That is the underlying theme running behind the events in this drama.
There is CCS, a young man destined to die by the age of 20.
There is XYR, a saintess whose ‘match made from Heaven’ is a disciple with the blood of a dragon.
There is Nanke, a demon princess who no one cared about.
There is Guojiao Academy, which has been closed due to traitorous acts of its members.
It might seem that the events will follow its natural path, but the characters remain persistent in their endeavours… Who knows what the final result will be?
PACE
This is an epic drama, which sustains its quality throughout the series. It seems to me that there are three main types of dramas: ones which are slow to begin and escalate to a massive havoc/excitement towards the end, ones which begin very well and dwindle towards the end and, finally, ones which keep you interested from the beginning and keep getting better. This drama falls into the last category – I felt that this drama had a ‘period’ of a few episodes: every 3-5 episodes there will be a major event to which all previous events led – that event/difficulty will disappear/be resolved and soon another one will appear. Having said that, I must say that the first dozen or so episodes was the most interesting to me – but that is because most of main character development took place then. Exciting events keep happening until the very end though.
PLOT, CHARACTERS AND ACTING
The plot itself is very interesting. CCS, a boy who grew up in a remote settlement sets off to the capital to change his destiny. He meets a group of talented, devoted and influential friends, as well as some formidable enemies.
All the characters are very interesting and have a story of their own and many of them change during the journey – we get to experience things like betrayal, following temptations vs upright attitude, responsibility of bringing glory to one’s family, striving for the best in spite of no one believing in the possibility of success, and a fair dose of unrequited love.
This drama has to offer a lot of different flavours: bittersweet mixture of a little silliness (Luoluo is great! Same goes for 36…) and some very serious struggles and moral dilemmas. All the main actors were great. Some were slightly caricatural (like Janice Wu, who, as I said, was adorable), but it all fit the purpose.
There were few annoying(ly evil) characters, but they had minor roles which mostly only lasted a few episodes. Some accuse the main female lead of too few facial expressions, but I think that her acting was not unnatural and suited her role as a saintess. I think that Luhan did a great job – he was pensive and sharp at the same time. Final note - whilst romance was present (and there were a few other potential/existing pairings), it was not the main focus of the drama (as opposed to friendship, wisdom and power), so I do not recommend FotD if you were to only watch it for the romance.
ESTHETICS
Most costumes were really impressive (though there are scenes when their shoes appear slightly funny). The filming locations/landscapes are worth to become tourist attractions (if they truly exist in real world…) – some of them were absolutely breathtaking! The animations were fairly simple (I think that most of the flying was done with wires), but it all remained relatively natural.
MUSIC
The soundtrack was great – I was a little sceptical of the opening song, but grew to like it over the 52 episodes. A really nice aspect of the soundtrack was that it used the same tune every time when some grand spiritual practice events took place – it added grandeur to the moment…
LANGUAGE
A note on language: probably quite typically of xianxia dramas, this drama uses quite archaic/formal language and has a lot of drama-world-specific vocabulary. But it is not terribly varied, so if you have an intermediate grasp of Mandarin, you can give it a go (though the conversations in the royal court might prove difficult). But I would hope the outstanding few episodes will get subtitled soon! Overall, a very nice, well-rounded drama. It might not be a masterpiece, but it shows solid effort from all aspects – from plot and acting through costumes and sets until music.
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I was hoping to ease the urge while waiting Nirvana on Fire 2. This was a huge disappointment in comparison.
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I writing this review with 9 episodes left (I wanna take the rest nice and slow coz I don't want this awesome drama to end).
It's important to note that the drama went into production before the author finished writing the web novel, so if anything the movie version might be truer to the original work and differ from the drama.
OK, enough of OT stuff, back to the core of review:
Fans of Lord of the Rings will rejoice that FotD is essentially a reimagining. You have the Star Formation that gives power to the Empress that is essentially the One Ring. It is essentially detrimental to Empress (it's actually something evil that is controlling her), yet she has trouble letting the precious-s-s go.
Then, there is CCS dagger-like sword that looks like Bilbo's Sting dagger. And of course the little dragon ZS is modeled after Smaug the Dragon from The Hobbit, but a good kind dragon, not an evil one. Then, when LL teased ZS with hard-to-guess riddles, that scene essentially imitated "Riddles in the Dark" between Bilbo and Gollum in The Hobbit.
Superimposed over this are scenes remiscient of Nirvana in Fire: Sick guy returns to the Capital to attain his destiny, elite guards getting murdered to frame someone, the main hero can't actually fight against powerful villains but uses his cunning to subdue them, an Imperial ruler that is cold and "heartless" even towards her own child, etc.
Nevertheless, the drama packs an awesome punch coz let's face it there is nothing new under the sun, only inspiration from some works that existed before!
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After seeing that it has 52 episode I turned by back already but every time I visit this site I found myself going back to this page and read some reactions that would convince me to watch it. Actually one of the reason why I watched this series is because of Luhan. I only know him as a singer but as an actor, not. And the other thing is that one of our subject right now is Mandarin so I thought watching a Chinese Series would help me appreciate mandarin Better. So I downloaded 10 episodes first. I watched the first episode until I finished watching all 10 episodes nonstop. :-) So I downloaded all 52 of them afterwards.
