* Story : The book itself is well written. How the story is narrate, how the characters are speaking, everything portray very well the beauty of Chinese language. You can feel everything : hopes, happiness, sadness, desperation, revenge, regrets, loneliness. This story is rich in emotions, and the rhythms is well controlled. Every single characters are important, even though they won't appear as much as the main. The main is the main, only because she's the one telling her story. They are very humane. They are not entirely good, and they are not entirely bad. They all evolves in a certain way, and they are all only just people being trapped in a very conservative society. Their hope, their wishes, all broken down one by one, for the sake of their family or for their own sake. * Acting/Cast : They don't try to be someone else, they are the character. It's like they are just telling their own story, not someone else's. You can feel someone's pain, you can understand someone's sadness, you can feel someone's happiness, thanks to the actors. I would like to add how the drama itself is very well produced. How they adapted the story from the novel, the costumes, the traditions are all very close to the reality. It looks real? No, it's real. They've done a lot of research to be as close as possible to the reality. One of the actors, Zhang Xiao Long, is a teacher of Qing dynasty's traditions : how to bow down, how to speak, how to behave, how to eat, how to drink, everything single details are close to the reality. * Music : The musics are all very good, and have all the "traditional" feeling without the "old fashioned" sense. it's well chosen, well done, and it's a part of the story as well. The music portray another type of Chinese traditional beauty. * Rewatch Value : Believe me, I've watched a lot of historical Chinese drama since I was little. And none of them are as good as this one. This drama is god like. I've read the book, plenty of times, and I've watched the show countless time. You cannot get tired of this show. But for the people who are not used to Chinese historical drama, or don't know much about Chinese culture, it may be very difficult. Even for those who are not able to understand the "old" Chinese way of speaking, you will not be able to understand the whole beauty of it. But I believe you will still enjoy the show! * Overall : If you have other historical dramas to watch, watch them first. See the god like historical drama at last. Ever since I've watched this show, there's no way I can enjoy other drama as much as when I was watching or reading Empresses in the Palace... Like for real.