this drama is not some s-class nor a high budget drama but they really made every penny worth it from the music, the dubbing and costumes is so so good (which i believe is better than other s-class dramas out there) and the CGI is just top notch! for real the effects are just superb and well done!

casting an almost all rookie actors for a drama and casting 2 rookie idol-actors as main leads is quite a risky thing to do but i pretty much think they performed well, fan chengcheng have said and was shown in several clips that he had been taking acting classes and has a teacher that helps him while filming this drama, for me he did very well, sometimes shaky but really has potential, hes quite equipped with support (ofc his sister is an actress) im sure he has tons of pointers and lessons from her too. for cheng xiao, this is her second drama as a main lead and was just filmed 2 months after filming her first ever drama (legend of awakening) for me, she did okay, there were also times that were she was not in the proper expression but also there were times(specifically starting ep 15 onwards) where her performance was very moving and can affect you emotionally which i think shows her improvement while filming this drama. all actors did okay, no one overshadowed any one.

sad fact, the second FL has more screentime than the drama's main FL - i don't sit quite well with this simply because the FL's character story was so good, her development was better than anyone on the drama but her development was suddenly put on hold and was just ignored, if they showed more of the FL and ML together then this would have been a really really good drama but i guess this really wasn't a romance drama in the first place so its acceptable generally, but for me .. im upset w that ..

this historical fantasy drama started as a family drama, then became political then became about friendships then love and life and death, it was quite a good drama, the pacing was great and the drama structure is so so different than most cdramas out there but i guess the writers ran out of episodes(they only have 36 eps which is very few) so it felt like everything became suddenly too quick and some stories are left out and there were many things i expected to happen and many things im curious about but was not answered (season 2 would be great but i dont think that would happen)

overall the drama is good because it made me talk about the plot, made me happy, sad, and mad .. and for real this was better than how i expected it to be in many levels! so i hope everyone can give this a shot~

the ending isnt that bad, its just, they could've done better but i guess most historical fantasy dramas are like this, really keeps viewers hanging and wanting for a second season...