Living a torturous life of poverty and barely able to survive, Hwa-yeon decides to offer herself as one of the king’s concubines. Once inside the royal palace, two men are immediately seized by the woman - the Grand Prince Seong-won, a megalomaniacal ruler drunk with power and lust, and Kwon-yoo, who has everything to lose if his desire for Hwa-yeon is exposed.
A brilliant general distinguishes himself by protecting the dynasty's borders while keeping an eye on one of the sons of the king.
In 1920s China, nineteen-year-old Songlian becomes a concubine of a powerful lord and is forced to compete with his three wives for the privileges gained.
Flying Swords of Dragon Gate picks up three years after the infamous Dragon Inn was burnt down in the desert when its innkeeper Jade vanished. A new gang of marauders had taken over - innkeepers by day and treasure hunters by night. The inn is the rumoured location of a lost city buried under the desert, and its hidden treasure would only be revealed by a gigantic storm every 60 years. The gang used the inn as a front to locate the lost treasure.
In Edo Period Japan, a noblewoman's banishment for her love affair with a lowly page signals the beginning of her inexorable fall.
During the Late Tang Dynasty, a manor is invaded by a demon cat and a sense of unrest befalls the capital of Changan. A poet is charged with investigating the case and meets up with a monk. The two work together and pull apart the thread of clues to reveal a history of truths leading to the events.
In pre-unified China, the King of Qin sends his concubine to a rival kingdom to produce an assassin for a political plot, but as the king's cruelty mounts she finds her loyalty faltering.
With World War II looming, a prominent family in China must confront the contrasting ideas of traditionalism, communism and Western thinking, while dealing with the most important ideal of all: love and its meaning in society.
In eighth century China, the Emperor is grieving over the death of his wife. The Yang family wants to provide the Emperor with a consort so that they may consolidate their influence over the court. General An Lushan finds a distant relative working in their kitchen whom they groom to present to the Emperor. The Emperor falls in love with her and she becomes the Princess Yang Kwei-fei. The Yangs are then appointed important ministers, though An Lushan is not given the court position he covets. The ministers misuse their power so much that there is a popular revolt against the Yangs, fueled by An Lushan.
In the ancient Chinese dynasties, there were thousands concubines but only one Princess in the palace. To be the only one, girls fought by all means. Two beauties, Mandy came from poor family and Pearl came from aristocracy. They became soul mates and swore they were friends forever and would help each other on the way to the Princess Selection. But they discovered that there was only one girl could be the Princess, and things became different.
Yuko Moriyama stars in this ninja period piece as one of seven women determined to exact revenge on the evil lord Akinari Katou and “The 7 Spears”, the band of soldiers he commands. Trained assassins and skilled in sorcery, these men took over the Aizu prefecture and took its most beautiful young women as concubines. They left behind 7 daughters now seeking out Jyubei Yagyuu to help get revenge.
Simon is a scion of a wealthy family who struggles to have a stable relationship because of his womanizing ways. When he finds a wife, Moon, he spots another woman and conspires to marry her.
Arun, a married man, has an affair with Priya as he dislikes his wife Leelavathi, who is plain-looking and overweight. When she discovers Arun's affair, she plots with Dr. Sakthivel to win Arun back.
Sau-chen goes out with the tenant Wong Chun-ching over the protests of her class-conscious parents Eighth Uncle and his wife. To foot the medical bills of his mother, Sau-chen works as a promoter at the Products Expo for Lung Wah Pharmacy and attracts the unwanted attention of the boss Chin Hoi-ngan. Chin desires the woman as a concubine. Acting on the advice of his subordinate Chiu Chik, the boss invents a phantom son and proposes marriage with the offer of a handsome dowry. The employee Wong, short of cash and needs money fast, is drafted as his saviour to meet the parents when the plot is duly exposed. Teaming up with his tenants, Eighth Uncle invites the henpecked husband's termagant wife along and causes a scene. In gratitude of their efforts, the landlord and his wife give blessings to their daughter and her lover.
Wolmae is a gisaeng living in Namwon. Her daughter, Chun-hyang, is secretly engaged to marry Lee Mong-ryong. Lee leaves for Seoul with his father and the new governor, Byeon Hak-do, begins coveting Chun-hyang.
A samurai returns to his homeland after a three year absence and finds his fiance is now one of the prince's concubines.
