As a story goes, it held my interest despite moments of yelling at the screen in frustration and disgust. I liked many of the characters, but many of them died off, and only a few deservedly so.

I read from the reviews that people liked the couple Qing Lan/Jia Ruo and Ye Huo/Ming He, liked their 'love story'. He was really not an evil villain as such, but he did some pretty terrible things. SHE on the other hand, was a selfish, vicious, evil, wicked... well, you get the idea. She was the devil and she made him do all those terrible things. And? They got love and ended up 'together'. Chi Xiao Tai - another selfish, evil bitch - came out smelling like a rose - too sorry too late! And worst of all, the little weasel Shi Ming Yan - not only gets away with her evil deeds but gets rewarded too!

And what's with killing off so many good guys!

The ending was a little odd for me - I kinda knew they were keeping something back, but they could have spent a little more time developing it instead of the long goodbyes and crap.

56 episodes is a long haul, but I kept wanting to go back for more to see what happens next, so it was worth it for me. Have to admit I fast-forwarded through a lot of the fight scenes and some of the scenes with the evil bitches. But the stone-faced ML grew on me (although his selflessness and righteousness kinda got old real fast) and I didn't care for the FL - she just seemed pouty and bullheaded all the time. There was more chemistry between the secondary couples (and there were quite a number of them).

Can I just say for the record - that the best character for me was Nan Chu - and he deserved much, much more than he got for being such a loyal, stand-up guy! But, as I said in the title - mostly the bad guys got it good in the end.