Not quite perfect, but not far, either.

My first foray into Asian dramas and I wasn't disappointed! It's an epic 100% worth the time and among the greatest of all time television series (including western TV). Costuming is so perfect you'll want to cry and the cast's acting and chemistry is unparalleled in anything I've seen before. Pacing is good and there is little filler, and I appreciate that a lot of things, sometimes huge things, happen unceremoniously offscreen. The show only rarely pontificates, repeats, or overexplains things; in other words, it doesn't treat the viewer like an idiot who can't keep up.

However, not knowing who Liu Tao was meant that I largely went "so what" over what little romance there was; what few scenes there were were out of place, not well written, and seemed to rely largely on her star power. Zzz.

I also wish there had been more intimate (platonic) scenes and between Su and Jing. I don't feel like their brotherhood was really given the time it deserved. Some flashbacks would have also helped illustrate just how deep their bond ran... because otherwise, we are just supposed to trust the things coming out of their mouths.

Chinese censorship is also felt through the lack of dimensionality - in Game of Thrones, you have several factions, some of whom have justified claims, and all of whom have their own (usually competing) interests. How those interests resolve is what made GOT so fun to watch, and its morally gray characters were some of the best characters in the series. By comparison, Nirvana in Fire just feels like it's lacking dynamism and, in the end, is very much just a "good guys vs bad guys" kind of show, which was a bit of a letdown to me.

All in all, it's a great show, definitely worth watching the entire 54 episodes at least once. However, I don't know that I personally will be rewatching it in its entirety, namely because while I loved many of the characters, the main protagonist and his shallow relationships left me with an apathetic feeling about the supposedly bittersweet events taking place. I'll likely go back and rewatch only a handful of episodes, particularly the ones around the spring hunt.

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