Fate Chooses You

Not worth watching for me

So, 40 eps later, I think I should have invested my time in another drama. It was not worth my time. Don't think I can rate this more than 6-6,5

Let's start with some positive points :
1) I liked the costumes
2) Acting was fine from the cast. I don't think I have ever seen FL's actress before and I think she did good, during the emotional and sad scene too
3) The leads character were enjoyable.
4) I liked the powerful ML, he is mostly why I continued watching the drama. I liked watching him fighting and solo everyone.
5) This had some good fighting scenes
6) Surprisingly, I liked the arc about the library. I liked the fighting scenes and I think it was admirable all these people willing to die and trying to save the ancient texts or wiling to die protecting them. It still felt infuriating when we saw one of the half burning after so many dead. I was feeling ''All that for nothing''.
7) I liked Bai Zong Ying arc later in the drama. I was sad when he died.
8) I liked what they did with Jiang Ji character. She was annoying a part of the drama, but she was so about the rules, following the sects, you are a demon, etc.. So I think it was interesting seeing her see things differently we could say in the end.
9) Some side characters were fine

Now the negative points for me :
1) A Sheng and Jin Lun : they were a complete waste of screentime. 0 Interesting and what was the point. Jin Lun and their scenes could have been completely erased and it would have change nothing. Even her, I didn't found her character interesting, she did serve some little purpose at some point, but she also felt unnecessary. As the fourth drama I watch of the screenwriter, the ''Second pairing'' is always a waste to me
2) The romance : there were some little moments, but there was barely romance and I did not really feel it. You don't need kissing scenes, I just don't think there was much romantic chemistry. Felt more like a friendship, companions than romantic partners
3) The last battle felt somehow disappointing. I know I said that I like ML being invisible, but for a last battle... he just show up, kill him and leave so fast. That somehow felt underwhelming.
4) The plot in general : It didn't really catch my attention and it felt mid to me, boring at time. I wasn't fully invested in the plot, but I still wanted to see where it lead. All of this to become human to in the end stay a war demon. Well he did had some times to enjoy what it feels like to be human, but still. I was left a bit with ''what was the point''.
5) The editing : maybe a few times it bothered me. Like the transition between the scenes. One time, we were in the middle of ML fighting and it shift to the second leads talking out of nowhere, like why. I fast-forwarded. And how many eps ended mid battle, that was annoying.
6) The ending : the most disappointing part of the drama. You tell me, they had 2 entire episodes to do the conclusion and it's how they went ? It's okay to show closure in general and side characters too, but for the leads ??? Useless and unnecessary cameos and filler moments, FL looking for ML for 2 eps. Then they have them meeting in the last few seconds of the drama.
You can call this a happy ending, but I won't call it a good ending. Feel like a complete waste of time an ending like this, left to imagination to what happens after that. These kind of ending gives nothing. The romance was already flat, so I wouldn't have expected much, but still could have gone differently.

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Confusing Drama

I blame the director(s) for this drama. It took at least 20 episodes before I even began to understand this fiasco. If shown in an understanding manner and not in jumping from one confusing scene to the next, this could have been a decent drama. Now that I understand what is going on, I will continue watching on how this plays out. If not for the fact there isn't any really good wuxia dramas out at this time that, watching 2 episodes a day is no grievance. I love Allen Ren, but the dramas he has accepted recently have done him no justice in the last couple of years. At least he is smiling or carrying a pleasant expression, but it downplays his talent. He is just going through the motions with no commitment to his craft. I thought twice before starting this because Mr. Ren is not immersed in any character lately.

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anticipated this drama so much…but it just not up to expectations.

After finishing this drama, I’m truly not a fan of this screenwriter. TDHR might be popular among many but not me. I just don’t like how the writer wrote it. She unable to make me sit throughout the different plots, which is the same for FCY. I fast forward many scenes due to dull dialogues and weak buildups.

