Competent characters and engaging story

This might actually be the first drama after The Untamed that impressed me with a full cast of actors who're not only all skilled but completely fitting for their roles.

Shen Yurong was a standout for me in terms of character writing, my faith in him slowly eroded along with the XFF's, which I thought was really well done. As for the other characters, they are all quite tropey but definitely executed extremely well.

On to the plot, this is pretty much THE plot that most of these historical female lead centric dramas have. Again, nothing surprising here but is done extremely well. For a person who is faking her identity, the show really gave XFF a run for her money more than any of the other similar shows I've watched. e.g. Her family harped on her changed personality even though I thought suffering a decade of abuse can pretty understandably change a person.

Out of all the pairings I've seen with this kind of main couple dynamic, this is by far the healthiest and most respectful variation. When they are still just acquaintances, Xiao Heng doesn't keep an eye on XFF all the time because he's smitten (which would be...uncomfortable), but rather because she's (1) extremely suspicious (2) very competent at dealing with their common enemies. XFF generally knows what's going on when XH uses her for his plans, and either goes along with it for her own reasons or calls him out on it. Other than the fact that XFF can't fight, she perfectly capable of handling herself most of the time and stays that way, unlike in some shows where the female lead's intelligence decreases as the male lead becomes reliable.

Minor gripe about the ending (just the last two scenes of the final episode: neither realistic nor particularly happy....what's the plan here?) which pulled the score down from a perfect 10. But do give it a watch. The show ended such that you can chop off the offending last section and still have a fulfilling ending.

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A good watch but dwindles near the end

Satisfying character arcs, amazing acting, no complaints here except the ending, more on that later.

Special shoutout to the princess for an absolutely fantastic character and writing. It's difficult to have an actress that portrays a shy, cowardly character that gains charisma but she DELIVERS.

More things I liked:
- I love Ren Xin's whole aesthetic. Very satisfying to watch her fight.
- I like how Ren Xin's...problematic obsession with having a child is part of her trauma that she works through because ngl watching her force herself on NYZ was not comfortable. Thank god that wasn't just part of her 'strong and fierce' personality..
- I like the whole cast of NYZ and friends. Very wholesome.

Complaints (mainly the ending)
- Li Tong Guang's Ren Xin obsession: honestly not a badly written setup, but I hated that it was an actual ROMANTIC obsession. I hate mentor-student couples by default, and watching LTG try to force someone he supposedly respects to marry him is just so many levels of gross. This isn't necessarily bad as an antagonist, but a 'reformed' LTG is written to have a father-son dynamic with NYZ, Ren Xin's actual lover, as if his attempt to force a marriage was just a child's tantrum that his new father figure has to talk him out of. Ew....
- NYZ's friends dropping like flies. Some of the deaths were valid for the plot and themes, I guess. But...come on, make all of their deaths count, please, because at some point it's just a nebulous blend of 'all is lost' created to drum up emotions for the finale.
- Ren Xin just stops doing much in the last quarter of the show after her huge arc with the scarlet guards is over. This is very valid, since she has been injured and re-injured without proper healing in between, but it becomes kind of meh with her taken out.
- Much of the show is built on both strategising and also existential conversations so I was disappointed to see them thinking screw it and just winging it after enough of their friends gets killed.
- Strange ending scene? what is going on there?

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Amazing drama, engaging plot and great characters

Characters are constantly evolving and circumstances that befall them are shown to have an organic impact on their worldviews. Both characters are written with clear flaws and shows convincing growth throughout the drama. The drama allows the two main leads to develop from enemies to friends to lovers, instead of prematurely planting in 'romantic' scenes right after they were forced together by a series of coincidences. The narrative is not afraid to truly challenge the characters, and it is rewarding to see them persevere even as the odds are stacked against them.

Side characters such as the Emperor and the main character's servant are also written to be realistic human beings instead of caricatures, and the narrative ensures that no character is left with just the bare minimum.

On the diversity front, the drama does well in showing a variety of female characters who excels in various traditionally masculine roles.

Plot is pretty enjoyable. Not sure whether it's really realistic on the historical front, but in my opinion there's no significant plot holes that destroys the viewing experience. Interpersonal conflicts are motivated by real differences in perspectives or unfortunate circumstances forcing people's hand, instead of people being idiots. The main villain is nothing too special but he's executed rather well.

I feel like the drama kind of stalls near the end. The main leads developed the habit of long conversations into the night, which gets boring quick but unfortunately contains vital information. Some of the development becomes...contrived. But it's not too bad, and by this time everything that's good about the drama has more than convinced me to watch to the end.

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Well written mystery drama

I'm surprised this isn't rated much higher because it is solidly written. This is one of those 'supernatural incidents turns out to have human causes' mystery dramas. Those dramas tend to have endings that seem pretty anti climatic but this drama gives its mysteries really satisfying endings. It's a nice balance between character driven and logic driven. Definitely one of the best mystery dramas I've watched in a while.

The drama's also segmented into separate mysteries with the same few main characters carrying throughout the plot. I really like this because I hated sitting through 40-eps of constant build up, but also didn't like watching short dramas. This is like the best of both worlds.

Onto the acting: this is I think some of the most natural and organic acting I've seen across the board. However some of the characters seem a bit dull. Lu Ling Feng is the serious righteous guy and Su Wu Ming the chill guy who always seems like he sees two steps ahead, so they're both kind of boring to listen to in their own way. I wish they had a bit more flair like other detective characters I've watched since we need to see them talk *a lot*. SWM especially gets long long speeches and has a much slower speaking speed than I'm used to and I sometimes feel tempted to put him at 1.5x speed. There's nothing wrong with them as characters: like..they portray realistic human beings, often much better than other shows I've seen, but I don't think they are interesting enough to carry such a dialogue heavy drama. However the comments I've seen elsewhere showed that this is a pretty unpopular opinion, and people especially loved to watch SWM.

