The Empress

Synopsis:

After a palace coup, twelve-year-old Princess Baojing is pushed onto the throne by her mother, Empress Deng. The chief councilor is her maternal uncle, and the three dukes and nine ministers are all her uncles. Every day, she yawns her way through court and sits on the hard dragon throne, listening to a bunch of old men argue.

Her distant, aloof fiance, the solemn imperial tutor, the duplicitous director of the Imperial Academy, and the secret guard she has never met... She grows up among a dreary crowd of men, surrounded by classics that all say women cannot be emperors.

The year she turns sixteen, a handsome young man arrives at the Hongwen Academy. Unlike everyone else, he never lectures her. He even sneaks her out to explore the streets of Chang'an. When her teacher punishes her by making her copy scriptures, he imitates her handwriting and does it for her. When she reviews memorials, he offers advice. When the empress dowager scolds her, he climbs through her window at midnight to comfort her...

Then he dies.

She sits upon a throne buffeted by wind and rain, listening to the cries of "Long live the emperor," while the people around her depart one by one, like duckweed carried along by a stream. Her ill-fated confidant, the great marshal who dies wrapped in his battle robes, the vengeful youth who returns from hell... The hands that once protected her gradually become the cocoon that binds her and the cage that imprisons her.

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Theme: Persevere, stand on your own two feet, and grow strong.