Truly a classic. I don't believe that Zhen Huan, Yanxi, and Ruyi deserve to be uttered in the same breath as this gem.

Maybe I'm exaggerating, but the last time I watched this in full was >10 years ago and I've seen quite a bit of palace dramas since. Nothing compares to just how wonderful the twists are here. At 30 episodes, the pacing is tight and I appreciate that it doesn't meander like the ultra-bloated aforementioned dramas. The emphasis on this drama is plot, plot, and more plot. This isn't 60 episodes of moving paintings like Yanxi or whatever. Just pure, scrumptious scheming and backstabbing.

Gigi Lai, Sheren Tang, and harem drama veteran Charmaine Sheh star as the archetypal pretty-and-spoiled neophyte, senior concubine villain, and sweet ingenue respectively. But do they really? W&B still has the best character writing among all the palace dramas I've seen across HK/Mainland/Korean dramas.

War and Beauty is genre-defining and a must-see for all palace drama enthusiasts