AOL opens to a goddess giving birth & this is one angry goddess. Wronged by the baby-daddy, she commands everyone to keep the birth of her dtr, Jimni/JM a secret. Auguring a disaster in JM's first 10,000 years, she forbids her successors to allow JM o leave the flower realm and also gives JM an elixir that blocks love: Love will only give her daughter pain. Zifen, the goddess, passes away on the birthing bed leaving a rift between the flower realm & the heavenly one. The flowers have disappeared from heaven & relations have faded. Raised as an orphan w/ lots of supervision but no family, the loquacious JM is lackluster in her cultivation & unmotivated in her studies. JM wants °escape°. She also wants to help her lost friend, who was murdered, revive. JM has preserved her spirit in a small potted plant, believing a supreme being in the heavenly realm can restore her fallen loved one. These are her wishes on a meteor JM sees shooting through the sky one night. Wait. That meteor is headed right at her! A partially roasted bird, that she takes for a crow, is all that JM finds at the sight of the crash. It's actually the emperor 's son, Xufeng/XF, who is a phoenix. JM renders him assistance (of sorts) & finagles a ride w/ him back to the heavenly realm where she's an instant hit.

Don't judge JM too harshly. She's actually weak b/c her spirit has been blocked. No matter how much she practices, she can't get ahead. Over time this has corraded her resolve & she's given up a bit. The Heavenly Realm is a new setting that injects fresh hope into JM. People there are exceedingly wealthy when it comes to spiritual prowess, & some of that begins to trickle her way. She begins leveling up by doing favors in exchange for power. She's totally cheating. Bully for her!

AOL is a 2018 release that is rated 8.2 on IMDB. It is 1 season consisting of 63 45-minute eps. Based on the novel, Heavy Sweetness Ash-like Frost (2009) by Dian Xian, AOL & the book it's based on seem to provide inspiration for 2 novels that were also made into shows: Ancient Love Poetry(8.6), & Love & Redemption(10). For that, I'm eternally thankful. As the latter two seem to be standing on AOL's shoulders, comparison isn't entirely fair. In the realm of personal taste, L&R currently holds 1st place as the best thing I've ever seen - despite the often clunky special effects. ALP takes the viewer on a painful journey & flirts w/ being over the top, but they pull it off. It's magnificent. Director Chu Yui Bun also has Who Rules the World & Under The Power(8.6) to his credit, along w/ other popular shows that are all on my watchlist. I want to see everything he's done - his work is of the highest caliber. His shows are technically outstanding but even moreso, they touch the heart. He may or may not have been involved w/ AOL. On most sites Cheng Feng is credited as the director; consistently 1 or 2 steps behind, he hasn't caught up to Chu Yui Bun yet, but he is successful nonetheless.

AOL is a great story, but not perfect. It has pacing issues, it lacks crispness & actually drags. It takes a loooong time to pick up steam; eps1-9 are mostly set up that tickled the interest but failed to grab it. It floats on the surface & does not delve into the depths. That's fine - not every show has to, but one reason Shakespearean tragedies are so popular is that they are cathartically satisfying. Real-life is heartbreaking enough. I don't want to watch something that's going to grab my heart, stomp on it, and leave it to bleed out. I'll be straightforward & say that I didn't like AOL very much. Some parts I loved, but overall the show pales next to other fantasy pieces. I'm already spoiled. Seeing how popular AOL is, I feel quite out of place. I want to like it. I tried to like it. However, AOL is not congealed well. It languishes & drags, the plot isn't tight, the characters aren't engaging enough so it fails to pull in the viewer fully from an emotional standpoint and it doesn't sell the romance. Furthermore, what occurs is heartbreaking, yet my emotions remained 70%... detached? Suspended?. It began to feel like a pile of compost. It kept accumulating and nothing cleared it away. That's how AOL became a weight on top of me that provided no release. It ironically does to the viewer what Zifen did to JM!

When JM has to "do time" in the mortal realm, north of ep20, things get more interesting. Typically, earth is where all the fun is in a fantasy Cdrama. Quite often they mention the bland food in heaven & how Earth's food is much more savory. {For those of you who have faith only in yourselves & not a higher power, please skip this; no offense intended. This is reminiscent of how in the west we think of Heaven as sitting on a cloud w/ a harp. We just can't imagine it. I'll say to people of faith that if you believe God made this world w/ all the beauty, love & laughter in it (despite all the evil - that's another topic) you should be able to believe that if God says Heaven is better, it is better.} Anyway, in the human realm, XF is a king & JM is a healer. Since the king has never taken a wife nor a consort she believes him to be impotent. He takes special exception to that rumor and he lets her know what's what. As he's falling for her and tries to win her over, he and his general liken the process to war, which leads to countless amusing analogies. Around halfway they provide fascinating backstory.

