Review: Love Between Fairy and Devil (苍兰诀）

 

Plot Overview:

Dong Fang Qing Cang was banished to a magical tower as a result of his fight against the powerful 赤地女子 from the fairy clan. For many thousands of years, the moon clan and the fairy clan fought against each other and their lives are entwined with hatred towards each other because both sides have lost loved ones in the ensuing battles.

赤地女子managed to seal away 东方青苍 by sacrificing herself and for 30,000 years there has been peace in 仙族 or the fairy clan as the Lord of the Moon clan has been banished. Fighting between the two clans has since ceased but the moon clan fell into chaos as different factions sought to gain control of the clan after 东方青苍‘s demise. 

With the big picture conflict out of the way, we are introduced to 小兰花. She is just a weak little orchid flower that watches over the fates of each being in her lonely hall of 司命殿。 Her teacher left 1000 years ago to travel leaving the young xiao lan hua all by herself.  She watches over the fates that are written on leaves of the fate tree which she helps to protect and repair if ever there is damage to them. She does have someone she likes though. The handsome 长珩仙君 or just 长珩. 长珩 saved 小兰花 when she was very young and therefore she wants to thank him personally for helping him and has always nursed this bit of gratitude or infatuation towards him. 

Her and 长珩’s fates should have been entwined but one day, when 长珩 and the other fairy lords worked together to try to reinforce the magical tower that confined 东方青苍，小兰花 foresaw that this could be the end for 长珩 due to her powers working with fates so she steps in to protect him. She blocks a blast from the tower meant for 长珩 and while he is protected, she is instead sucked into the tower.

Once in the tower, 小兰花 unwittingly restores the powerful 东方青苍 back to his human form, with a kiss no doubt, where he was before just wisps of consciousness and in the process swaps bodies with him. This is utterly unacceptable for 东方青苍 because he cannot be trapped in the body of someone so weak and feeble as 小兰花 while 小兰花 is having a blast having the enormous power of the leader of the moon clan. 东方青苍 manages to swap bodies again with 小兰花 to regain his former strength and believes all he has to do is kill 小兰花 and there will be no issues with him escaping the tower and reclaiming power again. But the twist he finds out is that the two are now bound together by some mysterious power. Any time 小兰花 is hurt, he will suffer the same injury on his body. And her emotions? He will feel them as well. If she cries, he’ll start crying. If she’s scared, he’ll start feeling scared. 

Ultimately, 东方青苍 escapes from the tower with 小兰花 and return to her place of residence and hilarity ensues. The cold, calculating and menacing 东方青苍 is subject to being 小兰花‘s personal caretaker because he has to nurse her back to health after their foray in the tower. The reason being is that 东方青苍 has uncovered the fate of a woman named 谢婉卿 that looks to be related to his mortal enemy, 赤地女子. He needs 小兰花 to repair this fate so he can see exactly what he needs to do to recover his mortal enemy so that he can release the 100,000 moon clan troops that were frozen in time and then destroy the fairy clan. But 小兰花 doesn’t care too much for restoring the fate and is too weak anyways. She also totally mishears 东方青苍’s name and just calls him 大强 rather than his real name which if she knew who he was she would have been too scared to interact with him. After all, 东方青苍’s name is known throughout the land.  But because she thinks he’s just 大强 and is a fairy who has been imprisoned for some past wrong and has nowhere to go, she takes him in. 

Thus the relationship between the most powerful being 东方青苍 and the weak 小兰花 begins. 东方青苍 has been stripped of his emotions in order to earn his strength but through his interactions with 小兰花, he is touched by her kindness, optimism, determination and thoughtfulness. He slowly starts to regain some emotions which, in this drama, is represented by a tree. At the beginning of the drama, it is a frozen tundra with no leaves whatsoever. After interacting with 小兰花 something changes in him. 

