Hello 🙂 How are you?
I was sick with a mild case of the flu so I spent some days isolating. And what else could I do at this time, but to watch some TV!
So there’s this recent C-drama that people have been praising, and I wanted to check it out. It’s called Love Between Fairy and Devil.
Love Between Fairy and Devil – No Spoilers
The entire drama is available in full on IQIYI (I’m on Standard VIP membership, P99/month). It is 36 episodes, with 2 bonus episodes to give fans some extra closure.
Love Between Fairy and Devil is also available on Netflix, but it’s 2 episodes per week and won’t be complete until October.
Anyway, I have finished it on IQIYI and it is now one of my favorite shows of 2022!
The lead actor, Dylan Wang, has now become very popular because of this drama.
Special Effects
One of the reviews I saw said that the visuals here were stunning, and at first, I was like, what are you talking about? It turns out that it was my TV – somehow it was reset to Low Power or some similar setting that made all the colors and effects look bad. So, don’t forget to check your TV’s settings and make sure it is set properly to Vivid or something. After I fixed my TV’s settings, the show’s effects improved immensely! And make sure to watch it at the highest resolution possible.
This isn’t to say that the effects are spectacular – Marvel-movie levels they are not. But for C-dramas, I know they don’t have the budget, time or the capability to do something like that so I don’t judge them too harshly on it. I watch more for the story, anyway, and as long as they help tell the story, I don’t mind it too much.
The scene where some characters went inside a painting was nice, too!
What is Love Between Fairy and Devil All About?
The title sounds cheesy and generic, but it does tell you all you need to know.
In fantasy C-drama world, it’s kind of standard to have three realms – the Heavenly realm where the gods live, the mortal realm where humans live, and the Demon realm where the demon race live.
Each C-drama has its own own name for them but generally these are the three realms. The Heavenly realm and the Demon realm are always at odds or something, and the mortal realm is usually caught in between (or neutral).
30,000 years ago, the Heavenly realm and the Demon realm were at war. The Demon king was ruthless and extremely powerful, but eventually, the Heavenly forces were able to defeat him. However, they were unable to destroy him so had to settle for locking him up and scattering his primordial spirit.
One day, our weak, little, bubbly fairy happened to accidentally get herself locked in the same magic prison, accidentally restore his primordial spirit, and through some funny interactions, somehow, they were able to escape.
But ruthless demon king realized he was somehow cursed to feel everything our little fairy was feeling – he received the same wound if she got injured, etc…
And thus, his plans for revenge on the Heavenly realm would have to wait until he figured out how to get rid of this curse/weakness first.
Acting
If you are not used to C-drama acting, you might find the lead actress’s super bubbly, exaggerated acting annoying. However, I think this was done on purpose so that it’s easier to differentiate between the characters during the body swap scenes.
Yup, some funny body swap scenes happen 🙂
Other than that, I don’t have a problem with the acting of the other actors. In fantasy C-drama, the acting for female characters does tend to be exaggerated to contrast with the usual stoic male characters, so I guess I’m used to it.
Story
The story is light-hearted with not too many traumatic, heartbreaking moments for the audience.
You can safely watch this without worrying that you look like you cried your eyes out last night the next day. There is no one villain who you feel like you will hate for the rest of your life (I mean, I still hate that villain Su Jin from Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms, lol).
Even though the story is light, it is entertaining and fun enough to watch if you are just looking for a relaxing watch and not too much drama.
The couple is one you would want to root for. Demon king Dongfang Qingcang starts out as a ruthless, unfeeling, but responsible leader of the demon realm, gradually regaining his feelings and learning to care for people close to him. The man is loyal and volunteers for punishment to show his love and commitment to his lady. At times, I’m like, you don’t have to do this, why do you like suffering so much, LOL (but Si Feng from Love & Redemption is still the most suffering male lead character in C-drama, ever, LOL).
Our little fairy Xiao Lan Hua is a weak, low-level fairy/goddess, who, obvious to everyone watching, has some hidden background that she herself doesn’t know about. It was rather disappointing that she didn’t do much more in the show, though.
This was mostly a Dongfang Qingcang-centered show, his character has the most screen time and character growth.
There are no meddling in-laws, or unreasonable, villainous love rivals. And while the heroine is weak, when it matters, she doesn’t make obviously idiotic decisions for the sake of the plot, and there isn’t over-reliance on “misunderstandings” to move the plot along.
The ending – eh – this ending again???! I think this might be the third or fourth C-drama I’ve seen with this kind of resolution to the heavenly conflict. The last episode ended rather abruptly, so it was nice that the producers gave us two bonus episodes to give fans a bit of closure.
Summary
Love Between Fairy & Devil is a light, fun, entertaining fantasy C-drama. Recommended if you are looking for something easy & relaxing to watch.
Most of the time, I just want to watch this kind of show – light and funny, that doesn’t make you hate anyone with a passion, that doesn’t make you cry like you’ve been emotionally wounded for life. Most of the time I just want to watch something easy, with a nice story, something that doesn’t set out to offend its audience, or to preach to them, but just wants to make the audience happy.
Watch for the funny interactions between the characters. Don’t take it too seriously. I continued watching this show because I found the characters fun and easy to watch. Story wasn’t cliffhangery and I felt like I could stop anytime, but I was just enjoying the show too much to even think about switching to watch something else. Dongfang Qingcang is a memorable character and portrayed very well by Dylan Wang. I liked his second-in-command, as well, and thought that character was funny, too 🙂
