Aryael
Twenty steps away from the toilet and just around the corner from the stairs.
Because this drama is often compared to Eternal Love, I will be writing my review with reference to Eternal Love to give you readers a sense of where this drama's at. Here's my review:
Story: I will not repeat the drama's synopsis here which you can read from the drama description. Instead, what I'll say is the story in Ashes of Love is much more addictive than its most popular rival, Eternal Love. Both dramas belong in the same genre with similar themes:- gods and goddess, demons, heavenly politics, war, rebirth into the mortal world, triangle love, missed chances, three lifetimes of romance involving three worlds, angst and more angst etc. While Eternal Love has a good story, Ashes of Love has a better story pace and story development. Therefore, Ashes of Love wins by a small margin over Eternal Love when it comes to story rating. Those of you who love excellent story and story pace, you will probably rate Ashes of Love slightly higher than Eternal Love, but I did not. I gave both dramas the same rating and the reason why can be found below under "Acting/Cast".
Acting/Cast: This is the part where Ashes of Love rated slightly below compared to Eternal Love. Those of you who had watched Eternal Love probably couldn't forget Mark Chao's Ye Hua. Because of his portrayal of Ye Hua, Mark Chao went from an almost unknown drama actor in China (he's popular in Taiwan but not in China and the world in general) to an overnight International success! It was as if the man's born to take on the Ye Hua character! The charisma....the aura.....the screen presence....the silent gentlemanly smoldering look.....everything was perfect! He was totally reborn as Ye Hua!
Now, we go from Mark Chao's Ye Hua to Deng Lun's Xu Feng. Sure, Deng Lun did a good job, especially towards the end of the drama where he demonstrated some good crying skills, but somehow I feel that the role of Xu Feng was a little too big for Deng Lun to fill. He failed to attract me the way Mark Chao's Ye Hua attracted me. And I feel he lacked that heavenly princely-general aura. It was clear that he was acting. This is not to say that Deng Lun did not do a good job. He did. It's just that, in a baker's term, once you've tasted natural vanilla, you will not go back to using artificial vanilla/vanilla essence. Both get the job done but the natural vanilla's a class of its own! However, if you haven't watched Eternal Love before watching Ashes of Love, you will not notice this difference in the acting skills of the male leads.
As for female leads - both female leads in Eternal Love and Ashes of Love are of the same par in terms of acting, Same goes for the supporting cast. They all did a great job! So the slightly lower rating for "Acting/Cast" I gave for this drama was due to the fact I thought that Deng Lun's Xu Feng didn't quite impressed me. Instead, it was Ashes of Love, THE DRAMA AS A WHOLE which impressed me.
Music: The music's good. Check them out!
Re-watch value: It's 60 eps (DVD version) or 63 eps (TV version). That's quite a bit to be re-watching. So, I've rated the re-watch value as mediocre. In the meantime, if you are unable to immediately let go of this drama after watching it, you can fuel your need to slowly say goodbye to it by watching snippets of the main couple or your favourite scenes.....unless of course, if you are suicidal or fanatic enough to re-watch the entire drama again!
Overall: As an overall rating, I've given Ashes of Love a rating of 9/10. Definitely worth your time, effort and box of tissue!
Story: I will not repeat the drama's synopsis here which you can read from the drama description. Instead, what I'll say is the story in Ashes of Love is much more addictive than its most popular rival, Eternal Love. Both dramas belong in the same genre with similar themes:- gods and goddess, demons, heavenly politics, war, rebirth into the mortal world, triangle love, missed chances, three lifetimes of romance involving three worlds, angst and more angst etc. While Eternal Love has a good story, Ashes of Love has a better story pace and story development. Therefore, Ashes of Love wins by a small margin over Eternal Love when it comes to story rating. Those of you who love excellent story and story pace, you will probably rate Ashes of Love slightly higher than Eternal Love, but I did not. I gave both dramas the same rating and the reason why can be found below under "Acting/Cast".
Acting/Cast: This is the part where Ashes of Love rated slightly below compared to Eternal Love. Those of you who had watched Eternal Love probably couldn't forget Mark Chao's Ye Hua. Because of his portrayal of Ye Hua, Mark Chao went from an almost unknown drama actor in China (he's popular in Taiwan but not in China and the world in general) to an overnight International success! It was as if the man's born to take on the Ye Hua character! The charisma....the aura.....the screen presence....the silent gentlemanly smoldering look.....everything was perfect! He was totally reborn as Ye Hua!
Now, we go from Mark Chao's Ye Hua to Deng Lun's Xu Feng. Sure, Deng Lun did a good job, especially towards the end of the drama where he demonstrated some good crying skills, but somehow I feel that the role of Xu Feng was a little too big for Deng Lun to fill. He failed to attract me the way Mark Chao's Ye Hua attracted me. And I feel he lacked that heavenly princely-general aura. It was clear that he was acting. This is not to say that Deng Lun did not do a good job. He did. It's just that, in a baker's term, once you've tasted natural vanilla, you will not go back to using artificial vanilla/vanilla essence. Both get the job done but the natural vanilla's a class of its own! However, if you haven't watched Eternal Love before watching Ashes of Love, you will not notice this difference in the acting skills of the male leads.
As for female leads - both female leads in Eternal Love and Ashes of Love are of the same par in terms of acting, Same goes for the supporting cast. They all did a great job! So the slightly lower rating for "Acting/Cast" I gave for this drama was due to the fact I thought that Deng Lun's Xu Feng didn't quite impressed me. Instead, it was Ashes of Love, THE DRAMA AS A WHOLE which impressed me.
Music: The music's good. Check them out!
Re-watch value: It's 60 eps (DVD version) or 63 eps (TV version). That's quite a bit to be re-watching. So, I've rated the re-watch value as mediocre. In the meantime, if you are unable to immediately let go of this drama after watching it, you can fuel your need to slowly say goodbye to it by watching snippets of the main couple or your favourite scenes.....unless of course, if you are suicidal or fanatic enough to re-watch the entire drama again!
Overall: As an overall rating, I've given Ashes of Love a rating of 9/10. Definitely worth your time, effort and box of tissue!
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