Ashes of Love” is a 2018 fairy-tale Chinese drama; it is based on the novel “Heavy Sweetness, Ash-Like Frost” and tells the story of the undying love between two immortals.
Backstory
The action takes place in the prehistorical era, in a time when the six realms were reigning independently in harmony. The realms featured in this drama are: celestial realm, floral, demon and human realm. Although the members of the first three realms enjoy immortality, who rules supreme on all six realms is the implacable god of Fate.
Important Notes:
Although the immortal beings do not experience death by aging or illness, they can die as a result of a magical weapon or powerful spell.
The Celestial Realm and the Demon Realms do not have a good versus evil connotation. Both realms are populated with both righteous or greed-driven beings. The Celestial Realm is a well organized empire-like society, while the Demon Realm is a coalition of several kingdoms and is a warrior-like society.
Premise of the Story
The Floral Fairy (the ruler of the Floral Realm) is severely injured and has little time to live as she gives birth to her child. Knowing that her daughter is fated to experience great tribulations due to the fate of a tragic love within the next 10.000 years, she feeds the newborn the Unfeeling Pill. The magic pill has the power to keep her daughter, Jin Mi, from experiencing anything beyond friendship, in an attempt to cheat Fate.
Before she dies, the Fairy orders everyone in the realm to keep Jin Mi’s birth a secret. She establishes a magical barrier designed to not let her daughter have any contact with the outside world and seals her true nature with a spell. However, 4000 years later, the barrier is breached by mistake by the Fire Immortal, the second son of the Celestial King. Gravely wounded (as a result of an attack) he is saved and taken care of by Jin Mi. As a reward for her kind gesture and unaware of her true identity, Fire Immortal agrees to free her from her prison. He takes her to the Celestial realm where she becomes his reading assistant.
It follows a sweet, yet tragic love-story that will have to go through the trials of life and death in order to be purified. This is not a sappy love story. It is well written and it comes with as much action as romance. I think that if it weren’t for the language barrier, dramas like this one would be critically acclaimed worldwide and would receive international awards. Here is a Trailer, together with the ending theme “Upwards to the Moon“.