Brennnndda

Such a beautifully crafted drama that explores the heartwarming and intricate relationships between parents, siblings, friendships, and lovers. In short, everyone has mother-issues in this drama except for JJ whose mother died when she was young.

The relationship between JJ, LX, and HZQ is so beautiful!! Their world growing up mainly consists of each other and their 2 fathers. When not at home, the three do everything together and stick to each other like glue. Their fierce loyalty and protectiveness of each other is too beautiful for word to explain. The fathers themselves are such marvelous people.

They treat their kids with such care, love, and tenderness that it's no wonder all three grew up to be wonderful, smart, and caring adults. The only trouble that finds them is when the absentee parents shamelessly return to reclaim what they abandoned. Even with years of separation between them, the boys' only motivation to keep pushing through their difficult situations was the hope that they could return to the place they called home. I was already crying in the first episode. So many beautiful moments that were truly a treat to behold.

This drama is so cute!! LS and ZLS are wonderful together. Their chemistry and the way they banter back and forth is just delightful!!
I love that they were basically living together before either even confessed; and them mailing packages to her house under "Zhao Min" and "Zhang WuJi" was just too adorable for words!!

My favorite aspect of SF and XJ's relationship was seeing that it was always XJ who clung onto SF. It never felt obsessive or creepy instead it was like they orbited around each other and always had to be in the same space.
From the moment they met and throughout the entirety of their relationship SF always waited patiently and respected her decisions. The cuteness is that even though XJ didn't know what love was, she always followed SF around and tried her best to hold onto him. In their earlier days whenever they separated or SF said he was leaving, it was always XJ who chased and latched onto him.

Agreed. I think that's why I loved that he sneered at the Heavenly Emperor for asking if he still planned to exterminate the world. As LHJD said: Dijun's self punishment and remorse doesn't undo all the evil he did. It doesn't erase the guilt LHJD has for massacring his own people and it doesn't erase the pain and betrayal he has in his heart. Getting rid of 1 bad Dijun just opens the gate for another to appear. It's the entire system that needs to change and that's what he was trying to do.

Even though everyone knows what happened, they don't try to see it from LHJD's perspective and instead try to convince him to stop...which seems to be the opposite of understanding him. XJ's short lifespan of loving and being loved wasn't enough to settle his grudge because technically it wasn't him and the people who love her are not his people. The only consolation is knowing that neither XJ nor LHJD forgave Dijun because it was too late for that.

I just watched the first episode of Promise of Chang An and it does feel a bit disorienting to see familiar faces as different characters. Seeing Cheng Yi play a carefree and mischievous character is a treat though.
I wonder if L&R did really well and maybe the broadcasters are trying to ride those coattails to make Promise of Chang An successful.

I know the apology would be more for viewers rather than for SF because SF wouldn't care. But it's like if HC could apologize for all his crap, why can't they?

Are a lot of these actors/actresses with the same agency? A lot of them are in Promise of Chang'An so that can't be a mere coincidence.

Exactly! It felt weird to see everyone getting drunk and celebrating with each other at the very end. We couldn't even see a scene where they apologized to SF? They find out XJ is the most feared demon and all of a sudden everyone is super accepting. Ridiculous!

The only ones who redeemed themselves was Ling Long and Ming Yan. They at least had the courage to admit they were wrong and apologize to SF.

I do wish that the sects had accepted SF before learning that XJ was originally LHJD. SF returning to Shao Yang to receive the cold shoulder was too much. Even XJ's dad didn't approve of their marriage because he was afraid of how the other sects would view XJ. How ridiculous!

I had to rewatch the final a couple times to see if I was satisfied with it or not. I think I am...but I could end up rewatching it again and changing my mind.

To me, HC was a very neurotic and paranoid person. He just couldn't trust or believe that those different from him wouldn't think to harm the balance of the 3 realms. You could see that he was very prejudiced against Xi Xuan as well because his mother was a demon despite the heavenly emperor being his father.

HC always justified his actions as "doing it for the 3 realms" and although you could see that he had moments of internal conflict with his choices, he ultimately ignored them. I think his ultimate punishment was realizing that his greatest demon was himself and that he created all the problems he thought he was preventing. Dying by a LHJD's sword wouldn't have made him realize this and as a psychopath, he would've died thinking he was right.

