It was Jin Yong's favorite version for many years (maybe it still is; nobody has asked him recently). Of course, at that time, it was one of the ONLY versions around (there were a few attempts in the 1960s and 1970s, but those were pretty forgettable).Originally Posted by IcyFox
Casting: A.
Acting: A for most of the lead actors. No worse than B+ for anybody.
Martial Arts Choreography: A for the standards of the time.
SFX: B. TVB had its limitations.
Costuming: A-. Nothing looked historically accurate, but for the most part, the costumes looked good...at least on the main characters. Some villainous characters wore some inexplicably shiny stuff, however. It was the 80s.
Locations and Sets: B. Again, TVB could only do so much about its sets. There were a few beach scenes that were *very* well shot, however, and made great use of camera, lighting, and (both the presence and absence of) music to create very moody effects. There was some interesting camera work done in non-action scenes that really stuck out (gave us some gorgeous views of Hong Kong's rural territories as well).
Accuracy to Novel: B. As is typically the case with TVB productions, they got the general strokes right, but some of the details wrong. There was no wholesale rewrite like DGSD '81, however. DGSD '81 drastically rewrote the ending of the story; ROCH '83 basically kept the original story.