Ashes of Love (2018)

Another classic

If you like Eternal Love, then you will definitely love Ashes of Love.

Series seem long but it keeps you engaged and the story tell the hardship that Jinmi and Xufeng faces. Lots of ups and downs but loves conquer all. There’s crying, laughter and deep emotions.

The FL and ML have such great chemistry and you can feel the struggles they go through. FL is strong and not child-like (thank goodness), she persevered through her struggles. ML was kind, gentle and so sweet, never give up even when he tries to be cruel.

Music and cinematography was very good.

Overall, I wished they make more dramas like this and Eternal Love instead of child-like FL that act dumb trying to be cute.

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I don't understand the logic of this story

It can be called rant.

1. The FL is kind of dump that didn't even know male and female?
i mean, for real? she befriend with snake and life with carrot, and no one told her the differences? how did those flower teach her? those flower said she is precious flower goddess daughter and heiress but NO ONE teach her anything. until the point she need to beg someone else power. Atleast teach her that good woman didn't HOOK UP with her fiancee brother.
And did she really love ML? she can't love ya know. she even personally killed him too. and the stupid thing is that everyone blame 2ml instead which so stupid. i though every one is blind in this drama.

2. The ML is innocent heart but hook up with his future sister-in-law even become demon?.

and the worst thing is that all cast think he is right and even critisize the real partner by saying he is cruel and cold blooded. The ML exactly know that his brother can't breakup the engagement even if he wanted but he keep plestering him like bear child. Instead of come to his father ( he did & failed) & water god . Offering exchange the throne that wasn't even his.
oh they loved each other, they need to be together, wth with matchmaking
meh, back then, marriage is count on parent not by self.
plus he then betray his co-patriot by turning his back against heaven which give him privillige like no one else. i am curios how many soldier died because his so called, heart of child.

but well. if you want to watch idol drama for wasting time. its good enough to watch. at least you can look pretty face

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Decided to watch because of the high rating, as well as my love of Ten Miles, as it has similar themes. Cast is beautiful, costumes are fire, acting is ok as well. The story fell flat for me though.

I loved RY’s character for the first 20 eps, but I dropped it when I saw the direction they were taking him in.

XF is manipulative AF towards JM, yet we only get sinister vibes when RY decides to do something for himself for once by letting Water Immortal overhear their convo. I’m sure, based on reviews I read after I dropped it, that RY wld end up doing some devious shit, and I wasn’t here for that. Cause XF is an asshole, but he’s the ‘good guy’ so his behavior is of course excused.

XF has convinced himself that JM is in love with him, even though she stated several times that she’s likes him, as well as his brother, and his servants, as friends. She also doesn’t even recognize gender differences, but XF conveniently forgets that little fact when he fish kisses her by force, or has his brother’s fiancée spend the entire night taking care of him!

JM on the other hand, is just too much. If someone’s just sat her down and explained to her the roles of men and women, and the expected behaviors of soon to be married couples, the first 1/3 of the show wouldn’t have happened at all

I do regret not seeing more of the demon girl tho. I absolutely loved her character when she was around. She’s looks like she cld have been a good match for either of the brothers tbh.

Alas, that’s the sacrifice I’m willing to make

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Toxic dumpster-fire of a love story that needs to be burnt with pure glass fire

STORY AND CHARACTERS
The show just wasn't that great. The story dragged on for 60 episodes with unnecessarily long story arcs that could've been cut down to one or two episodes. It took fifteen episodes to reveal who Jin Mi was. The girl had no character development. Her one talent was to inadvertently get the two most eligible bachelors to pine after her. This is such a stupid trope because it is completely undeserved.

One of the creepiest things was everyone going along with Jinmi getting engaged to Runyu. She was a child in a woman's body who didn't know the difference between friendship and romantic love. Everyone knew she was a moron but they still went along with her agreeing to the engagement, even though they should have known she had no idea what she was agreeing to. The fact that the flower realm raised her to be a blissful idiot was extremely shortsighted too. Jinmi was supposed to be protected from any future heartbreak, but she was given no tools to be able to protect herself from it. Everything and everyone was stupid.

The mortal arc unnecessarily dragged on for 10+ episodes. The whole point of it should have been to move the character development forward and to show that no matter how much Jin Mi and Xu Feng were separated, they would always find their way back to each other. Everything else was irrelevant. We didn't need to see the drama inside the mortal lives of immortals who were going back to being immortal in just a few episodes.

