Fate Chooses You

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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Needed second season

The overall drama looks very good and the music reminds of old dramas which were top class

This drama needs season 2, as there are many unresolved chapters
The craftsmen got their old book and the drama has not clarified how will it be the crafts they build according to the secret book
The ML and FL are yet to unite. In the climax, it was shown that she will alight the boat. It can be shown how their life goes from there
It was shown who is the main person who created the seed of the tree, he told that FL will control the ML.
Also the clash between ML and FL with the person who created the seed needs to be shown
But how it happens is yet to be shown. Also the next steps of heavenly ladder needs to be shown. Will the ladder will be created or not. Also why did the war demons destroyed the ladder needs to be revealed
Also the cat which the FL always keeps with her needs to be shown. Her junior needs to be ascended.

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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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Brilliant leads trapped in preachy, propaganda-laden nonsense

I can’t give this more than a 2/10, and honestly, those two points belong entirely to the lead actors. Ren Jialun and Wang Herun do an absolutely fantastic job with the garbage script they were handed. Their chemistry is great, the fight choreography in the early episodes is epic, and they genuinely try to elevate the material.
Unfortunately, the story itself is an absolute farce. I was completely hooked by episode three when the female lead started kicking serious arse, but the narrative immediately collapses under the weight of heavy-handed, sugarcoated state propaganda. The moral messaging here is completely broken. We are forced to sit through infuriating levels of injustice, only for the male lead to let a despicable, traitorous tyrant of an Emperor off the hook just to preserve societal stability. It is insultingly preachy. Instead of a satisfying story driven by common human decency or earned justice, the script treats the audience like idiots. It uses lazy, industrialised tropes to drag out a bloated, frustrating plot just to meet an episode quota.
If you want a smart historical drama where actions have real consequences and bad people actually get punished, avoid this at all costs. Don't let the high production values or the great cast trick you into wasting 40 episodes on this formulaic, compliant nonsense.

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Las apariencias engañan

Esta historia me gustó mucho, porque a pesar que se centra en un universo de sectas inmortales y magia, sus principales problemáticas son las mismas que vivimos en nuestra sociedad y eso hace que conectes fácilmente con ella.

Para empezar, nuestros protagonistas son muy incomprendidos y juzgados por no encajar con el molde al que aspiran los seres inmortales, pero en realidad son mucho mejores personas que la mayoría que los señalan, Lu Huai es un demonio de guerra que desea convertirse en humano, porque a diferencia de muchos que codician la inmortalidad como el más grande privilegio, él sabe que esto más que un beneficio es un castigo, pues acompañado con la maldición que cargan los de su especie, a pesar de su gran poder, no puede disfrutar de las cosas bellas de la vida y tiene que perder a todos los seres queridos que ha conocido a través de sus tantos años de vida. Xin Mei es una chica dulce pero que no toleraba las injusticias, por eso se metía en muchos problemas con los demás inmortales debido a que tenían como norma no interceder en asuntos mundanos, o bueno no para ayudarlos, porque ellos si los utilizaban para beneficio propio; es por eso que al encontrarse se llevaron tan bien, eran personas solitarias, pero con gran corazón, en ellos encontraron alguien en quien confiar y ambos se protegían mutuamente y a las personas que los necesitaban, cada vez que estaban juntos, se sentían tranquilos y seguros a pesar del caos que estaba a su alrededor.

En este drama las sectas inmortales tienen un complejo de ser los salvadores de la humanidad, pero en realidad sólo los ven como sus inferiores y herramientas para cumplir sus ambiciones, es por esto que no toleran la posibilidad de que se salgan de su control y a aquellos que intentan que la humanidad prospere, los tachan de malvados y los eliminan, afortunadamente no todos son así, además de nuestros protagonistas, algunos personajes también tienen un corazón bondadoso y otros después de ver todas las fechorías causadas pro sus sectas, abrieron los ojos y decidieron proteger a los más indefensos.

De las cosas que más me gustaron es que aunque los protagonistas eran increíbles y todos sus momentos y su crecimiento fueron épicos, habían muchos personajes secundarios con historias interesantes, como Chu Ying, el mejor amigo y compañero fiel de Lu Huai, que era muy divertido y que lo apoyaba siempre; Jin Lun, un inmortal muy noble, quién en un comienzo cree que Sheng, la mejor amiga de Xin Mei era su destino y por eso se cegó por devoción a ella y salió muy lastimado, porque ella no solo no le correspondia, si no que lo veía como una herramienta para cumplir sus metas, pero al final afortunadamente aprende a soltarla y darse cuenta que él mismo es el que crea su destino para poder avanzar en su proceso de cultivación y sabiduría; Meishan, un cazarecompensas intrépido, valiente y algo torpe pero divertido, que aunque era humano nunca se sintió inferior a los inmortales y siempre estaba dispuesto a luchar y a enfrentarse a quién fuera, sin importarle ponerse en riesgo pero ayudando a sus amigos y a los desprotegidos; Li Mu Han, un chico algo pretencioso y mimado, pero que en realidad tenía un corazón noble, y a diferencia de muchos de los que lo criticaban por ser prepotente, resultó ser un líder mucho más justo y correcto, eso sí me encantaba que era odioso con quienes lo merecían y les daba una buena lección; hablando de personas que en un principio parecían malas, pero en realidad no lo eran, no puedo olvidarme de Ying Ying, una chica que no le rendía pleitesía a nadie y luchaba por lograr su libertad, y quién era muy inteligente y sin su ayuda, Xin Mei, Lu Huai y sus amigos no hubieran podido derrotar a una de las sectas más malvadas que existían y a la que pertenecía ella y cuando pudo escapar de esta, pudo mostrarse tal como era, una chica mucho más alegre y vivaz.

El final, aunque fue algo inconcluso sí me gustó, porque Xin Mei lucho toda su vida por proteger a otros, y está vez estaba luchando por recuperar al amor de su vida, y encontró una gran oportunidad para hacerlo, porque aunque directamente no nos dijeron que quedaron juntos, es algo evidente, ya que después de tantos momentos difíciles que sobrepasaron juntos, eran almas gemelas que estaban destinadas a permanecer unidas.

Es un drama que recomiendo, porque todos sus aspectos son positivos, su historia, sus personajes, su vestuario, sus escenarios y por supuesto el OST que tiene canciones increíbles; sin duda es una joya que vale la pena darle una oportunidad.

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leuke serie

deze serie vond ik erg interessant, dit is een soort van wereld na de serie a moment but forever https://kisskh.at/746371-tian-xia-wu-shuang . daar draait het om de Godin Wu Shuang en daar kwam het vliegende schip wat uit de lucht was gevallen ook in voor + de oorlogsdemonen die er veel in voor kwamen en die gehaat werden ivm de gevallen hemelse ladder, ,en laten we niet onze priester uit ambt vergeten he,? dat verwijst de verbinding tussen de twee series ook want ze spelen dezelfde rol!alleen nu zijn we 1000 jaar verder, dus dat vond ik al leuk en interessant.
ik vind het wel jammer dat het een tijdje duurde voordat zij er bewust van was wat er eerder was gebeurd ivm haar verloren geheugen maar op de manier hoe ze erachter kwam was een erg mooie scène en dat maakte het weer snel goed, de chemie en de vechtscenes waren mooi te zien in de serie en dat vond ik het kijken al waard!!!

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