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Worth a watch

*Cinematography*:
Spectacular rich, sombre set design. This is the thing I loved most about GJM's works, whatever other criticisms I have for his directing. If you're kind of not into the light airy colours lots of period dramas use and loved the dark tones of My Journey to You's aesthetic, then this is for you. Colours aside, GJM seems to really know what kind of shots and scenes he's going for. Nothing is tonally out of place. Everything could be a wallpaper. I'm not kidding when I say this drama is worth a watch based on cinematography alone.

*Music*: absolutely amazing, almost every song is playlist-worthy. Liu yuning's been deployed once again and producing masterpieces as usual.

*Story*:
Well right off the bat the casting is amazing. You won't EVER catch an actor slipping in their acting, not even when they're the background of a shot. If they act off, it's because their character is up to something. That's how good they are.

As for the actual writing, it's too early to judge them on character arcs yet. What I'll say is that these characters are written as organic human beings with understandable motivations. So no awkward dialogue, caricatures, etc. On the other hand, the 'elite team' that the main cast is supposed to be feature some people who just. can't. fight. So you need to stretch your imagination a bit there. The good of this is that the show generally lets every character be useful, even if you're sometimes left to wonder if they should be running around fighting demons at all.

Thematically, the show does a great job giving it's antagonists understandable philosophical perspectives that conflict with the heroes'. However, it does 'cop-out' too many times by giving them convenient resolutions instead of letting the clash of ideas run its course. So while the heroes have been challenges ideologically pretty much every arc, they've not changed much. Another thing is, while the show is very good at show not telling for establishing personalities, lore, backstories, you name it, it kind of drops the ball on thematic content and prefers to deliver them through long, rambling monologues copiously inserted between climactic fight scenes.

Some very minor points: this show delivers it's lore in bits and pieces (no intro infodump here). This can be fun or confusing depending on how you see it. Next, I really like how demon characters get demon names. Like not titles but mythological names. It isn't something I see often and suits them way more than 'The ___ king of demons'.

Also, even though the plot is technically 'investigations' of demon crimes, it's not really a crime solving show so don't go into it with that expectation. It has the crime show aesthetic of morbid atmosphere and corpses and running into creepy places, but it delivers them to the bad guy's lair without much piecing together clues because that's not what this show is about. Most twists (and there are plenty) are delivered via dialogue, not figured out by the main 'detectives'.

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A cliched and irritating mess

Right off the bat, a stark age gap between the two leads. Keyi could well be the general's daughter. This isn't helped by how childish and naive she is. She doesn't know shit about the world, which, fair enough given her background and everything, but leads to some very iffy dynamic with her much older lover. Sometimes I feel like he's mentoring her, being a father figure she never had. Which is wholesome until you realised THEIR ACTUAL RELATIONSHIP.

Because of the shit imposed on them by the schemes of various villains, there's some very uncomfortable stuff. Like the male lead treating her like absolute shit at the beginning, or trapping her in her room at some point to prevent her from running off. There's legitimate circumstantial reasons for this, but I'm not a fan of how controlling he is. (It only worsens the age dynamic.)

Seriously, if every romantic drama director wants to get their hands on the trendy jaded brooding man x bright optimistic woman troupe. They need to understand that optimistic =/= naive and quit it with the age gap.

Unlike most female leads who are at least shown to be clever and...uh..feisty, I guess, but not this time. Keyi doesn't blame her husband at all and never fights back. This is both baffling and annoying, as it makes her suffering essentially pointless. Writers, can you make your female lead an actual human being and not just a vessel for our frustration and catharsis?

Like...the premise is that Keyi is tasked (under threat) to steal her husband's token. So she needs to get close to him. A whole lot of episodes is just Keyi sucking up to the guy while he treats her like shit, including making her kneel in the rain until it stopped for no good reason. What. The. Fuck.

There is also a female spy character who is there All. The. Time. She screws up every mission she's given. (It's not really an issue with her, it's just that the male lead is all powerful until the plot needs him to get hurt, so if he's your target, you're gonna fail everytime.) Problem is, she is arrogant as hell and completely confident in herself. Loud, boastful, talkative, rude, even when she has to date accomplished nothing than kill a few civilians that she isn't even after.

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Frustrating to watch

I liked the premise and thought the identity change thing was pretty convincing. I liked her relationship with her brother.

BUT: The male lead is just a bully at this point. He's in charge of catching criminals and has an extended misunderstanding arc where he wrongly suspects the female lead because her various revenge-related rendezvous coincides with the activities of a genuine criminal. He's absolutely brutal towards her and she can't do much to fight back other than the occasional snark. HE isn't even a smart man, judging by how shit he is at extracting information even after resorting to torture. Meanwhile, SHE isn't exactly bright either, mainly because the plot needs her to be the reckless one so she could get caught and give the male lead an opportunity to assert his dominance. Yikes, I'm not looking forward to them eventually becoming a couple. Neither am I looking forward to watching her seek her revenge, so far, she seems to be good at two things, (1) using her newfound station to bully those who wronged her in her previous identity and (2) enduring abuse from the male lead 'interrogator' until her new brother shows up and gets absolutely furious at the man

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