Fairyland Lovers (2020)

Aliens are in the human world to tidy up a mess of their own making!

Despite the title, this drama is more in the science fiction or science fantasy genre than plain fantasy with magic. Granted that Penglai is, in Chinese folklore, the abode of the god like immortals and a sort or fairyland "away from the human world". Here, Penglai is simply a far-away planet from where aliens were exploring the cosmos. These aliens looked remarkably like humans, but could live for thousands of years and they had superpowers including telekinesis (It was funny to watch Hei Qi unsuccessfully trying to move a glass with his mind-power when he was just out of confinement and recovering).

Yes, superpowers needed to be known and somewhat trained. If not, like muscles, they would weaken and go completely unnoticed, as in the case of one important character here. But they could also remain hidden in the case of some aliens who chose to go incognito among humans. These aliens were awaiting the moment when they’d be able to return to their home world Penglai, far away in the cosmos. They were on Earth because of an an accident and used the thousands of years to try to clean up the mess left by the scattered “jade” pieces of their spacecraft, which was causing obsessive humans to become “spirits”, living without aging but also turning progressively evil. If these spirits could acknowledge and let go of their initial obsession, together with handing over the piece of alien jade, they could be “cured” and return as ordinary mortal humans.

This is where Bai Qi stepped in as “Spirit doctor”. Originally just a spirit who, instead of being wiped out by the Heavenly soldiers, had become the friend of one, Xiao Zhou, he had even fallen in love with her. But after being both pursued by a killer, she let Bai Qi escape with her Penglai jade bracelet which normally only should be worn by her tribe’s Heavenly soldiers. She also entrusted him with a small sapling or “herb” of paramount importance: “Peach Blossom”, a seemingly sentient plant. Next, she was killed by a mysterious hooded character.

Before releasing him to live on in the mortal world, Xiao Zhou had erased Bai Qi’s memory of their relationship. Nevertheless, when Bai Qi, through a misdirection, found young aspiring actress Lin Xia in his penthouse apartment, he was surprised to feel a connection with her face, which made the partly forgotten memories of Xiao Zhou reappear. When he discovered that not only had this young woman taken away the sapling, because she accidentally had broken the pot, but that the herb was thriving and flowering under her care, Bai Qi decided to rent rooms at her house and work from there, while trying to understand how a mere mortal girl could so influence the other worldly herb.

Many stories and adventures ensued while Bai Qi and Lin Xia became friends and after a while, fell in love. Around them, other characters were drawn into their wake: Yang Jian the naïve Heavenly soldier who fell in love with a young celebrity actress called XiaoXiao. A Li, who played pranks at the master he had freely chosen, but preferred e-games to entanglements with humans, seeing how pitiful the obsessed ones, turned spirits, were. Lin Xia’s dad, who suddenly came back from abroad, disrupted the routine at Lin Xia’s house and showed hostility towards the spirit doctor. Not only these, but patients and antagonists made every episode grow in mystery and dilemmas.

Also, as noted, there were no fairies to find in the drama, and although the antagonists and “evil spirits” were close to the demon definition, they were just long-lived humans who have no hell to go to except of their own making. The Heavenly tribe, on the other hand, listened to a more supernatural voice, that offered them cryptic choices. Ultimately, the aliens who had crash-landed on Earth, could blend in, and become fully human, like the “spirits”, if they so desired. Or they could leave this world altogether to stay away, separate and minding their own alien business. A promise of possible contact in the future didn’t feel very sincere: once separate, the aliens and the humans’ paths were likely not destined to cross again, since Earth had nothing that could attract these aliens by way of resources. Nothing like in “My Girlfriend is an Alien” which is more superficially comedic, and a very different story despite its obsession with love.

Overall, the story was good, although there were some draggy moments in the later episodes. The drama is after all 35 episodes long. Not short. Time runs fast in the beginning, but towards the latter third, the complications could feel over-dramatic, and there were “getting away” moments that might tax patience. Just admire the starlit skies then, and take a pause to follow the lead’s explanations to find the Big Dipper and the small bear… Stuffed teddy bears also abound in this drama, btw. One falls victim to a tiff and gets repaired cutely. And the letters left for Lin Xia are stored in a box labelled with a teddy bear face: this teddy bear motif is one of the recurring details that one may notice with a smile.

Another slightly annoying or amusing thing, depending on mood, is the product placement: 999 Ganmaoling keli (herbal granules adding caffeine, sugar, and acetaminophen analgesic) popular over-the-counter Chinese medicine to treat the common cold, Unifon face masks, Hoegaarden beer cans and bottles, Budweiser beer cans, high fashion clothes like Fendi branded sweaters, and and the Nintendo Switch game console, appear in a lot of episodes.

The actors were good, Bai Yu was a convincing stony faced “spirit doctor” turning progressively more human-minded and had a very satisfyingly mischievous alter ego (“Hei Qi”, his not so “evil double”).
Jade Cheng (Zheng Qiu Hong) played every sentiment from endearing, bubbly and funny, aspiring entertainer to heart-broken lover who gives up everything for the sake of her lover and the greater good.
Marcus Li was an unforgettable prankster sidekick to the main lead. He previously played noticeable supporting roles in the two ‘Go Go Squid’ series and plays “Zhou MingMing” in the 2022 c-drama “Light Chaser Rescue” (where he picks up funnily the new personality he assumed in episode 35, end of “Fairyland Lovers”!).
Ji Xiaobing as the “Big Baby” clueless Yang Jian alien was also very good; he played a private investigator in 2018 S.C.I.
Estelle Chen /Chen Yihan as XiaoXiao is also a good singer (with several songs published since 2018); she has two songs here: “Xihuan ni” and “Xiang ni”. As an actres,s she recently played “He Zhaojun” in the 2022 c-drama “Love Like the Galaxy” (Beware: she has a namesake Estelle Chen, born in Paris in 1999 who is a model.)..
We also get Jade Cheng /Zheng Qiuhong singing and playing the guitar in some episodes : she is a real-life singer as well and released her first single in 2012.) She also dances in the beginning to the funny Little Frog song.

There is also a song (Feng Qiu Huang 鳳求凰) by HITA, a singer who has gained fame for her non- drama related song “Chi Ling”; and Patrick Kwong contributed a sweet “Lullaby of you”. There are excerpts of other songs too: children’s rhymes, classics like Teresa Teng’s “The Moon represents my heart” (parodied by Hei Qi) and more. The background soothing piano or ominous theme music was spot on to underline moods.

The OST and music were excellent; it is a pity that YouTube and another platform cut out some songs and even sound of dialogues in the end episodes, where even translation is missing, so if it wasn’t for the Chinese subtitles, these parts would be totally lost to audiences there, if for some reason, they can’t access the main WeTV platform. Of course, with only reading Chinese subtitles to convey the dialogues, this is also an interesting exercise for Chinese language learners or for those who got too complacent relying on foreign language subtitles or spoken Chinese. (Hint to the Chinese learners: use a tool like Pleco, to draw the characters on an interactive mobile device, and get the meaning and pinyin to key in for sentence translation. Reading Chinese is difficult, but c-drama dialogues are not too hard to understand).

On Youtube, there is also an alternate proposal /private wedding scene, with a cute kitten on the lakeside: Lin Xia takes the initiative, but the “rings” are identical. It is also possible to find several OST songs, trailers and BTS,and an interview; but most of these additional features have no English subtitles.

Overall, Fairyland Lovers was an enjoyable drama with a happy ending for all the positive characters, no grand wedding scene, but some cute growing kids with, already, tooth decay threats!
I might go back re-watching some episodes: it is a nice drama.

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