Incredible ML, amazing CP, gorgeous costumes & sets, flawed story

The good:
- ZYW is absolutely perfect for General Xiao Qi. He has ruined me for all future MLs. He brings understated maturity, power and depth to the character. Can’t wait to see how his story ends.
-ZZY does great work, forget about what age she’s playing. She is very well cast for Awu’s role, great nuance in her character torn between love to her husband and loyalty to her royal family.
- Gorgeous costumes, sets, cinematography. You can tell they had a lot of cash. It’s been while since I’ve seen such high production values.
- Music is really good, you can tell they got some big name musicians.
- secondary characters also well cast: Awu’s father, 3 princes, empress, all soldiers. They do the best they can with their story arcs.
- the last act of the series (ep 50 onward) story really kicks it up a notch. Enjoy the ride!

The bad:
- Court politics are usually interesting but too draggy. Many things are repeated multiple times by and to different characters.
- some actions are laughable and major characters are not growing too much
- even though it makes sense for the story but we get way too little CP time, the romance is actually super scaled back. Not sure if that was due to cuts (series was cut from 80 ep to 68 ep)

Overall, worth a watch for the fantastic General/Prince Xiao Qi (ZYW) and ZZY, they did an excellent job.

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