Don't read the book of Qian Yu Nian, it isn't as good as the drama. Zhang Ruo Yun is an excellent pick for Fan Xian, he's amazing for the role. He's intelligent, witty, smart, loyal, loves beautiful women. He's the master of poison, medical, strategics, fight, ambassador (man, he's good in argument and making deals) he has nothing that he is not good at, picture of a perfect gentleman and example of the best scholar in the whole kingdom. I love every characters; Fan Xian, Fei Jie, Fan RuoRuo, Fan Si Zhe, Chen PingPing, the emperor Qing, Gao Da, Wang QiNian, Feng Jie, Haitang DuoDuo, Si Lili, Yan BingYun, Yan XiaoYi, Shen Zhong just to name a few. Unfortunately, I don't really like Lin Wan'Er, she's the weakest character that seems like to hold Fan Xian back, and I don't think she's the perfect girl to be his bride/the love of his life. My personal opinion, Haitang Duoduo is more up to Fan Xian's standard although in the book they'd have an affair together but not end to marriage (Wtf..) my lovable character was Wang QiNian and Gao Da...I want them to have more air time. Fighting scene was close to real, we can see Fan Xian being thrown and hays/dust/dirt all over him, we can also see Zhang Ruo Yun got sun burned at rock forest (fight scene) which looked so real. I love it when he recited 1000 poems in front of people (iconic scene - won the title as a poetry God), poisoned Haitang Duoduo with love poison, he climbed on to of moving buggy to challenge every men in Qi's kingdom. Fan Xian shone when he representing his country to Northern Qi. laid strategy to one step ahead of Shen Zhong. Yan Bing Yun (Xiao Zhan) was a skinny lad...in the book he'll be a trusty right hand of Fan Xian but I don't know about the drama, he stabbed him at the end. I was like...wth??? Come on....I want a better ending than this. Looking forward for Season 2 soon (NTBA) and season 3 (NTBA) to finish up trilogy. Faster please....