Adam Cheng's TV series

August 26, 2014

sorry I stopped watching this series didn't see any fight action in it.

August 26, 2014

Tooo bad !!!

Anyone else, perhaps ?

August 27, 2014

Five easy pieces TVB 1980

This series tells the story of five girls who are good friends and begins in 1957 when they leave college.

Among them, there are Lee Si Kei, who is the spoiled and capricious daughter of a rich family (Kwan Hoi San is the father) and Carol Cheng, who is a poor girl.

As the series was in Cantonese, I didn't understand a word, so, I'll just write my interpretation of what I saw. If someone wants to correct my mistakes, he (she) is welcome...

Adam Cheng is a poor boy who is Carol Cheng's neighbour ; according to the way they were looking at each other, I thought that they were in love at the beginning of the series.

However, when they are inivited to a party in Lee Si Kei's home, this latter decides to seduce Adam and later, when he becomes the chauffeur of the family, she does all what she can to become his mistress and she reaches her purpose when they are trapped in the car due to a breakdown under a heavy rain.

They have secret rendezvous more or less helped by Si Kei's nanny, but when the mother discovers the truth, Adam is fired and he has to return at home.

Later, Si Kei gives birth to a baby (I don't know if it was a girl or a boy) and she is sent away by her parents and before she leaves, she meets Adam a last time in secret.. Adam finally discovers where she lives with her nanny and he reunites with her, and also discovers that she is pregnant once again. She gives birth to a boy, but her mother takes the baby away and when she discovers that Adam is there, they quarrel and, once again, he is forced to leave and the nanny is fired. Si Kei is angry, but she finally agrees to her mother's conditions and they leave for Singapore (if I heard well) and Adam is devastated.

Carol Cheng always helps him as well as she can, but she finally gets tired of Adam's behaviour and when he realizes that he might fall for her, they quarrel and she doesn't want his love.

In order to assure a good future to her mother and her sister and brothers, she decides to marry a rich boss (played by Zhang Yang), even if she still loves Adam.

Once again, Adam's character has a sad fate in this series, since he doesn't have any luck with the women he loves.

I read somewhere that this series was meant to last longer than 30 episodes. It's surely for this reason that I felt a little bit disappointed and frustrated by the ending, because we'll never know if Adam will be reunited one day with Si Kei and their children, or if Carol Cheng will finally realize that she was wrong when she married Zhang Yang and that she still loves Adam...

One of the other girls is happily married, and we'll never know either if the two other girls (one is a photograph and the other one a speakrine) will find their true loves...

However, I enjoyed watching this series and Adam was brilliant is his portrayal of his character : his eyes deliver so well the emotions his character is supposed to feel !!

August 28, 2014

In love and war TVB 1981

The series takes place during WWII and tells the story of a small village (or town) which is invaded by a group of Japanese.

Adam Cheng plays an officer who is also a translator for the Japanese officers. At the beginning of the series, he is in love with one of the officers' daughter, played by Angie Chiu. Stanley Fung plays a teacher who is also a resistance fighter and who is very appreciated by a group of students. Among the students, there is Ray Lui (I finally found the name of the other hero, but I still need the name of the other heroine...) and a girl student who is a Catholic.

Adam tries to teach them how to speak in Japanese, but they are all against him, except the Catholic girl and a young student (I don't know who is the actor). When Angie Chiu comes to study among the Chinese students, they don't want her, except the student I mentioned above. Though he is interested in her, Ray Lui doesn't want her, but the Catholic girl befriends her.

Actually, Adam is a Chinese spy who send informations to his government using a machine which allows him to send messages in Morse language. He discovers that Stanley Fung is a resistance fighter and they become friends. Years ago, Stanley Fung was in love with Angie Chiu's mother and he had to left because of her husband. He was friend with Kwan Hoi San, who is now a superior Japanese officer. When Kwan Hoi San discovers that Stanley Fung is a member of the resistance, he allows him to write a letter to his students, and when he comes to arrest him, Stanley Fung dies (I didn't understand if he poisoned himself in order to avoid betraying the other members of the resistance, or if he died from a heart attack).

Then, Ray Lui and the other students (including Angie Chiu) hold Adam for resposible of Stanley Fung's death and he is only supported by the Catholic girl.

Little by little, Angie Chiu and Ray Lui fall for each other, while Adam and the Catholic girl are also falling for each other but don't reveal their feelings.

Later, Kwan Hoi San finally understands that Adam is a spy and they have a gunfight. Adam is hurt, he kills Kwan Hoi San, he hurts himself in order to make the soldiers believe that both him and Kwan Hoi San have been attacked, and he asks the Catholic girl to hide the Morse machine before the arrival of the soldiers if she doesn't want him to be killed.

In the hospital, they finally discover that they love each other and later, Adam marries her.

Meanwhile, Ray Lui has been arrested and though Angie Chiu begs her father to release him, he is sentenced to death, but thanks to Adam, he is saved without Angie's father knowing the truth. Later, Angie discovers that he is still alive and she reunites with him, but she is hurt by the Chinese people who don't want a Japanese woman among them ans she returns at home.

Finally, the Chinese soldiers succeed in getting back the town and Angie's father discovers that Adam is a spy (meanwhile, he had imprisoned his own daughter and Adam had helped her to escape the same night the Japanese soldiers came to execute all the prisoners in the prison) and Adam kills him.

Unfortunately, Adam isn't able to tell the truth to Ray Lui and his friends though his wife and Angie try to convince him to explain that he is a Chinese spy and he tries to escape because ungrateful Ray Lui wants to kill him.

Sadly, when he is about to show the Morse machine to Ray Lui, stupid Ray Lui acts before thinking and he kills him. The Chinese officers and Adam's wife arrive too late and he dies in his wife's and Angie's arms, while the Chinese officer gives him a high distinction for his bravery...

What a superb series, but once again, what a sad fate for Adam's character !! I HATE when Adam's characters die in series !!!

Adam is excellent in his role : he shows very well how his character is sad when he has to torture Chinese resistance fighters, or see them being executed and his eyes and his hands are his " tools " to show the emotions his character feels. GREAT !!

And the two songs are superb !!

August 29, 2014

This series tells the story of five girls who are good friends and begins in 1957 when they leave college.

I read somewhere that this series was meant to last longer than 30 episodes. It's surely for this reason that I felt a little bit disappointed and frustrated by the ending, because we'll never know if Adam will be reunited one day with Si Kei and their children, or if Carol Cheng will finally realize that she was wrong when she married Zhang Yang and that she still loves Adam...
/QUOTE]

This drama was cut short and cancel because it have make way for The Shell Games(千王之王)which start by Patrick Tse,Liza Wang,Simon Yam and The Bund by Chow Yun Fatt,Ray Lui because it suffer for low ranting and lose out to it rival ATV Fatherland which show at same time .

Do this serial have any fight scene?

August 29, 2014

Hi,

Do you know who are the main actors of the series In love and war tvb 1981. I recognized Adam Cheng and Angie Chiu, of course, and also Yang Pan Pan, Stanley Fung and Kwan Hoi San, but I can't name the other hero (the rebel student) and the other heroine (the Chinese student who becomes Adam Cheng's wife) and also the actor who plays Angie Chiu's father (it seems to me that it's Lisa Chiao Chiao's husband, but I'm not sure and I don't remember his name)...

Thanks for any answer.

Do you mean this actress ,Regina Tsang?

She also have a role in Felix Wong The Legend Of Condor Hero in 1983,do you mean her ?

You shall watch TVB The Greed of Man (大時代) with Sean Lau ,Vivian Chow,Damian Lau ,Driving Power(非常外父), Instinct(笑看風雲) with Ekin Cheng,Cold Blood Warm (天地男兒) with Julian Cheung,Louis Koo.

The Greed of man ,in that drama all his 4 sons jump to the death, all his 4 sons are bad guy ,is tragic.

August 29, 2014

Yeeeesss she is the one !! Thank you very much !

Cold blood warm heart and Greed of man are in my list of series to watchm thanks for the informations.

September 27, 2014

Lord of imprisonment update

I finally got a decent boxset of this series, so, here is a small review. The names are spelled in pinyin as I heard them and, as usual, as I don't understand the whole dialogues, there might be some mistakes in what I describe, sorry.

List of the characters/actors with the parts in which they appear :

Tong Lin, constable, played by Adam Cheng (4 parts)

Yu Han Tong (often called Han Lao), constable, played by Chen Hung Lieh (4 parts)

Lei Ta Li, constable, I don’t know the actor

Chen Yao (often called Yao Ye), constable, I don’t know the actor (4 parts)

Mai (often called Mai Fu Ze), doctor, I don’t know the actor (it’s the same who plays Jade Leung’s father in Legend of Yung Ching) (4 parts)

Mai Yu Zhe the doctor’s daughter, a jade sculptor, I don’t know the actress (4 parts)

Tang Ta Niang, the innkeeper played by Cheng Pei Pei (4 parts)

Hai Tang, her daughter , I don’t know the actress (4 parts)

Yu San Shao, a rich jade collector I don’t know the actor (part 2)

San Shao Ne, his wife, I don’t know the actress (part 2)

Lao Lu Tong, a farmer I don’t know the actor (part 1 to 3)

A constable from Beijing, played by Goo Goon Chung (part 1)

Shi Zhu, another constable, played by Norman Tsui (part 4)

Pan Mei Niang aka Lin Yen Er aka Xiao San Lan, Cheng Pei Pei’s real daughter, I don’t know the actress (part 4)

Wang Ye, a royal prince I don’t know the actor (part 4)

Ye San Lan, undercover officer I don’t know the actor, but it’s the same who played the faithful eunuch in Legend of Yung Ching (4 parts)

The whole story takes in a small town called Ku Bei Kou and the properties around the town

Part 1

The story begins with Adam Cheng who is looking for his missing wife. As she was supposed to go to Ku Bei Kou, he is on his way to the town and is very anxious because he finds clues leading to a woman’s body without head. As he is on his way, he saves Mai Yu Zhe, her father, Ye San Lan (who plays a hawker), the cook of the inn and his daughter and the forensic pathologist who return to the town in a kind of stage-coach driven by Lao Lu Tong because they are attacked by some bandits.

Later, he takes a room in the inn and becomes friend with Hai Tang and her mother, and with Yu Zhe and her father, and Yu Zhe helps him in his searches of clues in order to find his wife when he finds a burnt house where she could have lived in when she came to the town. He also becomes friend with Han Lao, Lei Ta Li and Yao Ye (with this latter, it takes more time, because Yao Ye has lost his sword near the dead woman’s corpse and, as Tong Lin has found it, he wants to kill him because he is afraid to be accused of the murder).

Earlier, the same woman who has been found dead had come to the inn and had given a precious jade fan to Hai Tang, who gives it to Yu Zhe.

Later, Goo Goon Chung arrives in the town and he immediately becomes Tong Lin’s enemy (I didn’t hear clearly, but perhaps it’s because they had a grudge years later, but I’m not sure). He absolutely wants to find the jade fan, which is later stolen by Ye San Lan, who is actually an officer under Zhao Wu Ji’s order and we discover that the jade fan has secrets sculpted on it.

Hai Tang and Ye San Lan fall in love, and Yu Zhe falls in love with Tong Lin, but he only thinks of his missing wife.

Zhao Wu Ji is lead to the town to be judged (I don’t know why…What a pity to not understand Chinese !!) and Goo Goon Chung sends assassins to kill him, but he is saved by Ye San Lan and when the troup arrives in Ku Bei Kou, we discover that Tang Ta Niang knows him, that he is Hai Tang’s father and that Ta Niang is only her adoptive mother. We also learn in this episode that Ta Niang’s husband has been executed and she is an expert in martial arts.

