It was good, almost great show. It could have been better. The beginning built an interesting premise and the flow was great in the first couples episodes. There no slow moments. But then around episode 10ish (it could be before) the flow became “stop and go”, the plot kept on pausing for “personal drama” and unnecessary backstory. I found myself passing forward all the forced “sweet” moments between the two main couple because I just want to continue with the main plot. I admitted I pass forward all the scene with Liu Ran, her family and her with Baili Hong’s love story. It was somewhat fun in the beginning but got trophies and didn’t being anything to overall plot line. At the end, I especially didn’t like her brother and his obsessive love story, so I passed forward when he came into the scene.

What I think was great the overall was the storyline and the production value, you can see they put a lot money into this with just the first episode alone. However, I feel the story could have being told in 24-30 episodes. I haven’t read the book, but my gut feeling said that scriptwriter add more to expend the story, like the love stories or Lui Ran’s family story ( hey, I could be wrong).

The acting was great that no one stand out, they put their characters first and the audience can focus on the plot. However, also I admitted I did pass for some of Gao Bing Zhu’s “self-pity” moments scene after the first or two scene with the graveyard… I got… he is “tragic”, “lone wolf” character. Again, thing could been edit out for a shorter drama. All characters had their annoying moments and there were no CP that I would chased. However, I did liked all the cool female characters that were well written, there no weak female characters (even Lui Ran).

The thing i didn’t like or was annoying is the BMG. At some points, I couldn’t really hear the actors dialogue over the BMG. Also the fade out to black at “life and death” moments and closeup to actor reaction expressions, but I have to give it to the director….he trained you to expect that those “fade out to black” moment will always end well and the characters are going to be save till he change it, which lead to ending…it could have end better. The last thing, which is basically the last episode…a long ass grand speech. There were so many grand monologue thought out the drama, it seem all the characters got have a grand defining speech-Here let me tell you my plan…why I did the that….my life story…There were so many “the bad guy explaining his plan while Jame Bond is tired under the laser beam” monologue. The bad guys did, the good guys did…the whole of the episode 39 was just that one speech after another. It like the director and screenwriter decide like do the reverse of all show and drama…started the show with an episode with all action without any breathing room and the last episode, where they just talk. Expecting a epic battle…nope I give a monologue.

Overall, it was a good to great show to end 2021 with, on personal note. I started the year with a Yibo show – legend of fei, which was a bad show that I forced myself to finish to end with the year with another Yibo show that was good in production and script that legend of Fei failed in.