First, I found myself googling almost every part of the history of the 21 Demands and the whole Republican Era to understand the context of the drama. This was well done. I loooooove the dyamics between Xu Kai and Bai Lu- they were made for each other. It was a little funny but also tiresome watching her run back and forth to the school to pretend to be her sister because she had three suitors who were initially unaware of her double identity.

The comradery was great among the classmates and she held her own and I would definitely want her to be on my team. I was also happy that this drama had very very strong female leads- All three of the bosses were women. Xie Xiang actually ran the military academy even though it was a boys' school.

I liked how they redeemed Li Wen Zhong at the end both in terms of his personality, his love life and his dedication to his friends and to his country. Also Huang Song who had probably the funniest line in the movie when he was getting ready to box the life or death match and he found out who his opponent was going to be, No I won't say it, but I was laughing so hard I spit out my juice. There are some people I wish didn't die, but it is a war movie after all, and I'm not happy with the open ending of Xie Xang and Gu Yan Zhen, I assume they live happily ever after, but it would have been nice to see,

Overall, the ending worked well to tie up the loose ends, and I also want to note that each main character had a true Ride or Die Number 2 and it would be hard to compare them. It was a little long, there were two times that Xie Xiang got kidnapped and both times Gu Yan Zhen was the only one out late looking for her-they could have omitted one of the missing persons routines and it would have still worked.

Really enjoyed it and I'm sorry it took me so long to finally watch it.