Back in heaven, though, it starts to drag again. I believed it would come together & be wonderful based on what I had read. It didn't. I ended up forcing myself to watch the final 20 eps 1-at-a-sitting to complete the deed. This is not to criticize anyone who loves AOL. Emotional connections are based on a myriad of factors, none of which have to do w/ technical excellence. There's plenty of awful stuff that I love to watch. Everyone is entitled to h/h own form of mindless entertainment. Technically, though, AOL is not at the level of Ancient Love Poetry, Love & Redemption, Love Between Fairy & Devil, The Romance of Tiger & Rose, The Sleepless Princess, Eternal Love, its sequel - Eternal Love of Dream, the action thrillers Handsome Siblings, Duoluo Continent, or Heavenly Sword & Dragon Slaying Saber, & it's not on the level of the period dramas The Rebel Princess, Under the Power, The Sword & the Brocade, The Rise of the Phoenixes, or even Overlord. I'll go out on a limb & say that even Once Upon a Time in Linglian Mountain is better. With the benefit of hindsight, I would not choose to watch AOL for the first time, while I would watch any of the above shows again, & some I already have.

The characters are as likable as generic vanilla ice cream. The viewer cares about them, but those feelings are limited & the emotional investment tops out at mid-range. Many of these characters are irritating & I'm not very irritable. They're either too weak, too blind to the faults of those they love, too forgiving of evil when it suits them, too naive, or too quick to accept false choices. We see this in every drama, & the last two are common tropes in Cdramas, but there's a delicate balance between what one is able to brush aside & what starts obstructing enjoyment. Yang Zi is JM. She's got a dry quality that shows up in The Oath Of Love, one of the better modern-day Chinese shows. (China leads the world in imaginative fantasy, but their modern-day stuff is almost as bad as their fantasy & historical features are good). Simply likable, Yang Zi carries OOL. Going into AOL w/ such positive feelings about her carried me through many eps before I realized that I don't like her character very much. She isn't cute, she's not smart, she's not diligent, she's only marginally brave, & she's mostly bland. Just don't blame it on the actress.

Now for some Mosts: Wang Yi Fei plays Sui He, the empress's niece & the woman who feels that she's most entitled to marry the soon to be Crown Prince, XF. She has the most beautiful eyes. She's an iceberg & adept at playing a loathsome character. Speaking of loathsome, Kathy Chow is queen b!+ch, Tu Yao / the Heavenly Empress. She's perfect for these roles. In Heavenly Sword & Dragon Slaying Saber, she plays a most domineering martial arts sect leader & she kicks butt! Most of her work was in the 80s & 90s. Chen Yu Qi is the most likable character as Liu Ying, the Bian Princess. You should see her in Heavenly Sword & Dragon Slaying Saber - She's fantastic. The character that tugged at my heart the most is Runyu/ RY, the Night Deity (Luo Yun Xi). His story is tragic; he never gets a fair shake. He becomes more and more like his father. It's understandable that RY gives up, but he certainly pulls an Anakin Skywalker: Once steeped in bitterness, he goes real bad real quick (that's a mini spoiler, but one can see it coming eps ahead of time. They painstakingly build his resentment. The dam cracks here & there, then it breaks. Does he stay that way? Not telling…). He Zhong Hua is Tai Wei, the Heavenly Emperor. He plays a completely different character, though also a ruler, in Love &Redemption. He looks quite a bit different (older) as well. Talk about most in-demand, since 2011 he's appeared in 3-6 shows/yr, and he's usually in a movie or two as well. How is that even possible? Cloning program?

Deng Lun is XF/Phoenix/Fire Deity. He mostly looks like an Italian kid from South Philly. No complaints about his looks or his acting; he's solid. His character runs out of the baselines, however. The way XF hangs on seems deranged. He pursues JM as if he's entitled to her w/o regard for his brother. While he's not wrong (JM does not love RY) his sense of entitlement & lack of perspective or empathy for RY is icky. RY's Descent into a bitter quest for revenge is heartbreaking. If a story is going to break my heart, I need something back in exchange. AOL creates an unpaid debt to the viewer. The way XF defends his mother is off the righthand path. We should be true to family, friends, & most of all our parents, but we should be most true to what is right. Otherwise, it's selfish indulgence. The emperor lived for selfish indulgence and, later, his sons did the same in their own ways. XF acts like he owns JM and he expects his toxic, downright evil parents to be respected regardless of the heinous things they've done, while RY wants to kill everyone that crosses him, as is the case w/ most that obtain power. Being wronged doesn't make a person right. Wallowing in victimhood leads to the bad 7: discontent, ingratitude, anger, unforgiveness, hate, bitterness, & misery. They will turn the victim into the victimizer. Emotions are much stronger than logic, but if we don't check them w/ a humble perspective they will create chaos & misery. Pretending a person's dirty is clean is just existing in lies. It all leads to XF 's regret. He and his father drove his mother to act out. She is still fully responsible for her own stuff, but he contributed. Is there such a thing as loss w/o regret? Doubtful. It's very tricky: Taking on ALL the fault would be overstating his own importance which is another form of self-absorption.

