Drama digest:
It is a real-life love story of a female refugee, Liu E, and an emperor of the Song Dynasty, Zhao Heng. Zhao Heng was rescued and taken care of by Liu during a battle. During the time of his recuperation, they fall in love. It is also a story of Liu E governing the kingdom meticulously through her son, after the death of emperor Zhao Heng.
The feel-good factor:
The production quality of this drama is very high. And the actors in this drama are a few well-known veteran actors from China. It is a decent blend of promising character developments and pleasant OSTs without the lack of humor and tragedy at the same time.
The disappointing factor:
The story moves slowly, which might distract the viewers from completely immersing themselves in the show. The series seems to give a lot of screen time to the courtiers just sitting in the court and discussing various issues. Although the story itself is based on ancient jurisdiction times, it becomes tiresome to watch the same thing happening over and over. The editing for the series is disappointing as many parts have been unknowingly cut, which confuses the audience about the time and place of various events.
In-depth analysis:
The series is based on true events. This series is also based on political and diplomatic relationships, mutual restraint, and interdependence of several dynasties on each other in ancient times. This story is set up in the times of the infamous Song Dynasty. The Song Dynasty was governed by the emperor, Zhenzong also called Zhao Heng. Emperor Zhao is an emperor of the people who always put the needs of his kingdom’s people before anything else. He is a polite, talented, and noble monarch and also the first who uses money to trade peace. During his reign, his kingdom went through unmatched stability, economic growth, and serenity. During the Qin Wang rebellion, Zhao heng is left injured. He is helped by a refugee of the Shu dynasty, called Liu E. During Zhao Heng’s convalescence; he falls in love with Tu Liu E. She is a beautiful, intelligent and courageous individual with a problem-solving wit. As the love between them deepens and because he was already married, emperor Zhao decides to take Liu to his kingdom as his concubine. This decision of Zhao was refused by the people in his kingdom as they are not ready to accept Zhao’s illegitimate relations with another woman. Soon after, this situation subsides. As Zhao Heng lost the war, the situation is his kingdom became uncontrollable as he started to lose a lot of his princely states one after another. Due to the downfall of the empire, greed among several ministers arises. This leads to constant quarrels among them, which pave the way for a considerable crisis. During this time, Liu E helps the emperor Zhao with plenty of political matters due to her intelligent decision-making and witty solutions to the kingdom’s problems. Due to her behavior of Liu, Zhao trusts her with everything. After a few years, emperor Zhao passes away, leaving behind Liu and their son, Renzong. At that time, Renzong is still a child of 7 years and incapable of handling a kingdom. That’s when Liu steps in as the empress and the emperor’s mother. With Renzong on the throne, Liu runs the kingdom effortlessly from behind the curtains. This helped Renzong to run the kingdom solidly for 40 forthcoming years.
Star power:
This is a powerful drama portraying the importance of feminism through a known figure, Empress, Liu E. This drama is based on her life and various life events which shaped the influential person she was and went down in history.
Overall opinion:
The editing is a massive backlash of the series despite the high production cost. As it is a series based on real-life of real-life personalities, finding interest in it is based on self-opinions.