Tong Lin is imprisoned by Goo Goon Chung and is almost killed, but finally, with Ye San Lan’s help, he succeeds in getting rid of Goo Goon Chung, Ye San Lan keeps the fan and escorts Zhao Wu Ji to his country.

Tong Lin is about to leave the town when someone gives him a jade pendant which has been found in the burnt house and when he recognizes his wife’s pendant, he finally accepts to stay in Ku Bei Kou and he becomes a high rank constable in the city.

Part 2

Yu San Shao comes to Yu Zhe’s house in order to take a piece of jade she has sculpted. Later, his house is attacked by a group of bandits and, with his men’s help and with Tong Lin and the other constables’ help, he succeeds in getting rid of them, but the chief of the bandits swear that he will get revenge.

Meanwhile, several women are found dead with traces of acupuncture needles on their feet. As the forensic pathologist is jealous of Mai, he accuses him of the murder and Yu Zhe’s father is imprisoned. Then, Yu San Shao asks Yu Zhe to come to his house and he gives her a big piece of jade in order that she sculpts a statue of Guan Yin. Tong Lin doesn’t agree with that, but she doesn’t want to listen to him and she goes. She becomes frien with Yu San Shao, while he falls for her. There, she discovers that San Shao Ne is a little bit strange, that she is jealous of her and that San Shao’s daughter is a little bit medium. She also discovers that Tong Lin’s wife has been in Yu San Shao’s house and she tells Tong Lin about that.

Tong Lin and San Shao are simultaneously friends and enemies due to the mystery about Tong Lin’s missing wife and to the fact that Tong Lin has saved the little girl from the bandits, with the help of Ta Niang and the clan of beggars of Ku Bei Kou.

Finally, Mai is found innocent and it’s Yu San Shao who is imprisoned, but Tong Lin and Yu Zhe are not convinced, though San Shao tells Tong Lin that it’s him who has killed his wife and has burnt her alive. Later, Tong Lin goes to San Shao’s house and wants to talk with San Shao Ne, but she first tries to seduce him and then, she poisons him with acupuncture needles. He is found in the forest by Yu Zhe and her father and, while her father tries to save him, she goes to the house in order to ask for water, and San Shao Ne tries to kill her with an axe. Fortunately, Tong Lin arrives to save her and, though he is still weak, he fights with her. Yu San Shao escapes from prison and arrives at home and fights Tong Lin in order to save his wife. Of course, he had understood that it was her who killed the women he had known, and that’s why he has accused himself, but Yu Zhe tells Tong Lin that it’s San Shao Ne who has killed his wife and the other women and San Shao Ne kills her husband before killing herself.

Part 3

As the forensic pathologist of Ku Bei Kou asks Mai for money (I didn’t understand why), Yu Zhe comes to his house in order to give him a jade statue as payment, but he tries to rape her ; he almost strangles her and her jade pendant falls while she faints. Fortunately, he is interrupted by a man wearing a mask and shaolin’s clothes with bells around his waist and he is killed. During the murder, Yu Zhe has recovered and she is totally upset and she escapes. She is found by Lao Lu Tong who leads her home. When they find the corpse, Tong Lin and his men find the jade statue and Tong Lin hides Yu Zhe’s pendant, but Yao Ye has seen him. They go to the Mai’s house and they find them trying to leave, but Tong Lin convinces them to stay and Yu Zhe explains him what happened.

A new judge and constables from Beijing arrive in town and he tries to get rid of Tong Lin (I didn’t understand why). Among the constables, there are two ferocious ones who were Goo Goon Chung’s friends and want to get revenge on Tong Lin, so, Tong Lin resigns and stay in his house, in which he sets traps in order to protect himself. Earlier, he has taken Lao Lu Tong under his protection and he teaches him martial arts. In this episode, Hai Tang suddenly decides that she is in love with Tong Lin and she tries to seduce him, but when she discovers that Yu Zhe has come to Tong Lin’s house (after Lao Lu Tong’s son departure), she becomes mad because Yu Zhe tells her that she is Tong Lin’s girl.

Then, Ta Niang fights Tong Lin because she believes that he has seduced her daughter, and Yu Zhe has to tell her that it’s her that Tong Lin loves (even if he has never confessed his feelings as yet) and then it’s Mai who is angry with him.

The two ferocious constables are killed by the masked man, and while they are trying to escape the new judge men, Tong Lin and Yu Zhe finally confess their love to each other.

Then, Hai Tang begins to be friend with Lao Lu Tong and to drink a lot with him.

Finally, Tong Lin understands that it’s Lao Lu Tong who kills people under his shaolin’s clothes and he finds a secret cave under Lao Lu Tong’s wife tomb, but he is enclosed in it and he would have died if Yu Zhe and the waiters of the inn hadn’t opened the tomb.

Lao Lu tong kidnaps Hai Tang and makes her to suicide, but she is saved by her mother and the beggars.

Finally, Tong Lin and Lao Lu Tong fight in the tomb and Lao Lu Tong kills himself.

Part 4

The story begins with a mysterious masked girl in red who tries to steal the royal seal and Tong Lin succeeds in avoiding this. Then, a lame girl called Pan Mei Niang arrives at the inn and she is immediately pitied by Ta Niang, who gradually takes her as her own daughter.

Shi Zhou also arrives in town ; he is looking for a woman and is persuaded that the woman he looks for is Pan Mei Niang.

Then, a royal prince who is called Wang Ye by everybody, his two ferocious lieutenants and his own constables arrive in Ku Bei Kou and they settle in the yamen, making the judge and the other constables to go to another place.

As his men are bullying the villagers and trying to rape women, Tong Lin fight with them and he finally fights with Wang Ye when he tries to take advantage of Pan Mei Niang, and he is poisoned by the two ferocious guards.

While he is almost dying in the Mai’s house, we discover that Pan Mei Niang isn’t a lame person at all and that she is an expert in martial arts, who offers her services to Wang Ye in order to get rid of Tong Lin and help him to get Yu Zhe. Shi Zhu helps Tong Lin to recover , but he isn’t totally well and when he fight once again, he faints.

Meanwhile, Mei Niang, who is actually Lin Yen Er, has discovered that Tang Ta Niang is actually the woman who has killed Wang Ye’s father years ago in order to get revenge for her husband. When Wang Ye came for the first time in the inn, Ta Niang has recognized her husband’s sword in one of Wang Ye’s lieutenant’s hands and that’s how we discover that she actually is Hong Yin’s wife and that she has killed the prince who has ordered her husband’s execution. Yen Er then plots with Wang Ye in order to trap Ta Niang and she is sent to prison, just in order that Ta Niang comes to save her, and then, it’s Ta Niang who is imprisoned. When she is about to be executed, it’s Ye San Lan who tries to save her, but he is also imprisoned and they are both in prison, later joined by Shi Zhu.

However, Yen Er has remorse when she thinks of how Ta Niang gave her all her affection but she doesn’t understand why and she goes on on her mission to obey Wang Ye.

She finally gives Yu Zhe the antidote of the poison and Yu Zhe’s father saves Tong Lin just in time to allow him to get rid of the killers sent by Wang Ye.

It’s finally revealed that Yen Er is actually Ta Niang’s daughter, who had been saved by Shi Zhu when she was a litllte girl and who had been kidnapped by the judge. When she realized that she is Ta Niang’s daughter and she almost killed her own mother, she is totally desperate and she decides to kill Wang Ye, but her mother doesn’t want her to do that. So, as they have proofs that Wang Ye isn’t a righteous prince, Tong Lin and Shi Zhu go to see the king and he gives them a seal to allow them to arrest Wang Ye.

Finally, Wang Ye is poisoned and Ta Niang and Ye San Lan are free.

The fights are excellent, as well as all the actors.

September 27, 2014

ObkQNSMxe8o

October 10, 2014

Cold blood warm heart TVB 1996

Main characters (I’ll write their name in pinyin such as I heard them in the Mandarin language version)

Yi family (family of bankers) :

Yi Shen : Kwan Hoi San

Yun Chin (or Yun Tin or Yun Ti, I didin’t hear clearly) : Poon Chi Man

Xiao Fong aka Grace his daughter

Xiao Ping aka Chris his younger daughter

His mother, played by Ha Ping

Yun Chang, Yun Tin’s brother

Chen Kang : Louis Koo, his son

Yun Chang’s mother

Shü family

Shü Yun Pang : Adam Cheng ; he is actually Yi Shen’s real son, but his father had to abandon him when he was a baby and he has been adopted by the Shu family. At the beginning of the series, he doesn’t want to have anything to do with his real father.

Shü Jia Li : Gallen Lo, his adoptive brother

Shü Jia Yi (or Jia Yin, I didn’t hear clearly) : his adoptive sister

Lau family

Lau Hui Fan : Christine Ng ; teacher

Lau Ze Tin (or Ze Kin, I didn’t hear clearly) : Julian Cheung, his younger brother.

Shui Nin : Shü Jia Yi best friend ; she loves Shü Jia Li

Ta Fei : young delinquent who later falls in love with Shü Jia Yi and marries her

Fong Rong Rong : Nadia Chan : works in the Yi family’s bank ; she is in love with Lau Ze Tin and she is loved by Chen Kang

Yun Guan, lawyer

She Rong, detective, Jia Li’s man

When the story begins, Yun Pang and Jia Li are detective in the same bureau, but they aren’t in the same team and Lau Ze Tin becomes the chief of Yun Pang’s team. They become friends and Yun Pang falls in love with Lau Hui Fan, but she doesn’t want him. Later, he discovers that her boy friend is a crook and he helps her to get rid of him and she finally gradually falls in love with him.

Shü Jia Li is friend with Yi Yun Chang, who is involved in illegal business, while his elder brother Yun Ti is an honest man, who knows that Yun Pang is his real brother and who is friend with him. They have a partner in crime who is nobody else than the chief of Yun Pang’s and Jia Li’s bureau.

One day, in the Yi family’s bank, Yun Ti’s mistress is killed and she is thrown from the bigger floor of the bank and falls just in front of Fong Rong Rong, who is totally traumatized. Yun Pang and Ze Tin come to investigate and Ze Tin immediately falls for her, without knowing that his best friend Yi Chen Kang is already in love with her (but she only sees him a a good friend). Yun Pang has to arrest his younger brother Yun Ti in order to know what happened and his father Yi Shen is very angry against him. Fortunately, it’s discovered that it’s another man who killed Yu Ti’s mistress (who worked in the bank) and, in order to make him shut up regarding the bank’s business, Yun Chang and Jia Li pay someone to kill him. When he discovers that, Yun Ti is furious against his younger brother. Later, the chief detective quarrels with both Yun Pang and Jia Li (I don’t remember why) and he asks Yun Pang to dismiss because Yun Pang has taken his adoptive brother’s defense against him. Then, while they are in a secret meeting, Jia Li asks his chief to let his adoptive brother quiet, but they quarrel and he accidentally kills him. He calls Yi Yun Chang, and this latter tells him to accuse Shü Yun Pang. Shü Jia Li first doesn’t want to because he is his brother, but he finally accepts and they make sure that Yun Pang’s plaque will be discovered on the crime scene, and then, Yun Pang is jailed.

Lau Hui Fan, his adoptive parents and his friends detectives try by all means to help him and his real father and his brother Yun Tin pay a famous lawyer, Yun Guan in order to help him to get out of prison. Unfortunately, they can’t succeed and the years pass by without any change in his life. Yun Guan falls for Hui Fan but she loves Yun Pang too much and only think of a way to help him. However, as his best friend has told him that he saw the lawyer and Hui Fan together and as he is very kind-hearted, Yun Pang doesn’t want Hui Fan to wait for him for more years (he has been in jail since already three years) and he uses all means he can in order to discourage her to go on visiting him and helping him. Hui Fan gradually falls for Yun Guan and they both finally find a way to set Yun Pang free and when he gets out, he doesn’t dare to reconquer Hui Fan and he let her marry Yun Guan.

