The Journey of Flower

I'm siding with the Primordial Force

This is officially the worst Cdrama I've ever watched. So bad I had to suffer my way through to the end to see how it turned out and, let me tell, it's a doozy. Whoever wrote this story needs help. Almost every character is blindly, obsessively in love with someone who will never reciprocate their feelings, but they remain masochistically loyal unto death, basically. Where do I begin?
FL is a pleasant, sweet, and simple minded girl who enters the cold, calculating, cruel and self-righteous world of the sects after her father dies. She follows her father's instructions and seeks out a cultivator who is the leader of the sect on Mt. Shu. She finds him as he is dying, and he hands ownership of the sect over to her, a teenage girl. Okay. His options were limited. She was there and alive which made her the best candidate.
She then travels to a second, more powerful sect, with an idea of becoming a member and finding the man she had developed a crush on just after the death of her father. He helped her out for a few days and then disappeared, but it was enough to make her young heart beat for him and him alone for the rest of the show despite some way better options. He, of course, was an immortal in disguise and the master of the sect she decides to join. During the entry tests for this sect, he literally tries to kill her by destroying the chain bridge she was crossing from one outrageously high cliff to another. Somehow, despite her fear of heights, she climbs to safety and misses her best chance to run for the hills. This was truly a crossroads in her life, that, had she been able to read the room, could have saved her an unfathomable amount of future torture and humiliation. Sect leaders who casually attempt to kill their recruits are not worth learning from.
And so she joins the cult. Here she makes many friends for the first time in her life, and her openness and naivete make her a favorite of many of her peers. She also has a friend outside, Dongfeng, who decided he must marry her after seeing her topless and always seems to show up exactly when she needs help. He's probably the best character in the story, but of course the FL can't bring herself to love anyone that could possibly love her back. He also has a grudge against ML for killing his father and his revenge becomes an issue between him and FL later on.
Despite a rough start in her discipleship, she eventually gains momentum and becomes the only disciple to our disaster of a ML. They live together in his floating courtyard called Loveless. ML severed his emotions as a young immortal and is basically a block of wood that somehow still invites the obsession of not just our FL but also his fellow immortal and raging psychopath, Zi Xun. Her lines are often pedantic but spoken with great feeling. She has no interest in justice or helping the people of earth. She only pouts and bewails ML's lack of affection for her. She also decides to kill FL and makes multiple attempts on her life. She is never held accountable for this in any way. Eventually, her obsession drives her to degenerate and become a demon.
Another peach of a character is Ni Man Tian. FL's peer and the most arrogant, awful, hateful person in this whole mess. She is a bully who never should have been allowed to stay in the sect, but the leadership there are completely blind to the injustices around them. They also bully and terrify and hold their heads high in their own self-righteousness. It's painful to watch.
Undergirding the whole show is the premise that FL is destined to be ML's "calamity." Their magic rocks tell them so. So there is a sense of impending doom always lurking in the background and growing and growing until the watcher wants to scream, "Just get it over with already!"
Eventually they do, but it's not a singular event so much as a spiral of events that includes FL risking all of the earth to save ML who isn't even nice to her. She, with the help of her trusty friends, collect these magical relics that can open a portal into a dimensional prison where the Primordial Force was locked up by a conspiracy of sect leaders a long time ago. Supposedly, this Primordial Force could destroy everything if unleashed. For the world built in this story, that would be a mercy. There is no real righteousness, no justice, no accountability. There are petty fights and endless accusations. There is scheming and bullying and greed and revenge. With a few exceptions. Those who don't harbor ill intentions tend to position themselves as martyrs every chance they get. FL and ML being the biggest examples. Even Dongfeng gives into this in the end and sacrifices himself for FL. In fact, nearly everyone she cares about sacrifices him or herself for her. Including the leader of the demon sect, Sha Qian, a consistently warm and supportive character towards FL who is blamed constantly for things he didn't do. His sect is a mess though and his commanders regularly disregard his orders and invite the hatred of the other sects.
So FL releases the Primordial Force, but he puts his power in her first. ML then sneaks in and seals the power inside of her so that she won't be able to defend herself from the relentless waves of torture and punishment that await her. FL puts on her martyr mantle and is taken for judgment at her sect. She refuses to give the true reason why she stole the relics and instead lies and says she conspired with the demon sect. Once again, they are blamed for something they didn't do. A long and boring story arc begins where FL is tortured relentlessly and cast into some kind of desert netherworld. Dongfeng saves her at the cost of his 5 senses and his life. Sha Qian opens the gate for her to get back to earth and exhausts all his power and withers up and dies.
FL lurks around the edges of her former sect, stealing glances at her beloved Master while looking sad. Her face was badly burned by Ni Man Tian during the torture saga and she wears a weird fabric leaf cluster over the burns. ML occasionally remembers FL fondly but when he finally sees her he speaks cruelly and orders her to be punished. At some point he locks her up and hopes that she will start to care less when the people she loves die. Her friends break her out after a few years and are immediately killed in front of her. She degenerates into a demon at this point, and the Primordial Force is unsealed. She takes over the demon sect for a short time and tries to annoy ML a bit before setting him up to kill her. He happily complies and then has BIG REGRET. As he holds her dead body, finally everyone who is still living feels bad for her.
The last scene is unthinkably cruel. ML resurrects FL by sacrificing his friend and fellow sect leader Mo Yan (who was a POS but human sacrifice is still really bad) WITHOUT HER MEMORIES. They live together in a simple cabin and he carries her around like a big doll puppet that occasionally wakes up and speaks like the old happy FL, the one whose life and dreams and loved ones hadn't yet been destroyed by him. WHO WROTE THIS?! WHO THOUGHT THIS WAS OKAY?!