The chemistry between Jinmi and Xufeng was very stale. Watching them together was as exciting as watching the paint dry. Jinmi was pretty, but she wasn't particularly bright and there was nothing special about her. She didn't even know what gender she was at the beginning. Their kisses resembled toddlers pecking each other on the lips. Everything was dry and passionless.

After the mortal arc, the only thing left to look forward to was the emperor and empress getting their comeuppance. But the cringe didn't end there. The biggest problem with the writing was that good characters did very awful things, nobody held them accountable, and the story never addressed their bad behavior. We were supposed to just ignore it and continue cheering for team Jinmi/Xufeng. A perfect example was Xufeng getting into Jinmi's pants. I didn't fault them for falling in love. But I found it reprehensible that Xufeng did not wait for Jinmi to break her engagement with Runyu before sleeping with her. She was still a moron. But he reached a whole new level of awfulness for treating his brother that way. By doing this, Xufeng showed that he was just as immoral, callous, selfish, and entitled as his crappy parents.

On the other hand, the writers went out of their way to demonize Runyu and to portray him as a villain. All of the characters who sided with Runyu and complained about how awful the heaven was suddenly decided to abandon him after he deposed the emperor. The writers never explained why. Characters just randomly decided that they wanted to go a different way. This made them look very cowardly and cynical. Meanwhile, everyone kept cheering for Xufeng, who was written as the golden boy who could do no wrong.. He also seemed to forget that he was a prince with responsibilities. Chasing after Jinmi was all he cared about.

In episode 45, Jinmi finally realized that she was in love with Xufeng. But, really, who cares at this point? I was honestly fed up with their bs. They did Runyu dirty repeatedly and nobody held either of them accountable. Instead, everyone judged Runyu and held him to some arbitrary moral standard when he did nothing wrong. Jinmi ended up marrying him for no good reason, even though she was told she didn't have to. Runyu still kept holding on to her even after she ran off to find Xufeng. "But what about our marriage?" Seriously? I sympathized with Runyu a lot but him still trying to hold on to her knowing she was fully committed to his brother was an idiotic plot development. He should've let her go as soon as he found out she slept with Xufeng.

The drama has a terrible message. Deposing callous and self-serving tyrants is bad. But, acting without honor and a sense of duty is ok. Also, blind favoritism, betraying family members, abandoning friends, and breaking promises is acceptable and even encouraged. By episode 47, I was done. I knew that Jinmi and Xufeng were going to end up together, but I couldn't fathom why. His family killed her family and she stabbed him in the back for thinking he killed her father. They crossed the point of no return so many times. Their relationship was based on betraying those closest to them, abandoning their duties, and having no faith in each other. What kind of values are these and why were we supposed to root for them?

ACTING
The acting by the two main leads was mediocre. Xufeng always had a blank look when he was pouring his heart out to Jinmi. If he was telling her what he ate for breakfast that morning, we wouldn't know the difference. His expression conveyed no emotion of love, despair, confusion, or heartbreak. It was an awful performance, just like most of his acting throughout the drama. Yang Zi's portrayal of Jinmi wasn't good either. She had no personality.

Luo Yunxi delivered a solid and sympathetic performance as Runyu. He is very good at playing tragic characters. I thought his performance in this drama was better than in Till the End of the Moon. And Kathy Chow was fire as the Queen B---ch. RIP

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Nincompoop warning: may cause indigestion.

I am posting this as a warning not to unwittingly get sucked into watching this show. I picked it up after the almost overwhelming number of (misleading) rave reviews about it. This is not another Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, it is in no way comparable on every possible level and it is not enjoyable to watch at all. The plot may well be somewhat interesting and my overall impression of the story line is that it is decent. I am willing to give all Chinese drama 10-12 episodes to engage me. With this one, sadly I could barely even bring myself to watch no 10. The main problem is the lead actress alienated me from the get go with her portrayal of Jinmi as a silly, naive, mischievous, noisy and thoroughly obnoxious young girl. It was not at all adorable or charming, just dumb and annoying. I could have ignored it if it was just one or two episodes but it went on endlessly and there was so, so much of it and none of it added to the storyline. It was quite obvious from the beginning that there is a love triangle in the plot. But she made the character so not lovable that it was just not credible that the two rather superb male leads would fall for such a complete and utter nincompoop. It made the unfolding story-line of two half-brothers who were very close but starting to fall out over their rivalry for this silly, shallow and irritating girl just seem not at all believable. I would however, have readily bought into the two of them fighting each other not to have to marry her she was so obnoxious!

