Watching this made me feel very conflicted. The epic and solemn background is at odds with the trivial and simplistic love stories next door, the palpable realness of Empress Dowager Cixi contrasts with the childlike play-acting around her, and the mask-like flat characters versus the complex real people. It's a perfect interpretation of old wine in a new bottle, with tacky and conservative production, dragged-out dialogues. Watching at 1.5x and 2x speed alternately didn’t feel out of place. The vast historical changes are crammed into a main narrative of romantic affairs which was infuriating. I only kept watching due to Yuko Tanaka’s superb portrayal of Cixi and my interest in history, and those three points are solely for Yuko Tanaka's performance. It's frustrating how this mediocre production and environment along with the naivety are accepted. Placing domestic and international actors together highlights glaring disparities. The core difference lies in understanding history and empathizing with the characters. On 2021-10-29, watched the first episode, quite interesting! Will continue watching!