Narcissistic mothers & toxic women drive the plot of AOL. The ambitions of the Heavenly empress for XF have everything to do w/ what she wants & nothing to do w/ her son. They taint her outlook like mud smeared glasses. All she can see are things related to her, for her, & against her. Her niece, Suihe, is her disciple & follows suit. RY's birth-mother is near sadistic as she plots her devastating revenge. Zifen, JM's mother, utilized extreme measures to exert control as she left the world. Even the floral realm has a harshness to it, though their motives are mostly pure. One way people pass down trauma to their children is by overreacting to it & exerting hyper-vigilance. Not only does that hand a knife to the children (if they want to hurt their parents, they know exactly what to do) but it keeps a family enslaved to the ongoing pain. Women & men are equal - they are equally guilty of toxic self-absorption. In AOL, the emperor is ultimately to blame. He married for power & pursued what he wanted every step of the way. He speaks of love, but he only loves himself. He never checked the empress b/c he couldn't be bothered. He created the incubator for the disease that spread later.

Narcissists tend to develop from imbalance - from spoiled or neglected children. Narcissistic behavior is handed down generationally & only results in bitter misery. It's a trap, & those who fall into it are enslaved and, in turn, enslave those in their sphere. Self-involvement is like a whirlpool: It's hard to escape once we get spinning inward. It creates appetites that can never be satisfied, leading to the bad 7. We don't need to love ourselves: We need to accept ourselves (imperfection is reality) & always strive to improve. Suihe is a good example. She wastes her life wanting something that clearly won't be hers. At the same time, instead of focusing on self-improvement which will lead to the right mate & true happiness, she works towards what she wants. One thing getting older has taught me is that people don't want the right things. I never wanted the right things. All I want now is to help others avoid some of the regrets that I have. A simple life of love & contentment w/ enough - but not too much - is the best we can hope for. Don't let wanting the wrong things rob you of love, peace & joy.

Aol is a visual banquet. Some of the sets are excessively busy; Flowerworld is almost too colorful, but there's no denying that they labored on the art of the show. What is fascinating is what looks like 1930's streamline design in the heavenly realm. Streamline is simplified Art Deco. The Russian designer, Vladimir Yourkevitch, birthed this look when he crafted the design for the SS Normandie. I don't know if the AOL set designers relied on traditional Chinese motifs or if they incorporated western elements, but there are objects of stunning and familiar detail in the show. Even traditional Greek block scrolling design lines many heavenly structures. (Evidence of a common human origin?). The mosaic lights at the bird realm are my favs. In one masterfully innovative shot, faces are reflected off of a drop of wine. They mention that something is made from ancient mithril - That's from JRR Tolkien's works! That connection gave me a thrill. The big battle scene is impressive. The soundtrack, particularly Sa Ding Ding’s song, is beautiful.

The viewer will smile here & there. He's a phoenix, son of the emperor & the most popular boy in the heavenly realm, but she calls him a magpie. That's once she generously stops calling him a crow. Unfortunately, there aren't many laughs. What goes on in AOL is very bitter. It gets dysfunctional, and we aren't provided with any elixir to help us manage it.


QUOTES
You judge me from a villain's perspective.

{She} involves her preconceived ideas in her words, which is a bit biased.

You know yourself least.

《《IMHO》》
Directing 68
Writing 68
Acting 75
Romance 67
Flutters 71
Warmth 49
Art 65
Action 60
Sound & music 68
Laughs 35
Tears 55
Fright 40
Tension 40
Gore 35
Thought provocation 44
Snores 48
Ending 73



Age 12+ Language: hell &darnn; violence; references to sex & abusive situations; we see the start of a sexual assault - the woman is dragged away from the camera as she grabs at the ground.

Re-watch? No

In order of ~lite & trite~ to ~heavy & serious~ you may also like:

Historical/Period:
The Romance of Tiger & Rose 9.8,
Overlord 8.4,
The Sleepless Princess 9.1,
Under the Power 8.6,
The Rebel Princess 9.1


Fantasy:
Love Between Fairy & Devil 8.9;
Douluo Continent 9.4;
Love & Redemption 10;
Heavenly Sword 9.