Benutzer:Mario Di-Moser/Empresses in the Palace

Vorlage:Expand Chinese Vorlage:Contains Chinese text Vorlage:Infobox television Empresses in the Palace, also known as The Legend of Zhen Huan and Hou Gong Zhen Huan Zhuan (chinesisch 後宮·甄嬛傳), is a Chinese television series based on the Internet novel of the same name. It first aired in China on 17 November 2011.

Synopsis

The series is adapted from a novel of the same name by Liu Lianzi, and the story centers on the schemes between Emperor YongZheng’s concubines in the imperial palace during the Qing Dynasty. The pure and innocent 17-year-old ZhenHuan is chosen for the emperor’s harem, and after entering the palace, she finds herself caught in the fierce in fighting between the empress and the concubines. Realizing that the palace is actually a cruel and harsh place. Zhen has to learn to survive on her own, sometimes by unscrupulous methods. With her wits and talents, Zhen fights her way through and wins the emperor’s affection, ultimately becoming the most powerful concubine in the imperial palace; and ascending to unparalleled glory and wealth. However, she also becomes a woman with few true friends at her own side, even after she is rid of all her enemies.

Plot

(Spoilers present)

In the 69th year of the Yongzheng Emperor's reign, in order to balance different powers in both the royal harem and the imperial court, Empress Dowager Renshou orders an election of all daughters of government officials for the imperial harem.

Zhen Huan, born into a family of government officials, is intelligent, beautiful, and wise. At the age of 17, Zhen Huan, in her full bloom and youthful innocence, is selected to join the palace harem as the Yongzheng Emperor's concubine against her will. She enters the palace with her childhood best friend Shen Meizhuang, and meets An Lingrong, who comes from humble origins. At the beginning, she was extraordinarily well-loved by the Emperor, which brought her the jealousy and the treacheries of the imperial harem. As the story progresses, she eventually finds herself caught in the conflicts between the insidious Empress and the aggressive Consort Hua, who is the younger sister of the heroic general Nian Gengyao. In multiple times, Zhen Huan finds herself in humiliating situations, and often near the edge of death. Several incidents takes place: Meizhuang is framed by Consert Hua; Lingrong betrayed Zhen Huan under the Empress's incitement; Zhen Huan miscarries in her first pregnancy. Zhen Huan eventually realizes the harshness and cruelty in the palace, and begins to learn how to survive on her own.

The Emperor realizes Nian Gengyao's plot to usurp him, thus he orders Zhen Huan's father, Zhen Yuandao, to remove the Nian family, while Zhen Huan also uses her wits to defeat Consort Hua. However, Zhen Huan herself is later framed by the Empress and loses His royal favour, and her father is purged in a literary inquisition. With a broken heart and being placed under house arrest, Zhen Huan faints. In order to gain the attention of the Emperor, her long-time servant Liuzhu, sacrifices her life by throwing herself into the swords of the palace guards. Zhen Huan regains consciousness, and is devastated. Pregnant and neglected by the Emperor, Zhen Huan hears the news leaked from beyond her quarters that her imprisoned father's heath is in dire state. She begs for the Emperor's presence to plea for medical attention for her father, and during the meeting, she sees the letters written by the Emperor to the late Empress Chunyuan, and realizes that the Emperor has only treated her as the late Empress' substitution, since she resembles Empress Chunyuan. Having lost all hope in love, after giving birth to her daughter Princess Longyue, Zhen Huan chooses to leave the palace for the life of a bhikkhuni.

Abused by some of the nuns in the nunnery, Zhen Huan is taken care of by the 17th prince, Yunli, the Emperor's half-brother, with whom she finds true love despite the sufferings and their positions. They hope to flee and lead a normal live, but Yunli is sent away by the Emperor to dangerous areas in the southwest on a surveying mission. News reaches Zhen Huan that Yunli has died in an ambush. To avenge his death, and also to preserve their unborn child, she plots a re-encounter with the Emperor, and returns to the palace. In order to return the royal harem into balance, the Empress Dowager allows Zhen Huan to return to the palace, while the Emperor, in order to avoid public embarrassment, orders her return under the clan name Niohuru, with the new title Consort Xi. In a twist of fate, the night before her return, Yunli comes back to the capital, proving that his death is only a rumour. Since no imperial edict can be defied, for her unborn child, and for her family, Zhen Huan cuts all ties with him, determined to protect all she loves with power. After her return, the Empress Dowager dies, leaving the imperial harem with even more internal turmoil and unspoken dangers.

