1852, Yulan, who was born in an official family and had a good appearance, was elected to the palace and was canonized as a noble. However, due to the feud between Ye Henala's family and Aisingiorro's family, Yulan failed to get the attention of Emperor Xianfeng. Yulan struggled to get into the body, and finally attracted Xianfeng with a touching and sad tune, and then won her favor. In the later days, the clever magnolia was always with the emperor. A year later, due to the birth of Zai Chun, Yulan was named Yi Guifei by Xianfeng, and her position in the palace was similar to that of the queen. At this time, the Qing Dynasty was beset with domestic troubles and foreign invasion. Eight-Nation Alliance, such as Britain and France, attacked Guangzhou and Tianjin, and then went straight to Beijing. The court was in chaos. Xianfeng adopted Yi Guifei's idea and ordered Prince Sengqin to lead the troops against the enemy. In the battle of Baliqiao, the Qing army was defeated, and all the soldiers involved in the war were killed. Xianfeng immediately led his concubine and minister Su Shun to Jehol Palace, leaving his younger brother Prince Gong to negotiate with foreigners in Beijing. In the Jehol Palace, Xianfeng ignored the state affairs, and the wanderers had fun all day. The memorial was read by Yi Guifei. The arrogant British and French allied forces bullied him and invaded Beijing with foreign guns. Burning, killing and looting everywhere, doing all kinds of evil, ransacked and set fire to the world-famous Yuanmingyuan Garden.

It is said that Li Hanxiang filmed the Qing Dynasty drama "Fall in the Country" in Shaw Film Studio in the 1970s. Although it is set in a shed, it can show the yonghua style of the Forbidden City in those days, and the degree of realism directly amazed the senior officials in Beijing. Later, he invited director Li to take a trip to the mainland to shoot "Burning Yuanmingyuan". At that time, Li Hanxiang, as the first non-leftist filmmaker to film in mainland China, was under heavy political pressure. However, out of homesickness and ambition to shoot a history of qing dynasty film in the Forbidden City in his lifetime, with the strong support of the China government and the support of Macau tycoon He Xian, he founded the "New Kunlun" film company, which finally made Director Li resist the pressure and made a historical blockbuster that still sounded the alarm for the Chinese people even today.

As we all know, historical textual research is the top priority of Li Hanxiang's costume films. Unfortunately, it used to be limited to the scenery in Hong Kong, and the Forbidden City, despite its vivid works, was only an imitation. When directing Burning Yuanmingyuan, the mainland government opened the doors to many places of interest and precious cultural relics such as the Forbidden City, which naturally made Li Hanxiang feel at home. Hundreds of officials went to court, military aircraft discussed politics, Hua Mulan took office in autumn, and Yuanming site are all real-life physical displays, and their grandeur and sense of history are unprecedented in domestic movies! At the same time, for that period of national humiliation, although Li Hanxiang's version combines historical facts and unofficial history's interpretation (the most obvious one in unofficial history is the impulsive fall of Augus Lin Qin in Parkes), it is objective and fair as a whole, and it is also full of emotion: the British and French allied forces captured the ancient city of Gyeonggi with guns representing advanced civilization, but robbed and burned the garden of a thousand gardens with the most brutal means. The narrator of the film was low and angry, and the Chinese people sighed.

In addition, Burning Yuanmingyuan adopts a double-line structure. In addition to the brutality of the British and French allied forces, the first half of the film used a lot of space to describe the story of Cixi's prosperity, from the time when the girl Yulan was ambitious, to the loneliness and bitterness that she was not favored when she first entered the palace, and then to the desire to intervene in political affairs by flattering Yi Guifei. This blend of official history and anecdote not only adds many twists and turns to the story, but also helps to portray Cixi's character. -Of course, this is Li Hanxiang's consistent style.