Before I discuss my thoughts about the movie, I need to get two basic facts straight. First, about the movie and the drama I know many people have watched. They are both adaptions based on the same novel. I am not sure if you can say the movie is a remake of the drama. Although you saw the drama first, the movie was filmed first, if not completed before the drama. Only it was released later. Second, about the issue of plagiarism. The film producer bought the copyright in about 2012, but in about 2015 the original novel was publicly suspected of plagiarism. I do feel pity about this situation and think plagiarism should be condoned, yet since the plagiarism is never legally sued, and the movie staff seems the wronged side, I see no reason to further detest the movie. And because of this plagiarism crisis, the movie director once said they had the script greatly modified. Therefore, it is no surprise that the story the movie tells is not exactly the same as the drama one.
Aspect I like most about the movie:
1. The cast. Yang Yang and Liu Yifei played in the movie because they were voted online to be most appropriate actor and actress. I still think they are after watching the movie. Though some of the lines are ludicrous (they are the original words in the book, but I do hope they were deleted in the script), and some scenes are absurd and unnecessary, like the cooking scene, on the whole Yang and Yifei understand the characters deeply and conveyed the emotions very well, especially in the second half of the movie. Besides, I want to applaud for Su Jin. Her character is successfully enhanced. She becomes much more vindictive, polarized, deadly and beautiful. These traits allow the Su Jin to push the storyline more reasonably.
2. The CGI animation. Needless to say it must have costed a lot, but it also shows imagination and innovation. It has design, taste, and the courage to make a breakthrough. I am deeply moved and want to rewatch it.
Aspects I disagree with the movie:
1. I found the pace of the movie okay(the pace of the drama is too slow in my eyes. Just couldn't bear it.), but the editing could be unfavorable to some viewers. The story should have been told in a clearer way. The length of the movie did not help. How I wish it was a 2.5 hr. movie. In China, people who never had access to the original novel as well as the drama could understand the movie, but people who watched the drama only found the movie confusing. This is understandable, for the story in the movie was different in many places. I advise you to treat the movie and the drama as separate ones.
2. The lines should be rewritten! Often made me feel awkward when I sat in the cinema.
My conclusion:
With or with plagiarism, the story itself is far from a masterpiece, merely a just so-so romance. If you like the actors or actresses, or if you enjoy beautiful scenes and creative special effects, just go watch it. If you are picky at editing or you quest for something more serious, this is not a movie for you.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Explanation of the Plot
I had to re-watch this to actually understand the plot. The entire story is about the male character "MC" and the female character "FC". And the name of the movie is "3 life times, 10 miles of blossom". So how does this all work together? Here we go...The main male characters are all of the same person. Mo Yuan was the teacher to Si Yin. 70,000 yrs ago, he lead the battle against the forces of evil. Although he won, evil can not be killed and only sealed. The cost to create the seal is his soul. Hence, while his body remains, it has no soul. Si Yin retrieved the body and froze it, waiting for the day of Mo Yan's return.
Unknown to Si Yin, Mo Yuan's soul was reborn into the body of Ye Hua. Notice that Si Yin said she is exactly 70,000 yrs older than Si Yin. Meanwhile, to hide the body of Mo Yuan from the forces of evil, Si Yin had to changed her name to Jian Jian and seclude herself from rest of the world.
300 Years ago, seems like Jian Jian tried to bring back Mo Yuan, but the process made her mortal and wiped her memory. Hence she forgot her own name and identity. Turns out she was partly successful, since she summoned Ye Hua to her side and gave her a new name Su Su. Here, she made a wish that she could be with her loved one for 3 life times together and there be blossoms for 10 miles. Her wish would actually come true. This is the First Life Time with Ye Hua.
When Su Su dies, her true identity as a nine-tail fox returned. This is her true form. She can't die because she is extremely old (about 140,000 yrs) and practically one of the very few immortals that can not be killed. Her rebirth sealed away her memory for the past 300 yrs. She was destined to reunite with Ye Hua as the Second Life Time as Jian Jian.
When the lord of evil is defeated by Ye Hua, who is Mo Yuan reborn, used his soul to seal away evil once again. Although Ye Hua lost his soul, Mo Yuan is now awakened, presumably to reunite with Si Yin as the Third Life Time.
Therefore, the MC only loved one person, which is Si Yin = Jian Jian = Su Su. And likewise the FC only loved Mo Yuan = Ye Hua. All of this happened because she made a wish which came true. The blossom, as explained, represents that death is not permanent and the forest will be reborn once more.
The story is interesting but the scripting can really use some improvement, as my head hurts watching it the first time.
Was this review helpful to you?
If you want to watch this, watch the drama first
At the beginning of the film, the dialogue feels rushed but this kind of got better by the end. There were lots of details left out in the film that were important to the story and included in the drama and even changed some important details, so you would need to watch the drama Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms in order to understand the entire film's story better. To me, the main leads don't really have much chemistry together but they obviously can act well.In my opinion, the best thing about the movie was the CGI. This movie had beautiful CGI backgrounds that had so much detail to it and even though they didn't look as realistic as TMOPB's backgrounds I have to say I liked this movie's backgrounds more.