About the Series. This is a one of a Kind Series. Lesson of friendship, sacrifices, forgiveness, repentance, Love (all forms of love especially one sided love), greed for power, fame and the likes was wonderfully depicted in this series. The story was wonderfully planned and the twist was crafted well. I enjoyed watching it. Well, their expenses in producing this kind of Series is huge so they better give their all to it. The actors are great. I start liking them. But what love best in this series really is the plot.... Its AMAZING. I tried convincing my friends to watch it. Well them were amazed by how I narrate it to them and they would watch a bit of it and they said that it was a good series but after knowing that is has 52 episode and 45 minutes per episode same as what I've did at first they also turned their backs. :-(
But anyways don't be like me or like my friends. Challenge yourself and you would not be sorry for watching it.
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1. story the story from my point of view was okay from the first 32 episodes but then all of the sudden the plot fell apart which distroyed my interest in the whole story ( am keeping the review short)
2. the acting for me was very poor the actors weren't interacting at all luhan was meant to play a pure and honesty and modest role but as i watched the story develop the love just seemed a bit.. fake the love didn't take time to develop they just out of no where feel in love . as for the actress bextiyar gulnezer is a very good actor as i admire her from "chinese paladin 5" and " the classic of the mountains and seas"
but this was not one of her best works so i rate it 7.5.
3. though i never really payed attention to the music in chinese dramas the music was i bit different from the fantasy element and story of the theme but i added all the reviews for the music and multiplied it by how many people that reviewed the drama below and got 11.5 and i ration the number to what i think it should get is 6.5
4. i never rewatched the drama because the story element fell apart during ep 32-the end
5. overall i got 6.5
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Some of the time used for comical relief could have been used to flesh out the conflicts and shifting alliances between the humans of the North and the South, the Empress and the Pope, and the Beast, Human and Demon tribes. This story meshes well with the human story of CCS and his quest to change his destiny. The entire novel was probably too difficult to translate into a drama but there were certainly key pieces that could have been kept and made this drama a lot stronger and more compelling
I conclude that this had the makings of a legendary drama but somewhat ruined in the hands of poor directorial and production choices.
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This review may contain spoilers
Good cast, great and interesting plot.
The start of the drama is promising and I got hooked with it until the end. I rarely find dramas with simar to this drama. The plot is deep yet light. I just keep getting interested as I watch it and had sleepless nights.In this drama, you'll realize what if? What if youlive knowing your fate which you desoerately want to change yet it seems so impossible because you can't go against God? You're merely a human. And what if, the reality you thought turned to be a sham? Everything you believe is fake?
I felt so into the drama because it tackles two special things in this world which are life and death. It's easier to die than live but would you rather die than live? This drama tells you that life is worth fighting for becausae it's worth living together with the people beside you who are ready to share your burdens.
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Cast
Changsheng- his character in reality is like a star that you can never reach. He's too perfect but it's what I like. He's too kind even after finding that he's nothing but an instrument for Yuren. This drama fooled me. I hate the plot twist near the ending. I was like WTF, wasn't it enough? He suffered a lot then he needs to suffer again, suffer the pain of the truth.
Xu Yourong- I don't really feel her chemistry with the ML. She's a character who is righteous and is very serious.
Luoluo- I love her character so much. So pure, beautiful, funny, charming and all. She played better role than the FL I think. I wished she ended with the ML.
Tang tang- I like his character development from childish to responsible and mature man. I just can't help but to love his character because it's dynamic.
Mo Yu- I hated her at first, so much but learned to love her because she turned from a bitch maid to a very good ally.
Xuanyan Po- he adds fun to the drama. He's cool, awesome, naive and strong? I just feel sad that he didn't had the chance to be loved back but I like how he stayed together with Luoluo until the end to serve her.
Nanke- she's a selfish lover who ruined the life of the one she loves. My mind is into half because of her. I hated and liked their tragic ending with Qiushan. I hoped they had a better ending but at some point, I think she deserved to feel the pain of losing him. You can never force love.
Qiushan- I feel that he should have a better ending than die. He was controlled and used. He had such an unjust fate. He repented at the end and back with his past self so why?!
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It started out so well
I watch Chinese dramas for badass heroes/heroines who fight for the good and destroy the bad people who try to harm them. Not so with Fighter of the Destiny because the story lacks continuity in that the hero gets into a dire situation (usually bcos someone plotted against him) and then he's miraculously rescued after which he returns to normalcy without ever seeking retribution on those who attempted to kill him. At a point, it seemed like the whole world was out to get him and he just folded every single time.It also didn't help that no one else in their clique had the intelligence to move things along. Loulou was always crying, pouting, or shouting for her Shifu, while thirty-six and the bear guy kept getting more stupid as the story progressed. Conversely, Chengsheng being the only one who could solve the riddles, heal with his blood, develop good fighting skills even if we barely saw him practice, and was primed to save the world...was just a tad bit too much.
Another negative aspect of the story is that I'm tired of the childhood-friends-to-adult-lovers pipeline in C dramas. I simply cannot watch another stupid story where kids are supposed to have fallen in love back when they were 5 or whatever. China has 1.4 billion people so even if we adjusted the population for the time period, it would still be in the millions and the likelihood of them reconnecting is infinitesimal. So, please, can writers please stop with this trope?
Lastly, despite not really liking the series, I have to give a shoutout to, Chen Su, the actress who played the Empress, as well as whoever styled her character because she was absolutely breathtaking.
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