Let us face it: even today, the political condition of China is not as same as that of west, not mentioning the fact that this movie was made nearly two decades earlier, when China was far less liberal than today.
It is therefore understandably that the movie neglected the significance fact that the protagonist is the granddaughter of a famous official of the Imperial Court, Zen Guo-Fan, who served the empire loyally until his death, including suppressing numerous peasant uprising for the empire, such as Tai-Ping rebellion, Nian-rebellion, and etc., stablized the empire and pushed its ultimate collapse for half a century. It is a great irony that the granddaughter was among the group that overthrown the empire, which the grandfather helped to stablize.
