Heart-wrenching and twisted, this drama is supposed to bring closer to life GuoGuo's story with the same name, "Hua Qian Gu".
The original story was meant to be about perseverance in love, being ready to go to extremes to the point of harming people, including oneself. As love may have various aspects, the book presents more than one: a master's care for his disciple, a best friend's feelings, a lover's desire, a brother's affection for his sister, parent-child attachments. Though all of these kinds of affection are strong and beautiful, the author's idea is that most people will prefer the figure of the wise and powerful master, the evolved being everyone would admire, even if only from afar.
However, what the drama offers is an incredibly fuzzy definition of a master, an unusually dumb and stressed automaton operating on a set of rules "known to work", incapable of real kindness - be it towards the whole world or towards his disciple. The very concept of reaching immortality through a suppression of feelings or emotions becomes questionable watching the interpretation of this master, Bai Zi Hua. As the plot unfolds, it is increasingly more difficult to sympathize with him, his character becomes more and more unlikable. There is nothing appealing in Bai Zi Hua. One starts with being on his side, as the grand master of the most powerful of the righteous sects, and gradually slips into the dark side, rooting for the demon lord. In contrast, the demon lord appears truly commanding, powerful and surprisingly humane. He looks indeed like a superior being while Bai Zi Hua seems to be a broken robot, lacking both emotions and force. The demon lord is considered the top of evilness yet he is capable of genuine kindness. All of his words and gestures feel real. The spectator is left wondering whether the director actually intended Bai Zi Hua to act like a piece of furniture or he got the male protagonist wrong. The so-called attraction of the heroine to her master is incredibly hard to believe and at a certain point the story just flops. The last two chapters had better have been omitted. The ending proposed to the series seems far-fetched if not plain wrong.
All in all this drama makes a good case for not painting the world in black and white or wrong and right, keeping an open mind and the value of being kind. "What a true master is like" is probably the subject of other dramas.
