ninan

Not only because she is young, it is more because of the unfeeling pill she took since birth and then she was locked in that water mirror for years. Her mom and her flower anties tried their best to keep her from the real world. That’s why she behaved like a kid in the early episodes. Yes, this drama is all about character development. She will grow, learn to take responsibility, experience love and pain, then become mature.

This drama has nothing to do with TMOPB. The story is totally different, the character setting is totally different. The background about deity/demon, immortal/moral, love trial and reincarnation? It is the basic setup for all fantasy cdramas. These concepts dated back to the chinese mythology and folk stories. TMOPB is not the first cdrama to use this concept, it is just the first internationally known fantasy cdrama with this setup.

I love both dramas. For me, TMOPB is all about the acting of Mark Chao. He alone brought the whole drama one level up. The acting of rest is average good. AOL is more evenly good, plus nearly all major roles are played by actors and actresses at their middle 20s (TMOPB more 30s), they are impressively good for their age. The part that AOL beats TMOPB is the character development. All characters, no matter good or bad, are not single-layed portrayed. They are all characters with multiple sides. You will love them and then at moments you will hate them. And their characters evolved so much in the whole drama, the three lead characters are basically totally different people at the end of the drama yet very logical. The character development in TMOPB is really only focus on main leads, especially YeHua. Most of characters inside has no arc of development, especially the villains, the classic jealous girls. However in AOL all villains has their backstories, even the jealous girl role has her moment of softness, In the end, you hate them so much yet you still feel sorry for them.

I would say, by only watching two episodes, you really missed the best part of this drama. It is fun to watch the characters changed by all kinds of situations, no matter ended up to a good direction or a bad one.

It is just not your cup of tea. If you r not into this fantasy setting and character settings, you can not get in. I’m hooked from the beginning to the end and found the pace is very good especially the staring episodes and ending episodes.

Most westen serials are not about one single story. They are more like a collection of multiple small stories and then a master story behind all these small stories to link them together. With this kind of setup, it is possible to introduce just one or two characters at the beginning and then start the small story immediately. Then more characters in, more small independent stories. It does not work for this drama. It is one single long story which needs to introduce the fantasy world setup and quite some characters to start the real story. It is really normal to use one or two episodes for these purposes alone, otherwise the audience might get lost from the beginning. Actually AOL is praised for its fast intro episodes while a lot of people complained about the slow beginning of TMOPB. At least, for me, i got hooked from ep 1 with AOL, from ep9 (Yehuas first show up) with TMOPB.

Wow, what happened with the rating? In one week, there are around 15 people giving a rating of 1. There are really some haters of this drama. 8.7 is way too low for this excellently excuted (story, acting, costume, setting, etc) fantasy drama with a HAPPY ENDING and one of the best characters development arcs in cdramas. Please give a try and you won’t regret it.

1. It is a drama from ep1 telling you the ML is going to die soon because of his poor health condition. But I find it is a good ending for the ML. He finally set all wrongs to the right and lived once for his own. Not forced and satisfying ending for him.

2. There is a bit romance about the ML and FL, very touching. The FL is one of the strongest female characters in cdrama. Since the ML will die eventually, the romance will end afterwards.

It is not a romance drama. The scale goes beyond romance, more about strategy, politics, friendship, family, loyalty and justice. The good people and bad people are all not single-layered characters and most of them are highly intelligent. The bromance among friends is super well portrayed. It is an intelligent drama, every minute is properly used. Once you miss a few minutes, you might get lost in the following plot. A drama can be watched multiple times yet each time you can still find some details you missed in your last round of watching.

8.9 is kind of unfair. A lot of 1 rating recently. Sign...

why the female lead has be a top fighter to gain audience? I love JM for how she is and her character development. She is mentally and physically constrained due to the pill and the seal her mum put on her most of the time. She was a victim of all people claiming love her or for her goods. She made bad decisions. But all these did not stop her from fighting against her doomed fate and she won in the end. A convincing strong female lead for me.

Yes, I agree with missnymeria. A strong woman should not just be a fighting machine. JM is not a particular physically strong girl. She is more the daughter of Flower Deity after all. She creates lives not kills them. Very cool for me. And she has a stong heart, no matter how much hurt she got from people who love her (her mother included), she stays true to herself and stirves through.

