So many emotions after watching this show. Wow. I’ll be blunt and say that this drama took me a while to finish. It was not something that I could continuously just binge. I had to binge a few episodes, take a couple days or a week off, and then binge some more.

This drama started off very well, lost me a bit in the middle, and then picked it back up towards the end. I liked the interactions between both the main male lead/ female lead and 2nd lead/female lead. I liked the character progression between both sets and the way the writers fleshed it out. One thing I will say is that this drama had a more realistic love story progression when compared to other Chinese period historical dramas. The leads had an arranged marriage that was set by the emperor’s mother and their love story progressed AFTER their marriage. While some people may not like this, I thought the direction that the writers took it in was good.

The actors portrayed their roles very well. You could see Yun Xi’s growing admiration + love for Long Fei Ye, Fei Ye’s jealousy whenever Yun Xi interacted with Gu Qi Shao, and Gu Qi Shao’s unattainable yet irrevocable love for Yun Xi. The chemistry between all of the leads was great and that’s part of the reason I continued to watch beyond the first few episodes. The side couples (Tang Li and Ninjing) also had great chemistry, especially towards the end. The main reason that I said that the ending recaptured my interest was because of this pair. Their interactions, and Tang Li finally realizing that he loved Ninjing was probably one of my top scenes in this show. The villains did their job well and made us all hate them and root for their downfall. The side characters (nanny Zhao, Fei Ye’s mother, Xifeng) all did their role and helped move along the plot in a positive direction.

The music for the most part was great as well. The actress that played the female lead (Ju Jing Yi) sang the main songs and they were absolutely beautiful. I actually went and purchased the songs on iTunes so that I could listen to them whenever I wanted to. However, there is this one bit of retro music (you’ll know it when you here it) that was played at random intervals and scenes that ruined the scenes a bit and took away the attention from the actual drama.

However, I think it’s only fair that I address the weak points of this drama as well for this to be an honest review. There were more than a few WTF moments in this drama. Scenes were Yun Xi JUST forgave Fei Ye with no explanation whatsoever and got mad at other characters for smaller reasons or scenes were the solution would just magically appear in a rushed way, or scenes where there was so much miscommunication and lack of conversation between the lead pair and the side pairs are just a few examples. These scenes, while they didn’t ruin the drama for me, definitely made the drama a bit annoying to watch. I also wish there were more cute moments between the main leads. I am not saying to make every episode all romantic and cute, but I would’ve liked more interactions between the leads instead of having like 5 episodes at a time where they wouldn’t talk to one another or be in the same vicinity as each other.

All in all, I think everyone should give this drama a chance. A lot of people don’t want to start watching it because of the ending. If that is the reason, it shouldn’t stop you. The one good thing about this ending is that you can essentially pick your ending. If you want closure, watch EP. 50 ending on YouTube (sad ending). If you want a happy yet ambiguous ending, watch EP. 48 on YouTube. If you want a happy and more explained ending (which is what I chose) watch EP. 49 on YouTube that includes the bracelet explanation.