REVIEW: Love of Thousand Years [C-drama]
Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars
Re-watch value: 2 out of 5 stars
SYNOPSIS
*From MyDramaList*
A story about a forbidden romance that has weathered ten lifetimes and endured a thousand years of waiting. Set in the ancient era, Zuo Xiang, an official from the Great Yan, colludes with the enemy and causes the demise of his own kingdom. Fu Jiu Yun rescues the Yan princess from harm. After witnessing her people being enslaved, the princess now known as Qin Chuan makes a vow to save them as she embarks on a search for the spiritual lamp. Qin Chuan and Fu Jiu Yun fall in love, but they soon discover that Fu Jiu Yun is the lamp wick needed to ignite the spiritual lamp and that he will disappear along with the person who lights the lamp. Can they willingly embrace their fates?
RAMBLING
*beware of spoilers*
I struggled to push through this one despite it seeming like it was going to be a good show. The leads were beautiful; the story timeless; only 30 episodes. What went wrong?
I don’t think this show did anything better than other shows. A princess from a vanquished nation tries to exact revenge? Princess Wei Young did that and did it brilliantly. Immortals in general? I could throw a rock and hit a show that portrayed them better. A couple with more chemistry and a love story that (supposedly) lasts thousands of years? Try Eternal Love (Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms).
I never liked that the show hinged on the main heroine swapping faces with her murdered maid. I had mixed feelings about this device at first, and then I settled on disliking it. It made Olivia Jiang’s quick performance as Princess Yanyan completely superfluous and diminished the opening sequence of her clad in red banging on a giant drum in the mountain snow to rally the wounded troops. Which face did Jiuyun know and recognize? Did he even care that she permanently changed her appearance? If he’s been watching over her for thousands of years… where is that story? Has she just been reincarnated a few dozen times? I don’t get their history.
That being said, I have zero issues with Rosy Zhao; in fact, I think she stands out way more in this show than she did in I Hear You. Her chemistry with Zheng Ye Cheng (from Royal Nirvana!) didn’t thrill me, though. It felt lopsided because he was acting so devoted to her, looking at her so longingly, turning up the charm, making everybody swoon. And even after she falls in love with him, it didn’t seem as deep as his attachment and attraction, and geez, if these two are supposed to have a ~Love of Thousand Years~ shouldn’t it be off-the-charts amazing? Not so.
In Episode 22, the Premier of Li (the one that had a doppelganger puppet running around demon-possessed and acting crazy) tells Chuan, “Girls don’t need to trouble themselves with family or country’s revenge and hatred.” It seemed like a product of the patriarchal mentality of whenever this fantasy story is set, but I didn’t think it held any weight. It’s ironic in the moment because he’s talking to Princess Yanyan, who has every reason in the world to avenge her family and country. But if she’s a common orphan girl, she’s suddenly supposed to be content to start her life over completely alone? Why even teach the princess paper theurgy (aka, magic) if she shouldn’t be bothered to use it for offense?
The show did a terrible, and I mean dreadful, job of explaining what the hell was going on. Four episodes before the finale, they finally reveal the true nature of Jiuyun’s relationship to the major MacGuffin of the show—the spiritual lamp: he’s the spiritual lamp’s wick, and thus, if the lamp gets lit, he will perish along with whoever ignited it. Since when was he the wick? In the short flashbacks of his white-haired teacher using the spiritual lamp to seal two spiritual forces from the Demon King, he’s there and unharmed. How long was he studying under this elderly teacher? What did the teacher use as a wick to ignite the lamp? What was the meaning behind the seal that glowed on Jiuyun’s neck? Unclear.
Episode 26 also has one of the most annoying sequences of the entire show. Jiuyun is fighting the Demon King after Chuan flies him out of the bowels of the volcano on the back of a paper crane theurgy. In the moment, she has a flashback of her own teacher saying paper theurgy (magic) requires sacrifice to work at its full potential. So she takes a dagger and stabs herself in the heart, spraying heart’s blood on her paper incantation before tossing it into the air, where it turns into a real, honest-to-God white tiger. Here’s where I shake my head: the really cool white tiger battles the Demon King for maybe a minute before being swatted away very easily into the mouth of the volcano. I was half expecting it to charge up out of the magma and seriously injure the Demon King. BUT NO, THAT WAS IT. Her heroic action gets reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds. It didn’t matter that she nearly dies from the action or that her lifespan is (supposedly) lessened. The tiger didn’t do much damage except to distract the Demon King for a hot minute.
