this is my first wuxia drama so there was some stuff that i didn't understand and it took me 6-7 episodes to get used to everything... so i might not have enjoyed it as much as people who like this genre enjoyed this drama as i was confused with some things that happened... i also know that this is based on a BL book and i haven't read those books so my perception of characters might be entirely different from those who are a fan of the books... books give more insight towards each character than dramas...

the overall story was very good and i didn't feel that it dragged anywhere even though it was 50 episodes... but even though i was very invested in the story i wasn't emotionally invested in any of the characters... when major characters were killed off i didn't feel anything and i just wanted to know what's gonna happen next in the story...
the overall flashback story reminded me of empress ki( as in everyone was united to bring down the big bad guy but after that, they started fighting among themselves)... i guess one of the reasons why i never got emotionally invested in any characters is because of the acting of most of the cast... even with the main 2 guys i really liked wei wuxian's acting but lan wangji was literally having single to no expression for 50 long episodes... the actor playing wwx has an expressive face and he seems to naturally have a very mischievous look which went perfectly with the character as well... so he was very believable as wwx who does what he believes in rather than what others believe in... but lwj looked like a robot in the majority of the scenes... i know he is like this cold guy who rarely shows any emotions but bad acting or lack of acting was clearly visible... there are lots of asian dramas with characters like him and there are some actors who made those characters look real rather than a robot...
when i read the synopsis i thought the drama is about wwx and lwj but for me, it felt like an overall wwx show... even the name untamed seems to be based on his character... at some point, i felt even jiang cheng and wen ning had a more important part than lwj...

for me, some aspects of the drama were very well done but other aspects were average like the vfx and sets were amazing but the makeup was bad... i dont get how they can master in vfx but screwup with the makeup... some characters had so much foundation on their face that they looked more like the ghost general than wen ning did...
Jin Guang Yao and xue yang were perfect as the evil ones.. their smile in every situation literally got on my nerves and as villains, it was a good thing but since they looked so irritating to me i didn't feel anything towards their sad past and was more than happy when they died... none of their justification for how they turned out made me sympathetic towards their tragic past... they were too villainous to have any sympathy towards them... they were the same as the head of wen clan and his son who were simply bad guys and power-hungry... i hated all of them the same way...

one of my major issues with the drama is the lack of female characters... there were only 3 female characters that held some kind of importance and 2 of them died.. i was really impressed by how mianmian stood up in the court for wwx against all those powerful people who badmouthed wwx and thought she might play a major role in the rest of the story but after that scene, she just simply vanished and came for just one scene which didn't have any importance to the main story... yanli even though had a very strong bond with jiang chang and wwx, outside of that she is quite a weak character... all she did was cook soup for the guys and get bullied by jin zixuan only to end up marrying him... why wasnt she involved in the cultivation when there were clearly women who did it? she went to lwj's home with jc and wwx to attend a seminar but she was never shown to attend the classes... did she just go there to make soup for the guys and get insulted by jzu? the only female character with some kind of talent as well as importance was wen qing but she was killed off and even her death was just brushed off... wwx was shown to atleast remember yanli but wen ning seems to have completely fogotten about his sister whose entire life revolved around him... atleast she could have been kept as an important character till the end... also none of the head of the clan were shown to be women.. if 1000 yrs ago lan clan can have a woman head why were no woman clan head 1000 yrs later? at least just for the namesake, they could have shown a woman heading any of the minor clan or at least show mianmian creating her own clan and leading it successfully...

i really liked some scenes and the last 4-5 episodes were literally perfect... i loved the conversation b/w wwx and the rest of the clans before he died 16 yrs ago... his counterattacks on all the allegations on him were very powerful... that scene literally showed why he is superior and why the rest of them hated him even though they knew whatever he said is right... i also love the bond b/w jc, yanli and wwx... i personally liked the brotherhood b/w jc and wwx more than the bromance/romance b/w wwx and lwj... the only scene in the entire 50 episodes i got emotional was the final confrontation b/w jc and wwx inside the temple...
i also liked how nie huai sang manipulated everything and put an end to jgy.. he literally used jgy ways to end him... even if he used manipulative ways to end jgy i didnt mind it because he and his brother genuinely loved and respected jgy at one point of time but jgy used that to get ahead, the relationship b/w wwx and wen siblings...

i also liked how subtle they played the bromance/romance b/w wwx and lwj... if people want to see it as a friendship then its friendship but if they want to see it as a romance then its romance... as viewers we can interpret it the way we want to...

except for some bad acting and lack of emotional connection towards characters as a viewer, i really liked the overall story and wwx is one of my favorite characters of all times but i dont think i will rewatch this drama... maybe i will watch some scenes i really liked but i am not sure if i will rewatch the entire drama...