Tian sheng chang ge

Growing up in China, I have watched so many dramas and this is definitely the best one I have ever watched! I lover the plots and narratives so much as well as the characters. I am so glad this drama is available on Netflix and had been translated into so many different languages that people around the world can watch it. Ni Ni is my favorite actress and she is so amazing in The Rise of Phoenixes. Her performance was very impressive.

I have never seen such a Chinese TV drama like The Rise of Phoenixes. It is beyond my imagination so much. Hope Netflix bring us more Chinese dramas.

Visually stunning, lyrically beautiful, masterfully acted. Treachery and political intrigue at its finest. Game of Thrones minus the violence, nudity, and supernatural but with an added dash of rom-com and mystery.

I liked the comedy sprinkled throughout the darkness. The funny faces, the banter, the expressive hums.

I binged 45 x 45min episodes over a 3 day weekend, and currently suffering through withdrawal symptoms until new episodes are released.

I deducted one star for the botched flash-backs in the first episode. Took me a while to work out who's who and what was going on, glad I stuck with it.

PS. If you are watching this show with non-Chinese subtitles you are massively missing out. The Chinese dialogue is written with the skill of a bard. The language is sophisticated, succinct, elegant and poetic - as beautiful as the visuals. In comparison, the English subtitles were dull and prosaic, an abominable shadow of the original dialogue, using the vocabulary of a primary school student. It's as if the varying shades of blue - cerulean, sapphire, teal, indigo were translated into "blue, blue, blue, blue". I was truly disappointed by the English subtitles and eventually switched to a different app so I could watch it with Chinese subtitles.

Rather than a romantic story, it's more about humanity and the different kinds of people in the game of power

I'm very happy that I was able to watch this thanks to Netflix. Truly one of the best love stories I have ever seen - it took my breath away. It's been almost a week since I finished watching it and I can't stop thinking about it. The entire show is beautifully done, the writing, costumes, acting, the balance between the dramatic and the comedic elements - I liked it all. But the love story ... is something else. It grows, matures and intensifies as it develops along with the two lead characters. Excellent acting brings to the forefront an intensity of longing that is difficult to describe and deserves to be seen. In this day and age, where the 'sex sells' mantra infiltrates pretty much all pores of society, the power of this story is so much greater. Who knew that a brief touch, a few caresses and one stolen kiss could pull on the heartstrings so strongly?