I found this series to be so inconsistent I'm simply going to list observations.

1. The first episodes bait and switch the viewer. They imply this series will have lots of fight scenes. They basically fade away by Episode 10ish and are GONE at the finale, where you'd presume they'd come back for a big finale.

2. Our three lead actors (as shown on the poster) spend too much of the series with stoic faces, making it hard for us to care about them. This creates a problem where supporting characters accidentally SHINE --

3. -- like Song Yi. The scene she pouts in is gold. I really want to see more of her after this. The same goes for --

4. -- the underused Empress, Yong Mei, who is even more stoic than our heroes but she's such a gifted actress it doesn't come off as cold but intensely compelling. I'm now desperate to see her film SO LONG, MY SON but can't find it with English subtitles anywhere. (!!!)

5. I've heard Wang Yi Bo is legend. His character is the Chinese answer to Mr. Spock and (brace yourself) I saw no story reason for him to be in the series.

I believe our lead cast should have been Gao Bing Zhu, Wu Si Yue, and the Empress. Gao should have already been in charge of the CIA, Wu already in charge of the guard, and both at each other's throats because of this mysterious Clan wreaking havoc in the Kingdom. So two characters with opposing careers -- suspicious of the other -- falling for each other in the process. I'd have made Song Yi someone who had a crush on Gao, and I'd have her married to the Crown Prince who would have eventually been revealed as the leader of the clan.

Do you see how 'clean' that cast is? LUOYANG doesn't understand that, in this story: less is so much more.

6. Oh, I took a one night break from this series and saw Huang Xuan in the movie MY COUNTRY, MY PARENTS. It's an anthology pic and he only appeared briefly in the 2nd Story called THE POEM. It was funny to have my break 'ruined' by his presence but I knew I'd keep an eye on his future projects too.

7. The visuals are stunning, but the merciless wide angled cameras and relentless candle lit rooms are way over done. STAR WARS fans believe awesome production values are more important than solid story. As I've been saying since 1977 -- you're SO wrong about that. That said -- there are two GINORMOUS sets in this series you have to see to believe.

8. You have to give it up to the people doing the background music in this show. They were completely over the top and utterly out of control. If someone said, "Pass the soy sauce please" you'd hear all these background noises and music cues suggesting they had said, "Kill them... kill them all." It was an artificial way to raise tension where drama was clearly lacking at times, but (amazingly) the music wasn't so obnoxious to make one abandon the series.