Story started off fun and exciting

Story started off fun and exciting with main leads that were a sure draw but ended up being drawn out and riddled with fillers and plot holes. A disappointment after the build up.

Positives:

* Strong female character depictions. Women in this drama are independent, can lead, fight, initiate romance, and generally are the equal of men. There is one screaming whiner but even she rises to the occasion in the end. What I like here is that female lead is not been nerfed. Unlike other c-drama female lead always been nerfed when she meet male lead.

* This is a classic wuxia drama. Its main focus is the lead learning how to fight and the fighting that happens among people and sects. There is romance and the smattering of imperial influence but the story mainly stays focused on the martial arts world and the conflicts within it.

* The FL is a mature actress and doesn't play the maiden-in-distress role which is nice. She does most of the saving instead of needing to be saved. ML (WYB) is eye candy even though his acting is not vey strong. His character is not written well so its a toss-up as to whether its weak acting or weak character development.

* There is no annoying love-triangles and misunderstandings. Relationships develop and basically stay on track. It is refreshing not to have the stupid misunderstanding story arc.

Negatives:

* For a drama that is suppose to be action focused, it gets quite boring and dragged out. There is a LOT of dialogue and at the most inopportune times. Half way through a fight: let's have a talk. Half way into a rescue: let's have a talk. Half way through a mission crisis: let's have a talk. Worst yet, the conversations don't really add anything except to break up the momentum of the show.

* The story is not well written. Its main storyline really only takes about 10 episodes. The rest are filled with side stories and countless side characters that come and go so often that I couldn't really keep track of nor did I care to after a while. Then there were side characters that appeared throughout the show that didn't do anything or really add to the story (Zhou Fei's parents).

* Although the FL's character had some development, it was minimal and didn't fully utilize the actress' skills. WYB's character, the ML, was even flatter. He was more of the negative side-kick to the FL than a main. Some scene also is unnecessary. Especially when they try to solve heaven and earth puzzle. Li Sheng is the one that solving the puzzle(we can see his character development - from naughty child to great leader) and ML just staying with FL and keep discouraging her then smile like 'I know it will be like this'. Support character is much more useful then him. and we can see FL and other support can cooperate with each other. then ML come and make scene like he carrying all of them. - this is not about actress it just about the character.

Conclusion:

This drama was a miss. It wasn't even a near miss. For the potential, the hype, and the actor and actress it had: it turned out to be a major miss. The writing was poor, the story dragged, and there were so many fillers, most of the middle episodes made me fall asleep or continually hit skip. It's a real bummer but I would not recommend this drama.

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