Storyline: The storyline is as expected. I have never read the book so I cannot compare but I have been told the story when I was young and watched other versions. I think I much prefer this one to several others that I have watched.

Cast: Although I am not a big fan of how Li YiTong looks, she played the role of Huang Rong extremely well. Can't comment on her acting skills since I have never watched her in other roles. As for Yang XuWen, I could not tell if it was just his face or he actually played dumb, but he was probably the stupidest looking Guo Jing ever. Initially, I thought that he did exceptionally well playing dumb (almost like a Forrest Gump feel), halfway into the series, I got pretty annoyed by him. Meng ZiYi is pleasant to look at (and I like her in other dramas), but I found her acting as Mu Nianci to be extremely boring. The rest of the cast actually did pretty well, everyone was rather likeable and did a wonderful job portraying their characters. There were some portions that were rather slow and fillers that I wished were excluded, I probably skipped past some.

One of the issues I had with this show is the CGI and the choreography. This is a general description for all the modern wuxia/xianxia TV series', but is blatantly obvious in this one. The fighting choreography can come across as overly exaggerated and it almost seems like the cast members try too hard. I cannot tell if it is an issue with camera, special effects, skills or something entirely different. It just seems a bit unnatural. Otherwise, it was a decent series.

Music: I do not like any of the songs from this series. They are quite terrible. I am also not a big fan of Cantonese which made some of the songs unbearable. I skipped past every song in this show and I watched it in Mandarin.

Conclusion: If you're going to do the series/trilogy, I would recommend this version over the others.