Plot Bai Feng Jiu is the beautiful future Queen of Qing Qiu. After being saved by Dong Hua Di Ju she follows him around in various forms attempting to pay back her debt. Dong Hua DI Ju is the first Emperor of heaven. He has the adoration of many but after thousands of years of living has lost all of his ability to love. When these two immortals cross paths their worlds are changed forever in a way that neither could have predicted. Central Characters Bai Feng Jiu
Bai Feng Jiu is a character I haven’t decided if I like or find irritating. I admire her tenacity and dedication in repaying a debt but at times her actions seem unreasonable. Her character also seems to devolve in part three from someone who has matured and witnessed heartache back into an immature teenager willing to steal to get her way. I also never understood why she couldn’t just reveal her identity in part one and repay her debt to Dong Hua openly. The heavenly tribe and Qing Qiu have a peaceful relationship and her aunt was even preparing to marry their crown prince. Why then was she not able to use her status to enter the heavenly tribe and accomplish her goal?
In part one Bai Feng Jiu presents herself to Dong Hua as a fox and I know from Eternal love that there are immortals that are also animals. In Eternal Love a snake marries the former crown prince who was engaged to Bai Qian, but in that situation the Prince was able to see The snake in her “human” form. She wasn’t a snake the whole time unlike Feng Jiu who never showed her human form to Dong Hua and was still somehow upset because he wasn’t in love with her and treated a princess better than his pet fox.
In part three Feng Jiu falls into the Bird tribe and is forced to hide her identity due to resentments between the bird tribe and Qing Qiu. Upon arriving in the bird tribs she learns that escaping in impossible because there is only one way into and out of the bird tribe which only opens every sixty years. Luckily Feng Jiu has friends available to help her endure the wait and a goal to keep her busy. The magical chestnut plot almost bored me to death until Feng Jiu decides to steal it for herself. At this point I was interested but very confused. If Bai FengJiu steals this chestnut what's to stop her from getting caught and punished? She’s trapped in the bird tribe for at least fifty more years with limited hiding spots. How would they not find it? What would happen if her identity was discovered? The issue would turn into one between her and the bird tribe to one between Qing Qiu and the Bird tribe. Let’s say they never find the chestnut wouldn’t people be suspicious once she leaves the bird tribe and then tries to use it? And also, how can Dong Hua Di Ju promise a prize in a competition and just decide to change the price once the contest is over? That is the most unfair, dishonest, cruel behavior I have seen in a while. None of this turns out to matter because Feng Jiu is trapped in A’Lanruo’s dream and everyone is too busy worrying about saving Feng Jiu to think of her actions.
Not all of Bai Feng Jiu turned out to be bad. After being saved by General Song Xuan Feng Jiu looks to pay back his sacrifice in the most sincere way possible. Her desire to always help other people and repay kindness is very admirable in any character but especially in someone who is royalty. She’s also balanced in character only hurting people who attack her first and always with just as much strength. Dong Hua
Dong Hua Di Ju can be summed up perfectly in three words: boring, dull, and uninteresting. I’m just kidding, sort of, Dong Hua starts off the story as a loner in this drama. He’s been around for thousands of years longer than most of the other immortals and he’s never been married. Most of the people around him continuously either work for him or work with him meaning his interactions with other immortals are limited. Because of this his personality is cold and pensive. With no one to talk to Dong Hua would rather spend his time thinking deeply and playing Chinese chess.
Lone wolf characters are common in dramas and they can be the most interesting and charismatic people in the whole story, but that all depends on how they are written, the cinematography, and how the actors portray them. In the case of dramas like scarlet heart and Goblin both male leads were lone wolves resistant to love, but they were still expressive. In scarlet heart Wang So saves Haesoo from falling into the river by lifting her onto his horse. At that moment the gaze of determination mixed with his cold, dark exterior creates a swoon-worthy moment. In goblin, Kim Shin is sitting up alone on top of a billboard. He’s drinking a beer and listening to the joys and sufferings of the world when a small voice calls to him desperately. This scene is set up in a way that the viewers can see how lonely Kim Shin is. No one can understand his suffering, no one knows all of the pain he’s been through, no one can experience the sheer loneliness he experienced, but he still manages to be more caring and human than the average person.
