most well written drama I've seen this year

this the first time I've watched the wuxia genre and this show did not disappoint,

things i liked:
1. world building
because this is the first time watching this genre i was afraid i wouldn't understand anything but even though this show didn't have an opening explaining all the lore the characters explained the world to other characters that didn't know ,which informed us the viewer which i really appreciated which really showed the effort the writers put into the world building of this show and also how much they respected the viewer to let us figure it out and by the end of the show i was really emersed into the world they build over the period the show aired.

2. cohesiveness
everything in this show fit together really well, the costuming fit every character really well and showed their personality without seeming out of place. something that i also liked is that the outfits repeated, in some dramas they would be changing the characters clothes every scene but the repeating of outfits further shows that there is a bit of realism in this unrealistic world. another thing that made the show a masterpiece is the Ost and score these were so well done the show wouldn't feel whole without them, in some dramas the music doesn't fit the emotion or scene but in this show they put so much effort into the score making it the Ost's instrumental and also it fit every important and even the insignificant beats of the story. the ost also brought out all the emotional parts of the story and amplified them making me go back and rewatch some scenes.

3. direction/cinematography
this show is so beautiful to look at i was speechless the scenes in the wilderness where breath taking and the way the show was directed is so well-done the crew did such a good job and it shows through out the entire body of work.( I'm trying to keep this review spoiler free so i wont go into too much details on this).

4. the characters/ the story
every character was well thought out and all the motives of every character were clear and most important thing for me when watching a drama is the character development because i hate it when a character remains stagnant throughout the whole show and then suddenly they change in the last ep, to do it well the growth has to be slow but apparent. i saw this in the second leads the way pei si jing developed throughout the show was so well written. and imo the best written character is zhou yi chen if you watch the show you see how much he changes and develops and a person, moreover the motives of the villains where clear and you as the viewer understand them its not like they were doing evil because the show needed and antagonist we knew the reason why they were doing these evil acts and we could anticipate them too which i liked, also on the topic of villains i liked that not everything was black and white and there where some grey characters like li lun who i understood why he did what he did and his character development throughout the show was so well-done you can see the confliction in him every time he did anything to zhao yuan zhuo. the supporting/background characters were also well written every time they showed a story the writers wrote them so well that you could even cry over them and also under stand their motives too and it the show all connected in the end in a way where every thing showed contributed to the ending so nothing was unimportant to the story.

5. the pacing
even though i saw many people say that the pacing of this story was slow paced, i think that was the right decision because i think that the pacing fit the story, because if it was any faster i think that i would have trouble following it and the pacing made the important beats of the story more impactful.

6. consistency
the biggest problem when watching comedy genres in dramas is that they always are super funny at first but when the climax of the story comes they become super melancholy and lose the shows initial charm but in this show they didn't the comedy remained throughout the show even after the sad parts and i very much liked that. and the found family and the dynamics between the characters were also consistent nothing happed that was out of character for them which i also really liked.

things i didn't like:
1. the female lead's character was a little neglected i could tell in the beginning of the show and i thought i should give the show more time and they did try to flesh her out a little more but i think they could have done a better job with her because in felt that the supporting characters were written better than her which is sad because she is the main lead.

2. the romance was lacking
i know some people would disagree with me but the main leads didn't have enough screen time together i felt the love between them but we didn't have enough time with them. and something else is that every body has so much chemistry with everybody i was getting confused at times like if you watched the show you could see it.

overall this may be the best drama I've seen this year the way it was created felt so well thought out and some people may not have liked the ending but I'm pretty content with it.

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