Delicately flirting with eroticism, the animated film The Banquet of the Concubine, by young Chinese director Hefang Wei, recounts one of the most famous love stories of Imperial China. In this tale of bitter jealousy, nothing can sweeten the heart of an abandoned mistress, not even the luscious lychee.
Maria suffers from the strangest illness; it resembles cancer but with one distinct difference: it somehow connects Maria to the fate of a 15th century woman named Donna Maria. Maria begins to time travel, gradually discovering the absolute brutality of history. She learns that Donna Maria was a Hungarian princess taken to a Bursa harem as a concubine of Ottoman's Sultan.
The smart and witty Wei Yingluo enters the palace as a seamstress to find the truth behind her older sister’s death. Believing the imperial guard Fucha Fuheng to be her sister's killer, Yingluo purposely attracts the attention of his sister the Empress Fucha, and is successfully transferred to Changchun Palace as a maid. Over time, she learns that the Fucha siblings are honest and kind-hearted people, and also develops romantic affections for Fuheng.
The road to becoming an empress is paved with treachery. Ruyi is a consort who quickly learns to navigate the treacherous politics of the the royal court and move up the ranks. After becoming Empress, Ruyi still must survive the many conspiracies against her. Her relationship with Emperor Qianlong becomes eroded even when Ruyi is able to overcome the challenges. Can Ruyi maintain her role as Empress under such difficult circumstances?
Ma Fuya is a princess of the Chu state in 10th-century imperial China during the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period. In this time of warring kingdoms and political upheaval, Fuya's uncle usurps the throne and brutally kills her father. Ma Fuya is left an orphan, and she escapes with the help of a eunuch. She also falls in love with Meng Qiyou, the Prince of Later Shu. He instead uses her as a political tool, and he brings her back into his kingdom. Many of his brothers are attracted to her, such as Meng Qixing and Meng Qiyun. Due to her resemblance as Meng Qiyun's mother, the Emperor also falls in love with her. Ma Fuya is forced to marry the Emperor, but the procession is interrupted by Liu Liancheng.
When the Emperor mysteriously disappears from battle, his new wife Consort Quan Fei, is accused of murder by his mother, the Empress Dowager, who sees Quan Fei as an ominous woman. However, Quan Fei is protected by the Emperor's younger brother, the new Emperor Daoguang, who has loved Quan Fei since he was young. So when Daoguang announces that Quan Fei is to be his new consort, the Empress Dowager partners with Daoguang's wife, the new Empress Shencheng to eradicate Quan Fei from the royal court.
Fifteen years after Qing Emperor Jiaqing was crowned the country appears to be in harmony. However, fights between the imperial concubines escalate. All the imperial concubines including the emperor's beloved Yu-Yue understand this and becomes nervous when the triennial imperial concubine election approaches. Yu-Yue's position is threatened by an imperial descendant, Yuk-ying, a powerful eunuch's adopted daughter, Yi-Sun, and an experienced imperial servant maid On-Seen. They are friends and enemies in the war for the emperor's love. The four beautiful women are either friends or lovers of an imperial physician Sun Bak Yeung and a trooper Kong-Wu. Plots and lies undermine their love and friendships in the palace.
Towards the end of the Warring States Era, the States of Qin and Zhao are engaged in a lengthy battle. Li Hao Lan, daughter of the Censor-in-chief of Zhao, is forced out of her own home after being set up by her stepmother. Having nothing to her name, she is sold as a slave and purchased by Lu Buwei, who is cleverly able to marry Hao Lan to Ying Yiren, a Qin royal who resides in Zhao as a hostage. However, Hao Lan and Buwei's presence in the Zhao palace ignites a dangerous battle, as they rely on their wits to evade Princess Ya’s devious schemes.
Liu Qing, daughter of a powerful official, is forced to assume the identity of the princess as she is married off to Yuwen Yong, the King of Zhou, who in reality is a puppet figurehead who holds no power.
Kasia and Tomek are together for nearly seven years, but have not yet decided on marriage. Each episode shows the common life of this pair of young, educated and crazy about each other people. They've formed a relationship, which seems to be guided by the idea that opposites attract each other. Their relationship often seem like "storm in a teacup", but in their case it seems to be the recipe for a successful relationship. Radically different temperaments, different views and demonstration proclamation of their own ideals, is this what they really are serving each other every day. Despite that, or perhaps thanks to that, they are crazy about each other, one can not exist without the other, that is (paradoxically) we are dealing with a harmonious and successful relationship!. [TVN]
