For the storytelling, I surprisingly really liked the balance between the OTP romance, the political struggle and the side characters on this drama. I personally don’t dig the prolonged side characters romance story cdramas often give nor the often long-drawn power struggles featuring countless ministers and princes you don’t care for. But I can’t stand anything too fluffy without a convincing set up when the plot is politically driven. This, managed to stay focused yet convincing throughout (except first episode perhaps, where they lacked context horribly). In short, I like the length lol.

THE ONE THING I LIKE BEST about this drama is how it’s NOT TOO ANIMATED, the characters were actually all normal people without being too unrealistically lively, silly, cold, villainy, etc; and the prod team breathe life into the dramas by little scenarios like (minorrrr spoiler) how they went to the court palace at the wedding night cos Feng’s curious (without neccessrly any consequence), even in ancient turbulent times people course of actions during idle times don’t differ too much from us, this drama recognize that and it’s what made it poignant. As they allocate the screen time for those instead of happenings, the drama itself was rather the ‘platonic’ type, I’m a sucker for those but I can easily see it could be boring for some.

Some side characters make illogical and questionable decisions I could get by. I rather like how the FL is an obedient girl, as I’ve always wondered how a Confucianism-taught noble could turn out to be a rebellious brat with modern ideas in many other historical c-dramas. As for the conclusion of this drama, I myself was satisfied, it ended how a prequel should.

As for the production, this is an obvious top tier. The SCORING is movie-worthy, and I dare say the best I’ve seen in c-dramaland, the canon reprised for a costume c drama? That was also interesting. There’s no room for doubt in the acting and it’s useless to sing more praises as they are.. BL and RJL . A big applause to BL though for proving people wrong for typecasting her, Shiyi was meek and even when she’s angry, she stayed resilient but not fierce; there’s no trace of her previous demoness role ppl seem to be worried about lol. The directing is on par but not too special.

Overall, it was definitely a good watch, but rewatch value is not high as the plot is nothing new, it’s just very nicely executed.