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This is a drama that deeply explores themes of obsession. It is a 'forbidden love' story between Bones, a girl who was born with an unlucky fate, and her shifu (her blood also causes flowers to die, probably a metaphor). Incidentally, she is Bai Zhu Hua's fated calamity. A calamity is a trial that one can only survive by killing without hesitation (all this you learn in episode 1). Failure to do so inevitably results in tragedy. It seems they are fated to be foes. Because Bai Zhu Hua falls in love with Bones, he tries to find a way to save her (it is my opinion it is love at first site, because his episodes of jealousy occur very early on in the series) by teaching her to cultivate and be more like himself. Bai Zhu Hua is rather emotionless, so he is able to conceal these feelings very well, even he does not realize that his actions are motivated by love until much later. Alas, she is also falls in love with him and struggles with hiding these forbidden feelings. This wuxia tells their story and their struggles (she suffers the most, in my opinion). In addition to the love story, there are several important subplots all related to the overall theme of obsession, like revenge, and jealousy.

What I Liked:
1. As my first 'wuxia' this series opened up a whole new world for me. I loved the costumes, the fantasy, and I enjoyed learning about things like cultivation. It wasn't until later, watching other series, that I learned these are common themes and essentially define a wuxia. Prior to this, I almost exclusively watched Kdramas. Not so much anymore.

2.The subplots were all entertaining; I enjoyed that the Holy Ruler was not the actual villain of the show. I also enjoyed his shameless narcissism. In many ways he is a foil to Bai Zhu Hua. I liked the sets, the costumes.

3.This drama is able to achieve a nice balance between comedy and melodrama, I think because they left most of the comedy for early on in the show and then steadily built in plots that increasingly made the show more serious. Once things became serious we saw hardly any comedy.

What I Loved
4. The transformation of Bones from a sweet, adorable, at times extremely dense girl into an extremely resilient woman, overcoming some of the most awful trials, all because of her ill-fated love. I mean people really have it in for her. This transformation continues as she also turns into a very direct, at times ruthless woman, something that she didn't necessarily wish to be but was forced to become in order to survive. She finally reaches a point where she eschews the rules and values of everyone else in order to protect herself.

5.The steady deterioration of Bai Zhu Hua's image. He is the leader of a sect dedicated to protecting the world. Words like pure, perfect, god-like, and selfless are constantly used to describe his person. But as the series progresses we see that there is an extremely dark side to his personality (very subtly presented): his selfishness and greed can be compared to no one. He does everything in his power to keep Bones at his side, even if it means placing her in painful situations, insisting he is doing it for her, but truthfully he is doing it for himself. He can't let her go, he can't allow anyone else to have her, and so he traps her in this hell all the while presenting himself as her respected Shifu. Very devious. Even more so because he believes his own lies. I mean it isn't like he is two-faced, pretending to be nice and then behind the scenes the mask comes off. He really believes his own b.s.

