story and that's where all the problems become more apparent. I can't really describe these without spoiling the story too much but just be expecting these things. First, the relationship gets kinda toxic because the situation is messed up. The side characters that were involved in the first half lose their purpose entirely in the grand scheme of things, so I can't help but wonder why they're even there (Seung Ah, Yoo Ri, Jin Gook's lady friend, Cho Rong, the brother's mean boss... need I continue?). Moo Young is probably the only character that goes through any development. Unfortunately, Jin Kang and Jin Gook don't go through any development, things just get revealed about them so you can be shocked about their past. Which is a shame, because the development with Moo Young is really, REALLY good. By the end of the drama, you REALLY feel for this man.
Also, you probably already know this going in but this drama is the definition of melodrama. Your emotions WILL get screwed with! :(

Acting/Cast 10/10
The acting is SO good, and it makes me so happy! It's a melodrama, but the main cast acts doesn't go overboard and they act their scenes out so that it really feels like how people would react if these things were to really happen to them. Once again, I think a strong point of this drama is its subtleties. In particular, Seo In Guk doesn't blatantly say what he wants or is thinking, he emotes it subtlety. This is not to say that during the dramatic parts of the drama he doesn't give a BANGER, because he absolutely does. During the final episodes, the acting is some of the best.
Also, can we talk about Seo In Guk and Jung So Min's chemistry? It's REALLY good. I was literally out here shipping them the moment they met.

Music 10/10
I'm not picky with my music, the music they chose was solid and did what it needed to. Especially OST #2 with Seo In Guk and Jung So Min, so freaking good! They're definitely songs I'd listen to outside of the drama (although I'm gonna have to wait a couple of weeks to calm down and power through my withdraw symptoms from this drama before I listen to it because I'll just cry if I do).

Rewatch Value 5/10
Wouldn't watch this again, but I wouldn't watch any melodrama again because I can't put myself through all the pain again. I'd for sure watch clips again to see the performances from the actors or any cute bits.

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