I have no reason to give it anything below 10 stars !
I was very hesitant to start it , coz of the number of episodes , I mean its the longest K drama I have seen so far ! But I still did it owing to my loyalty to JCW :) ..... and I am happy to announce it was worth my time !

JCW never fails to impress . I mean just see the wide range of roles he has picked up . I couldn't expect the macho in the healer / K2 / Baek Dong too , can actually act this stupid in empress Ki . Forget other roles , he has shown such varied range of emotions in this very drama itself . From happy and funny to anger , desperation , pitiful , emotional and what not ! All the other characters are wonderful too like KI , wang yu , taltal , baykan and not to forget Tanashili ! I m sorry to say but I found Tanashili much more impressive than Ki . I mean her smile , smirks , sadness all say so much

Its based on the real historical story with lots of twisted facts ! So just go with the flow .. Empress Ki was actually a cunning and greedy woman , not a saintess as shown here ! Same goes for Wang yu and ta Hwan... since ta Hwan is yuan dynasty , they shown him stupid , he wasn't this stupid though , he depended on Ki , just coz he loved her ! and there was no connection between wang yu and Ki whatsoever. Here I am just stating facts and not saying that there was something wrong with the plot. I thoroughly enjoyed whatever was shown throughout the series . I just wanted Ta Hwan to grow a little more independent of Ki !