6.The final confrontation produced feelings that I have not felt from any other dram. It was extremely satisfying because I think it showcased who Bones was, and where she was coming from, and it also completely showed Bai Zhu Hua's true colors.

What I hated
7.This series has the annoying trope of 'every man loves the female lead'. Those who don't fall in love with her (with the exception of maybe two people) are either in love with someone else or despise her for reasons that are never really explained.

8.The women in the show (with the exception of one or two) all detest the female lead. If they don't in the beginning they wind up hating her. And with the exception of 1, it is never really explained. It seems to be a case of stereotypical female jealousy. I would be exhausted hating someone for that long.

Final Notes
This may be the only drama that I have seen where I would have been okay with the leads never getting together because Bai Zu Hua was such a great villain. He was meticulously created and I think designed to make the viewer at first like him but by the end you hover between feelings of revulsion and outright hate. He is just unforgivable and the best part is he is so subtly evil! This isn't a guy who is violent or disrespectful to our leading lady. He has hardly any lines. But he is just...awful. If you watch 3 Lives 3 worlds 10 mile peach blossom you might see parallels between Fengjiu and Bones and Mo Yuan/Shifu (in terms of personality; these characters have no romantic links).
This show is based off of a popular novel. I am still looking for a full translation, but here is a link to what I have found so far: https://dorayakiz.wordpress.com/2014/10/24/the-journey-of-flower-author-fresh-guo-guo/

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Let's kill the FL because of jealous - should be the name

Looks like all the show is about Xia Zi Xun and Mantian trying to kill the FL.
Really, all the drama it's about they being ridiculous obsessed with hurting the FL because of the ML.
It's so bad, there must be a thousand dialogues about this. Especially related to the obsession of Zixun, he just allowed her to do all those things. And he knew Martian was trying to hurt the FL and did nothing!
And the ML is just a moron, never steeping up when needed. If he had a voice and stood up most of the problems wouldn't have happened.
He was also treating the FL really bad in so many moments, blaming her or avoiding her. Just take the part of that instrument for the demon clan, he left her take the blame, he could just say that he allowed her to take it.
Ah, and the romance? Pretty much non-existent.

The only good thing is the production and OST.

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My Honest Opinion

I watched this in December of 2019, and gave a review on YouTube. I know folks loved this, so I'll probably be in the minority.

The story would have benefited if they had written in more of the book after her death and actual resurrection. The pain and suffering he goes through. Btwn the horrendous amount of makeup they put on him to make him look like he was closer to 50 was a real disconnect between the two main characters. Wallace Huo (Bai Zihua) was basically an iceberg the entire time. I read an article where they interviewed him and he said that it took him a while to get into the right head space for this part romantically speaking because of the 8 year age difference between him and his costar, the ever amazing and talented Zhao Liying (Hua Gian Gu). That it felt like an uncle and niece or father and daughter relationship. That’s how it felt on screen. Plus the coldness of his character, total lack of development, and the aging makeup didn’t help matters. The writers essentially shot themselves in the foot by not showing or having someone say that “love and duty can co-exist” as that’s a line from the book. Maybe have Zhu Ran explain it to him during his monologue after FL dies. That all Bai Zi Hua had to do was open his heart and love her. He wasn’t a monk and therefore celibacy shouldn’t have been that big of a deal in comparison. That the “fated calamity” was designed not to kill but to teach them to love. That perhaps failing was really the win to the “fated calamity” curse as opposed to what they were made to believe. Like with what happened to Wu Guo and Yun Ya; all he had to do was acknowledge his feelings and allow himself to love her. Falling in love, opening your heart and letting yourself feel would have saved everyone. I mean Zhu Ran came about somehow right? So Mo Yan had to have sex with his mother. Love or otherwise, Mo Yan was still allowed to be a Senior Brother. His life didn’t end. Neither did the world.

