Love Never Fails

Nice twists but weak plot

As much as I love the main characters and their chemistry- the plot started to fall really weak somewhere early on to be honest. But let's start with the positives!

PROS: I mentioned it before but the chemistry between the two main leads were awesome! I genuinely loved their love story despite the back and forth but that kind of thing is kind of common to see in cdramas so I guess you can say that I got used to it lol.
I know for some people, the episodes containing their mortal lifetimes felt like too much filler but I really loved watching them because to some degree, they mattered. I do think they could have condensed it a little bit but all in all, it was fine :)

CONS: So there's quite a bit of cons here for me personally so I'll do my best to go through them.
I mentioned the plot falling weak at some point but honestly? It was more in waves then it was a steady decline. It had moments where the show would pick itself back up and then fall into a fat pit of bs.

I want to start off with the second main couple of this drama. Their relationship was honestly...ridiculous to watch. Mainly because of Lu Yao (second female lead). She was unbelievably insufferable in so many ways. I don't mind female leads being stubborn and strong-headed, my issue with her was the weird beef she had with Hong Ning (main female lead) and her odd fondness towards her brother, Lu Jiu, despite having little to NO relationship with him.
Yes, you do see little clips where they DID interact with each other but I swear, it's like the same two clips consistently repeating throughout the show as if this was the directors way of saying "this is why she cares for her brother!" which is both really weak and pathetic to me. The ironic thing though is Lu Jiu kept denying her and never saw her as family throughout the show which I liked because it's more or less realistic. And no, she honestly did nothing to better their relationship expect pushing all of his boundaries. However, they ruined it at the end where she more or less was going to die and all of a sudden, he acknowledges her as his sister???
As for weird beef with Hong Ning made like...no sense. Yes, she was justify to be upset initially when her wedding with Jin Xiu fell through because of Hong Ning. But at the same time, Lu Yao never loved Jin Xiu and even said it was for political reasons. So her weird hatred continuing despite so much time passing never settled well with me at all.

Now onto my biggest annoyance of the show and the biggest weak point of the show was Bai Cha, one of our main villain. His reasons for being a villain in the first place was already weak as shit. I won't discredit that he didn't go through a hard time and faced injustice by the divine beings because he did! He really did but for whatever odd reason, that wasn't what fueled him at all.
What basically broke the camel's back is he believed that Hong Ning was going to abandon him once she comes an immortal. Throughout the show, he more or less becomes more unhinged like any villain would but he did it in a way where at some point, it just didn't make much sense. Like- it strayed away from his original reason as to why he became the way he did in the first place.
The longer you watch him plot against Jin Xiu and everyone else, the more you're just sitting there saying "But why? what is the point of doing this bro? you proved your point, move on already." It became such a drag and at the end, it felt so ridiculously pointless that I couldn't help but just sigh from relief when he dies. Not because I was happy that they "overcame evil" but that he was so pointless to the overall plot that it just felt like taking a breath of fresh air after he dies.
He honestly felt like he was there purely to just give the main characters something to do/overcome just because and nothing more LOL

Last but not least- this one a little minor compared to everything else I've written but I wanted to still point it out. Cdramas never always had the most amazing cgi's or whatnot but for some reason, this drama in particular was really lacking in cgi skills. There are some blatant mistakes and a bunch of weird cuts you see in the show that really breaks the immersion.

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A better execution could have made it a beautiful drama

Love never fails is all about the love story between Jin Xiu, the prince of Midheavens and Hong Ning, a red camellia demon.
As they traverse through different lifetimes, they face unprecedented situations, overcome many difficulties, clear misunderstandings, and finally establish peace in the world.
The first 11 episodes deal with immortal arc and to be honest, I was not quite impressed with the way the love track was developed between the leads. Somehow, I couldn't find the female lead to be cute, but was sometimes annoying too.
The next arc, they are master and disciple, which too ends in tragedy. This arc was much better than the heavens, and then they become general and demon hunter in their next life and in the final arc, ascens to the heavens again, where they find out Jin Xiu's true identity, eliminate evil and bring everything to an end.
I felt that, the last 10 episodes were quite interesting, with mysteries unraveling.
The actors were good in their performances, not the best.
The sets and costumes were very grand though.
Only if the execution was a bit better, it could have been a very good drama, but for me its strictly a one-time watch!!

