WARNING: major spoilers below

I’m really glad I watched this; it’s definitely one of the better dramas and I can see why people like it so much. It’s not for everyone though, because it’s incredibly conversation heavy - about 70 to 80 percent of what takes place/exposition are conversations between the characters. The rest are action scenes and in one case, a military fight. This is fine with me because I am also a fan of mystery dramas and those are conversation heavy too, but this might not be for everyone.

What I liked:

I think the actor playing the main lead, as well as the entire cast did a great job in portraying their characters. I like the overall story arc as well as the smaller cases in between where they had to get rid of two princes and some corrupt officials one by one before getting to the emperor. I normally don’t like sad endings but this one fit and was satisfactory.

male centricity: This is one of the things that worried me at first. I thought this would be one of those male centric dramas that had mostly male MLs with only a handful of token strong female leads thrown in every now and then, ala Lord of the Rings. Thankfully it wasn’t like that. While there were more male characters, there were also plenty of diverse and strong female characters and they had a lot* of screen time, significantly influenced the plot and in some cases, were just as smart as the main lead.

character relationships: All the characters working with the lead were great and they seemed like one big family (regardless of whether they were related or not) who supported him. The strongest relationships in this drama were the filial ones. The relationship between Mei Chang Su and Fei Liu was like that of a father and son. He also seemed like a father figure to two of his younger friends JinRui and Yujin, who were much younger than him. It also has a strong focus on mother and son relationships such as the ones between the palace consorts and the crown princes- I really liked the relationship between Prince Jingyan and his mother Consort Jing. There is also a bit of romance although it is subtle. Mei Chang Su’s relationship with Nihuang reminded me a lot of Li Mu Bai’s relationship with Yu Shu Lien (Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon), except that they had far more screen time together. It also explores toxic filial relationships such as the relationship between the emperor and his sons.

What I felt undecided about:

Prince Jing. I think the actor did a great job but his role but could be very frustrating at times. He doesn’t have that many scenes until episode thirty something, and there is an entire arc where the ML gets into trouble because of him because he reacts in a way that causes a lot of trouble; this is in spite of everyone telling him otherwise. There were times when all the characters seemed smarter than him, from his foot soldier to even his mother. He is also the last to realize the main lead’s true identity in spite of supposedly being best friends with him and yet so many people, from the war general to the love interest and even (yes) his mother, figures this out earlier on. The good thing is that he redeems himself at the very end* of the drama, so I was glad to see him get a happy ending.

What I didn’t like:

There are some boring episodes…not many, but a few. I personally found the first episode hard to watch and this is the reason it took me awhile to get to this.

There were some events that were incredibly hyped but never shown. There’s one arc where they hype this debate among scholars and the appearance of a master scholar who was so wise he could end the debate…but they never show this debate. You see the master scholar arriving with melodramatic bg music…and then it cuts to after the event where they say he won and all is well now.

There’s also a major battle where they play up Prince Jing’s role as a Gandalf type figure who goes off to get some reinforcements. You don’t see him do anything at all while the rest of the characters are fighting. You get this scene were he is about to challenge his brother to a duel and then it cuts off again. The only good thing about this is that it is princess Nihuang who gets to defeat the enemy general.

Poison of the bitter flame: It’s not the illness I disliked but there is a character who reveals symptoms I found completely unbelievable…if this was a fantasy or xianxia drama it would be acceptable, but it doesn’t work here, IMHO.

I also don’t like ‘the ending’ of one of the female characters; it was too ambiguous and I feel that we deserved to know what happened to her.

Is this drama like Game of Thrones? Overall no, but I can see some similarities in the wide range of diverse characters, scheming/one-upmanship ( the main lead is very good at this) and a kind of fight for the throne, in a way. But NIF is much smaller in scope. It focuses on only one kingdom, getting rid of corruption (it doesn’t really have morally gray characters/views like GOT) and has a slight ‘Count of Monte Cristo’ theme. Also, it doesn’t have magical elements in it. It’s a pretty good drama but it’s its own thing.