Story of kunning palace is an intriguing spin about Jiang xuening, daughter of a minister official who made her way to being an empress with the price of betrayal towards her loved ones. Her greed lead to her own demise, with woes and regrets. By the grace of God, she gets another chance to turn the wheels of fate, prevent the mishaps, and change her mistakes from past life.
And coming back to main review:
- the plot is fabulous. The acting, dialogue delivery it was all beyond my expectations. The chemistry between all the leads is no joke. It has dynamics between " fl- male bestfriend" " evil lady- upright official", and "enemies to lovers" troupe! And guys, we have ANGST, one of my super fav genre. Romance isn't the main genre since it's a slow burn, but whenever it's there, it's insane level!

The ambigious atmosphere is once again no joke. Some scenes are insanely hot and seducing, gosh, my heart still can't calm down. The fact that she has ambigious vibe with literally all the leads is even more insanely heart fluttering. ( I hope my constant use of the word 'insane' can explain how good this is)

I love the opening in the drama, it kinda sums up the whole angsty past life which answers lots of question in our mind and makes the first few episodes less confusing. The style of using dialogues in opening song is new, and I am loving it.
The story contains lots of twists and turns, revenge, unopened secrets and plottings etc etc etc. it's not just romance guys, there's a lot of more than that to it. The tension of revenge in each scene. The anxiety of being caught or betrayed, the excitement of plotting against enemies, is so satisfying. It's not only well written but also a well delivered plot. I personally did not find plotholes, everything was well covered (ofc unless you are curious about lots of things). Each and every little action serves as great potential for further plot developement.

Most importantly, the growth of each character is so beautifully sketched and that doesn't just include the main leads, but many of the supporting character too. It's a tearjerking yet satisfying revenge.

The rebirth may not have changed some of their fates, but it has given them the happiness and satisfaction of being needed, loved, and gave them the oppurtunity of finding their real selves and holding the mirror to them, the themselves that deserved to be shown to the world.
The acting doesn't need questioning to it, so I won't be wasting time on it.
The costumes were so well planned with their character and personality. I will be writing a spoiler with spoiler alert on it at the very end. It's not exactly a spoiler, but more of costume analysis with character sketch. You can choose to read or not.

Negative points of drama:
1) Not a fan of director's camera. Either the camera angles are weird at few scenes and the blinding lights take away your attention. And also there's green and pink filter making its way home. Hope that could be amended in his new works. But don't worry, that doesn't affect the thrill and excitement much. You are still gonna fall in love with this drama.
2) A certain death did not convince me, not gonna say much about this point since it could become a major spoiler again. But once again these two points are minute points. So you better not hesitate to watch the drama just because of these two points.

So to sum it all up if your are fan of following genre:
- smart, quirky and black bellied fl
- domineering, yandre and black bellied ml
- reverse harem
- angst
- well plot revenge
- power struggles
- best retribution to evil character
This is exactly your type! Congratulations you have a recommendation in your 'must watch list'. Trust me, you wouldn't wanna miss this!
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COSTUME ANALYSIS
Jiang xuening: She mostly wears blue costume with a hint of orange shade which signifies her wish to live a peaceful and serene life, yet her witty, spontaneous and bold personality.

Jiang Xuehui: She is often seen wearing purple which depicts that even though she is a girl who looks calm outside, she has a stubborn personality in her. In the last episode, she is shown wearing light red colour dress which telss us her current life is filled with happiness and the feeling of abundance.

Xie Wei: In the former episodes, he is shown wearing dark black or blue colours which represents him as a sad, evil, mystery, cunning, and rebellious character who is willing to die for his revenge. But in latter episodes after he starts falling for JXN and acknowledges his trusted and close family, he starts realising that revenge and death aren't his only goal in life, he must live with and for his loved ones, he starts letting go of his burdens, and hence with his changing beliefs and growth, his clothes colour change to a lighter shade of blue signifying his wish to live a peaceful life.

Zhangzhe: is mostly shown wearing red official costume signifying his morale and upright personality. He is also shown in light shades of grey and green showing his calm and reliable personality.

Xue shu: She is often shown wearing that unlikeable pink colour which looks pretty from outside, when seen as a small object to huge background of grasses and stones, but looking at it up close could annoy you and disturb your emotions psychologically to the point that you would feel like tearing it off. After you start cohabiting with that colour, it series and disgusts you, giving you vibe of fake superficialness. The pink gives a colour of graceful, kind and compassion to her personality from outside, but interacting her could make you realise that she is exactly that shade of pink which disgusts you after you get acquainted with it, depicting exactly that character of novel, whose mere sight disgusts you, you would feel like slapping everytime you look at her.