I am really amazed how good this is. A lot of remakes of gulong or jinyong’s works are either unimpressive, boring, predictable, or out right horrible ( especially the endings). I wasn’t going to watch this version because I didn’t like the 2005 version (which includes a bit of court politics and had a horribly contrived ending), but I caught my mom watching it and something about Xiao yuer drew me in. He’s incredibly enjoyable to watch, like able, light hearted, bright, funny, and kind. His character pretty much drives the whole plot and the mood of the story. Before I disliked the handsome siblings story not knowing the 2005 version deviates a lot from the original story. I found out this version is actually true to the original novel and it changes my opinion of gu long’s works. The story would have been pretty original if I didn’t know of it before. Maybe I should be glad that I watched the 2005 version because it made watching this version 10x more enjoyable and unpredictable.