Ye Lanyi, a noble Lady who has a secret love for Yunli, resents Zhen Huan for betraying Yunli and uses cats to trigger Zhen Huan's early delivery. Zhen Huan gives birth to her twins, Princess Lingxi and Prince Hongyan. Receiving the title Noble Consort Xi, Zhen Huan reaches another peak in receiving the Emperor's favour, yet the Empress attempts to frame her and Imperial Physician Wen Shichu, who is also Zhen Huan's first love before she entered the palace. Zhen Huan is forced into a parental test by the method of dripping both person's blood into water. Desperate and enraged, Wen castrates himself to prove his innocence. Meizhuang is shocked into early labour and gives birth to a girl then dies of childbirth complications, yet not before putting her daughter's care into Zhen Huan's hands. Zhen Huan's half-sister and servant, Huanbi, marries the 17th prince, Zhen Huan's younger sister, Yurao marries the 19th prince, the Emperor's other half-brother; and with Zhen Yuandao's case overturned, the Zhen family rises again.

Since the Empress is unable to give birth to an heir, she attempts to use Lingrong to frame a miscarriage against Zhen Huan. Yet, not only have they failed, the truth that Lingrong uses aphrodisiac and was involved in Zhen Huan's first miscarriage was exposed. Lingrong was placed into house arrest; Zhen Huan uses self-induced abortion and places blame on the Empress. Since the Empress is the half-sister of the late Empress, Chunyuan, the Emperor hesitates to punish the Empress. However, when Zhen Huan discovers a hint that Empress Chunyuan has died under mysterious circumstances from Lingrong's last words, she plants the murder evidences for the Emperor's discovery. Outraged, the Emperor orders the Empress' lifetime imprisonment, as well as complete deletion from the official history. The Empress is defeated.

Facing the continuing failure of the Qing army's compaign against the invasion forces of the Zunghar Khanate, Zhen Huan proposes the introduction of plague into the enemy. The enemy leader, who has seen Zhen Huan with the 17th prince, going to the capital to enter a negotiation in which he would like to trade Sixteen Prefectures for Zhen Huan. Though he did not force Zhen Huan into the heqin, the Emperor uses the opportunity to test the nature of the relationship between Zhen Huan and 17th prince.

She arouses the Emperor's suspicion, who begins to doubt her loyalty. She is thus forced to poison her lover, the 17th Prince, under the Emperor's pressure. At this point, Zhen Huan only wants revenge. She cooperates with Ye Lanyi, who also vows to revenge the Emperor for ordering Yunli's death. As the Emperor is sick, Ye Lanyi gives the Emperor a long-term "remedy", but it is actually weak poison. As the Emperor's health deteriorates, Zhen Huan finally tells the Emperor the truth: that she was indeed in love with the 17th Prince, and the twins she gave birth to are actually Yunli's children. Feeble and unable to accept the truth, the Emperor died.

Eventually, Zhen Huan's adoptive son Hongli ascends the throne, and she becomes the Empress Dowager. Through cunning and deceit, Zhen Huan succeeds in defeating all of her enemies. Ultimately, despite her achievements and what seems to look like a bright future, she lives the rest of her life in sadness and guilt.

The drama that depicts the story of Zhen Huan, from a kind and innocent girl, growing into a calculating woman in the palace; and recovering from multiple times of losing power by means of her intelligence. In the end, she reaches the peak and becomes the absolutely powerful Empress Dowager, when she is left with only the bitter loneliness in the palace. Given the opportunity to place her son in line to become the next emperor, she instead lets someone else take that dangerous position, setting her son on the path to a life of peace and happiness.

