Ashes of Love

The most magically woven drama

Let me tell you, I am NOT a fan of Xianxia or Wuxia C-Dramas, but this one just won my heart not once, but over and over again. The leads, YangZi, DengLun and Luo YunXi... They were just amazing. The story, from first to last, was so beautifully made, it feels like you're present right there, in the drama. Even the villains and antagonists perfectly acted their parts, making me hate them so much, which was in fact, the sole purpose after all. The way the story unfolded in every episode was just, Chef's Kiss. Yeah I agree that in some parts, JinMi was annoying and dumb, but you'll see that you can't even blame her for that.
All in all, it was the most amazing xianxia drama I've ever seen, and there were no scope of getting bored. I would definitely recommend this

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I NEVER would have thought I could watch so many episodes.

I started watching the drama because of Deng Lun, whom I have admired since the series Mr. Fighting. So I learned (with a heavy heart) that he is banned in China and that I will most likely never see new dramas with him again...

I'm an incurable romantic, so love stories are always welcome. However, I don't like it when the relationship between two brothers breaks down in a story because of a love triangle.

Although I definitely like the main male character, the second male character really touched me. I was touched by the way Run Yu's face lit up when he saw her, and how he called her" Mi Er" in such a gentle voice. Luo Yun Xi has given an outstanding performance, especially in the part where Run Yu's trauma is revealed.
The radiant, sad, desperate, pained or resigned gaze of the character portrayed by actor Luo Yun Xi penetrated deep into my soul.

Ever since I started watching this series, the name Xu Feng has been stuck in my head. I liked the character only because of Deng Lun. He is a great actor and I adore him; he played his role perfectly, but I always felt that everyone was drawn to Xu Feng for no apparent reason.

I liked the idea that the attraction between Jin Mi and Xu Feng, which existed in the celestial realm, also existed on mortal earth, even though they were unaware of their former attraction.
I liked the story of the two from the mortal world.
I liked the effects that depicted the characters' supernatural powers.

63 episodes are too many for me, so I don't know if I'll watch the series again. Maybe just to see Deng Lun acting again, not necessarily for the story itself.


Forgive my bias, but because I like Deng Lun so much, I accepted the ending, even though I found all the action towards the end very painful.

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TBH I didn't want to watch this drama when I came across it in Jan 19 when I was searching for a good drama to watch. Ashes of love was one of the top 10 recommended drama of 2018 but at first I somehow didn't fancy it after reading the synopsis and seeing the promotion posters. I thought it was going to be one of those fluffy and sickening romantic drama which I really don't like. However, after watching most of the recommended drama such as Legend of Fuyao, TMOPB, King's Woman, The Flame Daughter, Secret of the Three Kingdom and I was running out of drama to watch so I gave AOL a try. At the start I couldn't really get into the story and \i dropped it couple of times but I kept on seeing AOL on the top 10, top 15 lists of a MUST WATCH series so I gave it one last try and to my surprise it is now my favourite Chinese Drama of all time even exceed my previous fav - Nirvana in Fire. Also when I first saw the promotional posters I really don't like the look of Deng Lun but after just first few episodes in I was in awe of his presence and performance. He is truly a God of Fire! I really love this series and I kept re-watched it so many times. The aspect I love the most is the beautiful love story between Jinmi and Xufeng. Truly amazing!

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This drama has been a long journey.
It was an amazing drama with spectacular actors who did so much justice to their roles,be it the crazy act or anything else it was always on point

I love the fact that they have portrayed the characters as people who became the way the became as a victim of circumstances and not in the "I'm a born devil kinda way"

Overall I would have enjoyed it even more if it had not become excessively draggy. It was a drama that could have told this story is a much shorter way probably 40 episodes or so.

But nevertheless I really enjoyed the drama for what it is.

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Want a long drama that gives you a rollercoaster of emotions? Watch this

Not going to lie, I first saw a clip of Ashes of love on tiktok and for some reason the tiktok made it seem like a poor quality unrealistic looking drama that uses a lot for green screens. But that isnt the case at all. The editing, CGI, costumes and everything were very nice quality and realistic. I dont usually write reviews but I've read many poor reviews of this drama so I decided to write one in my perspective. Even though this drama was pretty long (63 eps), I was never bored and I wanted it to be much longer.

I'm not sure why but whenever I watch a fantasy/eternal love drama, I always hated the the idea of them going down to the mortal realm to spend a lifetime as a mortal. In this, I wasn't really looking forward to them heading down but what happened down there was actually very interesting. The first time I sobbed uncontrollably in this drama was when Jinmi was dying and coughing up A LOT of blood when Xufeng was out at fighting a battle. It was devastating when Jinmi died in the mortal realm and very touching when xufeng accompanied her in her coffin.

The character Runyu to me was just a man who seeked to be loved. Whether that was his mom or Jinmi. He was obsessed with Jinmi as she was the first to make his heart fluttered and he loved her deeply. But later on into the drama, I kind of feel like his love for Jinmi slightly turned into a need of possession.