I’m a fan of Guo Hu’s works but I realised his work reflects better with good scriptwriters. this was reflected wonderfully in One and Only & MLC.

The CGI was superb, set up and casts were wonderful. what could be wrong?

It was when Xin Mei delivered super long speech at Chongling Valley, I knew it. At that time, I swear that was the longest boring dialogue I’ve ever heard in a drama. to add, the short screen time of ML at the start bothered me. and with more and more characters introduced, story became more on the surface and unable to go deep. the story involves immortals, humans and war demon. yet the end goal was about immortals insecurities towards human inventions? pfft…

I’ve been following some of RJL works and I’m not surprised because his works are more of my type of dramas I’ll watch. I just feel Lu Qianqiao character is very deep, potentially can be expanded further. he’s such an interesting character to study. he’s a war demon, lived for 200 years. and he’s the only war demon left? I just wish writer wrote about remaining war demons rather than perished all of them.

romance part, I never bothered if it’s RJL’s dramas. used to it. however, he needs to stop giving me the same expressions he’s been showing since One and Only days. also, I felt Wang Herun overact a little like a little girl when she’s in love lol. like gurllll, act your age. unless you tell me she never had a crush which is not, since her first crush was Bai Zongying.

shoutout to Bai Zongying & Chu Ying. they are my favourite characters throughout the show.

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Amazing Philosophy with Okay Leads and Cringey CGI

While this show was far from perfect, the overall philosophy driving the underlying story was well done. If you are the type to enjoy the discussions of shifting morals and how various people can see the same issue, this drama will be worth watching for that aspect alone. Among the various subplots, different moral questions are raised as the philosophical differences between mortals and immortals are explored. It has the charm of moving its plot forward via a varied cast of characters, some that will resonate more than others.

So, who would like the drama?
• Someone who likes deep philosophical ideals discussed
• A fan of morally grey side characters who do both positive and negative things
• Someone who does not feel the need to have a "traditional" and chemistry-heavy romance depicted by any character
• A female lead who gets stronger as the male lead gets weaker

At the same time, these are negative aspects if you can't stand these features:
• Fight scenes that are essentially 100% CGI
• Main leads being apart from each other doing their own thing
• Side characters doing things that seem disconnected to the main plot at the time
• Cliché plot flags

Personally, more so than the leads, I felt that the supporting cast is where the true watch value lies. Among this varied group, the majority consist of highly grey characters, many with minor character arcs demonstrating their growth. This is especially true of several of the Immortal Sect side characters. As is discussed in one of the philosophical questions near the beginning of the show, the Immortals are tasked with being separate from humanity and assisting humanity; but how can those two things co-exist when a cultivator lives so much longer than a human? Morals shift and one sees groups as enemies and what is "best" becomes a matter of perception. As such, many of the side characters will do awful things at one point to one person and be a completely different personality to another person, which makes for an interesting watch.

Meanwhile, the leads were slightly less interesting on an overall basis because they consistently erred on the side of staying "good". The few times either lead fought and killed someone was in the name of justice for their atrocities previously committed, and they never seemed to waver in their ideals. Our FL Xin Mei never sought power and was constantly fine with actually going down rather than advancing. Her personality was to want to see the best in others and, as one character puts it, her temperament is close to what many would consider a Goddess if they needed to picture one. As for our ML Lu Qianqiao, he also has a rather emotionally stunted appearance. His greatest wish is to be a "normal" human, and he chases this dream the way so many cultivators chase increased power and eventual Godhood. Together they are, in theory, a married couple, yet for much of the drama he refers to her as his friend, and they don't even hold hands. Both characters feel as though there is a bubble of space around each other and if they get too close, that bubble will burst.