It is my pet peeve that Chinese drama likes to portray female characters in this most unflattering light. But one has to believe that the actress has some artistic input and this one really completely got it wrong by over-acting. Maybe it would have been ok if she "grew up" after one or two episodes and became actually likable. Very quickly,, I lost patience and had to fast forward or mute her every time she opened her mouth. In fact I put this actress whom I have never watched before on my NO list- I will not watch this super low talent actress again. I decided to abandon it after I started to hope she would quickly come to a tragic end and both princes would find happiness with someone (anyone) else.

Dramas nowadays avoid portraying these terrible female stereotypes. I guess if you don't understand the language and are just reading subtitles it could be less obnoxious. Thankfully MANY other hit C-dramas have started to significantly dial down these outdated female stereotypes or have eliminated them altogether. It is why shows like Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, Nirvana in Fire and Princess Weiyoung are in a different class altogether from Ashes of Love. However, the reviews I have seen are not pointing out how difficult this one is to get into and is unfairly putting this show in the same league of many much superior dramas. The story line itself sounds promising but exectution was terrible. Probably best to just read the book and pass on the show.

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I’m halfway through this, and I have a lot of thoughts, good and bad.

STORY
I really like the concept and I find myself sucked it, but that may just be because I’m a a slut for drama. I like it, but DEAR LORD is it slow. At the point I’m at, I’m skipping through most everything just to get to some actual development, but I think I’ll be satisfied once it picks up again.

ACTING
Den Lun (Xufeng) is great. I love him, I’ve loved him for a while. The reason my acting score is kind of low is because of Yang Zi (Jin Mi). I don’t know if this is her or the role, but she doesn’t do much except stare and look halfway shocked for the most part.

MUSIC
Not bad, but it doesn’t catch my attention.

REWATCH VALUE
After I finish this, I might rewatch certain scenes, but it’s way too slow for me to really rewatch.

OVERALL
I’m a sucker for sappy romances, so this is right up my alley. The story is cute and love struck looks so good on Xufeng. My only complaint is the fact that you could probably shorten this to 50 episodes and lose nothing.

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Before i start of with each category, i just want to say how this is just my opinions!
And a short story kind of thing, as this is both released on netflix and youtube, the arrangements of scenes in each episodes are different, so do not jump back and forth with netflix and youtube while watching ashes of love!
At first, i found AOL boring, like as if it wasnt going anywhere and i was really dumb enough to let go of the show at episode 5. zz, but soon i got bored and had nothing else to watch so i decided to jump back into AOL and boy i did not regret a single bit.

Story:
i really like the plot and how some plot twist are really shocking. we thought how runyu would remain calm and gentle but who knew, he was a scheming [female dog]. and the fact that the great floral fairy slowly gave into jinmi because she was finally 'safe' under her father's arm. i wouldnt say who is the biological father of jinmi here, so go watch it yourself. and i super love how phoenix resurrects and became the demon lord man

Acting/Cast:
im sure we all know that deng lun and yangzi have a total of 4dramas together and are really good friends/ maybe dating as some of us shippers notice hehe. their chemistry is great if you go and watch some behind the scenes. not only among the 2 leads, but as well as the lead-supporting roles like runyu and suihe. did you even know that behind the scenes, zifen [flower immortal] and the former heaven emperor were snacking on biscuits like no one's business? how cute!! jinmi and denglun once said in an interview that when they kiss, they dont get shy. yang zi treats denglun like a girl and denglun treats yangzi like guy haha

Music :
not gonna say alot, but not my type. the only song i really like is mao buyi unsullied [不梁] give it a try though, my music taste is quite peculiar among my friends ahha

Rewatch value:
I would rewatch, but IMHO, some episodes were long winded, them walking could take up to 20 seconds of the episode, and maybe if they cut out some scenes, the show would be reduced to like at least 55 episodes than 63, but no complaints! the more, the better !!