The seen where Jinmi and Xufeng "accidentally" got married while Xufeng was the Demon King was definitely my favourite scene. I watched that episode at least 5 times it was incredible to see Jinmi get back all the credit of what she did for Xufeng that was stolen by Suihe.

ACTING
The acting was very realistic and defiently sucks the audience into the drama as if they were part of it. The actors, especially the main ones were very professional.

STORY
The story to me was also incrediable and new as it was my first Fantasy/eternal love drama. It made me want to explore more into it.

MUSIC
The music made the drama even more touching. I added one of the songs played into my spotify playlist and whenever i listen to it, it brings back so many memories, both sad and happy.

REWATCH VALUE
This drama was my favourite and I will definitely be re watching it. I struggled to not rewatch it just a month after finishing it and it was really hard. I rewatch some of my favourite scenes to ease my patience.

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food for the soul

This is my first 10 in reviews.

I truly enjoyed it and had my heart broken during the series.I'm constantly re watching my favorite scenes and listening to the songs.Why ? because although is fantasy drama, it just easy to relate to some personal experiences.

The series depicts some of the real situation that we are all facing- when in a relations one will love more than the other, the anguish , the excitement, you can get it here.
Most of us will relate to Allen Deng character, which I loved, but the "main prize" should go to Yang Zi, character as she was able to make us frustrated due to her lack of feelings and love understanding.

What I didn't like about it, is how the stories for some support characters is depicted as well as some of the special FX, like the dream best, really unprofessional work.

OST links, part of my list:
favorite, the lyrics are great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpan9yLmsgI&list=PL1LdzvvpQJSBeq6_I_NP7e_YgRElTdlwp&index=4&t=0s
The other great songs:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SID9AIGTVso&list=PL1LdzvvpQJSBeq6_I_NP7e_YgRElTdlwp&index=4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeUTvSFhKFk&list=PL1LdzvvpQJSBeq6_I_NP7e_YgRElTdlwp&index=3&t=0s

Definitely a must watch
Enjoy it !

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BEST CDRAMA EVER!

The chemistry between the mf and the ml is so good!!
story is amazing!
The MF is cute and funny!! She also acted amazing with lines in all of the episodoes!
There is villians that are very evil their acting is so amazing!
I probably watch it 10 times already!!
Amazing STORY! Their is so many thing you would love about this drama!
Watch this if you liked a heartfelting, fantasy drama with great main characters!
RECOMMENDED AS A BEGINNING DRAMA!!
I watch this as my first drama and I was hooked to the whole drama and it got me into watch so many other cdrama that I would have missed out!

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Great Story bogged down by a VERY DRAGGY AND IRRITATING MIDDLE ( from ep 12/13 to 37/38)

I DID IT!
I swore to myself I would finish this show before the end of the month and I did.

As written in the title, this series would have been way better without that veryyyyyyyyyyyyy draggy middle which ruined the experience in my opinion. I struggled not to drop the show for more than a third of its run and that's saying something.

The last 20 episodes were way better especially the last 10/15 episodes which were fast paced in particular when you compare them to the rest of the series.

The end was pretty lackluster, a stapple of Chinese wuxia, and as much as I though both the FL and ML depicted pain and longing well, I honestly though they had little chemistry together. But since they weren't together for most of drama except when the FL was a brainless idiot, that didn't bother me that much.

Anyway, final personal rating 7. I can't get past the draggy pace. If they had kept the quality of the first 10 episodes and the last 20... That would have been a 9 ( 1 point for the lack of chemistry of the main pair + blood pressure running high) but they had to drag down the story with too much episodes that served nothing and the emperor and empress that were just hateful from start to finish. 30 to 40 episodes at most would have done wonders.

Visually... the CGIs were uneven. The budget just wasn't there. It was particularly obvious for all the backgrounds that were mostly matt painted. Matt painting ( the process of using real pictures joined together and then painting on top to blend these pictures together into a single coherent image) is something I've seen a lot in C dramas and when done well can really create enchanting universe... But here, it was cheap, often several images were not blended well especially in terms of saturation and tones... colors not matching together etc. I could even tell when the resolution of the images they used in the background was just too small and they had to resize them big and didn't bother to add some detail to hide the process.

Sometimes the atmospheric perspective was put on the wrong elements i.e when you superpose elements on top of a background, the farthest these element are from the front, the more their colors are closer to the desaturated background. Most of the time, the farther the object is from the front, the more its color is light and desaturated ( that depends obviously of the background and light but you get the drift)... They were many times when characters were placed in front of a background, but they put some atmospheric perspective on them ( i.e a desaturated filter or whatever) when in fact they shouldn't have had any additional filters. That gave an uncanny look in some scenes. Anyway that's pretty technical talk, and English is not my first language, but the bottom line is... as an artist myself who does use that process on a daily basis... My eyes BLED quite often watching that messed up artistic work.... A little bit more time given to the artists to do their work properly would have done wonders.