All in all, this is a rather difficult drama for me to process in my mind because I both liked it greatly and felt there was a lot that just didn't sit right with me on a personal level. For instance, I had a love-hate relationship with A Sheng and Jin Lun's character arcs. Their interactions were often so brief that while each time was pretty, I couldn't help wanting to speed their scenes up. Another pet peeve was the feeling that time didn't always match up in a logical way; for instance, a character being locked up for days or weeks with nothing happening. Also, for me, I hated the CGI battles. They looked like bad AI to me and any time someone would throw out a chain, especially when I died a little inside.

Final Rating: 7.5/10

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Dropped Midway: Struggled with the Trajectory

This is a drop review—commentary on the first half of the season.

I’m halfway through and have decided to stop here. I wanted to drop this sooner TBH, and I even skipped through episodes 19-20 to gage if the story picked up at all. Unfortunately, this just isn’t my cup of tea. For most of my watch, it has felt like there’s been a significant amount of filler. While the core story is interesting, some of the subplot choices make it seem as though the narrative is being paused and I would like to see more development.

I suspect this is intended to support character growth, and cement burgeoning relationships, but it doesn't land for me. And I've been struggling with the overall trajectory, even bringing it up on kisskh to see whether the drama might deviate from the novel. No one has responded to me so I am in limbo.

Basic premise in one sentence: The main character is pursuing freedom and strength in a specific way that is disclosed from the very beginning—so that isn't a spoiler. But from my perspective, I translate this to devolving—and that’s not something I enjoy watching. I know some viewers appreciate this kind of arc, but a bunch of us would prefer a different direction, and I fall into that camp. Ultimately, this drop comes down to personal preference—what I enjoy watching and how I prefer dramas to be portrayed and executed.

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An okay watch, just didn't quite hit emotionally

I had pretty high expectations for this show because I’ve liked other works from this screenwriter, but I ended up kind of disappointed. It was just an ok watch, good enough to pass the time- but not something I really felt invested or interested in.

The FL, Xin Mei, is ok. She’s fairly strong and capable. Her best trait might be her ability to think for herself, which is a great and all... just unfortunately there isn’t that much else to her. I feel she shows the most personality in the first story arc, and after that she’s just a generic heroine. It also doesn’t help her character development that she’s unconscious half the time. Overall she’s just not that interesting, and I wasn’t particularly rooting for her or feeling for her.

The ML is better, with a great backstory, and I did feel emotionally connected to him at times. But his story is not executed that well either. I understood what he’s doing, but I would have felt much more emotionally invested if they did a better job conveying how badly he wants it and why. His goal actually touches upon a thoughtful philosophical question, and contrasts sharply with the Immortals and their own existential crisis. But the show doesn't push this point, instead treating it more like a hero’s quest.

The romance between the two doesn’t develop so much as jump around a few times before stabilizing. Although it is puffed up with plenty of dramatic manufactured moments (eg saving each other back and forth), I just didn’t really feel it. I understood it’s there, but I didn’t care that much.

I had a similar attitude towards the plethora of side characters and all their interlocking stories. There are too many characters, so inevitably nobody is developed enough for me to care about. I did like some of them- some had a little more depth- and I disliked others, but only mildly, and I’d forget about them after they moved out of the story again.

For the plot, I liked the first story arc, but after that it seems to drag on for awhile. I felt most of the show is a ceaseless parade of slightly upsetting events involving too many characters. But everything is also overly dramatic, from the played-up romance scenes, to the fights filled with big fluorishy movements and poses, to all the angsty moments and dramatically performed dialogue in between.

Along those same lines, this is apparently the kind of world where a character wanting something badly enough, or having enough emotion, can make miracles happen. I am too jaded to like this sort of fairy tale stuff anymore.

I liked the show better as it approached the end. There is a break in the angst, just a nice period of sweet and not-too-dramatic existence, as well as finally some clarity on the true nature of the conflict. Also, by this point, many of the characters finally accumulated enough development for me to care about them a little. And I was fairly satisfied with the final villain, who is interesting enough but still easy to hate, making it easy on my emotions. All of this wasn’t enough for me to fall in love with the show, but I did watch with interest for the last 10 episodes or so.

