Jess4163
The lovable cast and their chemistry as well as the Yi City arc saved this drama for me!
This drama's overall worth watching, but you need to adjust expectations. I suspect the reason it's so highly regarded is because of its efforts to adhere to the BL elements, cast chemistry (despite relatively poor acting from many, they all fit their character counterparts and shared great chemistry with one another), and overall faithfulness to the main story beats in the novel.
However, this drama is plagued with major problems in its storytelling and overall production (aside from its low budget). There's a good story somewhere in there due to the source material (I later read half of the book in Chinese and it made a lot more sense than it did in the drama), but the drama has the worst production I've ever seen and fails to properly tell the story. Everything the drama changes due to censorship is not well thought out, but they're too lazy to work on the script more and just assume people have read the book.
For example, in the novel, the past was told in a series of short flashbacks and was the least interesting part. But for some reason, the drama creators decided to devote around 30 episodes to the past when there really wasn't enough novel material to warrant all that time wasted. This resulted in padded filler (they actually made up a storyline that ended up being a complete waste of time) and slow pacing for the first 30+ episodes. The drama only started getting good around the Yi City arc, which was when it started focusing on the current timeline.
Even then, the drama's storytelling was often confusing without prior knowledge of the novel. I was lucky enough to have my sister by my side to explain some of the main story beats because the drama did a piss poor job of telling it using the camera. There were some weirdly shot sequences that left me utterly confounded about what the director was trying to tell me. This confusion was all cleared up by the novel, which was well-written and completely believable. Lol, the novel author's a much better storyteller than the drama crew.
The editing and camerawork is also very shoddy and amateurish. There are many awkwardly filmed sequences where they cut off character's heads or the camera angle's not quite right. But all this gets a free pass just because many people are in love with the cast/chemistry btw characters.
The best rating I can give this drama is an 8/10 and that's only because I fell in love with the Yi City arc (loved the relationship between two characters) and I also loved the sibling chemistry btw the ML and his brother (I actually found them to have the spark and angst that's missing from the lead couple -this is largely due to censorship preventing the leads' romance from having central focus).
In addition, I adored the younger generation disciples and all of their interactions with the leads. But I can't give this drama a 9 or 10 when almost everything aside from cast chemistry/music and some well-done sequences are all executed poorly.
Honestly, even an 8/10 is generous, but that's my biased rating and I admit to it freely, lol. The cast chemistry and relationships are what ultimately save this drama for me. This is the main area where I give credit to the production crew. I don't credit them for the ambitious plot because that came from the novel and they weren't even particularly skilled at telling it, lol. In fact, many story changes they made only served to confuse the viewer and some, like the Yin metal storyline, were a complete waste of time.
It's certainly not a masterpiece like "Nirvana in Fire" and it's not just the censorship holding it back either since the entire drama's replete with numerous craftmanship flaws that has nothing to do with censorship. Censorship certainly doesn't excuse shoddy storytelling (ex: the romance btw the ML's sister and another character was poorly done/inconsistent whereas it made complete sense in the book), crappy editing, and amateurish camerawork.
So overall, this drama is worth watching if you can forgive the amateurish production and manage to connect and fall in love with its many lovable characters. But do prepare yourself to be patient for the first 30+ episodes (some got into it after the first 15 or so terrible episodes, but I didn't fall in love until the Yi City arc).
However, this drama is plagued with major problems in its storytelling and overall production (aside from its low budget). There's a good story somewhere in there due to the source material (I later read half of the book in Chinese and it made a lot more sense than it did in the drama), but the drama has the worst production I've ever seen and fails to properly tell the story. Everything the drama changes due to censorship is not well thought out, but they're too lazy to work on the script more and just assume people have read the book.
For example, in the novel, the past was told in a series of short flashbacks and was the least interesting part. But for some reason, the drama creators decided to devote around 30 episodes to the past when there really wasn't enough novel material to warrant all that time wasted. This resulted in padded filler (they actually made up a storyline that ended up being a complete waste of time) and slow pacing for the first 30+ episodes. The drama only started getting good around the Yi City arc, which was when it started focusing on the current timeline.
Even then, the drama's storytelling was often confusing without prior knowledge of the novel. I was lucky enough to have my sister by my side to explain some of the main story beats because the drama did a piss poor job of telling it using the camera. There were some weirdly shot sequences that left me utterly confounded about what the director was trying to tell me. This confusion was all cleared up by the novel, which was well-written and completely believable. Lol, the novel author's a much better storyteller than the drama crew.
The editing and camerawork is also very shoddy and amateurish. There are many awkwardly filmed sequences where they cut off character's heads or the camera angle's not quite right. But all this gets a free pass just because many people are in love with the cast/chemistry btw characters.
The best rating I can give this drama is an 8/10 and that's only because I fell in love with the Yi City arc (loved the relationship between two characters) and I also loved the sibling chemistry btw the ML and his brother (I actually found them to have the spark and angst that's missing from the lead couple -this is largely due to censorship preventing the leads' romance from having central focus).
In addition, I adored the younger generation disciples and all of their interactions with the leads. But I can't give this drama a 9 or 10 when almost everything aside from cast chemistry/music and some well-done sequences are all executed poorly.
Honestly, even an 8/10 is generous, but that's my biased rating and I admit to it freely, lol. The cast chemistry and relationships are what ultimately save this drama for me. This is the main area where I give credit to the production crew. I don't credit them for the ambitious plot because that came from the novel and they weren't even particularly skilled at telling it, lol. In fact, many story changes they made only served to confuse the viewer and some, like the Yin metal storyline, were a complete waste of time.
It's certainly not a masterpiece like "Nirvana in Fire" and it's not just the censorship holding it back either since the entire drama's replete with numerous craftmanship flaws that has nothing to do with censorship. Censorship certainly doesn't excuse shoddy storytelling (ex: the romance btw the ML's sister and another character was poorly done/inconsistent whereas it made complete sense in the book), crappy editing, and amateurish camerawork.
So overall, this drama is worth watching if you can forgive the amateurish production and manage to connect and fall in love with its many lovable characters. But do prepare yourself to be patient for the first 30+ episodes (some got into it after the first 15 or so terrible episodes, but I didn't fall in love until the Yi City arc).
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