Throughout the show, it seemed like they wanted us to understand that Chuan was blinded by revenge, by using the spiritual lamp to wipe out all demons in the world. She had a one-track mind, one goal, and she ignored everything else, including love. In a moment of peace, she begins to live quietly with the other Li survivors, gardening and cooking and socializing with complete anonymity. But it feels wrong; she looks uncomfortable and uneasy. To me, it soured all her interactions with Jiuyun, who only wants to see her happy. When she asks him if he’d be willing to live a simple life with her, it didn’t strike me as genuine and romantic, but the desperate rantings of an aimless girl. In Episode 27, Zichen says it best: “If she can’t sacrifice for her country, she won’t know how to live on.”
Episode 27 had some of the best sequences of the whole show, however. The lovers go in search of the second MacGuffin—the Qingying stone—and end up at the bottom of the southern sea. We get an Underwater KissTM, which is always a crowd favorite. The production and set design of the southern sea is STUNNING. I was shocked they pulled it off, even with the dodgy CGI. By Episode 28, they consummate their love, having sex in a giant clam. Points given for originality. That was legit the most chemistry they had in the whole show, lol.
Nearing the end, Episode 29 sees them finally kill the Demon King with their new doodad, the Qingying stone. But they start celebrating too soon, Jiuyun reiterating that he wants them to have a ton of kids, when the Demon King’s pet project wakes up: the demon god. He looked like a really awful CGI version of a volcano mixed with the Chernabog from Fantasia (and that’s insulting both). Xuanzhu (the petulant, pity party princess of jealousy) creates a new blood bond with the spiritual lamp thereby opening it and creating a giant Ghostbusters-esque vacuum for all the demons in the world. Why was it so simple for her? Chuan did the blood bond, but the lamp never turned on! Instead she had to go collect the spiritual power from three of her enemies before she could ignite the lamp. Why the fuss? Her cousin Xuanzhu didn’t have to kill anyone to flip the switch on the demon sucker.
The Episode 30 finale truly left me stumped and didn’t any favors to the overall score I gave this. Jiuyun dies, consumed as the spiritual lamp’s wick. There is little hope that he can “gather his spirit” and return. Chuan wanders around depressed while everyone else carves out a place for themselves in the new Li society. She circles back to the spiritual lamp (which is now on display in Tianyuan?), and it emits some blinding light before she disappears along with it.
She wakes up a child again; her parents are alive, and she’s only just had a fever dream. Huh? Chuan grows up all over again; this time her face is Rosy Zhao, not Olivia Jiang. Her cousin Xuanzhu seems to be her true blood sister and thus a true princess, like she always wanted. They meet Zichen for the first time and Xuanzhu and him hit it off, like they were always meant to be together. Chuan finds herself calling out people, places, and things from the old world without realizing what she’s doing. She feels immense sadness over a “man in white” who appears in her dreams and tells her she will forget him. Finally, Ting Yuan the Tianyuan prince shows up bearing bridal gifts, as they’re engaged (again?), and one gift is a painting from the snake suzerain. It’s portraits of the original crew, including mirror Bai and the ~man in white~. Chuan starts crying… and then gets sucked into the painting. He is there, waiting by the zither, and they reunite. Inside the painting.
Did he live? Did he paint those portraits and imbue it with magic as he had done before? Or does he only exist within the painting? Why oh why did they make this whole thing a dream? Did Jiuyun do that in order to give Chuan the happy life he always yearned for her to have?
All in all, I don’t mean to snub this show, but it just didn’t deliver in any meaningful way. This is just one big colossal disappointment.
Did you see Love of Thousand Years? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
Follow us!