In Eternal Love of Dream, Vengo Gao struggled to portray Dong Hua’s emotions in a way that could draw me in. He was so emotionless and stiff that I can picture the gaze he used in every single situation no matter that mood. What makes his single expression even worse is the cheery and lighthearted atmosphere of the heavenly tribe. It is always shockingly bright no matter what time of day and all of the furniture and architecture are even brighter. What’s puzzling me is despite all of this I know Vengo Gao can act because of how well he portrayed King Chen Yi in part two! His emotions were alive and his acting was substantially superior in the mortal realm. The only conclusion I can come to is that the writers and director purposely made Vengo Gao act dong Hua out as emotionless as possible.
Pacing
The quality of pacing in this drama goes up and down for me. In certain aspects I feel that the writers did a great job of keeping the story going and insuring my interest was peaked, but at other times I found the plot lagging and the story incredibly tiring. This inconsistency in the plot can be summed up in two aspects. One, I was not fond of all three parts (lives if you will) that the OTP experienced, and two, Right when I felt the drama was at an appropriate part to be finished the story continued.
My favorite “life” would have to be the second one spent in the mortal realm. In this love story, Bai Feng Jiu had the most character development and Dong Hua was able to portray actual human-like emotion. The king of the mortal realm was a kindhearted and romantic character who truly cared for the woman he loved and was never afraid to show it. I also appreciate the loyal and kind general that appeared in the mortal realm because he portrayed a character lacking from amongst the immortals. Bai Feng Jiu being put in the mortal realm makes her grow from an immature teenager to a thoughtful and mature adult that has to witness human pains and realize there are consequences to everyone’s actions. I loved the second life so much I would have been happy if the drama had heeded at that point or even better If I had dropped the drama after watching up to that point. Alas, drama viewers don’t always have the foresight and I got caught up in the excellent writings of part two.
Thinking back on how I felt about part two I can now see that those emotions could have lead me to believe part three was much worse than it was. And as bad as immature and ridiculous as part one was part three just took the cake for unlikeableness. One, Part three is way too long (WAY, WAY, WAY TOO LONG). After about three episodes in the bird tribe I was completely ready to leave and move on to a different plot point. The writing here is just too slow and pointless. Everything in this section felt like filler for the real story because all of the characters were running around doing mundane things. The peak of my interest comes when Bai Feng Jiu is trying to get the magical chestnut and is trapped inside of A’Lanruo’s dream. At this point I though, “finally! Something good is about to happen,” but after just a couple of episodes in the dream I was ready for them to leave and move on.
Sometimes dramas decide to keep going at Points when I feel they can be cleanly finished and the prolonged ending works itself out. A good example of this is in the Korean drama tunnel. Right when the leads think they have perfectly solved the major mystery another price of evidence comes up changing everyone’s perspective and creating an even more dramatic finish. In this story however, that does not happen. After everyone can leave A’Lanruo’s dream the relationship between Dong Hua and Bai Feng Jiu seems to be perfect. Absolutely nothing could make these two split up and go their separate ways, and then a simple misunderstanding gets between them. The kind of misunderstood that this couple has successfully worked its way out of multiple times and would only take one conversation to clear up. Instead of looking for each other and trying to work their final issues out Bai Feng Jiu decides to run away from her problems and prolong the ending. This last obstacle drags the drama out and makes it feel never-ending. By this point all of the romantic feels I accumulated had dried up and I could not wait for eternal Love of Dream to end.
Drama rating C+
This drama started very promising and provided many interesting scenes for the viewers, but by the end, I was just ready to finish this drama and move on to something more interesting. I was initially drawn in by these two characters because I thought that even with limited interactions they had great chemistry but by the end of it all not even the chemistry could keep my interest.
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