The biggest disconnect happened in FL's resurrection; it came out of nowhere with almost zilch real explanation. It seemed like the creators were rushing to finish the series so didn’t have time to give it any real semblance of an end and there was a lot of great material to finally develop the lead the way he had deserved to be developed. Maybe not go as far as “The Bet” but much of it could have been used and give it a real happy ending it deserved.

The best character out of the entire series was that of Holy Ruler aka Big Sister to his Little Thing. Ma Ke was a great actor, amazing development, and multifaceted to have him be loved more then the lead, in my humble opinion of course. I would have much preferred for Hua Gian Gu to end up with him even if it was in the sibling only love capacity. He was the only one immortal who literally did everything for her and protected her; ended up stuck in sleep until she died and he used his strength to help with her resurrection. Ultimately, for me, in the cluster-fuck of men who loved her and tried to protect her, Sha Qian Mo is the only one who ever succeeded at it each and every time with sincerity. Dongfang though he loved her, was blinded by revenge and that also put her in dangers path. So he doesn’t count. So for me the only real sincere one whose heart was always open for our heroine no matter the cost to his evil plans, was Mr. Androgynous Holy Ruler Demon Big Sister. I truly wish the creators had taken more from the book and adapted it in such a way that would have explained that totally disconnected ending or ended it on a higher note from the epilogues giving the iceberg the opportunity to melt and show emotions. Just my own thoughts of course.

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The story itself is pretty awesome! The characters was well played by the actors and actresses - outstanding ovation for you guys ! The music, the ambience was well prepared.

The story line, twists and turns was well drafted. I'd say everyone who'll watch this and who's seen this well even want more, that's a 101% guaranteed! Good Job Everyone!

Congratulations for creating another yet enticing, extraordinary and first-rate hit TV Series (2014) that's being aired this year 2015! Top-Grade performance for the actors and actresses on this film! Kudos to everyone! ...

Looking forward for Second season/part 2 of this excellent show and for more other magnificent shows/story like this one!

Thanks!!!!!

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This is my favorite drama of 2015. I have not cried for a movie/drama to this extent for quite some time, but this show made me cry nonstop during the last 2 episodes.

I love the actors and plot, though there were some moments towards episodes 40-50 when I felt some of the story was missing or skipped; maybe I can find an uncut version of this to watch again. The actors were so wonderful I felt their character's pain and cheered for almost everyone (even the baddies). There was not a moment when I did not sympathize with both main characters.

The fantasy theme was well utilized, but CG was not great. I thought China would have caught up with better CG by now, but unfortunately if you are hoping to see a lot of cool effects, not going to happen here. These people could have also spared some budget for real flowers instead of the cheesy silk flowers that were obviously fake. I am picking at this only because the flower theme in the novel and drama is very stressed. I also did not like Tang Bao's scenes. Her personality in the novel is very helpful, intelligent and cute. This Tang Bao was mostly annoying and idiotic; ugh, that voice!

The author and director did a great job with the story and character development. The costumes were beautiful. I also enjoyed the music and setting, which made the most dramatic scenes very emotional and well balanced.

I wasn't a fan of Wallace Huo before this (I saw 3/4 of episode 1 of Perfect Couple, and he did not leave an impression for me to continue). Maybe it was the costume change or his serious demeanor that won me over immediately in this drama, but now I am a fan and hope he will make more wuxia dramas. He played the stern but loving teacher very well. He was believable and his affections for Hua Qian Gu were subdued but convincing. I know a lot of people made complaints about the lack of affection (very little kissing/hand holding scenes), but this was what sold me on their forbidden but unconditional love. I actually enjoyed this more than other dramas because the main characters were privately passionate, and I could feel the heartache of always wanting more from their ill-fated love.

Zanilia Zhao was not my favorite in the beginning, but when her character was more assertive and less hopeless, she grew on me, and I cried mostly for her character's struggles. It's nice to have a strong female lead that fights for what she believes in even when the whole world and fate is against her. She was very relatable, and in the end I'm glad Zanilia landed his role.