Thematically, this show has echoes of the thoughtfulness and philosophy that I loved about A Moment But Forever (its “sequel”). Ideas explored include using power to oppress vs help the people, questioning rhetoric, living a long life vs truly living a life, etc. In theory these could be done well, but this show somehow slightly misses the mark. The social themes, for example, aren’t subtle or thoughtfully presented, so they come across as preachy. And the giant existential crisis faced by the Immortal sects would feel more meaningful if it were cast in a more philosophical light. Overall with the themes, I felt it flirted with the idea of being deep and then didn’t quite land the hit, making it somehow even more disappointing.

Acting wise, I thought Allen Ren and Wang Herun both did ok, but it’s not the best I’ve seen from either. They both spend a lot of the show with furrowed brows and sour expressions. I also didn’t appreciate that wispy, breathy overtone the FL’s voice actress added to her voice. Many of the side actors I have seen before and like, but watching them enact some of the overly dramatic scenes made me cringe a little. It might be more about the scenes than the actors.

The fighting is overdramatic but decently performed and the CGI is pretty good. I like the costumes, especially the Bei Xiang outfits which look distinctly different. For the music, ...the OST sure has some very specific lyrics... that aside, some of the songs really grew on me, and there is one instrumental I like, but I didn’t really care for most of the BGM.

Overall, I think this show is watchable for some shallow entertainment, but doesn’t really stand out. I know I wrote a lot of negative points- it’s actually not that bad, I just think it missed some opportunities to be a lot better.

By the way, this show happens in the same universe as A Moment But Forever, which I personally really liked (also Love of Thousand Years, which I didn’t watch). There is a common mythology and one crossover character (confusingly played by a different actor), but the stories are fairly independent, so you don’t need to watch one for the other. There are a few things that I knew how they would turn out because I’d seen the other show, and a few references that would not have made sense otherwise. I do feel it made me appreciate the reality of A Moment But Forever better, especially where the human race is at, knowing all this infighting that happened just 20ish years before.

By the way #2, I rather like the gender portrayals, or rather lack thereof, in this show. There are strong, weak, smart, dumb, good, bad, characters of either gender, which I thought is pretty cool.

ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS





I consider this ending bittersweet.

There are a ton of sacrifices as we approach the end. I’d say at least half the characters end up dead. But, as shown in a nice two-episode denouement wrapup, those who are left learn to move on- which is true to the themes of the show (seeking immortality vs learning to be ok with the cycle of life, death, and renewal).

Both main characters survive, but the ML loses his memory. I love that this show acknowledges and addresses that without his memory, he’s basically a different person. The FL is still able to find him at the end, but we never find out how that works out.

A big chunk of the last episode is dedicated to the main characters of the follow-up shows, A Moment But Forever and Love of Thousand Years. I think these segments are nice for anyone who’s watched those shows, but probably a little confusing and not too meaningful for those who haven’t.

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it’s flat and dry like an iron

Allen Ren, for me, is always hit or miss. I enjoyed the two-part series One and Only and Forever and Ever. Like Cheng Yi, Allen has this semi-dry screen presence, a subtle in expression, reserved in behavior and yet when you see him perform on stage singing and dancing, he’s absolutely on fire. It’s almost like watching two completely different people.

Fate Chooses You is a very slow-burning love story, typical of many Chinese dramas that start strong but become poorly written as they struggle to sustain their own cadence. Too many ingredients spoiled the soup. There were simply too many characters, too many side stories, and not enough emotional payoff.

The chemistry between the leads felt intentionally restrained, but unfortunately restraint without spark just becomes emotional flatness. At times, it felt like a modern Don Quixote story, a man trying to save and change the world while chasing ideals larger than himself. The problem is that this could have easily been told in 16 episodes instead of stretching itself into confusion.

And yet, like every hopeful viewer, I kept watching, hoping the story would improve rather than become more tangled.

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