While he was in jail, Yun Pang has found a former delinquent he had arrested and who was working for Jia Li, Ta Fei, and they mutually save each other’s life against some prisoners and hence they have befriended each other. Shü Jia Yi has fallen for Ta Fei and she took care of his father when he was in jail but unfortunately, his father’s dies and Ta Fei is devastated. However, he doesn’t want Jia Yi’s love because he think that he isn’t good enough for her. She Rong wants Jia Yi and he harasses Tafei in order to avoid that Jia Yi marry him, helped by Jia Li who doesn’ t want his sister to marry a former delinquent.

Shü Jia Li meets Chris, Yi Shen’s grand-daughter, who lives a dissolute life and they spend a night together. As he thinks that he is in love with her, he harasses her and doesn’t take care of Shui Nin, who is in love with him and helps him each time he needs her. One day, Shui Nin begs Chris to let Jia Li and Chris makes her drink until she is drunk before promising her that she will never meet Jia Li again. When she realizes how much Shui Nin must love Jia Li to do such a thing, she goes to meet Jia Li and tells him to let her and to think of Shui Nin and she tells him what Shui Nin did in order to help him. Shu Jia Li then realizes that he is in love with Shui Nin and they finally live together.

Later, Chris’s elder sister, Grace, returns at home (she was in another country) and she begins to work in the bank. Her sister is jealous and when he meets her, Shü Jia Li falls for her and begins to court her.

Meanwhile, Chen Kang has fallen for Rong Rong and, during a bank robbery, they are both taken as hostages and when Yun Pang, Ze Tin and their men come to rescue them, Ze Tin shoot when Chen Kang is fighting with a bandit and he hurts him. Later in the hospital, Chen Kang realizes that Rong Rong and Ze Tin are in love and he is very angry, but finally accept their love.

I don’t remember why (65 episodes to memorise, that’s a little bit too much !!), but later, Shü Jia Li and Yi Yun Chang ask someone to kidnap Yi Yun Tin in order to get money. When they finally come to rescue him, Yun Ti recognizes one of his kidnappers’ lighter in Jia Li’s hands and he understands that it’s him and his own brother who kidnapped him. He quarrels with his brother in the car (Jia Li is driving) and Jia Li suddenly stops the car and fights him. While he is uncounscious, Yun Chang and Jia Li quarrel because Yun Chang doesn’t want Jia Li to kill his own brother, but Jia Li is so afraid that they might be caught for their bad deeds that he kills Yun Ti.

Yun Pang and the whole Yi family are devastated and Chris is even more devastated because she had had a violent quarrel with her father a few days ago and she even didn’t know that he was dead and it’s her friends at the club that told her 2 or 3 days after the death, on the funeral day.

Later, Chen Kang discovers that his father is responsible of his uncle’s death and they have a violent quarrel, but as it’s his father , he gives up the idea to denounce him.

Meanwhile, Ze Tin has discovered that Rong Rong’s brother isn’t a very good guy. However, he has decided to get an honest work, but unfortunately, he is involuntarily involved in a drug business and he is jailed with the guy who involved him. Soon after, the guy and his partners kill him in jail and Rong Rong is devastated and holds Ze Tin for responsible of her brother’s death and she doesn’t want to marry him anymore.

When she discovers that Shü Jia Li has an affair with Grace, and finally marry her, Shui Nin is devastated and she tries to commit suicide, but she is saved by Ze Tin, and they gradually fall for each other, while Rong Rong becomes more close to Chen Kang, who still loves her. Later, she discovers that Chen Kang’s father was involved in his own brother’s death and she wants to denounce him, but she can’t and she leaves the bank and Chen Kang.

After marrying Grace, Jia Li begins to work at the bank and isn’t a detective anymore.

Meanwhile, thanks to Ta Fei who now works with him in a restaurant, Yun Pang begins to accept to talk to his real father and to see him more often. His two fathers are friends since a long while and they often talk about him when they meet.

Later, Shü Yun Pang finally discover that his adoptive brother is responsible for his imprisonment and he is devastated, but as he consider him as his brother and he doesn’t want to make his adoptive parents to suffer, he doesn’t denounce him, but Ze Tin has already found the truth and he wants to jail Jia Li, but, I don’t know why because of the lack of subtitles, it seems that Jia Li had good links with the right people in order to avoid the prison and he is still free and continues to work at the bank.

Later, Grace discovers that he isn’t very “ clear “ and they separate. At the same moment, Shui Nin and Ze Tin are about to marry and Shui Nin and Rong Rong became good friends. After his separation, Shü Jia Li begins to harass Shui Nin in order to get her back and he finally succeeds and Ze Tin is devastated.

Later, Shü Jia Li takes the control of the bank and Yi Shen is devastated, as well as Grace, Chen Kang and Yun Pang, who now works with his real family in the bank. They try to get rid of him and Yun Chang tries to kill him, but it’s him who is killed in a car accident and the family is once again totally devastated. But the worse is to come when Yun Pang finally discovers that it’s his adoptive brother who killed his two brothers and he is torn between his two families.

When Shui Nin discovers all the bad deeds Jia Li did, she tries to escape and she falls from a cliff. Jia Li wants to help her, but She Rong doesn’t want to and tells him that she is dead, but she survives and Jia Li is arrested . Unfortunately, his lawyer is a very good lawyer and he is finally declared innocent and from this moment, Shui Nin is always frightened to see him. He finally kidnaps her, but she escapes with Rong Rong’s help, but Rong Rong losts her sight in a car accident provoked by She Rong, who was chasing them. Finally, Shui Nin attacks Jia Li with a knife, and, after believing that he is dead, she commits suicide and all her friends are devastated.

When Yi Shen learns that Jia Li killed his two sons and that Yun Pang is his only remaining son, he has a heart attack. Both Yi Shen and Yun Pang confess their love for each other and they decide to get back the bank, but Jia Li is more powerful than them and finally, Yi Shen dies and Yun Pang is devastated, as well as Grace, Cheng Kang and all the members of the family and also as well as Yun Pang’s adoptive father, who is also about to have a heart attack several times during the episodes because of his own son’s bad deeds.

After Shui Nin’s death, Shü Jia Li decides to take revenge on those he holds for responsible : Rong Rong, Ze Tin, and the whole Yi Family. He kidnaps Rong Rong but he is arrested ( because She Rong has denounced him after he was almost killed by Jia Li who wanted to escape from killers ) and Ze Tin begs him to tell him where she is because it’s been several days since she disappeared and he is afraid that she might die. Jia Li doesn’t want to talk and he is killed by a killer paid by the members of the first guy’s gang he killed at the beginning of the series. Ze Tin has tried to save him, but he is also badly hurt and it’s Yun Pang and his friends of the brigade who finally discover Rong Rong buried alive by Shü Jia Li.

Earlier in the series, Hui Fan is pregnant, but her husband discovers that he has cancer and, as he knows that Yun Pang still loves her, he asks him to take care of her and the baby when he’ll die. Yun Pang agrees and Yun Guan dies the same day his baby is born.

Finally, Yun Pang marries Hui Fan, Rong Rong and Ze Rin are reunited and Yun Pang leaves the bank to Grace and Chen Kang.

Of course, I didn’t describe the whole plot because it’s full of twists and what I described wasn’t very easy to put in a right chronological order, sorry…

What a superb series !! I rank it as good as Once upon a time in Shanghai. Adam Cheng is excellent in his role and all the actors are very good. All the songs are beautiful (Adam Cheng sings three songs in this series).

October 19, 2014

Xi Shuo Qian Long aka Legendary Qian Long part 1

Main characters :

Emperor Qian Long/Huang Siye : Adam Cheng

Chunxi : his personal maid

Baozhu : his bodyguard

Jialiu : his eunuch

Minister Cao : his most trustful minister

First story

While he is travelling incognito in the country in order to see if the rules of the government are properly followed by his ministers, Qian Long meets two group of traders : the salt traders, lead by Chen Huaixiu (Angie Chiu), and the water traders lead by Mister Cao, who owns the ferries. The two gangs are oppressed by the government taxes and they struggle against each other.

Li Jin, the head assistant of the salt traders is in love with Chen Huaixiu since she took the lead of the gang after her father’s death, but she rapidly falls for Qian Long and he becomes jealous and want to kill him, especially when she decides to make him her head assistant after he has helped her against the Cao group. Later, they all discovered that actually, the two groups were lead to struggle against each other by a corrupted officer called Suo Lawang, who uses Lama monks to kill Li Jin and make the two groups to destroy each other.

When he recognizes Qian Long when he was about to destroy both gangs, everybody discover that Huang Siye is actually the emperor and he fights with Qian Long and tries to kill him, but the soldiers finally arrive and Qian Long has to separate from his new friends. He asks Chen Huaixiu to come with him to the Palace, but she doesn’t want too because she doesn’t want to leave her men and her salt business.

Later, she comes to the palace, but she finally refuses to become Qian Long’s concubine because she feels that she is only a common woman who cannot live with such a great person as the emperor and Qian Long is left totally desperate.

Second story

While he is on his way to go to Chengde in order to spend summer in his property, Qian Long meets in Mongolia a young woman called Shen Fang (Angie Chiu) and they sympathize. Later, he learns that she is on her way to collect a blood debt and they fall for each other.

Shen Fang is actually the daughter of a minister who was ordered to poison himself by the emperor because he had helped a lettered person (if I understood well). His wife has committed suicide and their daughter was sent as slave in another country. When she escaped, she was rescued by a couple and became their daughter. When he discover that Shen Fang wants to kill him, Qian Long returns to the palace in order to get informations on the case of the Shen family. Before leaving, he has been attacked by two men and a woman who wanted to kill him and he has been helped by Shen Fang. The three killers poison themselves and though they are still alive, they cannot speak not move anymore and one of them only said two words before becoming like a tree : Sui Tan.

Later, Baozhu is almost killed by the internal kung fu of an old man living in the Shen’s house while he was investigating it with Jialiu and Qian Long discovers later that this old man is actually an old servant of the Shens who wasn’t at home when the father was ordered to drink the poison and the mother hang herself. He also discovers that Sui Tan is an evil monk who exploit and rob the poor people in another country with his group of monks and Qian Long goes there with his four assistants.

He meet again with Shen Fang and later, she is kidnapped by the monks and that’s Sui Tan who tells her that the one she believ to be a horse seller is actually the emperor. He uses her as a bait in order to lead Qian Long to a hill on which he placed a lot of bombs sold to him by an English man and Qian Long almost dies on the hill just in order to set Shen Fang free. When he succeed in setting her free, she attacks him and he blocks her sword with his hands and tells her that if she wants to kill him he won’t fight back. When she sees the blood on his hands, she is distressed and it’s only because her old servant asks her to not kill the emperor that she gives up her revenge and she leaves with the old servant, while Qian Long returns to the palace once again totally desperate.

Third story

An officer who had been sent to Taihang mountains in order to ask the bandit Shen Jiu to surrender is killed and Qian Long is furious against Minister Di, who had sent the officer alone to the mountain. Meanwhile, a beautiful piece of silk is sent to Concubine Qing because she wants to offer it to QIan Long for his birthday, but he neglects her and she is so furious that she tears the clothe. She is jealous because of Chen Huaixiu and Shen Fang and she sends her maid, who is an expert in martial arts, to spy on the emperor, in order to know if he has a mistress, but he is only taking care of the affairs of the country.

