Last weeks Tencent Drama Festival showcased over a dozen to-come C-dramas so it’s taking me awhile to catch up and post about the ones that interest me. I’ll get to it one by one, and the next one that looks good to me is xianxia C-drama Love Beyond the Grave. It’s the first high profile big budget xianxia that doesn’t seem to be vomiting up rainbows and unicorns in color scheme, instead it’s dark, dark, dark. Like a cross between xianxia and A Nightmare Before Christmas, and I love it! But despite being dark in costumes and backdrops the camera grades are not dark in that “can’t see anything” way that annoys me when dramas are filming during night scenes or nightmare-scapes. Leads Dilraba Dilmurat and Chen Fei Yu are still not selling any CP vibes lol but they had an uphill battle to begin with mainly due to him not projecting that imposing General dude aura and energy but at least I am sold initially on the set up – she’s a demon/ghost of the underworld who also seems to be under a curse and he’s her chance to break it, or maybe her 23rd chance considering she’s got 22 former loves in 22 graves to try and scare him off any romance with her haha. The overwhelming and gaudy costumes on her stand up against this world building and she looks very on point here.

Trailer for Love Beyond the Grave: