Erudite

Thanks for sharing the information about your past research areas. Very interesting. Would you happened to know much about ancient Andean and/or Erlitou/Xia dynasty cultures?

Out of curiousity, I went and reviewed samples of English subtitles from a few sources with rights to broadcast this series.
I reckoned that being commercial services, all of them would use subtitles created by "professional" subbers.
Here's what I found:
Caravan Youtube channel and Star Media (streaming service) use exactly the same English subtitle text, which I assumed is the same one as Viki.
Shuang Xing (Ku-band satellite channel) does use a different set of English subtitles which is much better than the above.
But their release is behind others - currently only up to Episode 13 or 14.

Captain Cui Qi mentioned in Episode 11 that he 'borrowed' the dog from the (East) Palace as requested by Zhang Xiao Jing.

The dog is a native breed not well-known outside of China called 'Xi Quan'.
It is a hunting dog with a keen sense of smell and chase small preys at up to 60km/hour.
This particular regional breed originated in Shanxi (province around Chang An) with a 2000 years history.
Another regional variety, the Shandong Xi Quan (white colour) is the archetype of the 'celestial dog' in Journey of the West.

Despite its long lineage in China, the Xi Quan dog type is not recognized as a purebred hound in the rest of world.
Interestingly, according to a study using genetic analysis, the first dogs appeared in human history were probably domesticated in China from grey wolves:
https://www.kth.se/en/forskning/artiklar/konflikt-om-hundens-fodelseplats-1.614048

In the novel, the Wolf Guards are from the historical confederation of Göktürk ('Sky/Blue Turks').
The name derived from the people's belief that they are descendants from a legendary Sky/Blue she-wolf called Asena.

The scene was recorded with Djimon speaking English on set - a clip of this can be seen in a 'behind-the-scene' series of this drama.
https://kisskh.at/people/1483-chen-jian-bin is the actor who dubbed all of Djimon Hounsou lines later, deliberately adding a slight 'accent' to the Mandarin speech.

You are welcome :) The story will concluded in Season 2 (23 episodes) which is currently in post-production.

25 (revised from 26) episodes would be only the first season.
This is demonstrated by how far the story progress after 12 episodes.
Episode 1 is shown to begin at time between 09:00 to 10:00 (modern 24-hour clock). The series is meant to cover at least "24 hours" in Chang An.

Tang Dynasty China had a system to divide time of day using a twelve dual-hour notation and also 24 hours thru an extended notation.
In beginning of episode 1 the sun-dial is at 巳初 or the hour between 09:00 to 10:00
In episode 12, the sun-dial is at 未正 or the hour between 14:00 to 15:00
(Screen time in the series is stretched out by flashbacks and events that occurred concurrently at different locations)

Trivia: Ancient China actually has many smaller units for time measurement, eg the time unit of 弹指 seen in many Wuxia stories is 5 seconds.

For Youku VIP members, the first twelve episodes is now available for viewing (June 27th 2019)
Zhang Xiao Jing being shown the headquarters of the Intelligence Service for the first time in Episode 1:
https://kisskh.at/photos/El0Z7
https://kisskh.at/photos/B2y5q
https://kisskh.at/photos/ddeZd
https://kisskh.at/photos/QjxgY
In the last scene he retorted Li's overconfidence

This is only my opinion, and so far I have not seen anyone else share this view yet but I believe it has to do with choice of premiere date on the eve of 30th anniversary of Tiananmen events on June 4th.

Yes, the postponement was announced to viewers only 19 minutes before screening, so there are many upset viewers like me waiting before and after announcement for further explanation.

Updated: Raw trailer previews for Episode 1 to 6.
All videos are now 1920 x 1080p:

EP1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-3kQwA0Vr4
EP2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C95frFF-7s0
EP3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_C0eHa2E18
EP4: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObMzO2Keh-Y
5: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kijb2uh7RG8
6: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93JURNGejFY

Each of the trailers are 2 mins or less
They are NOT English subbed.

Note that I have listed a number of cast members with more than one roles - some of the characters will come back in different identities, switching sides or surviving apparent death.

So far nothing yet from the showrunners. Rest assure I will post here if I received any news regarding a 2nd season or a movie finale to tie up the show's loose ends ;)
Meanwhile, BR has a Japan release on May 8th as 晩媚と影～紅きロマンス

At time of writing, it's the ONLY mainland China drama series HBO GO Asia made available on its channel: https://kisskh.at/photos/40vpK

RED by HBO has snagged this show for broadcast to 11 countries in Asia. They are also in discussion for possible distribution in North America.
Prior to this show, RED has only picked up two (2) mainland China drama series on their channel.
The first is https://kisskh.at/31424-judge-of-song-dynasty which has a rating of 9.1 at China's Douban (from over 37000 people).
The second is https://kisskh.at/27510-bloody-romance (at time of writing - also the ONLY mainland China drama series available on HBO GO Asia).

It happened to the director's other recent drama series too:
https://kisskh.at/17025-shaolin-wendao was cut from 42 (full version) to 38 episodes for TV/Web when released in China.

Initially I submitted Huang Hai Bing as the 3rd main role here, but kisskh editor(s) changed his role to support.
His character became the male lead in the prequel/side novel, but the author only finished that book after this screenplay is finalized. So Su Xuan's final outcome in the drama series might not the same as the book version.

Trivia:
Began shooting on 11 January 2019; Last scene shot on 25 April 2019 near Dunhuang.
Over 200 action scenes were filmed including the use of titular ultimate weapon.
The original author completed a prequel novel featuring Su Xuan, the FL’s sifu just before the TV series started filming.

Zhou Ting Wei is as of writing the most well-known among the cast. He is quite good in suitable roles and I think he is well-casted here.

Among the male supporting characters we have two impressive actors who played teen versions of the male leads in Tribes and Empires. Even the (relatively) less important two support female roles are played by (1) Stephanie Yu who did an outstanding support role in My Huckleberry Friends and (2) Deng Yuli who is definitively not a flower vase. In fact both ladies are more popular than the lead actor and actress (for now).

Also, just learnt that Sun Yifan who played Zhao Min’s brother (HSDS 2019) also has a supporting role here: https://kisskh.at/photos/Z0D01

@lenje: According to latest submission to China's NRTA in February 2019, the length of the series has been cut to 34 episodes. This is the most drastic change in program length for an upcoming TV series I've seen for that month; most other series are giving notice that their series are getting longer (more episodes), so Sword Dynasty is going against the norm.

Title changed by producer on March 15th 2019 to 大唐女儿行 (Ode to Daughter of Great Tang).