The heavenly emperor called him out on how the evil in him almost made him destroy Shao Yang. He also showed HC that HC's choices are currently destroying the the world and also showed him what could've been if he didn't interfere (ie: LHJD uniting the demon clans and proctoring peace between the 3 realms and GoW passing her final trial and returning to heaven after releasing her hatred and choosing to fight with SF to protect the 3 realms).

I think showing him the what-ifs served as a harder slap in the face than LHJD killing him would have. The beauty is that HC isn't forgiven; not by XJ and not by LHJD and there's nothing he can do to fix what he screwed up.

Also, he wasn't the one who wanted to use the furnace to exterminate all the humans, that was LHJD. LHJD was going to use to it cleanse and recreate a world free from the laws of heaven.

I think XJ would be able to choose what she will be. She is a created being after all. And the emperor did show Bai Lin that XJ and SF would've returned to heaven as the GoW and XX if only Bai Lin didn't interfere with the 10th life.

I could see why a lot of people wouldn't like 40-53 but I personally loved every moment from episode 37-53. It was very heavy and a bit cliche so it did help that everything moved along really fast. It was frustrating to watch all those misunderstandings but I could see why SF chose his noble idiocy path and why that caused XJ to become hostile to him. While I was happy that she got to suffer a bit, I'm also glad it wasn't dragged out because we all know SF wouldn't hold it against her...especially since there was a lot that she wasn't told until it was already too late; like how he wasn't MSX, his lover's curse, and the lengths he went to to protect her and her people.

Even with the stabbing in ep 47, I don't blame XJ for assuming that SF killed HC. SF never took the time to explain what he was doing and always said he'd explain things to her once everything was over. It didn't occur to him that by the time everything was over he would've already lost her trust. It's unfair that she got a lot of blame when SF also withheld information from her.

I was worried that the final arc would be rushed but I'm happy it only took up 6 episodes to resolve otherwise it would've felt dragged out.

I feel like the entire gist of this drama is that all these daddies basically failed their children lol

What a beautifully made drama. The cast was excellent (special nod to Cheng Yi), the styling was beautiful, the soundtrack was addicting, and the storyline was a gripper; heck, even the fight scenes and CGI was very well done! I think this drama made it to my top 3 after TMOPB and The Untamed.
Was it perfect? Certainly not but it was one hell of a ride. Heartwrenching, infuriating, and so thoroughly enjoyable!! Obviously cutting it down to 59 episodes from it's original 73 was not an easy feat and this was more obvious in the final batches of episodes with it's blunt scene changes but it certainly didn't spoil the entertainment value of the drama.

So basically...after all that buildup, Bai Di just needed a scolding from heavenly father and he realizes his mistakes? How anticlimactic...

The hell was the heavenly emperor doing all this time that he didn't put a stop to all that nonsense?! So many people suffered all because he didn't put his foot down the minute Bai Di chose to betray LHJD. LHJD deserved his revenge and I was looking forward to a good battle.

I think part of it is in the adaptation too. For the most part, the novels are from the FL's perspective but the dramas are more-or-less from on the ML's perspective. Because of that the ML tends to attract more of the attention.
For example, TMOPB is told from Bai Qian's perspective so you go through her experiences with her. The drama has a larger focus on Ye Hua's side so it elicits a bigger pang of empathy from viewers for Ye Hua; especially since Mark Chao did such a good job.

My mistake, Dijun sealed LHJD's soul in the crystal lamp.

I believe SF was a minor deity in heaven originally. From her memories they crossed paths in heaven but it's still unclear whether he had feelings for her back then. It does seem like her little moments of happiness in heaven were because of SF though.

Agreed. Someone else said that when SF was pretending to be MXS there was just an air of great devastation about him even when he wasn't speaking or crying. All that credit goes to Cheng Yi who's portraying SF so perfectly.
I think the fight scenes between SF and XJ are when Crystal Yuan's sadness is portrayed the best because you can tell her XJ is tormented over having to fight SF. It's when she should be crying her eyes out that you can see the limitations in her acting.

I feel like the "Rule of Thumb" for Chinese xianxia/wuxia dramas is: the more suffering the couple goes through during their time together, the higher the chance of having a happy ending lol
There's many dramas where the lead couple have a good/trusting relationship throughout the entire drama only for them to have a sad ending so I'd rather take all the suffering if it means there's a greater chance of having a happy ending.

I loved her at first but when it was revealed that she loved SF in a romantic way all my affection for her disappeared. I really wished it could've just been a platonic relationship.