Best Costume Drama of 2023

Things to like

- As an original piece there's no spoilers, or petty arguments as to whether it's true to the original, the plot line is well paced and the character development sound.
- Liu ShiShi has improved so much, thought it might just be rose tinted specs so actually re-watched brotherhood of blades and yup definitely a better actress than she was!
- The fight scenes, OK non of them are Jet Li but the fight choreographer did a stellar job translating the character's role into their fighting style, e.g. Ren Ru Yi is an assassin so she goes for precise cuts and slashes to the throat/head, thought has gone into this and makes it more immersive.
- No padding, so many dramas today are filled with silly flashbacks and musical interludes, so far the musical segments are there to help convey a scene's emotion and the flashbacks are part of the story rather than just re-editing old scenes to stretch things out. In fact there are so many details on screen and in dialog went back and re-watched the whole thing whilst waiting for episodes 19 and 20.
- Liu Yuning's commitment, he's not the best actor in the world by a long shot but you can see the effort he's put into this production, it's not like he's phoning it in (looking at you Ren Jia Lun!), don't really get the hate he's receiving. Shisan is the pretty boy in this drama and LYN's character is the leader of the hell path of a paramilitary organisation what do people expect some one like that to look like? if anything Liu ShiShi is way too pretty to play a crimson guard left envoy (that is until you see the fight scenes then it all becomes believable again!)
- Cinematography, its a 40 episode web/TV production rather than a movie so the budget only goes so far but a few green screen scenes aside it looks good.

Things I didn't like

- The silly sound effects acompanying the comedic moments

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