Positives:
-Choreography is excellent. There are some dizzying camera movements at times but it should be among the best in chinese drama of the last decade. Among recommended fighting episodes are 4, 9, 17, 18, 21, 22, 37, 38, 39 and many more. The choreographer deserves recognition, I only know that the action group is led by Director Cao Hua.
-Nice cinematography and clever use of light and shadows at certain scenes to produce a beautiful picture.
-Thoughtful costumes and art direction. It does look like Qing dynasty(except some anti Qing characters)
-Carefully applied BGM, the music are nicely done. OST are decent.
-All actors can act, and credit goes to where its due it's so hard to film an martial arts action drama in the hot Hengdian summer
-Most of the main actors are using their original voice

Negatives:
-Script. The main line is nicely written and follow the basis of novel but it is flat to me and did not arouse much emotion. The sub lines are either too modified to be irritating or too extended and boring.
-Too many characters and sub lines making the story moves slowly and disjointed, some sub lines such as Nan Lan and Tian Gui Nong and Fu Kangan and Ma Chunhua could be made more compact without those slow flirting scenes or too much emphasis on those palace characters.
-This drama has no promotion, all the budget are said to be spend on production that they can't hire a good marketing team. What a waste for a rare recent wuxia with proper fighting sequence.

Others:
Despite my complains about their script, other than the wuxia, I especially enjoyed characters such Miao Renfeng and Cheng Lingsu that is brought to life by Lin Yushen and Xing Fei.
-Miao Renfeng - This Miao Renfeng is a bit different from the novel and has been met with some criticisms from novel fans because of this, but he stands out in every scene despite having limited air time. Lin Yushen should make more wuxia, all his fighting scenes look neat and agile, and he excels at subtle emotional scenes. He can be charismatic in a modern character such as Dating in The Kitchen, but when he's in a wuxia drama as a tragic hero with a sword, the charisma is multiplied by 10.
-Cheng Lingsu - Xing Fei managed to grab a very good character this time and she executes it in a lovely way. I can't find anything to dislike about Cheng Lingsu, and her crying and emotional scenes are effortlessly natural. That's it, she's playing Cheng Lingsu very naturally. She's growing on me as an actress for sure.

All in all, it's a rare decently produced wuxia drama in the past decade, but its not without obvious disadvantages.