Was this review helpful to you?
STORY
After watching the movie, I could only conclude the 3L3W complex and intricate story cannot be told in a simple movie. There are too many important plot-points and the character's relationships are too complicated. I think that the movie writers would have to make too many changes to the story for it to be able to fit in a movie format. While I think they had some good ideas in terms of plot changes, which were able to simplify the story to a certain extent, I still think they tried to cover too much of the original plot. I was actually relatively satisfied with the first part of the movie, but when it got to the Mo Yuan/Si Yin part of the story, I couldn't help but think: It would be impossible for anyone who didn't know the story already to understand this. Maybe they should have made a narration in the beginning to give the viewer a bit more context instead of letting us get familiar with the plot through the character's lines... To me, that was the biggest mistake: to tell the whole context + Mo Yuan/Si Yin story through the character's conversations. Too much information, way too fast.
Sometimes it was even hard to understand why certain characters were behaving like this and that. It seemed all out of nowhere...
As for the ending, I now understand why other fans were saying it was confusing. Again, the viewer wasn't elucidated enough about what was happening. And yes, I think they made a big plot change in the very end. But to be completely honest, at least they cut down one character that would only add to the confusion (not really happy about it, but oh well).
ACTING/CAST
I have to say I quite liked Liu Crystal as Bai Qian. I particularly liked the way she delivered Bai Qian's prideful personality, even if the emotional scenes failed to impress me. Overall, I think she did a fairly good job.
I can't say the same about Yang Yang as Ye Hua. Still, I have to admit that after Mark Chao's Ye Hua, it would probably be impossible for me to be pleased about a new Ye Hua. In the movie, I could never feel Ye Hua's despair, the longing, the bittersweetness he was supposed to feel about Bai Qian remembering the past... It felt like he was just a prince trying to conquer the heart of his princess.
But to me, the biggest issue was the script. I wasn't expecting to live the character's reunion as I lived it in the TV series. After all, the movie begins with the reunion, so it wasn't supposed to be a huge deal to the viewer. In the TV series the story was told in chronological order, so it was only natural for us to vibrate with their reunion. This was't the case here, and I don't think that's necessarily bad. It just different. However, we were supposed to feel something as their love story proceeds. And honestly, I don't really blame the acting. I blame the script. Bai Qian's and Ye Hua's relationship was poorly developed. Some scenes didn't even make sense to me when I felt they were basically strangers to each other. And that's why I gave the highest score to the acting: the problem was the terrible, TERRIBLE script.
As for the other actors & supporting characters, I think they were given too little time to show any acting. And if some of their actions felt a bit out of nowhere and their motives hard to comprehend, I would have to blame (once again), the script.
MUSIC
Honestly I didn't care much about the soundtrack when I was watching the movie. But I have to say the official ost (by Na Ying) is reeeeally good. I've been listening to it non-stop lately.
REWATCH VALUE
I don't really rewatch movies or dramas, but I don't think I'll even rewatch the main scenes.
Was this review helpful to you?
firstly, the cgi is amazing. everything looks so much better here, it really looks like what i imagined it to be in the novel. the costumes were very eh, some of them looked okay while some of them were very over the top. i think the acting was good, although liu yifei portray bai qian as more of a drunk here, i think that it actually suits her character more haha. yang yang did a good job (but i may be saying that as i am biased)
the music is very fitting with the show, matches the mood. the only two things i really hated was
1. the ending
2. the transition between scenes.
the ending was a mess. that is all.
the editing between scenes was choppy, not smooth at all.
Was this review helpful to you?
Condensed Version of TLTWTMOPB
The one thing I found jarring about this film version of TLTWTMOPB, or Eternal Love, is that the story begins sort of in the middle, much like the novel, and fills in the blanks in flashbacks. It wasn't too bad in the sense that there was less characters and subplots to worry about, but it remains a little on the superficial side because it doesn't delve too deeply into that sweeping love story and exemplary acting in the drama version.If you want a short version of this story then this is the one to watch. Gone are the extra storylines and secondary love characters that made the drama version so long, but with it the sweeping romance that kept us glued to our seats and the spark that made us root for them as well.
Yang Yang is very easy on the eyes and captures the magnetism of Ye Hua, but he is not directed in such a way as to bring out those inner emotions that drove Ye Hua to the great lengths he went for Bai Qian. He is almost, but not quite.
Chrystal Liu is beautiful, but again, I don' think the stakes are high enough in the performances to really make us care for this couple as we should. I feel that Li Chun's part as the evil Su Jin, is depthless and lacks the layers you see in the drama version, which was spectacularly played by Maggie Huang.
The CGI is great and the battle scenes are epic. The costumes were ugly as sin, particularly the wedding dress.
It's difficult to review this film without comparing it to the TV version, which is outstanding, Although you get the gist of the story, it suffers greatly in lack of detail. The ending felt rushed, but I did like the melding of both Ye Hua and Mo Yuan as one character rather than two. After all, the whole plot is about living more than one life to love your soulmate, so it makes sense that the two are one. This is the only thing I didn't feel was handled properly in the drama version.
