There are vastly polarised opinions regarding the faithfulness NPE holds towards the original source material. Not being a fan of the original novel, this review may seem biased to a few of you. It also doesn't help that the summary for this drama is somewhat misleading. So here's my version for you -

Drama Summary:

NPE tells the story about the court & harem of the last dynasty in the eastern lands of Novoland, the Zheng dynasty. As Emperor Xu pines for his dead empress and neglects a lot of corruption there are political undercurrents threatening to upend his rule. Meanwhile, Fang Zhu a minister and his best friend rescues a girl Haishi; who has a strange encounter with a Naga, from a coastal town. He makes her his disciple and the drama focuses on her life as a undercover male who eventually becomes the personal guard of the Emperor Xu.

There are very few fantastic elements in this drama and it focuses mainly on realistic fight scenes, relationship woes, political history and angst.

Now, here are 5 reasons why you should watch this drama:

1. The female lead is strong minded and doesn't lose her maturity or senses when she is around the object of her affection. She appears capable and intelligent.

2. The secondary leads look good and the plot is interesting as well so I don't fast forward the secondary storyline.

3. Politics and military action are well balanced in this story. Neither of the two overpower the 'drama' that is happening between the various characters.

4. The romance is a slow burn and no one falls for the other at first sight. I'd rather say this drama is about yearning & the longing for love rather than any romance.

5. The production value is pretty good and so is the music.

And yet there are many reasons why you may not want to watch this show. I have kindly enumerated them for you:

1. The male lead is no longer a eunuch as in the original material & neither is he uninterested in the female lead. All of this means we end up hating on the ML for emotionally torturing the FL. And it doesn't help that a woman in her 30's is forced to act like a naive girl/man in the initial episodes.

2. The second male lead apparently needs to work on his line delivery (I don't understand Chinese so I cannot judge this but I liked XKC's acting and he made a very interesting King for me)

3. There is quite a lot of physical abuse in the initial episodes which might turn some people off as this drama is based on a 15 year old novel.

4. For people used to watching xanxia/wuxia dramas where the plot moves really fast the relatively slow pace of this drama might get tiresome. Compared to other Novoland stories, this drama has less action and more intrigue. And believe it or not, the pace reduces even further as we reach the climax of the drama.

5. It could be disconcerting to hear the ML's voice as it is dubbed by the same voice actor that dubbed for a major character from TMOPB.

Story:

Read above points to understand how the story is. But let me summarise for you: you don't need to concentrate on this story if you are a native speaker. You could be doing your chores and watching this in the background and you'd be totally fine.

Acting:

Yang Mi was good at portraying her frustrations with her Shifu. Shifu had a wooden expression but since his character is the cliche taciturn ML it didn't really matter. The emperor ZKC looked crazy for the first few episodes (I loved his acting here the best) and then later turned into a sane but frustrated emperor. I think the acting was okay but as mentioned earlier his line delivery might throw native speakers off. Consort Shurang was okay and so were Zhouying & the embroiderer.
All in all the acting was good considering this is a wuxia/fantasy.

Overall:

I found the cast & pairing pretty okay and the story quite interesting. I think if you are expecting a fast paced high fantasy action series or a sweet historical romance it's safe to say you will be disappointed. Personally, I have enjoyed this drama more than I expected to.

While the drama does drag on a bit and the romance (what little is there) is as slow as molasses, the tragic story itself makes one addicted to watching it. The last ten episodes could have been condensed into 4 episodes and this would have received a solid 8.5 from me but unfortunately the scriptwriters didn't ask for my advice.

As it is, this is a 7.5/10. (It's sole grace being none of the characters were irritating so I could finish this series with a bit of fast-forwarding of the last few episodes and yet I enjoyed watching this show).