I finished the series yesterday. I'm impressed with the sophistication of the themes explored, like how honor/goodness needs to take into account the circumstances - and therefore there are different kinds of honor. I also liked how they showed both good and bad characters reaping the consequences of their actions - good deeds don't always result in good and bad deeds don't always end up with bad. Both types of characters aren't completely blameless in that they all do morally questionable stuff for reasons that wouldn't hold up to the mores of today, but even the most evil of them have a chance at redemption.
Is it wrong of me to like a villain more than the main characters? I vastly preferred Ouyang Feng to any of the leads. In the novels he gets redemption in the second book, but it's okay with me how they chose to handle things with this adaptation. Hell, they changed Yang Kang into a more morally ambiguous character after all. This adaptation's Ouyang Feng does go insane, but the end implies he's becoming more in touch with himself as he finds stability.
This makes me want to read the novels. One of these days I'll learn Chinese...
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