I decided to watch this drama after my interest in The Journey of Flower has started to dwindle. Initially unwilling to watch this due to its genre (horror), I gave it a try after my sister wanted to watch it with me to improve her Chinese. First off, this is not much of a horror drama compared to the horror movies out in the market. However, some parts are not suitable to be watched in the dark since it does give you the creeps if you do. So far, I'm only up to Episode 6 and has done a search on this drama.


Synopsis:
Wu Xin is not a normal human being, he never grows old and will never die. He doesn't know where he came from or where he is going. Wandering through boundless ages, he adventures while falling in love at the same time.

To pursue his love, during the reign of Tongzhi, he and his wife lived in seclusion in the mountains. During the Republican era, his wife died of old age and as for him because of his impoverished conditions, he is forced to leave the mountains to make a living as a monk.




The Cast:




My Thoughts:
1. This drama airs one episode each day every Sunday and Monday (so 2 episodes total per week). So far, only 13 episodes have been released and 7 more to go. The length is great --- instead of the usual 40 episodes Mainland series that starts off strong but goes downhill due to draggy plotlines as fillers, this drama is the right length: 20 episodes only.

2. The cast is doing wonderfully great. As newbies, they are quite charismatic and act their parts exceptionally well especially ... who plays Lord Gu. I love his facial expressions!

3. So after searching for more info on this, I found out that in the original novel, Yue Ya dies as Wu Xin has different companions in each stories from the novel. But someone did an analysis and the ending can actually go both ways:

--- Translation (original text from here)---
Originally, we would think Yue Ya will definitely die in the series because of two reasons:
1) After watching the first two episodes, the series follows closely to the novel. Since the producer respects the author, the ending for Yue Ya will not be changed.
2) If Yue Ya doesn't die, how will there be a sequel? The best ending would be for Yue Ya to reincarnate into Yue Wei (guessing another character that has a romantic storyline with Wu Xin in the novel). Or else, after watching this tortuous plotline, viewers would not be in the mood to watch its sequel.

However, there is still a possibility of an alternate ending...
Because of the appearance of Bai Liu Li, which the first one shouldn't have him. On Sohu, there is a 10-minutes long trailer and from the clip, there are numerous scenes that were not in the novel, for example, the appearance of Teacher Kong in episode 3, Yue Ya being trapped in her dream, and the appearance of Bai Liu Li. An explanation is that in the original text, there weren't enough details on the romantic storyline. So when it was adapted into a television series, to avoid any loopholes, new romantic plots were added and also characters from the second installment.

4. The drama starts off slow so don't it won't be as fun to watch until past half of the first episode. But as the story progress, the drama is addictive and really enjoyable. In addition, the genre differs from the Chinese romance dramas there are nowadays.

The Music:
Opening Theme: Lake Baihal (貝加爾湖畔) by Li Jian

I really like the feel/tune of the song since I first heard it. Seeing all those sad scenes in the theme makes me feel discouraged from continuing on. But since it's only 20 episodes, I'm definitely finishing this no matter what (or who dies).