REVIEW: Ashes of Love [C-drama]
Rating:4.5 out of 5 stars
Re-watch value: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Synopsis
*partially taken from DramaList*
In ancient times, the Flower Goddess dies after giving birth to a daughter. Before she passed, she fed her daughter the Unfeeling Pill (Yun Elixir), ordered her subordinates to keep the girl’s birth story a secret and to imprison her within Shui Jing (the Water Mirror in the Floral Realm) for 10,000 years. The girl’s name is Jin Mi.
4,000 years later, the Heavenly Emperor’s second son, Xu Feng, was entrapped by someone and mistakenly entered Shui Jing (the Water Mirror). He was saved by the ignorant Jin Mi. After living together for 100 years, Xu Feng gradually developed feelings for Jin Mi. Someone close to them wants to use those feelings for their own benefit.
Rambling
*beware of spoilers*
If a drama has a character named "Rat Fairy" and I continue to watch, you know we've got a winner on our hands.
I'm the first one to admit that wuxia C-dramas are not for everybody. These are not "one size fits all" dramas. They take a lot of commitment (Ashes of Love was 63 hour-long episodes), and they are not particularly easy to watch, often with a plethora of characters and a timeline usually spanning many years. Despite the obvious setbacks—like the hokey acting, bad wigs, abundance of CGI, and sagging bits of plot line—I thought this drama was Holy Shit Amazing®.I could not wait to go home every day and watch a few more episodes. I was 100% hooked.
Now, since the synopsis is rather lacking, I think this rambling might include some exposition. Jinmi was born (rather conveniently inside a floating water bubble that was presumably the Floral Goddess's womb) just before her mother tragically died. But before the Floral Goddess's demise, she predicted that Jinmi would have a fatal love trial in her first 10,000 years of life and so planted Yun Elixir into her heart, which would block her romantic feelings and make her ignorant about love. This comes into play in a major way later.
Jinmi soon escapes from the Water Mirror in which she has stayed all her life (her mother's wish as well) literally in the robes of Xu Feng (aka the God of War, the Phoenix, the Fire Immortal). He had her up his sleeve (pun intended). She had nursed him back to health after he crash-landed in the Floral Realm as nothing more than a charred, taxidermied bird—the victim of an assassination attempt. Particularly funny was Jinmi's initial ignorance (through no fault of her own) about the difference between men and women, and she tries to chop off his balls thinking he had some sort of ailment or growth on him.
She spends the next 100 years as Xu Feng's page boy, disguised as a male with the help of a magical hair pin. To be honest, these episodes were not as compelling as later episodes, but they were certainly light-hearted and relaxing. Jinmi is obsessed with acquiring more years' worth of cultivation, which is an apparent source of power. But alongside all her shenanigans, Xu Feng falls deeply in love with her, even paying off a debt she had to Snake Immortal Yan You early on. It's when everyone finds out that she's actually a woman and the daughter of the former Floral Goddess that shit goes down.
Obviously, there was a love triangle, or, a love rectangle, I should say, AND BOY WAS IT EPIC. Xu Feng's elder half-brother Run Yu (aka the Night Immortal) falls in love with Jinmi, too, while Xu Feng is hounded by Sui He, his mother's pushy favorite to be his future wife.
With a pair of rotten parents, Xu Feng and Run Yu eventually become sworn enemies, especially over Jinmi. I would say the best part about this drama was how each character went through wildly substantial character arcs, so that at the end, they were completely different from how they started.
Jinmi began as a carefree, playful "grape" without any worries, fears, or love.
Xu Feng began as an arrogant, self-righteous, sheltered immortal with a fine pedigree, the favorite for becoming the Heavenly Emperor.
Run Yu began as a calm, gentle, lonely individual without any ambition for disrupting the peace of the Heavenly Kingdom, resigned to being the outcast of the family.
By the end...
Jinmi became hopelessly in love with Xu Feng, committed to keeping him alive and making amends for the wrongs she did him, mature and disillusioned after being a pawn in Run Yu's game for the throne and her heart.
Xu Feng stayed hopelessly in love with Jinmi, bitter and angry with Run Yu's betrayal and murder of his parents, battle hardened, and weary of the throne.
Run Yu became an evil, scheming ass hole who drove his dad to kill himself (ehh, he totally deserved it, though) and usurped the throne, jealous of Xu Feng and Jinmi's unbreakable love and willing to upend the heavens just to cage Jinmi in marriage.