While he is experiencing some changes, we learn that 长珩 actually also likes 小兰花. He is betrothed already to someone already but after meeting 小兰花 in a chance encounter has grown attracted to this kind hearted orchid flower. She offered to protect him while no one has ever done that for him. Yet he is very respectful of his feelings towards her because he knows he is betrothed and any affection he shows towards 小兰花 could mean her demise which he does not want and does his best to protect her despite his obvious interest. 

All of this comes to a head with 小兰花 is revealed to have a different past, one different from the other fairies of the fairy clan. Despite 东方青苍 saying he does not care for 小兰花, he steps in to protect her in front of the entire fairy clan court who accused her of being a spy from the moon clan and was about to sentence her to death. Using his unique brand of fire power which turns blue, he pushes back against the fairy clan lords and takes 小兰花 with her. 长珩 steps in to try to take 小兰花 back but is easily defeated by 东方青苍. With this one battle, the future relationship between these three individuals becomes clear. 

That’s the general recap of the first 10 episodes or so. The story goes on to develop the relationship between these three individuals and also a stint into the mortal realm as they search for more answers about the fate of 赤地女子。 

 

Review: 7/10

One of the better romance dramas of this genre that is a fun breezy watch with some memorable moments. I have a more tempered opinion of the drama than perhaps what weibo and other fans think though I can understand the hype, especially for younger fans.  

The drama really shone in the first half, particularly at the beginning when 东方青苍 was figuring out how to interact with 小兰花. Episode 9 where 东方青苍 steps in to protect 小兰花 is one of the most badass scenes of the summer. There are plenty of cute scenes and belly laughs in the first half especially considering what the all powerful 东方青苍 is subject to in order to help 小兰花 who has no clue how to protect herself and is somehow always getting hurt. 东方青苍 and 长珩 in particular have two well written parts that make you naturally really like them as these powerful members of the moon clan and fairy clan respectively. I do believe that the two main male leads 王鹤棣 and 张凌赫 have bright futures ahead of them and were the stronger of the trio compared to 虞书欣’s 小兰花.  王鹤棣 in particular was able to showcase his acting range in this drama in ways that are subtle yet very apparent, though I don’t think he as handsome as some of the other male actors out there.

The special effects are quite good and in my opinion has come a long way for fairy romance dramas though some of the wire work for the actors could be improved. The original soundtrack especially the title song called 寻一个你 by 刘宇宁 is an instant classic and I’ve been listening to it on repeat for the last several weeks now. 

I personally really enjoyed the secondary storyline between 赤地女子 and her pupil 容昊. Let me just take a second to discuss the actors for 赤地女子 and 容昊. Both of them you could say won this year with two amazing roles in two different dramas. 赤地女子‘s actress 郭晓婷 has been on the small screen for many years, playing notable roles in both Chinese Paladin 3 as Xiao Tu Dou and also Startling With Each Step as 敏敏格格 all when she was under 18. She is a strong actress but hasn’t had good luck in notable roles for a while. But this year, she’s killed it with her role here in this drama for 赤地女子 and also in her role as 顺德仙姬 in 与君初相识 or A Blue Whisper. She is absolutely crazy but stunningly beautiful in A Blue Whisper and in this drama, portrays the ill-fated mortal woman 谢婉卿 with jaw-dropping grace. It’s hard to take your eyes off her when she is on screen. 容昊 is played by 徐海乔 who we just saw as 欧阳旭 in 梦华录 or A Dream Of Splendor where he was lauded by fans for his fanatic portrayal of the man that betrayed 赵盼儿 and then applauded him in his role here for the faithful student that suffered for thousands of years and betrayed his soul to find ways to bring his teacher back to life. For me, their storylines were the most intriguing part of the drama despite it not having too much screen time. 

But unfortunately, the drama does falter towards the end with convoluted conflicts and eye-rolling cliches and I docked 0.5 from my initial score because the drama lost momentum. 

 

So, if you’re looking for a fun and cute drama to watch with handsome lead actors, this is certainly a drama to try out at least for the first 20 episodes or so.  It is not a classic drama but it was an enjoyable watching experience. 

 

Karen