I feel the urge to write this as seeing people kind of disappointed with the movie. I empathize their disappointment since the hot scenes scattered were not explicit or long enough. The kingdom(not empire) itself wasn't that lewd. Even the king himself slept alone, never engaged in any sexual activity. Perhaps he already reclusive in celibacy vow? The title will fit more in Tinto Brass' Caligula. There you'll find the true lust there is, so decadent he lost his soul.

As for the story, how fictitious it may be it deserved a laudatory applaud for creative penning and imagination. The evil prince in the end was disclaiming the story as he ordered them to be erased from history. Here you will find romance, politic, social condition of the period. The costumes and production value of the flick was great, I couldn't ask for more.

The acting is natural, somewhat believable. However, there are several times when the actors twitched. They were negligible though. You need to look at closer eye to know them. Both the ML and FL had sculpted body. You can see Shin Ha-kyun's muscle-fat ratio so gorgeously. He had a very fit body. Well, Kang Han-na too had a very good proportional body of her own.

The music is adequately decent to accompany the atmosphere of the plot. Nothing special though, a bit forgettable.

Should you re-watch it? I would, since I am bit of loss to find the raped girl was actually FL. I kinda slipped that scene portrayal, since the face is a bit obscured for me.

8.4 overall
Never judge book by its cover