Whew. I feel like I'm missing bits, but I don't care. The point is that this drama never got stale. It kept that forward momentum and, I would argue, did that by taking some surprising turns.
For example, I died when Jinmi stabbed Xu Feng and killed his "primordial spirit." I nearly cried. On Jinmi and Run Yu's wedding day, Run Yu stages a coup, and just as brother is about to fight brother, Jinmi sinks her father's dagger into Xu Feng. He whispers "Why?" And she crazy-eyed screams, "You killed my father!" Damn. To top it off, he asks "Did you ever love me?" and stony-faced, she says, "Never." Fuccccckkkkkk.
Just as Jinmi collapses next to Xu Feng's disappearing body, she spits out the bloodied Yun Elixir, and screams in despair because her love was dying. She falls into a coma (because of course) and realizes her mistake too late. She commits to trying to bring him back to life, beating herself up in the process. She succeeds, and he becomes a fugitive and then the Demon Lord, forsaking the Heavenly Realm altogether.
During these episodes, Jinmi is basically under lock and key in the Heavenly Realm, still not officially married to Run Yu but considered the Heavenly Empress apparent. She secretly visits Xu Feng many times until finally she confronts him to explain her side of everything and beg him not to associate or marry Sui He, the real murderer of her dad (Water Immortal) and step-mom (Wind Immortal). He shrugs her off and says that he hates her (not true).
I think the most heartbreaking episode around here was the one where Xu Feng proposes to Sui He using a piece of Jinmi's primordial spirit. She detached a petal of her "real body," which is a snowflake ("snow flower"), and gave it to him, saying it would create a beautiful scene of autumn and spring flowers if he just applied it to his heart and gave it a touch of magic. He presented the scene to Sui He and asked her to marry him.... as Jinmi, called by the use of her spirit, watched on in tears. AND HE KNEW SHE WAS WATCHING! He then returns the petal to her, intending to cut ties, but she blurts out that she loves him (finally!). He stops dead in his tracks as he faces the camera, Jinmi behind him. Ugh, I do like how this show framed shots. It made the drama so much more dramatic. ::cue close-up of an eye with a glorious slo-mo reflection on it::
Quickly I want to touch on the battle between the Demon Realm and the Heavenly Realm. The climax of the boys fighting each other was just beautiful. It ends with a Voldemort vs. Harry clashing of magic, and Jinmi, overcome by a flashback of the immortal-sage-lady-whose-name-escapes-me comparing her to a mountain tiger that gets nursed back to health and kills all the little mountain animals, jumps in the middle and gets hit by the both of them. She died right there by that riverbed (Forrest Gump reference). Xu Feng is devastated...especially because they'd just married each other in a masked wedding ceremony and finally reconciled. Heavy.
As far as favorite episodes, I would have to say the ones with Jinmi and Xu Feng having their love trial together in the mortal realm. Geez, those were addicting. The Yun Elixir takes a beating and Jinmi finally falls madly in love Xu Feng, who was, of course, a king in the mortal world. Due to the Heavenly Empress's (Xu Feng's mother) intervention, Jinmi dies early of poison, just after she finally agrees to be Xu Feng's queen. Xu Feng takes it so bad that he gives the throne to a random cousin and, beside himself with grief, kills himself Romeo & Juliet-style to be reunited with Jinmi. This death doesn't stick, however; it's only the kick (Inception, anyone?) that brings them both back to their immortal selves.
One last thing to note was that our main couple both died and came back to life. It was presented like "Oh my God, Xu Feng died! He's never coming back!" yada yada ................. "Weeeell, but there is this one way they can come back." It was a good thing and a bad thing.
We do get a happy ending, complete with a reconciliation between Run Yu and Xu Feng and Jinmi. (Asians love reconciliation, especially between family.) I would say that the most jarring thing about the closing episodes was when Xu Feng swept in (explosions and everything) to pick up the revived Jinmi in the mortal realm, crashing her wedding procession. He gathers her up and says basically that she can only be his wife—and suddenly their son pops into frame as the image turns black-and-white and he says, "And that's the story of my parents." I was just like What the fuck?!
All in all, I highly recommend this emotional roller coaster. Check out some more gorgeous posters below!
Did you see Ashes of Love? Tell me what you thought in the comments below!
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