Fateful love starring Zhang Han and Zhu Xu Dan has been on the shelf for years and most of us thought it might never air. Well, it finally premiered this year and I didn’t want to miss out. I have been waiting for this for year but what I got was disappointing. Let’s find out why Fateful Love didn’t meet my expectations.
Let me start with the opening theme as it was the first thing I saw. The opening theme gave me the vibe of 2014/2016 Chinese dramas. I was like “did I download the correct drama?”. I loved opening theme song, it reminded me of Princess Agents. From the opening theme I could immediately tell that I’m not gonna finish this drama without fast forwarding. Don’t get me wrong, this is a habit of mine.
Opening theme aside, let’s talk about the storyline itself. This drama is one of the old popular genre of time travel. It’s just that nowadays there are some laws regarding time travel dramas that is why we rarely get them unless they’re altered somewhere. The first episodes were good and fun to watch, I believe it’s because of the struggles Han Ziqing faced when she was getting used to this new world. That’s what makes time travel dramas fun.
Watching Han Ziqing becoming a whole different person and standing up for herself was fun. She was in a mess that ruined her reputation and she happens to have an encounter with Jun Beiyue. Then the whole story went downhill the moment Han Ziqing was selected as Jun Beiyue’s consort.
The first thing that disappointed me and maybe caused a lot of damage to the story is the palace. It was disappointing to see how the empress was scheming with her son against Beiyue and even against Ziqing and the emperor was aware of it. He even joined their scheme to poison Ziqing. It didn’t make much sense to get the emperor involved in the scheme, there are other ways to get rid of Ziqing without going back on the edict.
This one was a huge disaster for the story because it backfired afterwards when the empress and her son’s schemes were exposed, what was the point of having the emperor to be surprised by their schemes when he used to scheme with them? Does it make sense? If I help you to steal a pen from our classmate and I also cover you when you steal from others, Why would I be surprised when someone exposes you? I knew what kind of person you are and I also knew about your crimes. Why should he be angry? He knew all along.
Secondly, why was Ziqing targeted by every character? I got tired of watching people scheming against Ziqing in every episode and the results are always predictable. When you’re constantly putting a character in danger and they always escape, you immediately give the viewers how the rest of the episodes will be. We will no longer feel sorry for that character or hate those who scheme against her because we are used to the schemes. Once we get used to the schemes, we drop the drama. What else can you give us that will be a real threat to that character? Nothing, because you already made her immune to all the schemes that are made against her.
I’m not exaggerating when I say Han Ziqing was targeted by almost every character and their motives were not convincing. Every character blamed Ziqing for their problems. Even those from foreign lands targeted her. The entire drama was all about Ziqing being targeted and escaping all the traps that were set for her. There’s no solid storyline to follow, you are only waiting to see how she will return to her real world.
Thirdly, the drama was dragging a lot. I always say this in boring dramas with 40 episodes, ‘they should have cut the episodes down to 24’. That’s just how I feel about Fateful love. If you look at the events that took place in this drama, they could all fit in 24 episodes. Maybe this drama would’ve been better than what it is. 40 episode run is bad for a drama with a light storyline like this one. They dragged a lot of stuff.
The empress and her son were supposed to be exposed in the early stages of the drama so that they could move on to another plot. The entire feud of Ziqing with Xiling prince and princess was good at the beginning but then they started it again in another plot. On top of that, these people who were plotting against Ziqing were let go many times and they kept coming back to scheme against her. You see the same feud over and over again just for the sake of reaching 40 episodes mark.
Lastly, it feels like a temu version of the eternal love. No offense, but I’m just sharing my own thoughts here. I have seen many similarities between these two dramas and Fateful love looks like it’s an failed ‘eternal love’ project. Think about it, Ziqing traveled back in time. She was followed by two people the entire time. She took over someone’s body. She had a helper who used music as magic. She had to learn music to finish her mission. She has a special identity. Don’t these things remind you of the eternal love? Just that the eternal love was much better.
Fateful Love has a happy ending by the way and the ending is the same old ending of most time travel dramas. There’s no way the male and female lead can be separated at the end. They can’t end the story by having one of them stay in the modern world while the other is in the ancient times. I don’t have much to say about the last episodes because at that time, I already lost interest in the drama.
To finalize this review, I’m disappointed in the drama. It didn’t live up to my expectations and there are some other things that I didn’t like about the drama. I hate the camera angle when characters kneel, they show their knees instead of the upper body. It was weird. Then there was the fake eating and drinking, bloodstains showing before the weapon makes contact. The acting was ‘alright’, but I feel like they could’ve done better. It’s like they were restricted or something. I’m not familiar with the cast but I’m very familiar with Bambi Zhu as she was in Ten Miles To Peach Blossoms and she was fantastic. Her performance in Fateful love and also in Burning Flames, is good but not what I expected from her because I know she is talented. Maybe it’s the script that restricted the cast, but for me, I wish they could’ve done better.
