Underrated

Story:
Honestly, the story may be the only shortcoming (barely) and since I haven't read the original novel, I wouldn't know if it's because the original writer made it so or if it was an issue of production. The story does follow the trope of the three lives three worlds however I don't think it holds back the story at all. The extension of lives really enables the audience to see the extent to which these characters grow and broadens the world-building capacities of the scriptwriters even if the worlds do follow the standard set up of god-human-demon. Even though the drama follows xianxia tropes, I also think that the drama uses them to their fullest aka although some of the content isn't original, it isn't to say that it was badly done. In fact, I would argue that they did a really great job maximizing them to develop tension, conflict (and romance haha).

A note on romance in the story. I think they did a really good job broadening love in this drama which I didn't see in many others. Love isn't infinite in this drama, it has to constantly be worked for to maintain and in some cases, we see it fail. Because romance isn't the singular plot driver, we are consequently able to see the power of platonic dynamics e.g. friendships, parent-child relationships and how these all have a part in building the characters that we engage with which I think is a far more complicated storyline to complete and it was done very well in this drama.

One thing I will say is that like others have mentioned, Ep 12-16 is where the actions really begin but you should all really savour the "boring" first episodes because those are really the happiest moments in the show. Once you finish the entire drama, I guarantee you will wish you appreciated those first couple of episodes more because this drama is ANGSTY.

Acting/Cast:
Likely my favourite part of the drama. I don't know if it's just me but I genuinely loved the cast. I know a lot of people have criticized Zhou Dongyu in the show but I honestly think the Shang Gu that Zhou Dongyu created is a beautiful character. She did a great job building a FL that was beautiful and powerful but imperfect as well. The imperfection comes not from her physical features (Zhou Dongyu is gorgeous I will fight anyone who says otherwise) but in Shang Gu's shortsightedness and gullibility (to being taken advantage of by a certain individual) which Zhou Dongyu does a great job of naturalizing as opposed to hiding them or normalizing them. I think this is a great contrast to some other xianxia romances we have been exposed to (and have been rated higher -_-) where the weaknesses of the FL are either used to encourage romance or ignored. I suppose it's part of Zhou Dongyu's experience as a movie actor but regardless her character is lovable because it is imperfect; although Shang Gu is spoiled and immature, she has a good heart and a strong sense of responsibility that we later see forces her to address her own issues. I don't think this type of complexity could've been expressed by any other popular xianxia actress and Zhou Dongyu honestly deserves more credit for being able to incorporate these ideas so well into a story already underpinned with tropes that limit any challenge to narrative norms.

Of course, we also have Xu Kai. This is the second drama I've seen with him and I've been told he normally plays playful characters as opposed to the colder characters like Bai Jue which surprised me as he seemed to do it very well in this drama. As Bai Jue he was cold and (over)confident while as Qingmu he was soft and playful. When Bai Jue first disappeared and Qingmu was introduced, I remember wishing for Bai Jue to come back however when Qingmu disappeared and Bai Jue returned, I wanted Qingmu to reappear. This strong response and differentiation between the characters, for me at least, indicates that Xu Kai did a really good job in delineating between the characters he has to act even though they were technically one person so kudos to him for that.

Notes:
One pet peeve I have had with the people on the internet criticizing this drama is that some people think it's too tropey for following the three lives/worlds storyline while other people are angry that it's not tropey enough e.g. casting Zhou Dongyu who is considered "ugly" to be a beautiful person as opposed to someone like Dilreba or Yang Mi who are conventionally attractive. Honestly, I don't know what to say about that as it appears a lose-lose situation but I do hope that anyone who does read this remembers that just because this story isn't realistic doesn't mean that realism can't be incorporated into it. I think this drama is wonderful not because it is a fantasy but that it challenges the boundaries of fantasy so that we can find a little bit of the happiness from these fantastical characters and their stories reflected in our own reality.

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