Overall this movie was exceptional thanks to the wonderful acting, strong storyline, and believable themes of good vs evil and loving yourself before you can love others/the entire world. I would recommend this to everyone. It's quite long, but worth it. I was addicted so I finished quickly. Immediately after its end I felt major withdrawls (that was how good it was). With the success of this drama I hope there will be a follow up or something similar.

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I was so happy to find this as anything where the female lead has the potential to be kickass always appeals to me. Overall this potential kept me coming back for more, although, the CGI is hilariously bad.

This is not a love story, this is a story of obsession and the inability for people to see beyond what they consider to be good or bad. To me, the best moment was when the female lead had turned 'bad'.

The main female anti-protagonist is a constant thorn that escalates instead of being resolved. Another character says, at one point, that she's not evil but that is ridiculous since nothing other than actions proves whether someone is evil and her actions were constantly exactly that.

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This series first hooked me on its friendships. It was refreshing to see characters cheering and helping each other. It did give it a rather light-hearted (simplistic?) feel that did not continue through the series.

The pacing of the story was quite good, there were some slow bits in the middle but generally only persisted for a few episodes before picking up again. I felt like there were things that could have been explained - for example while we do find out some what about why Hua Qian Gu is special, it's never explained exactly why her blood kills flowers (although this could be a cultural/historical thing that I missed). I did feel like a lot of character motivations (e.g. why character's were in love, why certain characters hated others to the bone, general lack of nuance) went unexplained but that is in keeping with the "simplistic" feel. The end of the series kind of jumped off a cliff with the story and the series as a whole really suffered for that. The pacing went from slow to way too fast and the sweetness of the earlier story was canned for a brutal approach that didn't fit. It was like they had a story and at the end they realized they had to shoehorn it into a particular genre, leaving it feeling like a separate story.

The casting didn't wow me, the main cast didn't stand out as exceptional although part of that may be due to the constraints of the story. I thought Sha Qian Mo was well played, as well as Yun Yi and Shuo Feng. The music was alright but again didn't wow me.

I felt like the magical elements were well done and not terrible all things considered.

I'd recommend this series as something to give a try but I wouldn't put it at the top of the list as a "must watch".

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One of the best and most classic Chinese dramas of all time. I finished all 50 episodes in 4 days. Yes, I spent about 12 hours a day watching this non-stop. This series has a perfect blend of adventure, action and romance. It had huge themes such as sacrifice, regret and love. The ending got so intense that I was sent on an emotion roller-coaster. This drama literally messed with my emotions. The cast was perfect especially Big Sister Sha (Ma Ke) and the female Superior Immortal. In conclusion I say that this is definitely a great drama to binge watch and cry your heart out to.

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Zanilla Zhao's acting in this drama is outstanding!

It's a perfect 10.

This is one of the best C-costume dramas I've watched.

The main actress, Zanilla Zhao, is the best actor in this drama. She outshines all her co-stars and deserves an award for her performance.

The story is about a girl who falls in love with her master. Their relationship as master and disciple is tested when she turns evil. This part of the drama propels Zhao to be one of the best actresses in C-dramas.

I won't say much about this drama as reviews by others speak the volume.

Watch this drama when you need a drama to entertain you.

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Okay, first of all I have to say that I watched the series on the really bad youtube channel 华语出彩影视剧 (Chinese Colourful Film & TV Dramas) under the wrong title ‘Blossom of Destiny’. Avoid this channel. It's nasty what these people can do to a drama.

So, now to my review. Imagine someone who puts together different, already existing parts of pictures and wants to paint a masterpiece, but in the end it turns out that the ‘artist’ can't really paint. That's how I feel about the result of screenwriter Rao Jun's work. What's worse, he was only 25 or 26 years old when he wrote the script. What life experience did he have to describe and explain great emotions? Apparently none! And you can see that very clearly throughout all the episodes! It's really sad for the story. So you have to watch in disbelief as the main female characters run blinded after the wrong men and commit crimes in their obsession. Men, on the other hand, are allowed to openly commit murders and other crimes because they are always pursuing a just goal. The end justifies the means, at least for men. Rao Jun, I hope your image of people, especially women, has improved 10 years later, but I have little hope.

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