Wu Zetian became the only woman in Chinese history to rule as Emperor in her own right, seizing the throne more than 1300 years ago during the Tang Dynasty. The film traces her rise from a minor concubine in the imperial court to sole ruler of China, a path that required outmaneuvering empresses, ministers, and her own sons. Centuries of court historians, all men writing for dynasties that came after her, painted her as a murderous schemer, and the documentary weighs those accounts against what her actual reign accomplished: administrative reforms, expanded examinations that let commoners enter government service, and a period of relative stability and expansion. Historians and scholars walk through the surviving records and monuments, separating verified fact from the smears that piled up after her death. The result is a portrait of a ruler whose reputation was rewritten by the very system she outmaneuvered to gain power in the first place.