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I would've enjoyed this in 2022

I really tried with Love Never Fails, especially for Liu Xue Yi, who I normally enjoy watching, but gawddd, I just couldn’t sit through this one. It felt messy from the start, and honestly, not even his presence could save it for me. The production didn’t have that dreamy, ethereal look that most xianxia dramas pull off. It wasn’t visually stunning at all. Had this aired back in 2022 like it was originally supposed to, I might have been more forgiving, but after all the delays and the major casting change, the whole thing just felt off.

Let’s be real, Yuan Bingyan would’ve absolutely slayed as Hong Ning. She has the spunk and emotional depth that the role needed. But with all the behind-the-scenes controversy, she was replaced, and props to Hu Yi Xuan for stepping in and reshooting everything in front of green screens. That couldn’t have been easy, and she honestly did what she could with a pretty flat script. Still, I felt zero chemistry between her and Liu Xue Yi and zero chemistry with the second leads too. Like, nothing sparked. The romance, the angst, the longing? All of it just felt... meh.

The plot was your basic god-demon forbidden love + reincarnation + misunderstanding formula, which could’ve worked if the execution was better, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about anything happening on screen not the leads, not the side characters, not even the world-building. Everything felt hollow and disconnected. After a few episodes of forcing myself to keep going, I just dropped it. Disappointed, but not surprised.

So yeah—Love Never Fails failed for me.

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Boring

Love Never Fails is another stylized xianxia with no new ideas - a stoic ML, a childish FL, immortals - good, demons - bad, and so on. I didn't expect much from it, but in the very least, I expected to be entertained. That wasn't the case here.

Hong Ning is a flower demon. Jin Xiu is an immortal who must restrain his feelings. She wants to be his queen and seeks immortality while he struggles with his growing feelings for her. It sounds like a promising start to an epic love story that will transcend time. Instead, I had to sit through episodes of immortal beings acting like two awkward teenagers running circles around each other with nothing much happening otherwise. The writers spent too much time trying to create a not-so-funny comedy, instead of writing an interesting plot with compelling characters. I really liked Liu Xue Yi in other dramas, like In Blossom, but here his character fell completely flat. FL was pretty forgettable too. I found nothing interesting about this drama to continue watching past episode 6. Pass.

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POOR LIU XUE YI

I felt bad for Liu Xue Yi, a talented handsome actor has to endure partnering with a new actress Hu Yi Xuan (camellia demon Hong Ning) not just bad in acting, annoying childish voice, not to mention weird hair styles. Who did her make up and hair-styling? Very sloppy, doesn't compliment her, she appears between wild nymphs and gnomes. Long wavy frizzy hair, big flat nose, raspy bang, oversize red dress. I don't who should get fired first; the actress or the hair dresser? When they met again, bound by love, trials and destiny....I am choking. It's too much a stretch.

I think the only person to take good look at is Liu Xue Yi.
His character though as a reserved immortal is that kind of boring. I don't think he's looking to the FL and think 'I love this demon wholeheartedly and want to spend my immortal life with her'.....because his eyes doesn't express it. His eyes is like saying 'let's get this over with' I know I can't read his mind...but that's the expression I got.

Other actors are barely has acting skills...as far as I watch the drama. Wouldn't recommend this drama to anyone. Need to change the title to "this love should have failed". Safe your valuable time for something else better...

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ฉันชอบตัวละครของเรื่องนี้มากกว่าในนิยายโดยเฉพาะจิ่นซิ่วที่ดูมีมิติมากกว่า แสดงอารมณ์และความรับผิดชอบ ภาระอันหนักอึ้งและความยากลำบากใจอีกทั้งการเสียสละ ฉันดีใจที่เรื่องนี้ได้ออกฉายและต้องขอบคุณนางเอกคนใหม่ที่แสดงเป็นหงหนิงได้น่ารัก คู่พระนางให้ความรู้สึก cp มาก ๆ ฉันรักละครเรื่องนี้

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