gonna be absolutely honest here, i would've never watched this if not for guanghan. i did not pay attention to most of the story because it was boring for me, even tho i like dark shows. but i think it was actually because this show wasn't dark enough for my taste, despite the concept? like there was not enough blood, not enough [proper] action scenes, not enough fighting. the 3(?) action scenes were very lacking and too coordinated that they didn't look like fight scenes. the female characters are accessories, which pisses me off always, and the male leads were dull and not really the type of characters i would care about. idk, in general i just couldn't bring myself to care enough about non-guanghan scenes.

his role in the earlier eps was minimal so it was hard for me to pay attention, but as his character became more important i also became a bit interested in the story. I know this is a completely biased opinion, but I really think his role was the only interesting one. he portrayed it PERFECTLY, and did an absolutely amazing job as lin ji/zed/xiao qiu. his performance in the last ep honestly deserves an oscar and i'm being 100% serious.

other than that, the production is outstanding and i absolutely loved it, despite not being into the story at all. the cinematography, color editing, pacing and length of the scenes showed that the people behind the scenes really know how to do television, but the problem was that the story wasn't very catchy, which is also reflected on the fact that the storytelling and development of the story was really good, with this indie style characteristic of eastern asian autonomous productions (i know this is a netflix show, but you get me). tho the music wasn't very fitting to the concept of the show at all.

on another note, i think the main cast was really good and their acting is also worth mentioning, despite the characters being mostly a bit dull.

lastly, i really wouldn't have watched this if not for my newly-found love for guanghan, but even if the story was very weak i do not regret starting it because ep 8 alone is the only thing that actually mattered. i know many people think it was unnecessarily dark, but i personally don't even find it particularly dark, so i may have liked this one more out of the others because it had the closest dark theme to what i imagined. would not rewatch the show at all tho.