*My review contains a minor spoiler within the third paragraph, indicated with "**[]"

I really enjoyed what "The Long Ballad" had to give. I originally started watching this drama out of my interest in seeing Dilraba on the screen again, and it didn't disappoint.

The story is what I felt, well-thought out. We see Li Changge as a strong female lead but she believes that she has the right idea about everything until she later finds out she has much to learn and much to see. I really liked seeing the female lead progress from the beginning until the end. You can clearly see Changge's mindset change from being bent on revenge to wanting to defend her country with a strong sense of justice despite the wrongs she felt. I enjoyed watching her build bonds and allies with so many different people around her. We are used to seeing men at the roundtable where war is concerned, but this time there are so many people who put their trust and faith in Changge. It was refreshing to experience.

One of the characters that I have to speak about out of admiration is Li Le Yan (Zhao Lu Si). I loved seeing her character progress from a weak and timid princess into a brave and caring princess that's willing to go out on a limb for her people. She also managed to impress me because I loved that despite her father's admiration of Changge and despite her **[crushes' feelings for Changge], she never let it get in the way of the sisterhood she had with Changge. Usually we see characters with these bent up emotions of envy for their family but we never see that with Li Le Yan, which I was very thankful for.

The chemistry between Li Changge and Ashile Sun, I felt within my soul lol. I really enjoyed seeing them on screen together. The only thing I wish is that the show would've had more romantic/affectionate scenes between the two. When I watch historicals with tags of romance, I'm always looking forward to the romance, so I was disappointed that there wasn't much of that in this drama as far as the main leads were concerned. However, if you are like me and you love romance but also like historicals, there is enough action and plot to keep you interested in other things. There's so much so that sometimes I didn't even mind if our main leads weren't on the screen. So trust me when I say that this drama is well worth the watch and it has become one of my personal favorite historicals.

Another thing that I must mention is that I wasn't too impressed or interested in the random scenes of the manhua that would frequently pop up within the drama. Thankfully there wasn't so much scenes with manhua backdrops behind our actors, but I could've done without it altogether. It made me laugh in moments that I'm sure were meant to be serious because of how there'd be an actor yelling out commands during a pivotal screen but then a cartoonish manhua panel behind him.

The music I also enjoyed listening to. I knew once I heard the song playing in the opening of the drama in episode one that I was going to thoroughly enjoy watching this, and I did. <3

The long ballad is what it's titled, long. However, I didn't feel like there were filler episodes or unnecessary scenes that were dragging the story along. I didn't skip around when watching this drama because I was interested in what the characters were going to do. This drama strategically adds new characters, it doesn't do so for no reason, so I would keep that in mind when watching through this drama.

I'm a person that doesn't really like sad dramas if I can help it and although there are many heartbreaking scenes in the Long Ballad, I will never regret watching this drama. It made me laugh, it made me cry but more importantly it made me smile. I highly recommend.