I finally finished this after like 2 years and I have to say WTF did I watch?

So the story is split into two parts. 1-17 and then 17-54. In 1-17 we follow the story of the princess in her home country in the latter her life in a diplomatic marriage to the neighbouring Wei. The story didn't make sense. This was based on a time travel novel so that part was changed and censored. It seemed like the adaption team didn't know what to do or that they went for something complex that got chopped on the editing floor. There were parts where the writing was great - the story of the second female lead was excellent, the last episodes were pretty good as were the first 17. So it's not that the writers were bad writers.

What they failed to do was to link the two stories together. Until the second last episode I was under the impression that the second segment was a "what if these two characters met in an alternate timeline". I'm actually still not sure that it wasn't the case. For me there's no way to link the Chuyu and the Rong Zhi of the first story to the later one. Basic stuff like if he's the regent or even just the brother in law of the Emperor of Wei there's no way he's going to hang out in the Princess' mansion in Liu Song just in the hopes of influencing the government there (esepcially not as a "concubine" lol). As for Chuyu - she went through a lot of shit in the first section there's no way she can be so clueless in the second. Anyway not linking those two or explaining it made it confusing and left the viewer spending a lot of their time trying to work out if the previous episodes had happened or not in the "new" environment. This made it difficult to focus on what was actually going on.

Pacing wise the story was fine for the first 17 and the last 4-5 episodes but everything else inbetween was filler and not very interesting (mainly because it was so confusing).

The second part of the problem was the acting. Rong Zhi is supposed to be this genius level schemer. Some people say the whole blank face that the male lead had for most of the drama was an example of his great acting skills and that it was in character. I say that's a load of ****. If you watch political/intrigue dramas you'll see that there can be cunning political operators who have the blank face. However always the viewer will be given an insight into them when nobody else is around (for example you'll see micro-expressions of them being worried/happy/etc). Sometimes this will carry over when they're with other characters they'll turn to pour the tea and they'll have some expression. The ML had nothing. Right until the very end nothing. At one point he cried and still had a blank face. They could have put a cardboard cutout there and it would have been the same. What makes it worse is that the actor can act, even back then. I don't want to get into spoilers but there's a part where he isn't Mr Blank so he does have skills. That said for me he failed to carry the role well enough (I think part of it too is age - he's the Prince Regent and he looks likes he's about 16 years old for most of it).

That was the other issue I had - casting. Especially for the second half. The cast is great don't get me wrong, however this drama suffered from a case of everyone should be young and good looking. The Prince Regent looks 16. The empress dowager looks like she's in her 20s tops. The emperor looks like he's in his early teens except his favourite consort looks like she's older than the empress dowager. They didn't try to add some grey or some fine lines or anything so it made things very confusing, especially when it came down to the interactions. If the emperor is just a teenager that's fine (obviously because he has a regent and that kind of thing happened historically) but why does his favourite consort look the same age as his mother? Why does he still have a regent if he's making most of the decisions and getting people pregnant? (At least there should be talk of - oh the regent will hand over at this time or when you reach your majority blah blah) Esepcially because there is tension in that area there should be some discussion of removing the regent from his post? (I wouldn't consider this a spoiler every regent/emperor is going to have some tension so don't read into it too much)

Now that I have the negatives out of the way...

Wow the props and costumes. Chuyu's clothes and accessories were gorgeous as was the open minimalist throne rooms/props. Not historically accurate but it was restful on the eyes and it was nice for a change. Kind of like they shot everything in a really fancy IKEA (those pale floorboards lol). I really love historical accuracy but it was clear that this drama wasn't going for that, so I liked that they changed things up and tried a minimalist aesthetic and made good use of the lighting crew.

The music was good, nothing jarring or out of place. Although personally there was nothing that drew me to listening to the OST again.

I would not like to rewatch again because it was confusing and mangled but at the same time I kind of want to rewatch again so I can try and work out what the hell was going on and if the stories were supposed to be connected or if they were a "if the two characters met in an alternate universe" thing. Luckily I don't have to rewatch as apparently there is a novel. Hopefully I'll understand what they were trying to do by reading that lol.