A celestial kingdom, a demon-like kingdom, stoic guy, mischievous princess, reincarnation, faceless enemy threatening to destroy the world. It’s generic stuff with some hilarious twists.
In a few words: The Starry Love does exceedingly well in some aspects but fail where we don’t expect it to. But overall, this is still an enjoyable Fantasy Comedy drama with a unique sense of humor and a collection of charming characters. Until the middle of episode 33, that is.
In this review, I will be going over what works and does not work about The Starry Love.
I will note again that any praise I have for this drama doesn’t apply to the last eight episodes.
*SPOILERS ahead
WHAT’S GOOD?
AWESOME SUPPORTING CHARACTERS
The minor characters here play a huge role in making the show what it is. I would go so far as to say that the main characters would not be as interesting as they are without the interactions they have with their sidekicks and friends.
Most importantly, they all work together throughout the entire drama. Hence, there is no noble idiocy.
OUR GIRL YETAN
Yay for one of the best fantasy female leads we have had recently. No, she is not on the level of Zhenhuan or Ruoxi (Scarlet Heart), but for a genre that is littered with women who are defined by passiveness and the lack of agency, Yetan is a breath of fresh air.
This girl is many things even before she meets her love interest: an abused child trying to break free, a loving sister, a loyal friend, etc.
Leave me and my sister alone = Yetan’s ultimate wish. Yetan works tirelessly to make that happen; and while she gets entangled in romance along the way, her life is always a balanced mix of various relationships and goals.
Li Landi’s performance conveys each chapter in Yetan’s life fairly well, even the “Void Devil” part, which can be… you know, unnecessary.
CHAOFENG
An unfavored prince who secretly fights for the throne to gain the power needed to protect his mother and himself.
There is a lot you can say about Chaofeng and everything about him remains consistent for most of the drama. He is ambitious, hot-tempered, a professional liar, snarky, with a not-so-straight moral compass.
Chaofeng meets Princess Qingkui and is influenced somewhat by her goodness.
Are there instances when the character acts too much like a dream boyfriend and agrees to whatever the girl wants without having an opinion? Yes, absolutely. What’s a romance without some fanservice? But with Chaofeng, the fanservice is done in moderation. For the most part, he remains his mischievous/devious and ambitious self.
Even when Chaofeng does yield to Qingkui, the acting gives enough nuances to show that we should not count on Chaofeng to be a good guy behind Qingkui’s back.
Near the end, there is still a part of Chaofeng that wants the throne, but he agrees to give up the fight as long as his mother and Qingkui are safe. Chaofeng’s character is written in a way that enables him to generate interesting interactions with anyone he comes across.
THE OTHER PRINCESS, QINGKUI
This girl deserves the best things in the world.
Qingkui is perhaps the character with the least development in the drama, but she is still a pleasure to watch. She is quiet, kind and smart and is only willing to lie when the people she loves are in mortal danger. And the best thing about Qingkui is when she does lie, she is on a completely different level from her younger sister — exactly the kind of princess who is trained from birth to be a future queen.
While I wish that Chaofeng and Qingkui were given a better goal than just “retiring from the world”, what they have is good enough.
WHAT’S NOT SO GOOD?
THE MALE LEAD YOUQIN
Youqin starts out as the most interesting character of the batch — a prince who has been locked up and isolated for so long that he has trouble handling his emotions and is scared to death of being touched.
Having been single-goal-obsessed all his life, Youqin is also idealistic and out of touch with real-life struggles. It’s realistic, it’s interesting. Never had I dreamt of having such a refreshing male lead in a romance.
Unfortunately, this drama does not follow up with this characterization. Youqin’s problems with emotions are addressed by Yetan within one single scene, which I appreciate. But afterwards, the issue is never brought up again.
Following a battle, Youqin dies and reincarnates as three different men with three different personalities. Then, he comes back, having supposedly fallen in love with Yetan three times, and becomes a changed man completely. Youqin at this point is affectionate and caring beyond Yetan’s imagination, and this is where his potentials die and Youqin ceases to be a character, but a bundle of tropes.
To list a few examples:
As soon as Youqin comes back from his mortal trial, he becomes that fantasy man who is the best at everything and whose sole purpose is to quit his job and retire with the girl. Choosing between his duty and Yetan is never a struggle for Youqin. It takes him about 5 seconds to decide he doesn’t need to be anything else except Yetan’s husband.
But as capable as he is of love now, Youqin spares no time for his siblings or mother, who were there and supporting him long before Yetan. The drama makes no effort to give him a life outside of Yetan.
When the group meets Emperor Tun (the girls’ father), Youqin questions him about his treatment of Yetan and the emperor submits to this interrogation like an obedient child. As if in front of Youqin, no one is allowed to have any pride or opinion.
Youqin makes the emperor humble, Youqin makes the emperor confront Yetan, Youqin clears Yetan’s name as a bad luck star. It’s Youqin. Youqin does it all. Yet none of these things contribute to exploring Youqin’s personality, they are there to reassure the audience he is a wonderful boyfriend without fault.
Is Chaofeng also seen doing everything he can to make Qingkui happy? Yes, but let me explain why Chaofeng is different.
Chaofeng is shameless.
He throws himself out there to apologize to the emperor, for instance, not because he truly believes everything is his fault, but because he is willing to do what it takes to get what he wants. That is not to say that Chaofeng is insincere towards Qingkui, but he is a game-player who’s determined to win. And with this trait, Chaofeng has meaningful interactions with the people around him. We can see that his friends come to love him despite his flaws.
As opposed to Youqin who is treated as an untouchable god despite all evidence to the contrary.
Somehow, fantasy dramas believe that as long as a male lead jumps into a blackhole and claims he is doing it for his people, it is enough to say that he deserves the highest respect. It is not.
Near the end, the drama throws the amnesia trope on Youqin. While Yetan and Chaofeng deal with the trauma of Qingkui’s death, the challenge Youqin is given is: recognizing Yetan again. And he does.
Youqin is never truly tested. Whatever he goes through are just a means to imply again and again that “he loves the girl”.
To Youqin’s credit, he is given funny scenes and lines when the two couples move out. His personality shines the best when he becomes part of the group like a normal person and you get a glimpse of who Youqin is. But these moments are scarce; and whatever chances the drama gets, it hammers in how “capable” and “intelligent” Youqin is without limits, rendering him inconsistent.
No, there should be limits, there should be things he cannot do. Youqin is book-smart but he has never had real-life experience. This, if explored, could have made Youqin one of the best male leads of this genre.
*sighs* The things we could have had.
For the most part, Youqin is neither a character nor a man, but a fantasy too unreal to indulge in.
THE ROMANCE
Along with Youqin’s weak characterization comes a lacklustre romance that could have been a lot more.
When Yetan and Youqin first meet, they are both abandoned children, each in a different way. Yetan is daring and reckless but insecure deep down. Youqin has trouble interacting with people but he has the self-assurance of someone with a strong resume.
Yetan’s bright personality challenges Youqin. On the other hand, Youqin boosts Yetan’s confidence and self-worth. Their talk in the galaxy where Youqin gifts Yetan with a token of faith is among their best scenes in the drama. It is proof that the writing can be good.
But all that potentials come to an end when we get the mortal realm arc.
Yetan finds Youqin’s three soul pieces and makes them all fall in love with her; and the next thing we know, Youqin comes back to the Heaven Kingdom deeply in love. Not only that, he also becomes a hugging machine.
The three soul pieces are not the original Youqin, they should not replace him. Even if Yetan has made all three souls love her, what about the Youqin that is duty-driven and anti-social? Why is the character’s best struggle swept under the rug?
The drama directly skips the part where the real Youqin overcomes his weaknesses; it instead presents the “new and improved” Youqin as a product of Yetan’s love alone.
Perhaps instead of devoting screen time to petty rivalry from the jealous cousin, we should have focused on how Youqin readjusts to his immortal life and reevaluates his goals?
And speaking of the petty rivalry…
A jealous princess and her cousin take turns humiliating and bullying Yetan, making Youqin lose his temper and painting the Heaven Palace as an impossible place to live. And what do we do now when the female lead constantly gets hurt? Why, the man has got to give up his home and his job to take her far away, of course.
Where is the Yetan that defies prejudice, gathers allies, and stomps on bullies? Where is the story arc that involves turning misfortune into good luck and winning people over with good deeds? All of that is abandoned because we need to see a man being forced to choose between his girl and his own identity.
Or do we?
Now, let’s get to the real culprit of this drama…
THE TWIN FLOWER ARC
aka the last eight episodes.
By episode 32, a third voice in the writing team probably spoke up and decided: we need a tragic sacrifice. You know what? How about two tragic sacrifices?
*double sighs*
The princesses’ secret identity as the magic flowers of an ancient, powerful clan is unnecessary and contradicts everything the drama has built up up to that point.
Here are a few reasons why we could have done without those disastrous episodes:
This arc is not needed for Yetan’s story.
By that time, Yetan as a character has already undergone a complete arc. She breaks free from home, makes friends, makes enemies, overcomes obstacles, wins true love, and most importantly – she goes from an abandoned little girl to someone who knows her worth and knows that she deserves love. Even if a lot of people still dislike Yetan, an equal number of people love her. She remains strong and defiant in the face of it all.
During Yetan’s last confrontation with the Heaven King, we can see that Yetan has won the battle by her personality, not her power. She has almost the entire Heaven on her side because they value her as a friend and as family.
There is no need for a selfless sacrifice because that was never the point of Yetan’s story.
Yetan is already special without her secret identity.
It is not the way Yetan turns out in the end that is the problem — Yetan is entertaining to watch no matter what she does — but the mindset most fantasy drama writers tend to have, which is: you can’t be unique if you are not a literal goddess or a direct descendant of one.
Even with a character who already has everything — personality, development, flaws — they still saw a need to hammer it in that she is special because she was born so.
This arc makes the Void King and the Heaven King more one-dimensional than they already are.
The Heaven King has always been a tool for tropey conflict, so I am not surprised that he remains stubborn to the end. The Void King, however, shows glimpses of humanity throughout the drama. There is also his relationship with Chaofeng to explore.
But what do we get in the end? You and your mother are despicable slaves, you deserve to die, and I will fight you to the death, for… whatever reason.
This arc makes Chaofeng look useless.
We have a character who can fight, plot, lie, and strategize. But instead of playing a more active role after Qingkui’s death, he is reduced to a lovesick boy who is virtually powerless against the villains.
Yetan needs to showcase her new Hulk-smash power — yes. But there are ways to let Yetan shine without dumping down Chaofeng
This arc gives us the most unnecessary character of all – Husui.
She is the last survivor of a clan that was brutally slaughtered. She has trauma. She wants revenge.
The issue? She is barely in the story. And when she decides to pop in, her entire existence contradicts the tone of the show.
The Starry Love is a comedy. Youqin, Yetan, Chaofeng — they all deal with trauma of one kind or another, and the drama resolves every conflict in a quick and lighthearted but justifying manner. But Husui — like a character inserted at the last minute by a newly-hired writer who didn’t bother to examine the rest of the story first — has no clear personality and leads the plot from one random twist to another.
If a tragedy has to happen, at the very least, the character who plays a major part in bringing it about has to be a subject of intrigue; and Husui is anything but that.
BOTTOM LINE
Just… just skip those last 8 episodes, guys.