With this historical drama we don't know exactly when the storyline sticks to real facts and when it doesn't. We get poor psychological developments and emperors are finally shown in their ordinary madness or worst scheming sides.
Costumes are great, sceneries too. Epic war actions are quite very well depicted and give this drama real great moments. There are also poetic and beautiful scenes.
But finally my feeeling is that this drama could have been so much better ! The first part has funny moments but maybe because of my cultural gap I didn't understand the interest in bringing no relevant comedy scenes to this drama. Those scenes were rather boring and slowed the story progression . The second part of the drama is complety the opposite, quite serious and tragical.
The soundtrack is really really good and brings intensity to this drama.

Lead actors are terrific. Zhu Ya Wen (Zhu Zhan Ji) is amazing. I didn't know this actor before and he really deserves a best actor award ! I love the way he plays and give strenghth to his character : dumb, submissive and
caring as the imperial's grandson, smart, assertive and brave as a royal investigator and finally fearless as a warrior and rather mad as an Emperor. What an interesting character he is ! One can only regret not seeing him in more love scenes with Sun Ruowei. With such a talented actor it's a real pity not having given him more sensivitive and emotial love lines.
I also loved Rebecca Tang, she is so charismatic but her character (Sun Ruowei) is just unrealistic. I really didn't understand her psychology. As Empress Dowager she is just amazing with a perfect acting. Sun Ruowei is this drama's main character but she is too much idealized as a female strong historical persona. Compred to her, Ming's Emperors seem all to be mad, unhappy and finally rather ill fated.

Overall, this drama has very good moments. It's worth to be watched by all historical drama lovers.