Although the costumes and headpieces were beautiful, the makeup, acting and story was questionable. The acting was very meh at times, for example, at the start (as young Meiniang) I hated how Fan Bing Bing acted too. She would do these weird moves with her eyebrows and it made me so annoyed that I couldn't focus on the story. I also don't get why we had so much time with Li Shimin's harem, considering they were not important in the grand scheme of things. They decided to make two third of the story about Wu Zetian's early harem life and the last few episodes were where we saw her in power. I wish her and Li Zhi's love were better written (Like her and Li Shimin! I much preferred their story.) There was also a lot of rewriting of history and making stuff up just so Wu Zetian would be an innocent woman, and we know this is not the reality. She was incredible at governing the country and had amazing developments about it. Still, she was also bloodthirsty and killed so many people (maybe even her children) just because they opposed her. I wish we saw more of her story after her ascension to the throne (also as Empress Dowager and how she still had power behind the Emperor's back.) Also, I couldn't be the only one who preferred that she had a romance with Li Tai instead of Li Zhi. The actors somehow had incredible sexual tension and the way they looked at each other was wow, I would be into that. (I also prefer Li Jie over Aarif Rahman in looks so that also might be a reason.) Anyway, I would only suggest watching this if you want to see pretty people being pretty (mostly Fan Bing Bing to be honest but yeah) and the romance between her and Emperor Taizong.