To sum it up: great pacing, interesting and likable characters, solid chemistry, thrilling schemes, problematic gege throwing hands at both his enemies and his lady (which in this drama was perfection, don’t call me out). On the other hand, I was not crazy about how all the romances developed and in some areas, the acting could have been better.

Still, top level of solid entertainment. Thank god I was watching it as it aired - otherwise I would not be able to stop and binge watching all of the episodes would simply kill me - I’m too old for it.

It truly surprised me how much I enjoyed the pity palace drama. Usually I’m barely stopping myself from skipping this type of scene, but here they were some of the best aspects. I appreciated glorious slaps, calling out stupidity even on your own team, backstabbing for survival - it all sounds so dramatic, but in the drama itself, it’s presented in an engaging, but palatable manner.

What’s more to love are all the women in the drama. Variety of the characters, personalities, strength and weaknesses - exactly what I want to see. You don’t just get your typical - smart and cunning, and dumb, but loyal. They nicely mix it up. We get the asshole who overestimates her abilities, we have a smart and loyal friend. We saw women who push their limits and ones that prefer to not push them. We have bad, good and morally gray.

On the other hand the drama lacks quality men. Those that are fun are not developed enough, those that are developed more are annoying. Xie Wei being the only true saving grace. Yes, Zhang Zhe is cute and righteous, but that’s all he is. Yan Lin might be fun and good at fighting, but he is the definition of the “supporting from background while having little to no individuality”. I enjoyed them as I was watching, but by the end of the show I had little to no thoughts about them.

I’m glad plot wise the overall arc was well explained. I understood the motivation of all the characters, why they made the choices they made and what was their goal. Some strived for power, some for survival and some for redemption. I do wish the drama was longer. While they wrapped up everything quite skillfully, I still wanted to see more. Especially in terms of romance.

And that’s my biggest regret. Not even a flaw, since the final execution was done well, it just made me crave for more. All the romance driven plot lines were quite sidelined, so by the end, they tried to put 20 episodes worth of development into maybe 8. I enjoyed every second of it, but I wanted more.

Acting was good. Bai Lue did what she does best. In no universe she could fail delivering a character like that - it’s made for her and her only. Zhang Ling He was great in some scenes, not so great in others. Wang Xing Yue and Zhou Jun Wei both did not really have a space to show any skills - how the characters were written did not really allow that. I’m glad that the whole cast had a great chemistry though - be it platonic, romantic or rivalry. And them kissing scenes… we do not get kissing scenes like that often.

I know many people complained about the make up, personally I liked it. The over the top magical red eyeliner that showed up when Xie Wei turned into his toxic hot gege persona. Yes, the eyebrows for the female characters were… a choice, but after a few episodes I just stopped paying attention to them.

Overall, high level of entertainment. Story of Kunning Palace has such a high binge watchability, it’s actually scary and could be a health risk if you are not careful. It’s both exciting, but approachable - balances well between how dramatic, but also easy to digest it wants to be.