What a view | Is it Halloween scary? No, but Love Between Fairy and Devil, Netflix Chinese supernatural romantic fantasy, is a wild ride
- Plant fairy Orchid, played by Esther Yu, charms the egotistical warrior Dongfang Qingcang in a mythological love story that’s full of mayhem
- If that is not your cup of tea, in BBC First series McDonald & Dodds a pair of oddball detectives investigate a murder at a racetrack in southwest England
For fans of all things frightening, Chinese romantic fantasy series Love Between Fairy and Devil (Netflix) isn’t going to be the scariest thing on television this Halloween – even if it is supernaturally inspired.
However, this 36-episode (plus two specials) saga, a fable founded on forbidden feelings that surface inconveniently for the pure, victimised but spirited plant fairy Orchid (Esther Yu Shuxin) and the patricidal Dongfang Qingcang (Dylan Wang), ex-Moon Supreme of the Moon Tribe, has all manner of mythological mayhem to recommend it.
A mere 30,000 years ago, Qingcang’s egotistical quest to acquire an ancient but prohibited skill saw him mess up the universal equilibrium to the extent that he killed his father to assume ultimate power, then threatened both the mortal and immortal realms in a war – which he lost before being locked up in the formidable Haotian Tower, his 100,000 troops frozen in time.
But now he’s planning a prison break, which Lord Changheng, God of War, must avert by strengthening the tower’s security – a dangerous task that brings him into the orbit of the largely unregarded Orchid, who has the hots for him, although of course he doesn’t know it.
Heroically deciding to fix the tower’s crumbling matrix “lock” herself, she tumbles in – and into the presence of Qingcang. Calamity! Or rather not, because the charms of the unsullied Orchid inevitably work on the black-robed “monster” until he realises that – altogether now – all you need is love.
