Eternal Love

We haven't watched this one. This section is based on English and Chinese Wikipedia, Chinese and English press coverage and English-language reviews and recaps.

Eternal Love is often described as the drama that turned xianxia into a mainstream hit. It was one of the most-watched Chinese series of 2017, and many of the genre's later habits, such as love across several lives, a heroine with hidden identities, lavish heavenly sets and a theme song that becomes a karaoke staple, are traced back to it by Chinese and English commentators.

The story moves in three phases, matching the "three lives" in the Chinese title: Bai Qian's years at Kunlun as the disciple Si Yin, her life as the mortal Su Su in the Heavenly Palace, and her reunion with Ye Hua as herself. The middle stretch, set in the palace, is the most tragic, and English-language reviewers often single it out as the emotional core. The final third shifts back to romance and then to a war against the Ghost Lord.

Viewers praised the scale of the production, the peach-blossom scenery, the chemistry between the leads, and the second couple, Bai Fengjiu and Donghua, who proved popular enough to get their own drama later. The complaints are about length and pacing, effects that look dated now, and a story that some found melodramatic, especially the scheming of the palace villain, Su Jin. The romance has a large age gap built in, since Bai Qian is far older than Ye Hua, and the drama treats it as a running joke.

A practical tip from English-language viewing guides: keep track of names. The heroine is Si Yin at Kunlun, Su Su in the mortal world and Bai Qian everywhere else, and other characters call her by titles depending on their rank and relationship to her. Mark Chao plays two different men, Mo Yuan and Ye Hua, who share a face for a reason the drama explains late. Bai Fengjiu calls Bai Qian her aunt,. That relationship explains why Fengjiu defers to her. Once those relationships are clear, the drama's jumps between eras are much easier to follow.

Its Douban rating was more modest than its viewership: China Daily reported 6.4 in 2017, and a 2021 blog listing gave 6.5. Wikipedia reports that it passed 50 billion online views by August 2018. On TV, Dragon TV's average rating was about 1.29%, with a peak of 1.91% for the final episodes on March 1, 2017.

Content notes: fantasy violence and war, a pregnancy in captivity, a scene in which a character's eyes are taken, a suicide attempt by jumping from a terrace, and the death of a parent figure.

Bai Qian is a fox goddess from Qingqiu, a high-ranking deity who has lived for tens of thousands of years. Long ago she disguised herself as a young man to study under Mo Yuan, the God of War at Kunlun Mountain, and that apprenticeship ended in war, betrayal and her master's sacrifice. Much later, stripped of her powers and memories, she wakes up in the mortal world as an ordinary woman named Su Su, and a stranger falls in love with her. He is Ye Hua, the Crown Prince of Heaven, and he looks exactly like the master she lost. Eternal Love (三生三世十里桃花) is a 58-episode xianxia drama starring Yang Mi and Mark Chao, which aired on Dragon TV and Zhejiang TV in 2017. It's based on a novel by Tang Qi Gong Zi, known in English as To the Sky Kingdom, and its English title on some platforms is Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms.

Eternal Love premiered on Dragon TV and Zhejiang TV on January 30, 2017, and ended on March 1, 2017, with 58 episodes. It was directed by Lin Yufen, written by Hong Qiu and produced by Gcoo Entertainment, part of the Huace group. Filming ran from February to June 2016 at Xiangshan Movie and TV Town and in Puzhehei, Yunnan. TVB in Hong Kong broadcast it from May 2017.

Outside China, Netflix added it in November 2018. From the US on October 25, 2026, Viki had all 58 episodes free with ads.

There is no season 2. The closest follow-up is Eternal Love of Dream (2020), based on Tang Qi Gong Zi's novel The Pillow Book, which tells Bai Fengjiu and Donghua's story with Dilraba Dilmurat and Gao Weiguang returning. It isn't a direct continuation of Bai Qian and Ye Hua's story. The 2017 film Once Upon a Time, starring Liu Yifei and Yang Yang, retold the main story in a single feature and was poorly received on Douban.

The ending theme, "Bracing the Chill" (凉凉), sung by Zhang Bichen and Yang Zongwei, became one of the most covered Chinese songs of 2017. Jason Zhang sings the opening theme, "Three Lives, Three Worlds" (三生三世).