The first thing that strikes when watching this drama is the sheer detailing of the beautiful costumes, the mouth-watering foods, the grandeur of the location and set and the cinematography.

However, the drama falls really short in terms of the story and the unconvincing acting of the entire cast with the exception of Crown Dowager Zhang, matron Sheng and Yin Ziping.

As a viewer, I cannot really grasp who or what is really the star in this drama. Is it the food, the lives of these women, palace life during that period, the love story between Yao Zijin and Zhu Zhanji, the sacrificial burial of concubines? Seriously, I am lost.

If I compare historical dramas that have relied heavily on one element of Chinese culture, for example Winter Begonia that used Chinese Opera to depict the formation and evolution of an amazing friendship, Marvelous Women that used Chinese raw silk embroidery to showcase women's empowerment and friendship; I see that these cultural items really delved and carried us along the story. They were the backbone of the story and very intelligently melded with.

Here, food as a very important element of Chinese culture is used but it is not cohesive with the story. We get to see only fancy preparations due to culinary contests, fancy ingredients or names of dishes, the abuse or misuse of medicinal food, remembrance of childhood food prior to death, fabricated village food and sufferings of farmers and lastly, food during famine. However, the underlying message is unclear...what is the story trying to show us? They just seem incidental to the scenes. Also the use and abuse of food is omnipresent throughout the drama... on one hand, the message is not to waste food and immediately after, another scene would contradict the message...be it by the Emperor Yongle himself who arrogantly stares down at the fancy food or the grandson who childishly demands that Yao Zijin prepares fresh food for him while throwing a tantrum...

Secondly, the facial or body expressions of the casts, especially that of FL and SFL really appalled me. They seem to have only 3-4 expressions in their repertoire and it became painful to continue watching. There was no dimensionality in the characters of the entire cast. I understand that this drama is not a character-driven one but still, one would expect some form of character development...

Finally, it reverts back to the haphazard story of the drama... the palace plots were hardly dramatic, their resolving felt like a breeze. The episodes I forced myself to watch had not real arc, they were just linear in story telling and thus, failed to grab and keep my attention.


Never have I felt so frustrated by a historical drama which promises one thing but really falls short on delivering it.

P.S: Xu Kai really should stop taking on roles in high-budget productions and really focus on improving his acting skills. He could have the potential but his drama choices can really break his career which so far seems to be sustaining itself because of his pretty face.