Later, Shen Jiu robs the clothes made for the emperor in order to offer them to the woman who has embroidered the clothe torn by Concubine Qing because he has fallen for her and she wanted to study the art of the embroidery from the workshop which supplies the palace.

Chunxi discovers that the robbed clothes are in this woman workshop and she tells Qian Long, who sends soldiers to arrest the woman, called Jin Wu Zhen. When he visits her in prison, he is surprised to discover that she looks like both Chen Huaixiu and Shen Fang, and that she doesn’t want to tell him who robbed the palace clothes, telling him that she is the only one to be held responsible for the robbery.

When Shen Jiu discovers that she is in prison, he tries to set her free, but she doesn’t want to follow him and tells him to return to Taihang mountains because, as he robs the rich to give to the poor, many people depend on him.

Finally, Qian Long discovers that it’s Shen Jiu who robbed the palace clothes, but meanwhile, one of Shen Jiu’s men has kidnapped Chunxi and he is upset because he worries a lot for her. He finally decides to set Jin Wu Zhen free and he install her in his favourite pavilions and they fall for each other, but Wu Zhen is a complicated woman who seems to love both Qian Long and Shen Jiu, though she pretends that this latter is only a good friend.

When he discovers that Wu Zhen is about to become another QIan Long’s concubine, Shen Jiu decides to give himself up and Qian Long, who has understood that it’s him that Jin Wu Zhen actually loves, let Chunxi and his three assistants organize their escape.

Later, we see Wu Zhen living happy with Shen Jiu in the mountain and we discover that they have a little boy, but from what Wu Zhen reminds of, we understand that the boy is actually Qian Long’s son, and she sends him some embroidery on which she has portrayed the boy and herself.

Very good series. The fights are excellent, as well as Adam Cheng, who is superb in the role of Qian Long.

October 27, 2014

The book and the sword 2008

Emperor Kangxi’s 9th son has been demoted with the 8th prince years ago by Emperor Yong Zhen and the story begins when 9th Prince aka Prince Yuntang comes to visit Yong Zhen at night in order to kill him in order to take revenge, but when he arrives, Yong Zhen is already dying and he leaves the palace with anger.

Yong Zhen’s son Hong Li is then crowned as the new emperor, according to his father’s willing and he takes the name of Qian Long. His elder brother is already dead, his second elder brother is imprisoned because he had ploted against his father with his two uncles and his younger brother is only interested in Buddhism, flowers and birds, so, everybody thinks he is the best one to be the Emperor, but he is often lectured by his mother, who doesn’t allow him to do what he wants in order to rule the country.

When he becomes the Emperor, the Empress Dowager gives a secret letter from her husband to an officer and the same night, a noble Han named Chen is killed by the flying guillotines of a group of assassins and his wife is saved by 9th prince, who promises her that he will take back her son Chen Jialuo to her.

Actually, 9th prince saved her on purpose because he knows that she is the real mother of Qian Long, who is a Han. As his wife had given birth to a girl, Yong Zhen had exchanged the girl with the Chens' elder son who was born the same day and the proofs of the exchange are hidden in the Shaolin temple.

Qian Long comes to visit his elder brother and promises him that he will set him free very soon, but just after his visit, 9th prince comes and kills him because he doesn’t want to help him to get rid of Qian Long.

9th Prince decides to form a group of experts in martial arts and calls it the Red Flower Society and he trains them in order to restore the Hans on the throne. He visits Qian Long (who is surprised to see him, since he was supposed to be dead ten years ago) and asks him to help him to regain his title and properties.

Later, 9th Prince brings Chen Jialuo to his mother and promises her that he will consider him as his own son and he takes him to MountTianshan, where he asks Master Yuan Shixiao to instruct him. First, Jialuo is reluctant, but he finally learns a lot from his master. Before leaving Beijing, he has met Wen Tailai and his wife Lu Bing and has helped them to escape from the soldiers, and he has also saved Master Lu Feiqing, who is Li Yuanzhi’s teacher (she is the daughter of an officer called Li).

Among the members of the Red Flower Society (RFS), there are Wen Tailai and his wife (4th brother and 4th sister), Tian Hong (7th brother), the Taoist one-armed priest Wuchen, the hunchback Zhan Jin, The Golden Flute (14th brother), the Chang Brothers , Chunhua and Shuangying. These four latter are actually totally devoted to 9th prince and Chunhua and Shuangying (9th and 10th brothers) have been his followers for years.

When he is in Mount Tianshan, Chen Jialuo meets one of the Seven Tribes, lead by Mu Zhuolun and his daughter Huo Qingtong, and he falls in love with Qingtong, who is the disciple of The Twin Eagles of Mount Tianshan. It’s a couple and the woman, Mei, was loved by Yuan Shixiao, who is always quarelling with her husband because he married the woman he loved.

Later, 9th Prince tries to take the proofs of Qian Long’s identity in Shaolin temple with the help of 4th brother, but he is wounded and he is supposed to be dead. He asks 4th brother to tell Chen Jialuo that he is now the new chief, but Jialuo is reluctant to do so, but his brothers insist and he has to take the charge.

While he is trying to escape the soldiers with his wife and 14th brother, 4th brother takes refuge in Master Zhou’s house, but this latter’s young son betrays them by mistake and 4th brother is imprisoned by a renegade from the WuDang sect, Zhang Zhaozhong, who is a fellow brother of Lu Feiqing and Master Ma Zhen, and the RFS tries to set him free by all means.

During one of their try, 7th brother is hurt and he is saved by Zhou’s daughter, Qi, who is “ sworn brother “ with Chen Jialuo and they fall in love.

4th sister is hurt and 14th brother takes care of her and confess that he loves her and he decides to save 4th brother even if it means the death for him. He is also imprisoned and discovers that Zhang Zhaozhong is his master’s fellow brother.

Chen Jialuo meet Qian Long on his parents tomb and they make an oath to never hurt each other (but Jialuo still doesn’t know that Qian Long is his elder brother).

Later, the RFS finally succeed in saving 4th brother, but 14th brother is badly burnt. Li’s daughter Yuanzhi has fallen in love with him and she helps him, but he doesn’t want her because he is still in love with Lu Bing.

9th prince uses the RFS as a tool to hurt Qian Long, but they don’t realize that, since they don’t know that he is still alive.

The princess of Yue Country comes to pay tribute to Qian Long and he discovers that her bodyguard is a girl who was raised with him and 9th prince, Bu Qianjia. He asks her to come back to the palace because she understands him, but 9th prince is in love with her and he keeps her for a while in his Yongle castle. There, she discovers that actually, he plots against both Qian Long and the RFS and that he uses one of the prince of the Yue Country in order to succeed and she fights with the prince and he is killed by one the Changs brothers, who suspect Qianjia to spy on their boss. She fights with them and kills one of them and the second one badly hurts her and he is killed by 9th prince, who is totally devastated by her death.

When he was trying to save 4th brother, Chen Jialuo learns by this latter that Qian Long is a Han and that he is his elder brother.

Later, Chen Jialuo manages to kidnap the Emperor and he informs him that he knows that they are brothers and they make an oath that Qian Long will restore the Hans.

As Qian Long is as crafty as his uncle, he has finally understood that it’s this latter who is behind the RFS and he asks Jialuo to be careful.

Qian Long decides to allow the Han people to wear Han’s clothes and he often wears this kind of clothes himself, but his mother scolds him and reminds him that when he became Emperor, he swore before his father’s funeral tablet that if he betrays the Manchus, he will be dethroned and tortured to death, so, he has to give up his decisions.

Later, though he had promised to not start a war with the Seven Tribes, Qian Long send troops there and, in order to help Qingtong, Chen Jialuo goes there and meets Qingtong’s younger sister, Ka Sili aka Princess Fragrance and he falls for her, though he says that he still loves Qingtong. While they go to General Zhaohui’s tent (this latter is under the orders of 9th prince, who knows some of his secrets), they discover Fu Kangan, who is a bastard son of Qian Long, who looks exactly like Chen Jialuo and they have to escape because Zhang Zahozhong is also here and wants to kill Jialuo.

14th brother, who has decided to become a monk, learns by Yuanzhi (who has witnessed it) that his master has been killed by Zhang Zhaozhong and he decides to take revenge and he joins all the brothers of the RFS who are helping Jialuo and Ka Sili.

Later, Qian Long asks his brother to get the proofs of his identity from Shaolin and he lures his brother, making him believe that he won’t attack again the Seven tribes.

Later, Qian Long and his uncle decide that if 9th prince takes the proofs from Chen Jialuo and destroy the RFS, then Qian Long will give him his status back and each of them is very satisfied, believing that he has cheated the other.

Finally, Qian Long gives back his status to his uncle and this latter is ordered to destroy the RFS (he has already asked Chunhua and Suangying to kill at least 3 or 4 members and they are suspected by 3rd brother and 7th brother, as well as Chen Jialuo, and they set a trap against them and they are killed by 9th prince, who believes that they have betrayed him), but when he is about to order his soldiers to kill them all, an Emperor decree is read in which it is said that the quarrel between him and the RFS is an internal quarrel and that the soldiers shouldn’t be involved in it and he is alone against the 7 remaining members of his RFS. He fights with them, and then with Jialuo, and he finally commits suicide, thinking of his love Bu Qianjia.

Later, Chen Jialuo learns that the Emperor has destroyed the Seven Tribes and he is so furious that he decides to speak with him once again and there, he discovers that Ka Sili is prisoned in the Palace and that Qian Long is in love with her. He decides to take her away, but Qian Long tells him that if she stays in the palace, he promises to not invade again the Seven Tribes and that he will finally help the Han and that he won’t destroy the RFS and will offer to each of his members a good status. Jialuo accepts and takes Ka Sili away just to talk with her, but she decides to return to the palace in order to save her people. When she understands that Qian Long won’t keep his promise, she decides to kill herself and Qian Long is devastated.

When they learn about Ka Sili’s death, all the remaining members of the RFS decide to follow their chief and Huo QIngtong in order to kill Qian Long, but Fu Kangan has planed to kill them all (ordered by Qian Long), but as they are clever, they don’t fall in the trap and they kidnap him.

Qian Long comes to meet them and he asks for his son in exchange of 14th brother and his wife. First, the RFS want to kill him, but when he says that is he dies, the Empress Dowager will press the next emperor to oppress the Han much more than under Qian Long’s reign, they realize that he is right and they accept the exchange and leave, after Qian Long has promised that he will do his best to instore a better equality between the Hans and the Manchus.

Of course, I didn’t write all the details of the plot, and maybe that what I wrote doesn’t follow precisely the order of the episodes…

The good point of this series is that it has English subtitles, so, it allowed me to better understand what I had seen when I had watched the TVB series from 1976. However, there are some difference between the two series. In the TVB one, there is no mention of the 9th prince and the RFS is already established , while in the 2008 series, we see how each member is chosen and that it’s 9th prince who was the founder of the RFS. Also, in the TVB series, there is no mention of the episode with the Yue Princess and Bu Qianjia.

As I read somewhere that the TVB series has 95 episodes and as the vcds and dvds of this series have less than 95 episodes, perhaps that actually there is no difference in the plots between the two series. Does anyone have had the luck to see the whole 95 episodes of the TVB series and can tell if the plot is exactly the same as the one of the 2008 series ?

Also, which one of the two series is the closest to the novel ?

I’m not really fond of the fight scenes filmed in slow motion or with freezing images during the action scenes or with such special effects that the fights become totally unrealistic, but I still enjoyed the 2008 series, even if Adam Cheng has only two training fights and no action scenes during the 40 episodes. He portrays very well this emperor who is restrained by his mother and the Manchus’ rules and who is really very cunning, which has allowed him to escape his uncle’s plot .

However, the TVB’s series is my favourite one among the two series.