This site offers the best recap of the all NIF episodes. It helps a lot although not totally error-free.
http://dr-myri-blog.blogspot.com/2015/11/nirvana-in-fire-episode-1-recap.html

If you are interested in thrillers like Ocean 11, there is one high rated cdrama named Moral Peanuts, which is a story of a group of conmen and conwomen. Small production, 3 seasons with less than 20 eps per season. All unknown actors and actress, no pretty faces, but with amazingly intriguing stories, trap within trap, cheating and anti-cheating, highly entertaining and full of suspension. Douban rating: S1 - 8.3/10, S2 - 9.3/10, S3 - 9.6/10. Of course, again, no eng subs.

I would suggest just let it go, puzzles flesh out soon. Maybe a character relationship chart is helpful. Just jump in without too much thinking. I was totally hooked at ep2, then rewatched multiple times. It is such a complicated drama, that a lot of details can only be noticed at the round 2 watching, and the more you noticed, the more Woww you got. Yes, Huge in this drama gave a top-notch performance. Best work from him.

One criminal+romance cdrama I would recommend is When a Snail Falls in Love, available on Viki. A love story between a profiler and a policeman.

Another special genre in cdrama is tomb raider series (adventure + fantasy + horror). There are a lot of dramas and films produced in this franchise from two book series. The story is really my cup of tea but I am not very convinced with most CGI effects. So far the drama I like most in this genre is Candle in the Tomb, also available on Viki.

LOL. This is very much expected if you are new to this genre. Very complicated character relationship build up in the first few episodes.

I love criminal series as well. But I was really terrified by the dark-side reflected in Criminal Mind. Therefore I did not continue after S1. I like NCIS the best so far. Fast-pace, a bit light-hearted. :-)

Most high rated cdramas on Douban are not romance dramas like what most international fans prefer. Therefore most of them are not subtitled. For example, the recent high-rated one is one mini horror series called Mad House (7.8/10) but of course no Eng subs yet. A lot of criminal series got high rated as well. The best one is Day and Night (9/10), which was bought by Netflix already. The only drama got both high rating is Nirvana on Fire. Douban 9.2/10, MyDramaList 9.2/10.

Guardian is an interesting drama. The production quality is a normal low-budget web drama. The investor bankrupted half way during the shooting. LoL. It is adapted from a very popular BL novel, due to censorship, the drama is toned down to heavily bromance. The two male lead actors actually carried the whole drama up to a higher level. Their acting is unbelievablely convincing. Basically you feel that they are the characters walking out of the book. And the chemistry between them, ...., don't know how to describe it, ... no sweet talk, no hug, of course no kiss, but you feel the deep love between them through all the small details the actors delivered. It is a fantasy+scifi drama. Interesting plot as well. Highly recommended!

One of my favorite FMV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgVRwG-QRvY

My all time favorite is Nirvana in Fire. But if you are a romance lover, it will not be your cup of tea. NIF is all about political strategies, brotherly love, family love, and loyalty, a true masterpiece even with nearly to none romance.

I was shocked to know people complaining about AOL plagiarizing TMOPB. Er..... what? where? The set up of different realms? Mortal and immortal world? This is the basic set up for nearly all fantasy cdramas and novels. The concept is even dated back to mythological legends. The ironical part is that actually TMOPB is the one being known as the plagiarizing one...

This drama is extremely popular in China, together with Guardian and Story of YanXi Palace, they are the top three hot dramas of this year in China so far.

Douban rating of this drama is currently 7.6/10 from over 140k voters. Douban is way picky than mydramalist and it favors serious dramas over romance/idol dramas. With 7.6, AOL is actually the highest rated Chinese XianXia or fantasy dramas in the last nine years. BTW, TMOPB is rated 6.4/10 due to the plagiarism issue of the original novel.

It is really interesting to see the different views of international audiences and Chinese audiences to this drama. The rating here keeps dropping while the rating on Douban is still climbing up. At the beginning, the rating on Douban is 7.6/10. Then during airing, because of complains of the lack of the screen time of the main leads in the middle episodes, the rating dropped to 7.2/10, then it bounced back after the show ended. Till today, topics about actors and actress in this drama are still coming to the Weibo Trendy top 10 frequently. Yes, it is that good! It is not a perfect drama but it is definitely the best executed fantasy cdrama till today. Worth watching, highly recommend! :-)

Well, actually someone who has been traumatized deeply like Run Yu might just prefer a simple naive girl. Not necessarily Jin Mi, but anybody who could give him warmth and calmness. In general, he needs a giving type of girl. Bai Qian is definitely not a giving type of character. She is pretty aloof in terms of relationship. She needs someone like Ye hua, who is extremely active in the relationship. FuYao is way mature than Run Yu. Not sure she has the patience for him. She might choose Wuji since he is much more stable and mature.