AnnaNoway

Not terribly well acted or cast. Some of the choices made for the way emotions were portrayed were at best interesting and making be laugh out loud (the Crown Prince's ''and who do you suspect?'') or just badly acted (Mei Lin trying to cry when one of the other women was killed). ML is OK when he doesn't try too hard to be intimidating or playing up the crazy. FL is very good at angry frowning, but other emotions are not quite there. The only good standout is Princess Zi Gu, casting was solid.

The plot is interesting enough, though nothing ground breaking. Camera work is OK but either editing lacked or there were too many plotholes no one othered to fill. Post production sound design were not good, you could hear that someone was standing in a booth and voice overs don't match the acting, especially with FL. Costumes are OK, nothing special. Fight sequences at least are decent.

Overall, though this is definitely not the best drama I've seen, I still watched it for some reason. Maybe because the last drama I watched was Lost You Forever and I was just happy to see something that didn't make me want to gauge my eyes out for the majority of the drama. I actually had to go and find who the ML for this drama was just to make sure it wasn't Jing from LYF, because they look eerily similar in certain moments.

There was zero chemistry between any characters, and I mean any. Not talking only about romantic pairings, even siblings and subjects. Everything feels like a performance, but flat and uninspiring. Closest to affection was the Emperor and Concubine Yin, but the age difference was too off-putting.

One plot point I did enjoy, and will give props to the writers for coming up with it, was about the husband marrying into the family, sitting in the bridal sedan and all. Haven't seen that before, at least when it wasn't for some disguise purposes or other shenanigans.