November 1, 2014

The misadventure of zoo TVB 1981

The story begins with a young girl who visits a shack where lives a vagrant who she knows he has been an Emperor, and she asks him to tell her his story.

Then, the series tells the story of A Chuen ( Adam Cheng), a simple and naïve man, who lives with his mother and his brother in a small town and who is in love with Rong Rong ( Louise Lee Sze Kei), but Rong Rong’s father, who is a rich guy, doesn’t want him to marry his daughter until he has a lot of money. He becomes friend with three poor guys and when some bandits try to invade the town, the five friends ( Adam, his brother and the three guys) resist them. But as they are very clumsy, they almost destroy the stores of the village and they are chased.

Meanwhile, A Chuen has met a Chinese revolutionary and he has helped him to escape the soldiers and they became friends.

They try to enlist in the army, but they are so weak that they aren’t accepted. However, it happens that they become soldiers in a warlord’s army. As time goes by, the warlord dies from accident and A Chuen replaces him and the same thing happens several times and A Chuen finally becomes a respected warlord.

However, they are chased and ruined and, with his friends and brother, they try to become bandits (I don’t remember if this happens before they became warlords or after, sorry) and as they were about to rob a convoy, they are outstripped by a powerful group of bandits who hide in a cave such as Ali Baba’s cavern, with a word to open the stone (of course, there is somebody behind who opens the stones according to the word which is said by the chief…). They follow them and they are caught and forced to work for the bandits. The chief bandit’s sister falls for A Chuen, but he only thinks of Rong Rong and she has such a bad breath that he escapes from her. However, the chief wants to marry them and A Chuen tricks his brother with his friends’ help and when they awake, the brother and the girl realize that they are in the same bed…Later, the chief bandit dies from accident and A Chuen becomes the chief.

Later, he goes to Shanghai with his family and friends because he knows that Rong Rong is there with her father and he saves a big boss’ life. He meets an actress and he becomes a famous actor, but the actress wants to marry him and follows him everywhere, so, when he meets Rong Rong again, she believes that he is with the actress and she doesn’t want to see him again. Meanwhile, there is a war between big bosses and still due A Chuen’s clumsiness, one of them is killed and he becomes the first boss’ friend (the one who he saved earlier). However, as he is becoming more and more famous and as the big boss wants to marry Rong Rong, the big boss becomes jealous from A Chuen and he tries to kill him on the wedding day, but it’s him who is killed by his own men (still due to the A Chuen’s clumsiness…) and A Chuen becomes the big boss of Shanghai.

However, he has a rival who is a Japanese guy, who ruins him and kidnaps Rong Rong in order to force him to cheat Emperor Pu Yi. As A Chuen is a doppelganger of Pu Yi, the Japanese guy wants him to impersonate the Emperor in order to help Japan to invade China. As he wants to save Rong Rong, A Chuen is forced to do so and he lives other adventures in the palace, where he meets Pu Yi’s cousin (Lydia Shum), who is in love with Pu Yi. As Rong Rong has become one of the concubines’ followers (due to the Japanese guy), A Chuen decides to marry her but he is cheated by Lydia’s father and it happens that he has to marry Lydia. Of course, he doesn’t want her during the wedding night and they fight and she discovers that he is not Pu Yi. First, she wants to denounce him, but he tells her that he is forced by the Japanese guy and, as they are both Chinese, they decide to unite in order to get rid of the Japanese guy. Later, this latter is finally killed and A Chuen succeed in saving all his family, friends and even Pu Yi and his cousin, with the help of the Chinese revolutionary he had helped in his native town.

As they are in the train to leave Shanghai, there is an explosion and A Chuen awakes in an hospital without any news of Rong Rong, his friends and his mother and he begins to wander with the hope to find them.

Then, the story returns years later to the vagrant, who is no one else than A Chuen, and the young girl decides to help him to live a decent life and she leads him to a refuge for homeless persons. While they are in the street, they meet one of the young girl’s neighbor and A Chuen immediately recognizes Rong Rong, but she doesn’t recognizes him and he is very sad. The young girl tries to make Rong Rong realize that he is the one she loved years ago, but she tells her that she doesn’t know him.

In the refuge, A Chuen finally reunite with his brother and sister-in-law and with his three friends, but he learns that his mother has died.

The young girl tries to reunite once again A Chuen and Rong Rong, but Rong Rong still says that she doesn’t know this guy and when he realizes that he will never reunite with his beloved one, A Chuen begins to sing the song they were used to sing together when they were young, and then, Rong Rong finally recognizes him and, later, they finally marry each other. On the wedding day, A Chuen learns that he is the winner of a lottery, and then Rong Rong desperately cries because she knows that every time A Chuen has got money by luck, it has lead him and his relatives to their ruin and his separation from Rong Rong. In order to show how much he loves her, A Chuen then destroys the winning ticket and that’s the end of the series.

Though there are a lot of deaths in this series, it’s shown in such a comic way that it’s a very funny series and Adam Cheng is excellent in playing this simple-minded guy who reminds me of the French actor Pierre Richard, who played such a clumsy man with strokes of luck totally incredible.

Adam Cheng is also very touching in the two last episodes when he plays the old guy who can’t reunite with his beloved one because she doesn’t recognize him and these episodes were very moving.

So, this is a good enjoyable series, with lots of laughs and a little bit of emotion.

November 15, 2014

Sorry, I just realized that I didn't answer to your post regarding Five easy pieces.

First, thanks for the informations you gave me regarding the fact that the series have been shorter than it should have been and no, there are no fights in it.

November 15, 2014

Shen Yi Da Dao Gong aka God of medicine aka Miracle doctor 2010

dam Cheng plays the god of medicine Bo Shen Da Di (he is often called Wu Tao) and he has a maid called San Hong, who is very clever and is fond of him.

One day, a magistrate comes to chase them from the temple where Wu Tao cures poor people and he is very arrogant and argue with San Hong. While they are arguing, they are attacked by a dragon calle Hei Lung and by a white tigress, called Bai Hu (often called Hu Mei during the series) and Wu Tao uses San Hong hairpins to hurt them in order to force them to go away, while the magistrate has fainted. Then, San Hong understands that her boss is actually the God whose statue is in the temple. They cure the magistrate, who is called Er Zhü, and he finally becomes Wu Tao’s disciple.

Hei Lung and Hu Mei have been sent to attack him by his enemy Wen Jue. As they are hurt, he chases them with the mission to kill Wu Tao, but this latter cures them instead of fighting with them, and they become his disciples and the three of them try to get rid of Wen Jue, but this one is very clever and escapes them.

In Heaven, as Hei Lung and Hu Mei were Wen Jue’s disciples, the God of gods wants to severely punish them, but Wu Tao doesn’t want to and he prefers to become a mortal than letting them being killed, so, he returns on Earth as a mortal who has lost all his powers, but not his intelligence and he has some gadgets which help him to avoid Wen Jue doing bad deeds.

During one of their adventures, Wu Tao, Hei Lung, Er Zhü, San Hong and Hu Mei helps a young woman, who has a red birth mark on her face and who has been promised by her father to the Prince (or the Emperor, I don’t know, but he wears the yellow clothes of the Imperial persons). She is in love with her father’s servant who tastes the dishes in order to see if they are poisoned (he is called Tong Ming) and it happens that while Wu Tao is there, Tong Ming is really poisoned by a dish. He cures him and discovers the truth regarding the two young people’s love. Unfortunately, Wen Jue has decided to help the father to give his daughter to the Prince and he switches the young woman’s face with the one of her servant, and it’s this one who is sent to the palace, but Tong Ming discovers the truth and the two lovers fly away, while WU Tao and his disciples are in the palace. Then in order to get more and more power using the servant to cheat the emperor and help her to become the empress, Wen Jue poisons Wu Tao who becomes paralyzed. Thanks to San Hong, Hei Lung and Hu Mei, he finally recovers, Wen Jue is prisoner in the Heaven and the young woman and her servant recover their own faces and the young woman can live peacefully with Tong Ming.

In the next adventure, as Wu Tao is now in Heaven (or in a kind of Purgatory, on a cloud, from where he observes what happens to his disciples with an old god and a soldier-god who holds a pagoda), San Hong and Er Zhü take care of the temple with Hei Lung and Hu Mei and there’s another doctor in the temple, who cures the poor people. However, Wu Tao’s three disciples discover that there is something strange with this doctor and they finally find that he has poisoned the well in order to get more patients to cure (if I’m not mistaken…). And later, San Hong discover that Er Zhü’s father is an accomplice of this bad doctor. When she tells Er Zhü about this, he doesn’t believe her and his father tries to kill her or to take her to justice. San Hong discover a hidden book which proves that she is right, but when she gives it to the judge, Er Zhü’s father threaten the judge and this latter imprisons San Hong, because Er Zhü’s father has blackmailed him regarding his two sons. Finally, Er Zhü discovers that San Hong was true and, as he has become a judge too (in addition to be a doctor thanks to Wu Tao’s teaching) thanks to the Emperor,he imprisons his father and, as he has promised his mother that he won’t kill his father with his own hands, he brings poison wine to his father in order that he commits suicide and they both cry and Er Zhü is desperate. In their cloud, Wu Tao and the old god argue with the god with the pagoda because it’s too hard for Er Zhü, but he doesn’t want to change things. Later, Er Zhü is totally desperate and Wu Tao becomes a God again because his student has succeeded in being loyal to his duty and not to his evil father. When he sees that his master is back, Er Zhü wants to leave because he feels guilty about his father’s death, and then, Wu Tao tells him that his father is still alive and Er Zhü then meets the old god and he becomes a deity too.

During this adventure, Hu Mei has fellen for Er Zhü and Hei Lung is so jealous that he falls into Wen Jue’s trap and this latter succeeds in escaping jail in Heaven. He then takes Hei Lung as his disciple again and he sends him to kill both Er Zhü et Wu Tao. Wu Tao, Wen Jue and Hei Lung fight on the clouds and Hei Lung can’t escape a weapon and he explodes in myriads of molecules. Wen Jue take them all and he revives gim, but Hei Lung’s heart has disappeared and he gives him someone’s else heart, which leads Hei Lung to be more evil that Wen Jue !

Meanwhile, Hu Mei has found Hei Lung’s heart and she asks Wu tao for his help in order to save Hei Lung. They finally find him and Wu Tao cures him, but Wen Jue is stronger and he succeeds in keeping Hei Lung on his side, but Wu tao is more clever and finally Wen Jue is once again imprisoned in Heaven.

Later,Wen Jue is sent on Earth as a mortal and the God who holds a pagoda forces Wu Tao to take him as a student. Hei Lung has disappeared and Hu Mei is desperate and Wu Tao has taken two other disciples : a young man very good in martial arts, and the girl this young man has saved from a forced marriage. Everybody is suspicious towards Wen Jue and Hu Mei and the young man (I don’t remember the name of his character) discover a cave in which there are two things : a kind of key and a white life-jacket. The young man discovers that this life-jacket can tell him the future and help him to do different things. Hu Mei and Wu Tao go to the cave and Wu Tao is trapped in it because the key which opened it doesn't work anymore and Hu Mei is desperate. Then, Wu Tao imitates Hu Mei and Er Zhü's voices in order to lure Hei Lung to the cave and he succeeds in making Hei Lung so angry that it's him who opens the cave and Wu Tao then escapes and take Wen Jue as a prisoner again. As San Hong and Wu Tao have left the temple in order to see someone who could help Wu Tao to get rid of Wen Jue and help Hei Lung to become as he was before he became Wen Jue’s disciple once again, the young man and his lover are in charge of the temple with Wen Jue and Hu Mei.

