Hanah

Cautiously putting this in my plan-to-watch list once it finishes fully airing. I hold this manhua and its female lead very dear to my heart. The manhua came out 10 years ago, when most female leads were the sweet/silly/naïve variety. Lying, stealing or killing - our ruthless female lead doesn't hesitate to do all of that if it's to her advantage. Now, with all the reincarnation/transmigration novels, intelligent and cunning female leads are more common, but Changge still stands out for being fleshed out and consistent in character while still having important development. This is her story and it is her decisions that determined the course of the story (aka, things did not happen to her; she made things happen).

Chinese dramas have a horrible track record of making IP-adapted female leads more innocent and virtuous compared to their manhua/novel counterparts. It would ruin this story to me, like it ruined a lot of the aforementioned IP-adapted works.

Tl;dr, I think the only way I personally can enjoy this is to have very low expectations or try to forget its source material.

Yeah, I guess we can chalk it up to not the best writing + having to cut scenes to fit length...

Thank you for posting about the father-son relationship between those two! I was also really confused why Tengshe was so sad when he didn't even like Hao Chen (who is not even a reincarnation of Bailin but Bailin himself) and vice versa.

Being able to see the cut scenes would be a dream. I'm actually glad its not 72 episodes (59 itself is a little too long) but I wished they cut down on some repetitive parts and expanded on other parts. Xuan Ji and Si Feng's interactions in heaven for example.

That flower is supposed to bloom if the person of your affections holds it. That's why it blooms when Xuan Ji holds it but withers when Si Feng holds it.

Now that I am done with this, I feel like Hao Chen/Bai Lin's resolution is lackluster. He is the ultimate boss and the cause of everything but I feel like the emperor shows up, tells him he's wrong, he instantly realizes it and that's it.
I dunno, I always got the feeling that there was there was a lot of conflicting motivation behind Hao Chen's actions. No doubt he is toxic, cruel and manipulative toward her. He knows he is using her "for the three realms" which is really self-righteous BS. But the drama heavily implied he was in love with Xuan Ji/God of War without realizing it or at least possessive about her and that was an unconscious motive behind his constant interference in her life. It was sort of stated early on he wants her to reincarnate so she can return to his side, even as a small deity or something. And he thinks he hates Si Feng because SF is interfering in his "three realms" plan but it's because he's unknowingly jealous.
But in the end, it seemed like he never cared about her or had feelings for her. All of his actions were due to his misplaced self-righteousness and ego, nothing else. It feels like the clues don't add up. Maybe I'm reading the wrong signals.
It also bothers me that it is never explained that Hao Chen is the cause of almost all of Si Feng and Xuan Ji's misunderstandings. There was a scene at the end where Xuan Ji admits she lost the hairpin and did not know how it broke. You'd think that would spark a "if it wasn't you then who was it" conversation. But it was never brought up again. Actually, I was even expecting a twist where Bai Lin had interfered with all 9 past lives and was the reason all of those lives ended tragically.

Not quite done with the drama, but yes, very well stated and I could not agree more with your first two sentences.

Surprisingly, gotta say my hopes were answered pretty well! They really didn't sweep it under the rug

More rant-y (probably polarizing) thoughts up to episode 42:





Torn between a myriad of various different thoughts. You know, I think Xuan Ji was a better written character in the beginning. She was naive, stupid, weak and did not know how to process emotions but she had a certain amount of agency. She had goals (getting stronger to protect her loved ones, finding her six senses, helping her friends) and she took action to solve problems. Now, she is a God of War (and possibly even more than that) with all of her senses, emotions and very physically powerful but her character seems so much more passive. Her character is just sort of reacting to the plot than taking action. Instead, it is our male lead (once again) who making all of the decisions and putting the Weight of The World (TM) on his shoulders. It really, really bothers me when dramas do this. Let the female lead just sit there while he gets to figure out all the answers and drive the drama plot. Have the male lead keep secrets about her from her and determine her fate for for her. I hope this is temporary and we get to see Xuan Ji start having some contribution to the plot again, though my hopes are not high.

At the same time, my heart goes out to Xuan Ji. Despite everything I wrote above, she is being put in a very difficult position right now. We viewers are omnipresent but she is not. She is being emotionally blackmailed and fed misinformation by people she thinks (and actually do) care for and love her. And Si Feng is constantly keeping her in the dark. This is a horrible situation.

Yes, it's clear Si Feng is suffering the most in this drama but a lot of his suffering comes from his own choices. Yes, one can argue he did not choose to fall in love with Xuan Ji but he chooses to repeatedly sacrifice for her and suffer in silence. Obviously he is doing it for her sake. And yeah, it's touching and romantic and selfless but it's also being a noble idiot and robbing her of her choices. It's a little paternalistic, like he knows what's best for her. Which brings me back full circle to the whole active-male-leads and passive-female-leads thing. I don't think Xuan Ji would be too happy to find out he is sacrificing himself and trying to take everything on by himself. She is trying to search for answers too and being put in the dark is not really doing her any favors or letting her contribute as a character the the drama. In fact, if she found out sooner, maybe she could have interesting character development. Anyway, these are some thoughts I needed to vent.

Warning: Just venting some random personal thoughts with spoilers below (mostly coz I really don't know where else to post them)








On episode 34, when Linglong is returned back to the sect. It's so heartbreaking and I actually feel more sympathetic toward Linglong's suffering than Si Feng's. I know the two are not something to be compared and Si Feng is definitely put through the ringer but I just want to "speak up" for LL. What she has to go through is horrible. Putting the kidnapping and prison torture aside, she is essentially a victim of sexual assault. It would be nice (although my hopes are dim) that the writers take time to properly acknowledge LL's suffering and its consequences and it is not swept under the rug.

So I guess that's where my confusion lies. In your same example above, being angry or understanding love are emotional things - they have nothing to do with the physical senses. People who are deaf or blind (who do not even have the sense much less having dulled senses) can be angry or sad or fall in love. And fine, we can call it lack of six senses and lack of emotional awareness. But she seems to understand (and display) happiness very well, which is also an emotion. Honestly, it seems more like window-dressed typical female lead naivety and dense-when-it-comes-to-love traits.

That's not to say I don't like Xuan Ji! She is quite endearing and I enjoy her straightforwardness. Despite her physical (and emotional) inhibitions, she can be can astute and values proper communication.

This story is getting more interesting now that the plot is picking up (on ep 14-15) but I had a really hard time getting into it because I couldn't wrap my head around the born without six senses thing. It took me a long time to figure out she's not actually blind/deaf/etc (how can she hear people talk? how can she read?) but more like colorblind or tone deaf, where it is more like a perception thing. But it seemed what she really lacked were a sense of propriety and certain social norms (especially those relating to gender), which is something learned anyway and it was more like nobody bothered to teach her. It just seemed so arbitrary, like they were picking and choosing what abilities or emotions she did or did not have.

This, exactly! Koshiro was the only Ayumi always liked. Plus, as supportive as Kaga was, it is always harder to play the villain so Koshiro really ended up with the short end of the stick. And he really was the one that single-handedly came up with the plan to make everything back to normal

I think you have to know what you are going into with this drama. It's no Ten Miles or Ashes of Love. It's not meant to be some epic, high-budget production. It's a low-to-moderate budget romcom with some satirical elements. That said, it does really well in the two things it is required to have, romance and comedy. Compared to similar webdramas (i.e. The Eternal Love, Romance of Hua Rong), it has a pretty coherent plot and pretty decent writing. In short, come in with appropriate expectations.

As someone who reads a lot of translated I-became-the-cannon-fodder/villainess webnovels, I feel like this drama really paid homage to the trope during that scene in the last episode when QQ was discussing with CC why CC could not be the main female lead. Even though it was a criticism of ChuChu, I felt it was really more of Xiao Qian, the story-writer criticizing herself. On paper, CC is the "strong female lead" we as drama watchers (or maybe just me) are always asking for - she is intelligent, physically strong, a hard worker and a leader. She's like the dictionary definition of a badass female lead. But her character (or her storyline) has no depth. It's not like she doesn't go through hardship in the original storyline (training to become a military leader, having her city blown up) but she actually has no real obstacles. The plot is tailor made for her to come out on top. She has no rival - just a cannon fodder, even poorly written weak antagonist sister that dies right away. She doesn't have to go through tough moral decisions, she doesn't overcome her setbacks, she doesn't have to prove to people why it can only be her.

Actually, it's not just chuchu. A LOT of lead roles fall into this criteria - they are the leads not because they are good but because everyone else just sucks. It really me wonder, of all the dramas I've watched, which ones have real character depth? If another character showed up which was capable of being *just as good* as the main lead, could they still overcome it or would they fall flat the way the original CC did?

Yes! This! That move from BSP kind of ruined the rest of the drama for me

Cute that her first drama as a main character is actually an "extra"

Thanks! I've always liked Kim So Hyun's acting and I personally liked Dong Joo's character a lot too. I did manage to finish this drama enjoyably too - just took a break and restarted with the comments section turned OFF

I'm having a conundrum. I am currently watching this on Viki where there is LOT of hate on the female lead and it's actively affecting my enjoyment of the drama. It's getting to the point where every time she even shows up, there are comments on how she's so stupid/annoying/bitchy, that there is no point of her being in the show, wishes the male lead would just find someone else, etc. I actually really like this show and Dong Joo herself but all of this peanut gallery hate is starting to have some illusory truth effect on me that's making me self-doubt my own feelings toward the show. I wish I just turned the comments off earlier but this has never happened before - normally, my fellow Viki watchers make the drama even better with their funny, insightful comments. Ugh, how can I back to just enjoying this drama and not making it feel like watching it is a chore :/ ?

Thanks for such a helpful review. I was eager to try this because of the hyped-up chemistry between the leads but if its one thing that turns me off the most, its the "sidekick" female lead thing you aptly named. Maybe I'll watch that other drama with them to get my chemistry feels.