Ashes of Love of course!!!
mjf314:
I have the opposite question:
If I disliked Eternal Love, is Ashes of Love worth watching? I'm hesitating to watch it because I'm worried they might be similar, but I don't want to let one drama ruin the xianxia genre for me.
I'm ok with fantasy settings, but I disliked nearly all of the characters in Eternal Love. I thought Ye Hua was stupid, I didn't like the way he treated Bai Qian, and I thought their lack of communication was annoying. I disliked Bai Qian because she held grudges for things that were her own fault. I thought the villains were 1-dimensional and didn't have believable motives. Does Ashes of Love have similarly annoying characters, or does it have better characters?
I've watched four C-dramas so far, and I liked the other three (Nirvana in Fire, Scarlet Heart, and Journey to the West).
I can't gurantee it for you because some of my friends really love it, and some find this boring. But still, I prefer Ashes of Love more than Eternal Love. Ashes of Love got more "romance" than Eternal Love, which dig me up. Lack of communication has always been the main problem for almost all couples in drama (and sometimes it's so annoying that it got into our nerves), but in the case of AOL, that doesn't really bother me.
Talking about other factors, I'm really into the characters' backstory which led to their current character (main or side, protagonists or villain) which I think they explained very well. Nice balance between comedy, romance, action and fantasy. And also the CG, the best I've ever seen in Chinese Xianxia dramas. Costume, props, etc, no complain about it (personal preference).
So I'll still recommend AOL for you since I think it's the best Xianxias in 2018 :D Hope you enjoy it