Actually, Wen Jue is still a god and he has planned to use Wu Tao’s new student in order to get more power and he succeed in becoming a real god again thanks to the life-jacket. He chases San Hong and Wu Tao and he finds them thanks to Er Zhü, who has become a butterfly due to Wen Jue’s bad deeds and who hadn’t seen that he was followed by Wen Jue.

Fortunately, Wu Tao succeeds in avoiding to be killed by Wen Jue and he kills him in Heaven, where Wen Jue has taken the place of the God of gods due to his new powers.

Meanwhile, Hei Lung has definitely been cured and he has helped Wu Tao and Hu Mei to get rid of Wen Jue, and Wu Tao returns to the temple, where he goes on curing poor people with his 6 disciples (Hei Lung, Hu Mei, Er Zhü, the young man, this latter’s love and San Hong).

This is a very good fantasy series, with a little bit of everything : laughs, fights, morale, twists, a bad evil, a good guy, good songs, beautiful costumes and of course, a lot of fantasy…. Very enjoyable and worth watching.

January 11, 2015

Blade heart update

I got a 46 episodes version of this series (I read somewhere that instead of 37 episodes, it actually had 42 episodes, so, I think that I must have the most complete version…) and I watched it for the second time, which allows me to describe it with more details than in my first review…

The characters

Tang Bi played by Liza Wang

Ling Fung/Yu Wen Fung played by Adam Cheng

Miss Liu

Sima Yi, elder of the Sima clan

Sima Sin, his brother

Sima Ping Ting, his niece

Sima Siu Yu her brother

Mang Lei played by Raymond Lam

Mang Lei’s mother played by Lily Li

Miss Tsing

Fei Er, member of the Wang family

Yi Er, Tang Bi’s daughter

Huo Sheng who worked for the Tang family

Huo Sheng’s three friends, one of them being a doctor

Fei Er’s father

Eunuch Zheng, played by Chen Hung Lieh

Chu Kou, Sima Yi’s servant

Bai Ma, a horse

20 years ago, Ling Fung and Tang Bi were married and they lived in the Tang family, which was a very renowned family making weapons.

The Sima family also made weapons and the two families were rivals. One day, the whole Tang family was destroyed by the Sima family, and both Tang Bi and Ling Fung believed that the other was dead. Ling Fung was imprisoned (as there are no subtitles, I don’t know why) and marked under his left eye and he was recruited by Eunuch Zheng, who gave him the head of the Brocade Guards under the name of Yu Wen Fung, wearing an eyepatch in order to hide his mark.

On her side, Tang Bi gave birth to a boy and asked Huo Sheng to abandon him because she felt that she wouldn’t be able to raise him and she left. She fainted on the road and she was taken care of by the Wang family and later, she married Master Wang, who lead an escort company.

The story begins with Yu Wen Fung saving the King from killers and later, his company and another company of guards are trying to attack the Wang boat, I don’t know why, but finally, Yu Wen Fung lets more or less them escape just in order to stop the other company to get the market (if I understood well). Later, he discovers that Miss Wang is actually his long lost wife, who is now a widow, and when she is about to be attacked or cheated, he secretly helps her.

Sima Yi returns home with Chu Kou and it seems that he suffers from a kind of madness which leads him to kill innocent people, and among them, there is his former teacher and we discover that Sima Yi and Ling Fung were disciples of Wu Tang and that Sima Yi was already a kind of rebel when he was a child. When he learns that Sima Yi is here, Yu Wen Fung tries to arrest or kill him by all means, but he is stopped by Eunuch Zheng, who tries to use the Sima family in order to fulfill his own interests.

Meanwhile, Yi Er and her cousin Fei Er (a nephew of Master Wang, if I understood well) help Tang Bi to rule the Wang family according to her husband’s will, while Fei Er’s father plots against her and almost kills Yi Er because she has discovered the truth. At school, Yi Er and Fei Er are the target of Sima Ping Ting and Sima Siu Yu (who obeys his twin sister as if he was blind and didn’t saw how evil she is ) and they are helped by Mang Lei, who has found a shelter at school for his mother, who is paralyzed. During their journey, they have met Huo Sheng and his three friends and they have become friends.

Mang Lei also becomes “ friend “ with a white horse who has saved his life by stopping him while he was about to drink poisoned water, and Bai Ma (the horse’s name, literally meaning White Horse in Chinese) also “ befriends “ Yi Er and the two young people become very good friends.

With Huo Sheng and his three friends’ help, Tang Bi decides to open a weapons manufacture in order to win a contest against the Sima clan in presence of the King. Knowing that it will be Sima Yi who will fight during the contest and as she holds him responsible of the slaughter of her family 20 years ago, Tang Bi decides to to kill him and she poisons the sword they have made for the contest and which will be used by Mang Lei (who is now working for Tang Bi at the manufacture) but during the fight, Huo Sheng arrives and tells Tang Bi that he has discovered that the boy he had abandoned 20 years ago and who he believed to be dead according to what the nurse had told him is actually Mang Lei, and Tang Bi stops the fight just when Sima Yi’s sword breaks Mang Lei’s sword, making this latter be hurt by the poisoned piece of sword. They call Miss Tsing, who is just a novice doctor to cure him (she had been also called by the Sima clan in order to cure Sima Yi and she had escaped with Sima Siu Yu’s help because she wasn’t acknowledged enough to cure him) and she finally succeeds, after having tested some poisons on herself in order to find the one which could cure Mang Lei.

When she discovers that Mang Lei and Yi Er are gradually falling in love, Tang Bi decides to separate them, and at the same time, the King, who has noticed Yi Er, decides to take her as his concubine.

With Miss Tsing’s help, Mang Lei and Yi Er escape with Bai Ma and they hide in a small house, but Tang Bi, Huo Sheng, his three friends and the Brocade Guards lead by Yu Wen Fung find them and when one of Yu Wen Fung’s men is about to kill Mang Lei, Bai Ma interposes himself in order to save him and he is killed. Yi Er and Mang Lei are desperate and they don’t want to separate, but, in order to save her son, Tang Bi hurts him and Yi Er has to follow the guards.

Meanwhile, as Eunuch Zheng wasn’t satisfied by Sima Sin, he orders to take all the Sima Clan’s properties and to imprison Sima Sin, so, his wife, Sima Ping Ting and Sima Siu Yu have to err in the town and they are insulted by the people. One of the Brocade guards invites Sima Ping Ting to eat something in the inn and he rapes her and when she finally leaves the inn, she sees the superb sedan chair in which there is Yi Er on her way to the Palace and she swears that she will take revenge on the Wang family, which she holds for responsible of her family’s loss.

Sima Sin succeeds in escaping killers with Yu Wen Fung’s help and he tells Yu Wen Fung that 20 years ago, both Sima and Tang families had been cheated and while he tries to kill Yu Wen Fung, he is hurt by his own poisoned secret weapon.

Sima Ping Ting is lead to her father by Yu Wen Fung and she tells him that she wants to get revenge and, though her father tells her not to do so, she insists and he finally dies.

Later, she makes both Mang Lei and Yi Er to believe that each other wants to date the other and she drowns her and bites herself and uses her blood to write something on a rock ; I guess that it’s an accusation against Mang Lei, since later, Yu Wen Fung chases this latter and is about to kill him when Tang Bi comes to rescue him. During the fight, she discovers that Yu Wen Fung is actually her long lost husband Ling Fung and she tells him that Mang Lei is their son. Mang Lei doesn’t want to believe that it’s true and he escapes.

Miss Liu is a kind of courtesan who lives in Ling Fung’s house and tries to seduce him, but he doesn’t want her and he only wants to be reunited with his wife. She helps him to trap Sima Yi, whom she met a while ago and with whom she became friend too, but Ling Fun is stopped by Eunuch Zheng and he is blinded by a poisoned powder. He succeeds in escaping but his former men chase him, except one of them who stays faithful to him and helps him to escape.

While she is trying to help Mang Lei and his mother to escape, Tang Bi is hurt and two of Huo Sheng’s friends are killed, including the doctor, and Mang Lei’s adoptive mother is killed too.

Later, Tang Bi and Ling Fung hide in Wu Tang, where they find 7 little disciples who help them to cure their wounds and they both train in order to defeat Sima Yi and Miss Tsing, who is now a good doctor, helps Ling Fung to cure his eyes. She is in love with Mang Lei since she met him, but she gave up when she saw that he had fallen for Yi Er and she is also friend with Sima Siu Yu, who is in love with her. Sima Siu Yu discovers that his sister has killed Yi Er and he is desperate and he tries to help Miss Tsing to escape from Eunuch Zheng’s men, who want her to lead them to Ling Fung and Tang Bi.

Finally, Ling Fung and Sima Yi have a discussion regarding their duel and they fight, but Ling Fung looses. Tang Bi leaves him because she doesn’t understand him anymore and he is desperate.

Meanwhile, Sima Ping Ting has decapitated her father’s corpse and she brings the head to Eunuch Zheng and tells him that Yu Wen Fung is actually Ling Fung and that Miss Wang is nobody else than Tang Bi and that Mang Lei is their son and they plot to get Mang Lei taking revenge on his own parents, and finally, Mang Lei is imprisoned and marked just as his father had been marked 20 years ago and he takes the head of the Brocade Guards, killing people under Eunuch Zheng’s order.

Sima Ping Ting decides to seduce him, but he doesn’t want her. Later, she tells her mother that she killed Yi Er and her mother decides to inform Mang Lei and Sima Ping Ting doesn’t hesitate to kill her brother who was bringing the letter. When she discovers that Sima Ping Ting killed both Yi Er and her own brother, Miss Tsing wants to tell Mang Lei the truth, but Sima Ping Ting tries to drown her too, but she sees that Mang Lei is coming and she makes him believe that she is trying to save Miss Tsing. This latter is in the coma and, while she makes everybody believe that she is taking care of her, actually, Sima Ping Ting poisons her day after day. Finally, Miss Tsing wakes up and first, she doesn’t recognize anybody, but when she sees Chu Kou (who has fallen for Sima Ping Ting and follows her everywhere while Sima Yi has left ), she recovers all her memory and she tells Mang Lei that Sima Ping Ting has tried to kill her and that she killed Yi Er and Sima Siu Yu, but he doesn’t want to believe her and she escapes.

During a crisis, Sima Ping Ting “ rapes “ Chu Kou, just in order to get him more obedient and to use his force against her enemies.

Later, Mang Lei decides to marry Sima Ping Ting but the day of the wedding, he goes to see her mother and he finally discovers that the bride has really killed Yi Er, her brother and even her uncle Sima Yi, with Chu Kou’s help and he wants to kill Sima Ping Ting, but she tells him that he can’t do that since she bears his baby. He is so angry that he show all the guests that he is a marked man and he leaves.

Later , he meets his father and they finally reconciliate and they find Tang Bi, who has helped Huo Sheng to escape from jail, but he is too badly hurt and he finally dies, telling Tang Bi that she must reconciliate with her husband.

Later, the king asks Ling Fung to help him to get rid of Eunuch Zheng and he tells him that actually, it’s this latter who had plotted against Sima and Tang families 20 years ago and Ling Fung obeys, but discovered that the king only used him. Mang Lei finally admits that he loves Miss Tsing, but he doesn’t know that she is dying from SIma Ping Ting’s poison and she doesn’t want that Miss Liu (who is helping her) tells him the truth.

