I didn't know that I would say this about a vampire centric drama but it was really a breath of fresh air. After a long wait Cdrama world finally gave something worth watching which ended the spell of boring dramas of this year. We were inundated with many overhyped shows which could not do justice to all the anticipation. I wasn't sure about this one either (especially if it is a republican era one) but the first episode was more than enough to intrigue me with its unique plotline. The cinematography looked really nice plus the music beautifully accentuated the scenes. I loved the acting of all the actors and hoped this one could surprise us the way 'The double' did this year. However my hopes came down shattering pretty soon. It was already becoming impossible to ignore all the loopholes in the plot but by the time we reached the end, the drama totally took us as a fool. I was no longer mesmerized by the cinematography as I was in the beginning. The side characters completely took over the main leads and I could clearly see that they were forcibly giving more screen time to yinling. (Plus their efforts to justify all the wrong actions of some characters to gain sympathy of the viewers is just so... incomprehensible ). The show didn't really give proper closer to most of the characters (I wonder what was the rush?) The ending was so disappointing that I don't have words to explain it. If it wasn't for the good cast I would have dropped the show but I continued just for them..Their acting on the other hand kind of... began to look stiff towards the end as if nobody was feeling the emotions that their characters were supposed to feel or perhaps it was the weird editing that made me feel that way.(Except for Mi Lan, she was pretty good till the end).
To conclude it all...this one could have been a great show with solid performance but they did their magic and ruined it all and made it another one time watch drama at most.