SUMMARY:
The REAL selling point (besides CZY's portrayal of XYE) is the relationship/character growth between HWQ and XYE. If you feel like the plot is getting repetitive, know it gets better after the first half, and know that the build up of the last few episodes is incredibly well done and so painful in the right way. If you do not have a sentimental attachment to this story, or if you do not care for familial relationships, I don't think you'd particularly like it. However, if you like wuxia and you like familial relationships, I would power through just for CZY's XYE and for the build up of the last few episodes.

Ok here's the full review:

I don't usually write reviews because I am too lazy, but I felt like I had to write one for this drama. I watched The Proud Twins (2005 HK/TW version called 小魚兒與花無缺) while it was airing, and it has always been one of my favorite shows. I also love Hu Yitian from ALSB, so I was very excited for this drama. When the casting/characters were revealed, however, I was kind of worried because they replaced my favorite villain from TPT which I felt was one of the biggest selling points of TPT. Another thing I felt was incredibly well done in TPT was the tragedy in several relationships, and when I found out that HS did not include those specific tragedies, I was extremely disappointed.

WITH THAT SAID. If you loved TPT, for sentimental reasons, WATCH THIS VERSION.

ACTING/CHARACTER PORTRAYAL:
- Chen Zheyuan does Xiaoyu'er //so// much justice. I don't think they could have casted a better actor for him. I don't even have enough words for how much I love CZY's XYE. He absolutely carried this show. 100% you will fall in love with him. He brings XYE to life just as well as the XYE in TPT, and he showcases how multifaceted XYE is. The dynamics of his principles, what is good/bad to him, what's evil/wrong or right/just, he just does such a good job at expressing his emotions and reactions. The struggle he experiences in terms of who he wants to be, who he thinks he is, who he actually is is just beautifully laid out and his growth is beautiful and makes sense. I will say that BOTH the brothers' character development is visible, realistic, and touching.

- HYT gets better as the drama goes along, and I think he does a good job in playing his two characters differently. His acting and his character improves as the drama goes along. At first, I was kind of thrown off by the difference b/t this HWQ and the one in TPT, and it took awhile for him to grow on me. I would say it wasn't until the second half of the drama that I started to care about HWQ, but once I got there, I really, really appreciated his part in the show. He serves as a wonderful contrast to XYE, and over the course of the show, both brothers learn from each other. The similarities between the two noticeably grow in the second half of the show, and I felt it was very well done.

- In general, there is a lot of room for improvement plot-wise and acting-wise (specifically for Hua Wuque, Tie Xinlan, and Jiang Yulang).

CHARACTER TLDR: XYE is Ironman and HWQ is Captain America.

ROMANCE:
If you're here for the romance, you'll probably be disappointed. There isn't much focus or development on these relationships. There /is/ a love-triangle. If you hate love triangles (I do), don't worry, it works out pretty well, it's never the main point, and I think it creates the right amount of conflict that leads to growth.

PLOT:
If you're familiar with the original plot, it's pretty cool to see this version. It feels a bit messy in the middle 1/3 of the show. It seems like they're constantly going on irrelevant side quests, but the end does (for the most part) tie everything together. It might feel kind of repetitive and annoying after awhile, but I would power through for the ending. The plot could have been improved, but I think the skeleton of it worked and set up for the real selling point of the drama which was the relationship between XYE and HWQ.

SET/VISUALS:
This was beautifully done! The fight scenes were so cool, I love how they were choreographed, mad props to any newbies to wuxia (HYT). The costumes were never over-the-top but were still incredibly appealing, and this is definitely a good looking cast! The landscape/background/everything was just very aesthetic and beautiful. Nothing looked fake or cheap.

SPOILERS/THOUGHTS BELOW:

If you watched TPT, they did SuYing dirty as hell lmao and the XiaoXianNü in TPT is basically SuYing in HS. They should've introduced SuYing way earlier to make the connection more legitimate. I also felt like HS!TieXinLan was super useless and I really missed Fan Bingbing's version. Even though she lost her wugong pretty early on, she just had more of a personality and was more relevant to the plot.

I also thought the way YaoYue unraveled at the end wasn't super well done? I dunno, it seemed pretty obvious that XYE would pull the trick he pulled at the end, and it seemed OOC for no one to expect that. Also, why would YaoYue not even check for herself to see if XYE was really dead??

I also didn't like the way the drama ended. I wish the last scene was between the two brothers and not with the respective love interests. Oh well! The build-up to the final fight was still very well done imo, I was in soooo much pain LOL

Last fun fact - they have the same actor in TPT for Du Sha, one of the 十大惡人, in this version! Anyways I'll go back to crying about this drama now, thanks for reading