In order to kill Mang Lei and his parents, Eunuch Zheng had sentenced Sima Ping Ting to death and it’s Ling Fung and Tang Bi who save her, but just to discover that it was a trap against their son. Sima Ping Ting finally marries Chu Kou, but he discovers that once again, she has just used him ans she even wants to get rid of their baby, but he still does all what she wants because he is deeply in love with her. He fights with Ling Fung and he badly hurts him and when Tang Bi tries to help him, she is cheated by Sima Ping Ting and the couple is prisoner of Sima Ping Ting and her husband. Tang Bi tries to cure her husband, but it seems that he has lost all his kung fu and when Mang Lei (who as been told by Fei Er that his parents are prisoners) arrives in order to save his parents, Sima Ping Ting hurts Tang Bi and Mang Lei has to fight with Chu Kou, who is as strong as his master Sima Yi was, and Ling Fung tells him what to do. It puts Sima Ping Ting mad and she hits him with her sword but she can’t kill him because the baby hurts her and when Mang Lei wants to kill her, Chu Kou begs him to let her live and promises that he and his parents will be free. The three of them escape, but Sima Ping Ting is mad about her husband and later, when he sees that her madness has become so strong, he kills her and he commits suicide.

When they have recover from their wounds, Tang Bi and Ling Fung finally decide to live happy together, but the king asks Ling Fung to work for him and, as he tells him that he can’t do it anymore because he lost all his kung fu, the king offers him a cup of wine and let him go.

The series ends with Ling Fung returning home and understanding that he has been poisoned, while his wife is waiting for him, playing zither.

As I said previously, it’s a superb series, with a lot of twists (of course, I couldn’t give a synopsis of the whole plot…), superb fights and the actors were all very good. Lily Li was poignant in her role of Mang Lei’ s adoptive mother who didn’t want to be a burden for her son, the actor playing Huo Sheng was excellent in the role of the faithful Tang Bi’s employee, the actresses playing Miss Tsing and Yi Er were good, and, as I already said, Chen Hung Lieh and the actress playing Sima Ping Ting played perfectly their hatable characters !!

January 17, 2015

Heaven sword and Dragon sabre TVB 1978

Here is a short synopsis of what I understood when I watched the Mandarin version.

Ha Yu and Gigi Wong play a couple belonging to two different clans and who fall in love. They are less or more kidnapped by Shih Kien and " land " on an isle where Gigi Wong gives birth to a boy called Zhang Wu Ji and Shih Kien (who is now blind, if I remember well) becomes his godfather and the three of them teach him martial arts.

Later, the couple return to Ha Yu's clan, but all the clans want to get a martial arts book they have found and in order to avoid the book being stolen on bad purpose, Ha Yu finally commits suicide, and his wife is so desperate that she kills herself too, leaving Zhang Wu Ji alone. The boy has to escape because everybody is after him and he falls from a cliff and finds shelter in a cave where he is helped and raised by a white monkey.

When he is a man, he meets a lot of people who is still looking for the martial arts book, among whom there is the Emei sect, with Angie Chiu playing the elder student, another sect using poisons, and Liza Wang's clan. The three girls (one of them belongs to the poison clan) fall for him and he finally decides to marry Angie Chiu, but Liza Wang discovers that Angie's purpose is only to get the book and that it's her who killed the girl from the poison clan, so, Wu Ji fights with Angie in order to save Liza and he finally escapes with Liza in order to cure her and the two of them decide to find out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys among all the clans. There is also a story with the Mandchous, if I'm not mistaken, and Liza's father and brother are trapped by the Mandchous and finally, Zhang Wu Ji gets rid of the bad guys, but Liza has been trapped and the end of the series lets suppose that she is dead.

It's a superb series.

If I finally get the English version, maybe there will be another update...

February 6, 2015

Qing Ming Shang He Tu

The series tells the story of Zhang Ze Duan, who was a famous painter during the Song Dynasty and whose masterpiece is a famous painting titled Qing Ming Shang He Tu.

Here’s a link where there are more informations regarding this painting :

http://www.chinaonlinemuseum.com/painting-along-the-river.php

Zhang Ze Duan and his friend (called Chen, if I heard well) arrive in the capital Bianjing (now Kaifeng) in order to become the students of a famous painter (if I understood well) called Siao Lin. The first day, Ze Duan saves Siao Lin daughter’s life from a chariot accident and later, he meets Shui Hua and her father who work on a boat, as well as his son.

Siao Lin doesn’t want to take students and, while Chen stays at the inn, Ze Duan wanders in the town and paints all what he sees and he becomes more and more attached to the city and its people.

Siao Lin has a rival called Cai, who has a son and who always looks for rare paintings to offer to the king (who seems to be only interested in horses paintings and jade sculptures) in order to be his favourite man, so, he sends his son (or his son’s men) to rob paintings in the boat on which Shui Hua’s brother works and Shui Hua’s brother has to escape and swim to the village where his family lives in order to escape to death.

While he paints in the town, Ze Duan meets Siao Lin’s daughter again and they become friends and she asks her father to take him as a student, but he still refuses. Meanwhile, Chen has decided to force Siao Lin to choose him and he shows him one of his painting, together with Ze Duan’s painting of a horse, but he doesn’t tell Siao Lin that the horse has been painted by his friend, and then, Siao Lin decides to take him as a student and his daughter Siao Lan is very disappointed to discover that her father’s student isn’t the one she was expecting.

Ze Duan is a little bit disappointed too to have not been chosen, but he is happy for his friend and he goes on painting all what he sees in the city. As he doesn’t have money anymore to pay the innkeeper, he decides to sell his paintings in the streets and Cai’s son discovers the painting of the horse (there were several copies of it) and he decides to invite Ze Duan to his home and presents him to his father. Then, the two of them plot against Ze Duan in order to rob his paintings and to kill him on a boat where he is made drunken by Cai’s son. Fortunately, the boat is conducted by Shui Hua’s brother and he saves Ze Duan from being drowned and he hides him on a small island. When he discovers thathe is not dead, Chen is very angry and he becomes friend with Cai’s son and they plot again against Ze Duan, because both Cai and Siao Lin have offered the same horse painting to the king and they are afraid that Ze Duan and the king might discover that Chen has stolen the painting.

When Ze Duan discovers that it’s the Cais who wanted to kill him, he goes to their house where there is a banquet and he makes a scandal, but Cai ridicules him.

Ze Duan is lead to the king and he explains that both paintings are his and the king decides to plan a kind of contest in order to choose the best painters who will work in the palace and Chen, Ze Duan and another guy are chosen as the best painters and they work in the palace, under Siao Lin’s control, who is an official in the palace as well as Cai.

However, Ze Duan isn’t very happy in the palace because he can’t paint what he is most interested in and has only to paint the king, or the dancers of the palace and he escapes in order to paint what he sees in the streets. The king is so angry because he doesn’t want to paint what he has asked him to paint that he imprisons his arm in a kind of stranglehold in order that he can’t paint anymore. Siao Lan’s father asks him to obey the king’s desires and he finally agree to paint what the king wants, but later, he disagrees once again with the king and he is finally jailed.

The king has discovered that Cai wasn’t very honest and he wants to punish him. Then, I don’t know what Cai tells him, but on the contrary, the king makes him to hold the royal seal and become more powerful than before.

When she is about to visit Zhang Ze Duan in jail, Shui Hua hears Cai’s son who is plotting with two guards in order to organize a fake escape for Ze Duan and kill him when he escapes. She immediately tells her father and her brother and the three of them help Ze Duan to escape : while Shui Hua’s brother impersonates him and escapes, chased by Cai junior and his men, Shui Hua and her father lead Ze Duan to Siao Lan’s house and she helps him to leave the town though the doors are well guarded. Then, he has to leave for far away and they say farewell to each other with sadness.

While he is walking near a forest, Ze Duan is captured by soldiers and they force him to work with other prisoners for carrying heavy stones. When he says that he knows the king, the others laugh at him and don’t want to believe him, except one of them. Later, an old prisoner falls with his stones and the soldiers hit him. Ze Duan interferes and he is tied on a tree and heavily hit until the man tells them that he knows the king. Then they leave and abandon him. He is found by an old man who brings him to the old temple where he lives and he cures him. When he recovers, Zhang Ze Duan discovers paintings on the wall and he asks the old man and finally learn that he is an old friend (or the master? I didn’t hear clearly what they said) of Siao Lin and the old man gives him a letter in order that he returns to Siao Lin’s house and that’s what he does. Both Siao Lan and her father welcome Zhang Ze Duan and while he stays in their house, he decides to paint all what he discovered when he was prisoner of the soldiers and he wants to show that to the king in order that he knows what his soldiers are doing under his back. But of course, Cai family learns about the painting and he can’t go to the king, so, he goes to a brothel where there is a courtesan called Li Shi Shi, who is the king’s favourite and he asks her to show the painting to the king, but the mama of the brothel takes the painting and burns it, telling Shi Shi that she will have problems if she does what Zhang Ze Duan has asked her to do. Ze Duan is desperate to see that nothing happens and when she sees how in despair he is, Siao Lan decides to paint once again the painting and they finally unite their efforts in order to succeed. When it’s finished, Ze Duan (still in disguise) returns to Li Shi Shi and asks her once again, and he finally tells her who he is and then, she agrees to help him. Cai and his men come in the brothel in order to find Ze Duan and kill him, but Shi Shi hides him in her room and appear with the king’s coat of arms on her dress and Cai has to give up his project because he is afraid of the king. Later, the king arrives and he discovers Ze Duan in his favourite’s room and first he is very angry, but when Ze Duan shows him the painting and explains him what has happened to him, he forgives them. As he spent the whole day away, Siao Lan is very worried about him and she goes to the brothel and sees that Ze Duan seems to be under Shi Shi’s charm and she leaves very angry.

When he returns at home, Ze Duan is chased by Siao Lin’s servant and by Siao Lin herself and she doesn’t want to listen to his explanations, so, he leaves and returns to the inn. And later, Siao Lan is married to Chen because Siao Lin doesn’t believe that Ze Duan is good for her because he doesn’t hesitate to tell what he thinks, even to the king.

Later, he returns to the palace and the king receives a Mongol delegation (I’m not sure it’s Mongols) and they all want to steal Ze Duan’s paintings. The chief Mongol tries to rape Shui Hua and she is saved by Ze Duan, her husband and the villagers and Ze Duan is once again put in jail and Cai hit his right hand in order that he can’t paint anymore. He is saved by the king, who asks his people to take care of Ze Duan’s hand.

Later, Cai, his son and their allies are killed under the king’s orders due to their eveil deeds.

Later, there is a war with the Mongols and the king losts and he is lead to exile together with his son, his empress Li Fei (disguised as a man ), Zhang Ze Duan and a few other men. They are forced to work in a quarry and it’s very hard for the king, who is asked by the Mongol chief to paint a cave where there is a gigantic statue of him. As the king isn’t able to do what he has been asked for, in order to save him, Zhang Ze Duan agrees to paint for the Mongol chief. Before the war, he had began to paint his masterpiece, Qing Ming Shang He Tu, and when he is alone, he goes on painting according to what he recalls from his life in Bianjing, but when the Mongols come, he hides it and paint their portraits. However, he is betrayed by one of the king’s men and the Mongols learn about the painting and their only task is to get the painting (the Mongols in Bianjing had been told about the painting by Chen, who wants to get rid of Zhang Ze Duan because he knows that his wife loves him). In order to spy on him and get the painting, they force him to marry a young maid he has saved from torture because she hadn’t succeeded in forcing Li Fei to eat after this latter has been discovered by the chief Mongol and has been forced to marry him. As she is grateful to him because he saved her, the maid, called A Lan, doesn’t betray him and even helps him to go on painting and hiding Qing Ming Shang He Tu. When he learns that Li Fei is almost diying from hunger and that the Mongols plot to kill her, Zhang Ze Duan goes to see her and shows her the painting in order that she be strong for her people. She then seems to become a good wife to the chief Mongol.

