Mary resists the rich Ghent burghers who, in cahoots with Louis XI of France, try to force her to marry the Dauphin Charles, a boy who is of a weak mentality and twelve years younger than her.

Witnessing her ministers being executed and her territories invaded by France, Mary decided to send her lady-in-waiting Johanna von Hallewyn to Maximilian with a message.

Johanna falls in love with Maximilian's close friend Wolfgang von Polheim, which temporarily give them some troubles because she's a married woman.

The German Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung criticizes the film for making Mary of Burgundy a proto-feminist character and opines that the viewers should be spared "the smut of a young man between two women", given that the marriage had been planned in details between the two families for a long time (according to historians such as Maximilian's prominent biographer Hermann Wiesflecker [de] though, at this time, the prince was actually in love with the lady-in-waiting Rosina von Kraig, and it was not easy for him to leave or forget her either, although later he did fall in love with Mary).

[9][10][11] The critic Tilmann P. Gangloff [de] on the other hand praises the film for living up to its title "Game of love and power" and illustrating contemporary politics well, with good hints for modern problems.