THE GLAMOROUS IMPERIAL CONCUBINE was a fairly entertaining and highly melodramatic show, though I can hardly call it quality. Much of it felt rushed, cliched and predictable. If you watch Chinese dramas then you will recognize many tried and true tropes and cliches. The writing in this series was fairly weak and brought nothing new to the table, so to speak. There wasn't much I didn't see coming. I did enjoy the main leads however, as I am fans of the wonderful actors Wallace Huo and Ruby Lin.

Many of the side characters were pretty over the top, outrageous and flamboyant. Some of the main female protags' family were overly melodramatic, cheesy and comedic. A few of which, die off in the first few episodes, though I won't say which. I feel they were added to lighten the mood, since there are constantly tragic things happening and characters crying.

There's still plenty of crazy emotional characters to go around afterwards though. The royal Eunuch of Chu, forgetting his name, was pretty silly and dramatic and might be offensive to western viewers who don't see the eunuch trope (eunuch, not gay) in dramas very often. As he is a castrated male, he is portrayed as being very feminine and flamboyant (squeely, whiny and peppy) and often used to comediac effect (which is still sad because historically royal eunuchs had VERY difficult lives and I wish a drama some day would truely focus on one of their stories for once, instead of a princess/prince/royalty etc. but I digress.) He was particularly flamboyant and silly, and yet he eventually grew on me and I liked his relationship with Princess Fuya.

TRIGGER WARNING: One of my complaints was concerning the male leads. Both of the male leads were deeply flawed and hard to root for, and many of the men (main leads and side characters) throughout the show force themselves onto women, without much consequence and are often painted in a pitiable light. There are topics such as rape, near rape, sexual violence, coercion, physical abuse, cheating etc. Even perpetrated by the leads. So that was disappointing.

Overall, this was a fun little show, good for casual passive viewing. I can't really recommend to serious drama fans, but it may be good to watch if you are a fan of Ruby Lin or Wallace Huo, as am I. There seriously wasn't enough Wallace Huo for me though. Kinda made the series drag on. This series was not anything overly great for me, but not the worst either. Aside from some of distasteful subject matter, this show had quite a few moments of entertainment.