Overall:
from episode 45 onwards, get ready your tissue. it is a f***ing emotional rollercoaster all the way till the end. honestly, i watched the whole drama within a week and i wasnt feeling down or ever felt like crying before episode 45. but when i knew what was brewing and when [so and so] killed [so and so], i literally cried my ass off. and suihe being a freaking cunt! like honestly, you will cry. at least from episode 61, no matter how strong you are. And before i post this, i really have to say how this drama taught me so many life lessons like cherish the person you love and no matter how hard it is, true love wont be separated neither will true love be forced. another meaning i learnt is that choose the right choices when it comes to decisions that may change your life. this drama is really worth it. 10/10!

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Ok. This is my very first review so please bare with me. Where do I start? The series is of 60+ episodes and the fact that I was able to finish it till the end shows that the story line was spectacularly put together. The turn of events, you wouldn't even expect! You'd try and figure out the turn of events only for the writers to wow you yet again.
The acting was so on point, even the scenes that I didn't expect myself to cry at would end up moving me just for the realness of it. I was shocked at Jin Mi's acting skills that's for sure. Her crying literally broke my heart.
++++ This is what we call character development.
Before watching Ashes of Love I wasn't really excited to see this male lead in particular(I don't know why), but after all of THAT I admit that he's a really good actor. He conveyed the character in all its ups and downs and I just can't get over a couple of scenes that he literally perfected.
I loved the cast as a whole, and i fell head over heels for some. I couldn't find any character that wasn't portrayed right.
The music was just right and the CGI was SO SATISFYING. If you're a fan of battles and so you'll enjoy some entertaining realistic fighting scenes.
Final words: Watch. It. You wouldn't regret it.

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Amazing Story, Acting, Music, CGI

When I started watching the first episode, I loved the floral realm scenery, and into the first encounter with Jin Mi and Xu Feng, I was not sure if it was going to be one of those clichés silly stories, so I stopped there and comeback later to watch it. I was curious to see another episode. I started to watch the second episode and kept going until the last one. I did like how the story was developing, and the characters development.

Throughout the story, there were funny, cute, romantic, serious and sad moments, and the drama moments were very touching, and it would affect you no matter how many times you re-watch it.

Overall, one of the most amazing drama series that I have watched, I enjoyed the story, the acting, the music, and the special effects (CGI).

The actors did an amazing job, Jin Mi, Xu Feng, Run Yu, Liu Ying, Lord Puchi, Fox immortal, Lao Hu, Chief Peony, Sui He, Luo Lin, the Empress of the bird tribe and the rest of the actors. Jin Mi and Xu Feng were so awesome and their on screen romance is beautiful.

To all who participated to producing an amazing drama series, thank you, and thank you to the amazing acting of the main actors and support actors.

The screenwriters and the director did an amazing job （╹◡╹）

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Out of the many dramas that exist in Asian cinema, there are only two that I have given a full star rating - this drama, Heavy Sweetness Ash-like Frost, and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms. If you are a fan of Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, this drama will surely capture you even more.

PLOT: 10/10
ACTING: 10/10
CINEMATOGRAPHY: 10/10
WITHDRAWAL AFTER WATCHING: 100000000/10 :'(

Being Chinese myself, I am often critical of Chinese dramas as they can be long, draggy, and leave one feeling rather unsatisfied with the outcome. Moreover, the Xianxia theme is difficult to master successfully. Throughout all 63 episodes, I never felt bored. Character development is excellent and flows well, and while there may be a few plot holes, they are minor and are easily overlooked (I've forgotten them already, if there were any!). Deng Lun's acting took my breath away - heartfelt, cute, and tear-jerking at the right moments, you become so hooked on his character and his love for the heroine. Yang Zi also portrayed the heroine innocently enough while not being annoying. Moreover, Luo Yunxi played his role with excellence - you love him, hate him, and feel sorry for him all at the same time. There's some antagonists that will make you mad, but only a little, and they all eventually meet their retribution. Plenty of sweet scenes are scattered throughout the drama, making a viewer feel fulfilled.

If you are seeking a Chinese drama that is truly worth watching despite it's length, this (and Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms) is the perfect place to start. Only thing I have to warn you is that I entered severe withdrawal after completing this drama, I had to read the novel this drama was based on, AND I kept re-watching sweet scenes on YouTube. Truly a beautiful story, with amazing actors, and magnificent acting!

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