I just finished watching the series and could not wait to share with you my thoughts.

First I will start with what I do not like about the drama.

Under the power comprises four genres: mystery, romance, historical and palace politics. The producers wanted to focus on too many themes at once and therefore failed to do most of them justice.
The genre that was extremely well-adapted is romance. The remaining three can be pretty much ignored. Though this drama supposed to be set in the Ming Dynasty, it does not have any correct historical representations in there. It even had some fantasy elements: such as a mystical deer or wind chimes that create 4D illusions. In terms of mystery, most cases are unrealistic and quite silly sometimes. I found out that the scriptwriters came up with some original cases that were not in the original novel but - I mean really, a ghost ship?! How many Pirates of the Carribean movies did the makers watch? Or crazy cavemen who attack people based on their smells... And finally, the palace politics: the villain family Yan had trust from the emperor and supporters in the palace. The way the main characters/family Lu are trying to bring the family Yan down is rather predictable and nothing spectacular. The emperor was a puppet who had little own thoughts. It was a bit anti-climax at the end as the last "fight" between Yan and family Lu was kind of off-screen.

Also, many supporting characters could have been written better: Xie Xiao (male lead 2), Yang Yue (best friend of female lead) and Shang Guan Xi (female lead 2). Their characters are just not at all convincing in terms of behavior. Xie Xiao seems to be a joke and was only installed to make the main male lead looking better (though that was no need, cause he was outstanding on his own). Yang Yue's character just is way too into Shang Guan Xi so that he is willing to risk his own life multiple times though Shan Guan Xi does not care for him at all the entire time. Her love for Xie Xiao is also not convincing and does not fit her character. Though the actors themselves have done a pretty decent job it was just hard to care about their fate due to their unrealistic behavior.

Finally, the CG was pretty poor. You clearly can notice the CG part vs. the real part. Esp. the water and ship scenes were full of CG and looked just laughable. I will just blame this to the the production’s little budget. But if the production knows that the budget was little, why did they opt to produce so many water scenes?

Already early on, I started to fast forward most scenes about 1.25x or 1.5x except for the romantic scenes between the main leads and the few last episodes. With a total of 55 episodes, I would recommend you to watch to the end, fast-forward it is the best way to save some time but not to miss the overarching plot.

Now the reason why I actually really like this drama: the romance and acting. I have been always the opinion that no one can produce better romance dramas besides the Korean. But I was mistaken. I was literally blown away by the sweetness of the two main leads.
Lu Yi, son of the commander of the emperor's guard organization Jing Yi Wei, appears to be authoritarian, strong, self-focused, cold-blood at the start. Throughout the drama, he started to develop feelings for Jin Xia, the police girl who became his subordinate. Slowly one begins to see the caring, empathetic, righteous and even cute side of him (esp. when he gets jealous). Allen Ren depicts Lu Yi most perfectly, esp. impressive is that he is able to keep the serious face of Lu Yi but at the same act out all the emotions with eye glances and small facial expressions. If you are like me, you will melt into his glances and fall helplessly for him. However, later into the drama, you will realize that someone like him does not exist in the real world. :) A shout needs to made to the voice actor Zhang Jie, who made Lu Yi more manly and therefore irresistible. With Allen Ren's original voice, the character would have appeared less mature.
The female lead actress Tan Songyun is so far the best young female actress I have seen in all Chinese drama land - though I haven't watched this many Chinese dramas I have seen the work of many top-rated Chinese actresses. Tan Song Yun really impressed me with her natural acting. Jin Xia is a very likable character: boyish, righteous, strong-willed, smart and cute. Song Yun does a tremendous job of becoming one with Jin Xia so that she makes the audience feeling hurt, happy, anxious, angry and loved... And isn't this what marks an excellent actor?

The chemistry between Allen Ren and her is excellent. The two leads soon overcame their prejudices and started to express signs of likings of each other, therefore, the audience is able to enjoy sugar-coated scenes already early in the drama. And of course, some scenes are beautifully heartbreaking as well. This is quite different than most romantic Korean dramas, in which the writers almost abuse the leads throughout the drama and only "allowed them to become happy" towards the end, which is often too suffocating for the audience. Thus the balance between romance and heartache is just right. I have started making a list of my favorite romantic scenes of this drama - it came down to almost 40 of them!
In the beginning, you might need to get used to the fact that whenever there is a romantic scene, it goes into slow-motion and the title song will play as BGM. Also, there will be quiet a few playbacks as well. However, because the romantic scenes of the drama are really sweet, all these will not bother you. In fact, you end up winding back and watching the scenes again.
A big shout to the supporting character Lan Dao Heng, played by Han Cheng Yu and the antagonist Yan Shi Fan, played by Han Dong. They have done a fantastic job playing the roles. Though Yan Shi Fan was the evilest person you can imagine, you somehow have felt empathy towards him.

Finally, the costumes are really gorgeous and the songs are very beautiful. The ending song is sung by Allen Ren himself. I will be looking forward to seeing him performing on stage with this song.

All in all, I was amazed by myself how much I enjoyed this drama. Despite its many shortcomings in terms of the story I still very much recommend this drama if you like romance.