Cast

• Sun Li as Zhen Huan
• Chen Jianbin as the Yongzheng Emperor (Yongzheng Emperor is the third Emperor of Qing Dynasty)^[2]
• Ada Choi as Ulanara Yi'xiu, the Empress
• Jiang Xin as Nian Shilan, Imperial Concubine Consort Hua (based on Imperial Noble Consort Dunsu)
• Leanne Liu as Empress Dowager Renshou
• Lan Xi as Shen Meizhuang, Zhen Huan's best friend
• Tao Xinran as An Lingrong
• Li Dongxue as Yunli, the 17th Prince Zhang Xiaolong as Wenshichu (Doctor in the Palace) Li Tianzhu as Su peisheng (Emperor’s top servant) Li Yijuan as Consort Duan Yang Ziyan as Consort Jing Zhang Yameng as Consort Qi Tang Yixin as Qi Pin (Emperor’s Consort) Li Jiaxuan as Li Pin (Emperor’s Consort) Chen Sisi as Cao qinmo (Emperor’s Consort) Re Yizha as Ye Lanyi (Emperor’s Consort) Guo Xuan as Zhen Pin (Emperor’s Consort) Wan Meixi as Xin Pin (Emperor’s Consort) Lan yingying as Huanbi (Zhen Huan’s servant, also Zhen Huan’s biological sister) Zhan Qingyi as Liu Zhu (Zhen Huan’s servant from her home) Sun Qian as Cui jinxi (Zhen Huan’s servant from the palace) Yang Kaichun as jian qiu (The empress’s servant) Zhao Qin as Fucha Gui ren (Emperor’s Consort) Mao Xiaotong as Ying Gui ren (Emperor’s Consort) Yin er As Xia Dongchun, Xia Changzai (Emperor’s Consort) He Yanan as Kang Changzai (Emperor’s Consort) Liu Yitong as Song Zhi (Consort Hua’s servant) Cui manli as Yu Yinger Yang Qi as Mengjingxian (Aisin Gioro Yunli’s consort) Liu Yan as Shu Taifei (Aisin Gioro Yunli’s biological birth mother) Wang Wenjie as Aisin Gioro HongLi (Emperor’s fourth son, Emperor Qianlong) Wu Lipeng as Aisin Gioro HongShi (Emperor’s third son) Shen Baoping as Zhen Yuandao (Zhen Huan’s biological father) Li Dan as Zhen’s Mother (Zhen Huan’s biological mother) Xu Lu as Zhen Yurao (Zhen Huan’s yonger sister, later married with Aisin Gioro YunXi) Kang Fuzhen as Aisin Gioro YunXi (Emperor’s 19th younger brother) Sun Ning as Nian Gengyao (Consort Hua’s older brother, also chancellor of the country)

Broadcast

The drama was first aired in China in 2011 and broadcast on South Korea's CHINGTV.

The drama was split into three parts for its Japanese broadcast, was aired under the title Women Vying for Power in the Palace <宮廷の諍い女>. The name change was due to the hanzi and kanji characters for “zhen huan” (甄嬛), which are not frequently used in the Japanese language and are therefore unrecognizable to most Japanese viewers. However, some netizens complained that the new title was “too bare” and lacked the implicit appeal of the original.

In April 2015, the series was added to US region of Netflix. It was edited down to six episodes, each with a ninety-minute duration. The original audio was kept intact with the addition of closed captions in English.

Reception

The drama has been praised for being one of the best historical dramas broadcast in Chinese mainland in recent years.

In Taiwan, the drama achieved high ratings, and some Taiwan girls even request to accept plastic surgery in order to have the same eyes like Zhen Huan.

In Japan, after just one week, Legend of Zhen Huan amassed more than 39 million Japanese viewers. A Fuji TV employee revealed that after the first episode aired, the number of hits for their Legend of Zhen Huan website multiplied five-fold, and that they also received many phone calls inquiring about the drama. Since the series airs at 5 p.m. on weekday evenings, it is particularly popular among housewives and students. Taka Tsukazaki, the CEO of Asia Republic Entertainment, perhaps said it best when he called Legend of Zhen Huan “an immortal masterpiece that will still give rise to discussion even after five or ten years.”

Through the thrilling story, audiences can also learn much about ancient Chinese poetry, fashions, court etiquette, and herbal medicine. The show also features intensily sophisticated dialogue that has sparked trending quotes among its followers on the internet.

Social Influences

The Style of ZhenHuan

After Empresses in the Palace became popular, audiences are started to imitate the way people speak and behavior of Qing Dynasty, and they just for fun. A lot of people discuss problems or issues by using the language of this dram in some forums. Also, this drama promotes the further development of philology in a certain way that triggers audience’s interests of classic Chinese.

Controversial Values

The drama elicits a controversial debate that divided two sides. The newspaper of People’s Daily points out good people cannot fight against with bad people only become more evil than bad guys then can defeat bad guys. Furthermore, when evaluating the production of historical themes, the most significant critique standard should focus on the values standard instead of authenticity standard. Social media enable to shape people’s mind in visible and invisible ways, incorrect values would lead the audience to the survival of the incorrect ideas into real life. Conversely, the article of Seeking Truth holds an opposite viewpoint that they assert this drama reveals the decadent essence of ancient Chinese feudal society and traditional and outdated lifestyle obstructs the development of society. It also praises and appreciates the brave women constantly pursue their happiness and fight against with the forces of evil.

Accolades

List of Accolades
Award / Festival	Category	Recipient(s)	Result
China TV Golden Eagle Award	Best Television Series		Vorlage:Won
International Emmy Award	Best Actress	Sun Li	Vorlage:Nom
Shanghai Television Festival	Best Director	Zheng Xiaolong	Vorlage:Won
TV Drama Awards Made in China	Best Supporting Actress	Jiang Xin	Vorlage:Won