Top 5 Chinese Drama's [Provisionary Rankings]

My first ever chinese drama so it's probably holding a soft spot for me at this ranking but disregarding that it's just a really fucking good show on it's own and undoubtedly will remain in my top 5, if not the number 1 spot for a very, very long time.  The OST is phenomenal and I've been listening to Sa Dingding's 'Upwards to the moon' on repeat. Storyline honestly only really starts at around episode 40 but I didn't feel any of the previous episodes to be unnecessary or a drag. The episode count and focus on establishing the relationships for 2/3rd of the show allowed the last 20 episodes of the show to shine to such a high quality. So many shows forgo the focus on secondary characters but certainly not in Ashes of Love where side characters get a lot of episodes mostly dedicated to them, their story and their development. What an utterly phenomenal show and to think I was almost going to drop it near the beginning because I couldn't get used to the chinese language. Regardless of if this show will retain this ranking on my list there's no doubt in my mind that this one will stay special to me for a long time.

Fantastic show.  Unsure if I enjoyed getting trolled until the very end only for ML to exclaim; ''I'M BACK'' and me realizing there was actually a happy ending but I digress (im very happy that's all).

This only being my second xianxia this show made me realize how much I love this genre. In fact, due to the richness of chinese culture and folklore it's a genre only they could really pull off. f.  

The leads acting was fantastic. The few times they bodyswapped you could instantly notice it by the actors' facial expressions. Yu Shu Xin in particular went from being a bubble fairly to a cold and seemingly dangerous person when she had to immitate the male lead due to a bodyswap. 

The story is fucking painful. In a somewhat good way. The story itself was great but man they really toy with your heart in this one. Just when you think it's time for some romance it lasts barely an episode before something goes wrong again. That said all of this served to strengthen the bonds of the main leads where they ultimately played a VERY convincing romance. The characterization for the male lead was especially great in this. The change from an emotionless unbeatable god to someone who was able to give his whole existence and beyond to the person he loved was done in an ever so gradual way. It didn't go too fast, it didn't go too slow. It was perfect.

The fourth chinese drama I've ever watched. I stumbled upon this title after being disappointed in Love O2O and especially Put Your Head On My Shoulder. These shows were highly rated by the community and while those rankings are naturally subjective and not necessarily indicative of a show's quality it's a fair benchmark in what to expect. With Love O2O's incredibly bland and downright boring male protagonist on top of being hard carried by Zheng Shuang's acting and Put Your Head On My Shoulder's bland romance on top of some major fundamental flaws with the things going on in the show I was starting to wonder whether Ashes of Love, albeit after a small sample size, was one of the few quality chinese drama's or whether the entire genre just wasn't for me outside of an outlier and I should just stick to korean drama's. Enter Go Go Squid and my god what a good show this was. The only thing holding this show back from a 10/10 rating is the production quality ( I swear to god they used like three different kinds of voices for some characters and they would just swap mid conversation it was incredibly jarring ) and the focus on K&K starting to dwindle in the later episodes where matches were hyped up and ultimately skimmed over in a matter of seconds. That aside the romantic in me is incredibly satisfied with the development of the main couple. I loved Yang Zhi in Ashes of Love and also in Go Go Squid did she manage to be a very cute and good actress. I'm unsure whether this show will stay in my all time top 5 but fact of the matter is I thoroughly enjoyed watching it and the romance exceeded most of my expectations.