This movie version was alright, but will only make sense to those that have already seen the drama to fill in the blanks.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Sooo... yes I did compare it to the drama. How could I not? I’ve already finished the show so there is no way I could not compare them.The story was definitely rushed as a lot of things are explained later or in a weird flashback that lasts for around 4 minutes. When watching it, I found it amazing how they condensed 4 episodes into 10 minutes for the movie. I originally thought that they would cut some information (such as Mo Yuan and everything before that) but nooo. They just had to cram everything into the movie. And I mean everything (except for a couple small things).
I saw this from another review and I completely agree-- if a person had not watched the show before, it would be complicated and confusing to understand. For someone like me, who has completed the show, it would be easier. When I was watching the movie I always wondered where I was, I'd figure it out and then things would make sense. I suppose this is why I'm rating it higher than it should probably be.
The acting was fine, it was more of the casting that was my problem. I wasn’t a huge fan of actors portrayal of Bai Qian and Ye Hua. If anything I believe it was their looks that was the problem. They looked too young, considering they are supposed to be thousands of years old (Ik it works differently but still) you’d think that they would look a bit older. I’d especially highlight Bai Qian, 1. She’s older. 2. Her personality at the time the film takes place in was this strong woman who likes drinking, a lot. She also as this attitude of not taking crap from anyone. I could not see Crystal Liu as this woman. I fully believe this is due to the fact that she looks perfect for a role as a high school student in a romance drama. Not her fault ofc, I just would've preferred a different casting decision.
Not to mean that I wasn’t entertained. It was actually an interesting movie to watch. Would I recommend it? No. Rewatch it? No. But I didn’t think it was bad. That's why I gave it a 7 (a 7 for a movie is average in my books).
Was this review helpful to you?
Uhmmmm..... what?
Basically, if you have never watched the series Eternal Love, you might enjoy this movie abit more. As for me, I watched the Eternal Love series first, then read the book and few years later only hunted down this movie. I would say that this movie is not good at all. It is like they are trying to put bits and bits of puzzles of the series together to make a movie starting from after the death of the mortal Su Su. The puzzles they are piecing together are quite choppy and, in certain areas, nonsensical.I was actually quite amazed with the cuteness of the movie at the beginning, especially with all the woodland creatures etc in Qing Qiu. That was indeed a nice way of portraying it. However, as the movie continues on, I literally skipped on many scenes to fast forward the movie. The ending is also........MEH...
All in all, I would recommend a first watch of this movie if you have not read the book or even watched the series Eternal Love. At least the disappointment ain't that great and your opinion of it would probably differ from me or anyone else that has watched the others first.
Did not really hear all the music for this movie. I only have one song that was a duet by Yang Yang and a lady (sorry, forgotten her name) which I like.
Was this review helpful to you?
One time watch for me ....
PROS:◇The acting
◇The chemistry
◇Music
◇The kingdoms
◇Did enjoy the foreshadowing
CONS:
◇The CGI was bad through out the whole film.
◇Certian choices made by characters 🙈
◇I was a little lost with the plot at times & felt rushed
The Folklore went over my head sense I am not familiar with it our The target audience. I will educate myself for future films, books & series.
Definitely will checkout more to understand the stories & will also look into more projects by these actors.
Was this review helpful to you?
Was this review helpful to you?
I love the plot so I am considering trying the book novel itself. People might get confusion when they watch it and it is understandable. It will actually take you more or less half the movie duration to actually get the plot... When I realized what the plot really is, I have liked it. I particularly find it interesting and rich in potential. Too bad the reception and overall film creation did not give justice on the beauty of it.
Was this review helpful to you?
This review may contain spoilers
Beautiful Cinematography, Confusing Plot If You Have Not Seen The Series
Positive: Yang Yang and Liu Yifei made a beautiful couple. Who wouldn't want a handsome god like Yang Yang and an immortal fairy like Liu Yifei. Perfect casting! The cinematography was breathtaking, the sceneries and colors were beautiful. Love the sets, the graphics and visuals.Negative: The ending was confusing, and there are choppy scenes. If you watched this movie first, like I did, before watching the drama, you would be confused. I was very confused.
OST: Beautiful! Love it more than the series! Heart-breaking songs.
After watching the drama, I actually have a higher appreciation of the movie, as I understood the storyline. Now I was able to focus on Yang Yang's and Liu Yifei's characters, and see the passion in their interaction and the emotions in their tragedies. I feel the director did a good job showcasing the mood, hate and love of the characters.
I actually like watching this movie more than the series. LOL. Somehow I have a deeper connection with the movie than the series. Perhaps because the movie focused on the story and passions of Yehua and Bai Qian, while the series had many characters and wasteful scenes that I would rather skip. Plus I am not a fan of Yang Mi, but love Liu Yifei. I like both Mark Zhao and Yang Yang.
My only complaint for this movie is the ending could have been done better. Overall, I have rewatched it many times compared to the series and still feel the emotions and tearful from their love story. Wish the ending was more satisfactory.
Was this review helpful to you?