Still the main story was brilliant. I'll never forget the confrontation scene between Jin Mi and Run Yu at the end of episode 55... That was painful to watch and hurt in all the right places.

Run Yu had the best arc and in a better world, would have been the main character. I'm sorry for how we was pushed to become the way he turned out.... but he's not completely innocent in his demise.

Getting rid of the Heavenly Empress and Emperor ?
I’m glad he did, they were both scum anyway. As a Heavenly Emperor, he’s way more fair than both and is certainly way better than Xu Feng. The latter was too soft-hearted and straight forward. You need a cunning mind to deal with scheming people and Xu Feng just isn’t that man.
That doesn’t mean Run Yu was a bad man, just that he understood how the game is played and acted accordingly unlike Xu Feng whose mindset was too rigid for his own good.

BUT

Where Run Yu turned evil was regarding his obsession with Jin Mi. I was never convinced he loved her. But when I saw that despite how much she outwardly showed how much she loved Xu Feng, and still he wouldn’t let her go, it confirmed my opinion. He was obsessed with the idea of possessing Jin Mi. He didn’t truly love her. I’m sure there was some affection mixed in at some point… but at the end of the day, if he’d truly loved her he would have let her go… just like Xu Feng did when Jin Mi told him he brought her pain.

Regarding what he did to Jin Mi, he’s 100 % in the wrong and he knew it… which is why he kept making these huge sacrifices to inwardly justify that he deserved her love and she was being unfair to him. But love is not something you can buy with grand gestures and no amount of rights can correct the wrongs you've done if you don't resolve the problem at its root. He knew her heart never belonged to him and still, obsessed with being able to possess the only thing Xu Feng ever cared about, he hurt the person he supposedly loved the most.

Knowing that what he did to his half-brother was unforgivable.

Still unlike the former Empress and Emperor… As much as I hated his behavior regarding Xu Feng and Jin Mi… I couldn’t 100 % dislike him.
He was pushed to the edge by his father and adoptive mother who only dotted on his younger sibling. He was initially a kind soul. In a way, he made Xu Feng pay for the crimes of his parents.

Xu Feng didn’t deserve anything that happenned to him… But Xu Feng had it easy from birth. Who knows how he would have turned out faced with the same challenges as Run Yu ? Even Jin Mi ended up making a huge mistake when she thought Xu Feng had killed her father… And she didn’t suffer even a 3rd of what Run Yu had to go through.

Ultimately, he turned out pretty ok given the circumstances.
He deserved what he got... and I feel a bit sorry for him... probably because Jin Mi and Xu Feng got their happy ending in spite of his meddling, I'd have felt very differently otherwise... still in my imagination, after a couple of years, he'll be able to see that he's not that alone. He's just blind.

Anyway, that's one classic checked off my list. I'll never rewatch this one again due to its terrible pace but I can understand why people were raving about it. If I only rated this on all the feelings and the deep impression it left me during the last 10 episodes... I'd probably would have rated this a 10.

Suggested Rating: 6.5
Personal ratings: 7

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Okay, so this is one of the best drama so far. It's worth watching it. And this is my first time watching Yang Zi and Deng Lun together. But since this drama starts I could scent it that this is gonna be so good.

Story: this was an unexpected storyline/plot. To be honest, I was expecting everyone would do the investigation of Jin Mi longer. And I know Deng Lun from Princess Agents. He was cute in there. This was my first time watching him as the main lead in this drama. I really love his role. Xu Feng is a Phoenix and also the second of Heavenly Emperor and Empress. He's brave, he fights for Jin Mi. But I also don't blame him for stabbing him in the back. And I get the reason why Xu Feng didn't forgive Jin Mi. Once she stabbed in the back, he lost all his trust in her already.

Acting/Cast: All the actors/casts in this drama have done such as an amazing job. They made all the audiences impressed with their acting skills. Especially, Yang Zi and Deng Lun. The scene that Jin Mi stabbed Xu Feng in the back. I also like that scene but it's really heartbreaking watching it. My heart ached for seconds. I laughed, cried, got mad and it's really heart-felted. That moment, when Jin Mi threw up that fucking damn pill, she realized how much she loves Xu Feng. She screamed calling his name. Since she threw that shit up, she's uncomfortable every single of her breath in and out.

Music: Sa Ding Ding, You have done an amazing job. I love the songs so much.

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I started to watch this during dark times with someone close to me passing away and got very emotional in a lot of the scenes. I loved the story, very beautiful slight tragic but with a slight hope that it will go alright. The villains were okay, main leads were lovely with nice chemistry. I watched every episode without skipping, the world building was so magical and left me inspired. The OST is so beautiful that I still listen from time to time. Its a must watch chinese drama! One of the best fantasy dramas I have seen and the quality of it is amazing that I would happily go through all those episodes all over again.

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