Visually stunning, lyrically beautiful, masterfully acted. Treachery and political intrigue at its finest. Game of Thrones minus the violence, nudity, and supernatural but with an added dash of rom-com and mystery.
I liked the comedy sprinkled throughout the darkness. The funny faces, the banter, the expressive hums.
I binged 45 x 45min episodes over a 3 day weekend, and currently suffering through withdrawal symptoms until new episodes are released.
I deducted one star for the botched flash-backs in the first episode. Took me a while to work out who's who and what was going on, glad I stuck with it.
PS. If you are watching this show with non-Chinese subtitles you are massively missing out. The Chinese dialogue is written with the skill of a bard. The language is sophisticated, succinct, elegant and poetic - as beautiful as the visuals. In comparison, the English subtitles were dull and prosaic, an abominable shadow of the original dialogue, using the vocabulary of a primary school student. It's as if the varying shades of blue - cerulean, sapphire, teal, indigo were translated into "blue, blue, blue, blue". I was truly disappointed by the English subtitles and eventually switched to a different app so I could watch it with Chinese subtitles.
