Watching this drama is like going on a beautiful drive that drops you off in the middle of nowhere. You end up lost and wondering if this ride is really worth it.

The most memorable thing about the series is the art direction, which is highly stylized and simply stunning. The writers take great care in developing each character and creating the bleak yet beautiful world of Gong Men, a powerful family with many secrets, supposedly the last bastion against the ultra evil organization of Wu Feng. The worldbuilding is impressive, until it all falls apart like a pillar of sand in the finale.

The finale feels like it’s written by someone else entirely – someone who doesn’t bother to read the early chapters. Like a video game, characters are buffed and nerfed at random. Some of them are so OOC it will make your head spin. Then we have “The Dumbest Plan Ever,” hyped up by the so-called brains of Gong Men. The plan gives away strategic secrets, leading to the deaths of longtime allies and the wipeout of the Gong’s elite guards. After all that, they still can't touch Wu Feng's upper management, but viewers are told it's a victory and that the Gongs are brilliant strategists. At this point I can’t take the show seriously anymore.

The one saving grace is the supporting cast, which is one of the best ensemble cast I've seen in a while. The actors have such rapport that I wonder if they’re all close friends in real life. Cheng Lei and Lu Yu Xiao are smoldering with a kind of sexual tension you don't often see in C-drama. The leads Zhang Ling He and Esther Yu aren’t bad. They have chemistry with everyone, except each other.

This is a show that desperately wants to be taken seriously, but has not done enough to earn it. It’s better than mediocre, even entertaining in a shallow sort of way. You'll enjoy it more if you leave logic at the door.