Chang Sheng Qi (2026)

Promising Concept, Botched ScreenWriting

Princess Ningjia and Royal Guard Ning Changyue were granted immortal life after the tree spirit Yutu was moved by their display of devotion and love for each other. Fast forward 3000 years later, both are now living in the modern era as Song Yiqiu and Ning Changyue, although they both had fallen out from each other, the former trying her very best to avoid seeing the latter. But as they are bound by immortal oath, Ning appears when Song is involved in a car crash while trying to save a pregnant woman, and Ning asks if Song would give their relationship a try again. Song is tired of living forever, and agrees to do so if Ning would help her break the immortal oath, which involves them finding the tree spirit Yutu who reveals that they had to find a particular map (which is in a form of painting) to break the curse. They go on the last leg of their life together as couple again to break the curse, where Song finally figures out what her true feelings is towards Ning when she encounters her past love interest who had reincarnated as Lu Huai.

First off, ive been setting my eyes on Alan Fang ever since A Journey to Love. So I am kinda ready to ‘like’ this drama. The comments looks promising so i went on to watch even though ive never been into minidrama. Well, unfortunately enough, this show definitely ticks the boxes of “why I don’t like minidrama”.

Lack of character build-up? Check!

Abrupt plot hijack? Check!

Characters that don’t make sense? Check!

As much as i liked Alan Fang, I didnt quite like the personality of his character’s modern self. The extreme jealousy is cringy, the clinging to FL is too tropey, and the immature banters are eyeroll worthy. While ML acts immature with his jealousy, FL isn’t any better either. She is selfish and shallow, always thinking about herself and her own feelings and never of ML. She plays victim a lot and I honestly hated her character throughout the series.

Why did the screenwriters write thousands-year-old characters to act like freaking adolescents finding some monkey love i could never guess. They both don’t look like people with thousand years old experiences. They were supposed to be married to each other at some point of their immortal life and yet they acted like they just caught the eyes of their crush. All those awkward moments that’s supposed to be romantic looked so lame instead and incoherent to their hundreds century old background. How did a couple of lovebirds who went through life and death fall out so bad they never explained it either. And the last arc with the eunuch was so ridiculous and dragged down my rating even more. The only thing that was consistent throughout the series are the awesome songs, that definitely managed to save the rating from getting lower. It’s really a pity, the series couldve been an interesting one if they had more backstory and realistic personalities fitting for millennium old characters that should have been wiser and more mature than my 70yo grandma.

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If only it were longer

I started this with a lot of hesitation bc the love triangle was so tangible I felt like it's going to ruin everything. We had immortality, the estranged couple and a lovefool who won't stop reincarnate. The drama was giving villain in the making vibes and cliche misunderstandings (there are some of those) and I almost dropped it. Thank God I didn't. The 2ML is NOT the villain and at the end everything gets cleared (but the magic watch) and there are no loose ends. The only real problem is time. It's ironic how the protagonists had ample time but the drama not enough to make everything make sense. The ending matches the FL centric theme but I wish it were happier and more realistic leading to a fulfilling life and the inescapable end of all mortals.All in all, it combines angst and humour in a nice balance. If only it were longer....

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