So I'd like to say first that I haven't read or seen any of the novels or other adaptations of the story so I had nothing to compare it to. This is also my first Chinese "BL" to watch. At first I was hesitant to watch them due to the censorship BL is subject to but I'm glad I gave this one a try. Okay it's not exactly BL but well, we all know those boys were loving.

Summary:
Okay, so it's not got the sort of blantant smuttiness of Thai BL (or even the muted smuttiness of SK or JPN ones) so if that's your bag you might not enjoy this. That being said, I started watching this not realising it was a 'bromance' and after several episodes I found out it was but I was still really captivated by the story and actors and continued watching and I'm glad I did. There was enough subtle suggestions of a deeper relationship for me to find it enjoyable as a BL.

Pros:
The acting is great. SuYu and Wu Bi are captivating in their own contrasting ways, Su Yu's dad is just precious and lovely, and depicts the poor but loving father figure so well. And Duo is absolutely hilarious and adorable at the same time.

The story development. I enjoyed the journey Wu Bi and Su Yu were on, watching them go from enemies to...'brotherly love'.

Wu Bi's fight scenes. I thought this was cool! It was like some proper action scene fighting. Okay, maybe it's not totally believable that this lovely twink can beat the crap out of hardened thugs and bodyguards but I was TOTALLY here for it anyway.

Production. All of the production seemed really top class.

So we know that BL has censorship issues in China but what I liked is that a more intimate relationship was suggested the whole way through but in subtle ways. It's hard to read some of it in any way but a romantic relationship between two guys. They just didn't explicitly show it. I was actually expecting them to really push that they were 'just brothers' and I feel that actually it was really suggested that they were NOT 'just brothers'. That tube in the bed wasn't lip balm and we all know it.

All the food. God it all looked so good.

Cons:
Though I had no real issue with his acting, I did find Wu Bi's cousin character tiresome and who could take his villany seriously with that hilarious ponytail thing he had going on. I know he's meant to be a bad guy and you're not meant to like him but I found him more annoying than villainous. The girl going after Su Yu had a more interesting 'bad guy' concept than he did. She was a SNAKE.

The music. While at the start, I found the songs endearing, after hearing them at least once in nearly every episode I found them a bit grating.

The ending seemed a bit sudden though I understand there's a season 2 so I'm guessing we know what happened in that last episode but if I hadn't gone looking, I wouldn't have known. I'm not a huge fan of open-ended things. I like closure and very clear outcomes.