Now I'm just waiting for the writers to come out and tell us it was just a December Fool joke and that they've got an alternative episode where Hao Ting and Xi Gu get the ending they truly deserved
I can't get myself to watch the last episode and I think I will never be able to. For me it ended in episode 9. My heart can't take all the emotions invested in the characters over the past few weeks only to become shattered.
I couldn't agree more with your article. As a die-hard fan of the HYD franchise I can say that despite the story basics being the same in all the versions, each one of them gave me a different feel. And that's what I like, every time I watched another version, it was like rediscovering the story all over again. It's amazing how little details on the plot or even the acting can affect the perspective of the viewer. For example, I couldn't stand Jan Di, I loved Makino and for instances I could sympathize with Shancai's indecisiveness
In my opinion, all of them are great actors, but if I had to choose, I would say Yong Hwa stands out more. He managed to portrait excellent characters making them believable and he always succeeded in catching the viewers attention.