First, this series has no association to the Ten Miles of Peach Blossom, it just share the same world setting. This is not a prequel to it either. This is original work by the production team of TMOPB; they came up with the script for this while filming TMOPB.
The best way I can describe this series is imagine you order a dish at some hole in the wall place that you stumble upon and it turn out to be the best dish you’ve ever eat. I have had a few encounters like this so I use it metaphorically for this series. The ingredients do not go together, presentation are not impressive but for each bite that you eat, the flavor just explode in your mouth and before you know it, you’ve finished the dish and you want to order more. That’s my experience with this series. This may be the best c-drama that I won’t be seeing for a very long time, at least not for this genre.
This series is a love journey like Ni Ni said in an interview, and we get to embark on it with our leads. There’s no misunderstanding or love triangle or second lead syndrome. The series focus on our lead and their love journey and the other characters add richness to it. If our leads are not together, it’s very organic and makes a lot of reasonable sense. Issues get resolved fairly quickly and in very mature way. It takes some time for thing to kick in so you need to have some patience and it’ll totally pay off. Be warn, you’ll laugh and then you’ll cry and cry.
For the role of Jiu Chen, I can’t picture anyone else can be it but only Chang Chen. All of the micro-expressions and the acting are just everything. I’m so glad for the long letter the producer wrote to Chang Chen to convince him to accept this role. Without him, this series will just be another series that you watch at your spare time. Both Chang Chen and Ni Ni are mesmerizing together. By the time you finish the series, you want to see more of them in future projects. Almost every character got a personality and only a couple characters are one dimensional. This series explores all kind of relationship and you’ll get sucks in by the raw and natural emotion of it.
My only complaint with this series is they develop the wrong character as the main villain. If they focus on the female character, it’ll elevate this series to another level. At least it goes against the typical drama trope. I didn’t like the OST but I do like some of the instrumental piece. I also feel the designer is lazy with the costumes concept. They could have dress Ni Ni’s character better throughout the series instead of toward the end.
While most series started off with high douban rating and then drop after it finished airing, this series continue to climb in rating. I don’t know what kind of demonic power does this series has but I can’t let it goes just yet.