Story/Plotline: The first half of the storyline was kinda slow to draggy, while the second half was much more interesting and fast paced IMO. Personally I'm positively surprised about the holding back of romance in background, while there's the focus more on the political intrigues, revenge, struggles and war. Also loyalty and ideals seems to be more significant than love (feeling wise of the whole series).

Characters/actors:
Chu Qiao/A Chu/ Xing'er is finally a heroine, which is not naive and helpless and fighting for her ideals either physically or mentally- Personally the actress did a solid job but looked kinda fragile that I wonder if it's suitable to portrait a female fighter (problem lies by the director though).
Yuwen Yue: Couldn't understand this calculating character and the actor couldn't shine because the lack of character development in comparison to the 2nd male lead.
Yan Xuan: The most outstanding actor because of the tragic of his character. I think one of the most interesting char because the the drama is showing a gradually change of Yan Xun to fall into the depth revenge step by step.
I couldn't feel the chemistry of all main cast neither between YWY with CQ or YX with QC (but I might be the only one ,who thinks like that).

The supporting cast was fine as well, I really liked the Prince of Liang, who was actually a great comedy relieving char.
All actors did a solid performance but not outstanding enough for me though.

editing/directing: was kinda average for such a high-budget production if I had to compare it with some recent dramas on the same segment.

All in all a good average drama on international terms, one of the better chinese ones. 7/10 to me.