Xianxia C-drama Love You Seven Times with Ding Yu Xi and Yang Chao Yue premiered last week to mega high expectations, it’s pre-airing reservations was even higher than Lost You Forever and The Longest Promise in terms of this summer’s big dramas. That was due primarily to the drama being the sister project to last summer’s biggest surprise hit Love Between Fairy and Devil, with the two from the same novel writer and also from the same story universe with characters intersecting. The two novels were purchased for adaptation at the same time and produced by the exact same production team so the same budget, vibe, looks, feels, you name it. Fairy and Devil rocketed Dylan Wang to new levels of stardom and also changed audience perception of his acting ability so folks were watching if Seven Times could do the same for Yang Chao Yue (the respective costars Yu Shi Xin and Ding Yu Xi already were seen as able to act). Unfortunately Seven Times has turned into a flop and with it really impacting the emotional and mental health of not just the two leads but the producer, who has gotten into fights with viewers online and went off the rails before apologizing and taking time away claiming he was just so hurt by the negative criticism.

The criticism includes Yang Chao Yue still can’t act (same four expressions in this order – eyes widening, eye brow raising, lips pursing, head shaking), Ding Yu Xi acts well enough but doesn’t have the visuals to carry a xianxia god male lead character, the two leads have no chemistry (as one reviewer said “it’s like they are acting harder to convince we are randos who just met and are acting in love”) and the story line of their seven reincarnation loves is so short that before the audience can get emotionally invested in one romance it’s over and poof another romance rinse and repeat. This drama also paused airing for 1 day and skipped two episodes as a prop sword was found to be infringing on the copyright from another xianxia game IP, talk about bad luck after bad. This Friday Ding Yu Xi and Yang Chao Yue did a live stream where both seemed quite affected by all the criticism and at one point Yang Chao Yue seemed ready to cry and Ding Yu Xi jumped up to block the camera for her and paused the time stream. He also kissed her on the cheek which for costars promoting a drama has like never happened before (hugging and skinship maybe). Yang Chao Yue also for the first time accepted the criticism and promised to keep improving, previously she would never openly address feedback on her acting. So in summary, C-ent is calling this a case of “same mom, different fates” with Seven Times v. Fairy and Devil.