Going into this drama I had such high hopes that this would be a great watch, it contained a story that I was familiar with, having previously watched the donghua and it was to feature Xu Kai as the male lead. I 've seen several drama's of his and generally enjoyed them
Unfortunately having trudged my way through 40 episodes of this drama, for me, it was a real mess. Based on the plot it amazes me that the demons actually lost. Throughout much of the drama the demons were clearly more intelligent and made sensible plans. Ironically, any plans that they did make didn't even have to be that good, as their opponents were actually rather stupid.

If this had been a boxing match the referee would have stopped the fight and awarded the victory to the demons. It was not even close.

From the opening episode I was instantly concerned on what was to come based on the appearance of one the casts prosthetic mask. I assume it was a mask and not CGI either way it was just plain bad.

The script gave our main cast very little to work with throughout and the carnage that swept through so many of the cast might have been a relief to some, as at least they could get away from a nonsensical plot.

I don't know if the director purposedly wanted to avoid any similarities to the donghua, if so, they certainly accomplished it. All the things that I enjoyed about the donghua and had me so excited to see the live action version were missing.

There also seemed far to much screen time given to characters other than the leads. In some episodes, if you blinked you would have missed Xu Kai And Gulnezer Bextiya despite them being the leads.

To some, the happy ending that was given to our main leads might have been welcome, to me it felt completely forced and very contrived. After watching it, and getting over the fact the demons actually lost, I came away thinking that was some kind of an attempt at fan service. I was suddenly supposed to forget the previous 39 episodes and be pleased with the ending! Sadly, it didn't work.

The performance of the cast, despite the flaws with in the plot should be admired, they really did try. Despite all the limitations they were presented, the cast did a good job, I did like the chemistry between the leads unfortunately the lack of screen time didn't help them though.

Xu Kai spear skills, which I'm told were real were also excellent and certainly a highlight when we got to see them.

I really did want this drama to be great but even Xu Kai and the efforts of the entire cast couldn't save it.