Later, as Ze Duan doesn’t want to tell where is his painting, his wife is tortured and even decapitated under his eyes and he is put in jail once again. Then, Li Fei shows Qing Ming Shang He Tu to her husband (she has made him being drunk before) and she put wine on the painting “ by mistake “. As the Chief Mongol has also a bigger chief above him, he is desperate because he is afraid to be killed by his chief, but Li Fei, tells him that only one man can repair the painting and she asks him to ask Zhang Ze Duan to do it. While he is painting, the chief Mongol faint due to his drunkness and Li Fei gives Ze Duan the painting and a seal which will allow him to escape from the exile. First, he doesn’t want to live because he doesn’t want her to be killed, but she insists, telling him that it’s important for the country that his painting is saved for the future generations and he finally escapes, while Li Fei kills herself in the sea.

When he returns to BianJing, Ze Duan asks for Chen’s help (he still hasn’t understood that he isn’t his friend anymore but a traitor) and he discovers that Chen has another wife and that Siao Lan has gone away. Of course, Chen tells the Mongols in Bianjing that Zhang Ze Duan has returned to the capital and he also asks the Chinese magistrate (who was an officer under the king’s orders) to arrest Ze Duan and to get Qing Ming Shang He Tu. Fortunately, the magistrate has seen the painting and he plots with Ze Duan in order that he can escape with his painting and Siao Lan, with the help of the villagers (including widow Shui Hua and her father). Ze Duan and Siao Lan arrive in another town where they are welcomed by an officer called Li, who was previously Ze Duan’s friend.

On their wedding day, Siao Lan’s old servant come to tell them that the Magistrate who helped them has killed himself and that they are still chased by Chen and the Mongols. The king of the state where they live doesn’t agree with Li who wants to help them and Li dies and the couple has to escape once again.

Later, Ze Duan finds Shui Hua who has been raped and prisoner of the Mongols and he brings her at home, where she is cured by Siao Lan. When he realizes how many people has suffered or died because of his painting, Ze Duan decides to give it to the Mongols and they return to BianJing. There, they go to the temple with all the people of the town and he first let them see the painting and when Chen and the Mongols arrive, instead of giving them the painting, he burns it and both Ze Duan and Siao Lan commit suicide.

I’m not sure to have respected the order of the scenes I described, but it seems to me that I gave the main interesting facts of this series, that I found excellent.

And the song is superb !

February 15, 2015

Man in the middle aka Sandwich man TVB 1983

Adam Cheng and Joseph Lee play two very good friends who work in an advertising agency where they are the two best workers. Adam is married to a real pest, who despises him and who has a sister called A Min, who is Joseph Lee’s love interest.

His wife is so awful with him that he asks for divorce and lives in his house with Joseph.

One day, someone steals Adam’s money under the eyes of a poor man (Lau Siu Ming) who uses Joseph’s car in order to pursue the bandit and arrest him. He succeeds in getting back the money, but Joseph is very angry against him because he damaged his car and Adam is ashamed by his friend’s behavior. He looks for Lau Siu Ming and finally discovers that he lives in a slum with his little monkey and he decides to help him find a job in his agency and Lau Siu Ming is appointed in an advertising spot ; actually, it’s the monkey which is appointed, but unfortunately, due to the director’s demands, the poor monkey dies and Lau Siu Ming is desperate. Adam is so compassionate and feels so guilty by the monkey’s death and Lau Siu Ming’ desperation that he brings him home and helps him to find a new job.

Due to several bad advertising campaigns, the agency goes downhill and Adam has to take a second job as a teacher in an university where he meets a charming girl, Tong Pei Wen.

Actually, Pei Wen is there on purpose : she has been sent by her boyfriend, called Paul, who is a rival of Adam’s boss and one day, she steals Adam’s plans for a campaign and it’s Paul who wins the market. When he discovers that, Adam is furious and he even falls ill and when he is at the hospital, he discovers that Pei Wen is actually a nurse there and he is more mad at her.

Later, Adam and Joseph discover that their boss has appointed Paul as a worker in his agency and Adam has to work under his orders. Of course, he doesn’t appreciate this situation and both men are trying to sabotage each other’s work and finally, Adam decides to resign and he leaves the agency, falling ill once again when he sees that instead of asking him to stay due to his good work all over the years, his boss prefers to keep Paul even after knowing that this latter stole Adam’s idea for a campaign.

Later, Adam realizes that his in love with Pei Wen and he looks for her everywhere and they finally begin a love story.

Adam finds a job in another advertising agency where there is a woman called Feng Xiao Mei, who is the boss’ mistress (the boss is played by Kenneth Tsang).

As Kenneth Tsang is married and doesn’t want that everybody knows that Xiao Mei is his mistress, he asks Adam to date her and make everybody believe that he is his lover. Adam isn’t very happy to have to do that, but as he doesn’t want to loose his job, he obeys his boss, which leads to a lot of misunderstandings.

One day, Xiao Mei (who has discovered what her lover was able to do thanks to Adam who tomd her the truth) offers Adam a gold watch with his name carved on it. When she discovers that, Pei Wen is jealous and Adam decides to destroy it with Joseph and Lau Siu Ming’s help, but what he doesn’t know is that Joseph has exchanged his own watch for the gold one.

Later, as Joseph wants Adam to work with him (he has opened his own advertising agency with A Min), he goes to se Kenneth Tsang and shows him the watch offered by Feng Xiao Mei and the same day he was about to marry Pei Wen, Adam is fired from Kenneth Tsang’s agency and he is so delayed for the marriage that Pei Wen doesn’t want to see him again.

Joseph persuades Adam to invest in his agency and they work together, still with Paul as a rival.

Due to Joseph’s bad manipulations, Adam is ruined and even his sister doesn’t want to help him and give him money, so, he is desperate and he chases Joseph when he discovers that in addition to have ruined him, he has accepted to work for Paul, who is his enemy since he stole his ideas.

Finally, Adam’s sister comes to give him a lot of money, but he discovers that it’s actually Feng Xiao Mei who gave her the money and shince he is now reunited with Pei Wen, he doesn’t want to accept her money, but she finally succeeds in making him to accept, but he almost fall in her arms and they quarrel because he tells her that he loves his fiancée and doesn’t want Xiao Mei to be his mistress.

Later, with Lau Siu Ming’s help, Adam wins a big market under Paul’s nose and he marries Pei Wen, while Joseph stays alone.

It’s a good series, with some funny moments.

February 28, 2015

The hawk TVB 1981

Adam Cheng plays Ting Lan, who belongs to the hawk clan and is a bounty hunter. One day, he meets a young woman called Zhao Lin, who is dressed as a man and impersonates him and in order to make fun on her, he leads her to a brothel and when she asks him to take “ him “ as a student, he shows her that he found her hairpin and he tells her that he doesn’t take female students, but they become friends.

Later, Ting Lan’s mother asks him to return home and she wants him to marry Ni Tian Er (played by Angie Chiu), but, as he doesn’t want to marry her (he never met her), his mother imprisons him in a dungeon, where he meets his nephew Ting Shao Bai. However, on the wedding day, Ting Lan succeeds in escaping from home and with Shao Bai’s help he leaves the town.

During their journey, they meet Zhao Lin again and she presents Ting Lan to her father (I’ll call him Master Zhao, since I didn’t hear his name clearly), played by Kwan Hoi San. There, Ting Lan meets also a guy he had met a while ago, Fei Qing Lung (if I heard well), who is a kind of lieutenant for Master Zhao. Fei Qing Lung is in love with Zhao Lin, but she only loves Ting Lan and she is absolutely convinced that Ting Lan loves her too.

Ting Lan has a friend called Lao San, who has a daughter A Yin, who falls in love with Shao Bai, but her brother doesn’t want her to follow Shao Bai.

As the weeding was postponed, Tian Er left her house and began a journey in order to find her future husband. While Ting Lan and his friend Lao San are in a town, they hear of a beautiful new courtesan called Su Su, who is interested only in swordsmen and Ting Lan finally discovers her and is totally fond of her. Of course, it happens that it’s Ni Tian Er, but he doesn’t know it, while she knows who he is since he gives her his real name when they meet.

After a few adventures, they finally return to the Tings’ house and they marry, but on the wedding day, the woman who raised Tian Er is hurt by some guys and she has to escape together with Tian Er, this latter’s uncle, her maid Ze Tin, Ting Lan and also Zhao Ling, who, though she is very angry with Ting Lan because she still believes that he loves her, has decided to help them to save the old woman. While the couple, Ze Tin and Tian Er’s uncle fight with some assassins, Zhao Lin comes to help them and the sedan bearers try to kill the old lady, but she is saved by Ting Lan. Tian Er is so angry against Zhao Lin because she had promised to stay with the old lady instead of helping them that she hits her with her sword and Ting Lan is very shocked by his wife’s behavior and he is angry with her and leaves with Zhao Lin hurt in his arms in order to lead her to her father, while Tian Er, her uncle and the wounded old lady try to find a new shelter.

During their escape, they are helped by Lao San, who learns that Tian Er is actually the daughter of two famous members of the Moon Sect and when he is on his way to Ting Lan, he is badly hurt by men who are under Master Zhao’s wife’s orders and who are chasing Tian Er in order to kill her and her family’s members. Before dying, Lao San tells Ting Lan about his wife and gives him a plan in order that he can reunite with them. Unfortunately, when he arrives in the cave where they were hiding, he only finds the corpses of the old lady and the men who attacked her, and he is desperate because he doesn’t know where his wife is.

Tian Er, Ze Tin and Tian Er’s uncle are still trying to escape to the men who want to kill them and they finally find the house where the Moon Sect lived 20 years ago and they find a manual in a cave and Tian Er decides to learn how to use her crescent sabre in order to get revenge for her parents.

Actually, Master Zhao is the real mastermind of those who want to get rid of all the members of the Moon Sect and he sends his wife to go to the Moon Sect Mansion in order to kill Tian Er, but when she is there, she recognized that Tian Er’s uncle is actually the man she loved and she had to leave in order to marry Zhao Lin’s father. Both Tian Er and her uncle succeed in making her to stay with them, but later, they are attacked by Master Zhao’s men and they are saved by Tian Er and her new skills. As they are both injured and lost a part of their skills Tian Er’s uncle and his former fiancée decide to leave and Tian Er leaves in order to go to kill Master Zhao. She meets Fei Qing Lung, who tells her that it’s him who is responsible for her parents’ death, and he also tells her that Ting Lan is with Zhao Lin in order that she helps him to get rid of Ting Lan because he is jealous.

With the help of a family who worked for her family 20 years ago, Tian Er challenges Master Zhao (on a day where Ting Lan isn’t at the Zhao’s house) and, while they are fighting, he falls from a cliff. Zhao Lin wants to kill her and Fei Qing Lung betrays her and tells everybody that she is from an evil sect and that she wants to rule the whole martial world and they all ( Shaolin, Wu Tang and another sect, who were summoned by Master Zhao) want to kill her. Ting Lan arrives and helps her, but when he learns that she has killed Master Zhao, he doesn’t understand her anymore and, instead of killing her, he hurts her right arm in order that she can’t use her crescent sword anymore, and he returns to the Zhao’s mansion in order to make the other sects believe that he has killed his wife.

Zhao Lin thinks that she will then be able to marry him, while Fei Qing Lung , who has taken the head of the Zhao’s mansion, is much more jealous and decides to do all what he can in order to get rid of his rival in her heart.

While Tian Er is escaping, she faints and she is saved by Shao Bai and A Yin, who live in a small house in the forest. When she recovers, she trains in her new skills (with her left hand) and Shao Bai spies on her and learns the crescent sword too.

One day, A Yin’s brother recognizes Tian Er in the street and he immediately tells Qing Lung that she is still alive and he takes some men in order to kill her and she is saved by Shao Bai with her own technique and Fei Qing Lung has to escape.

Ting Lan is so desperate to see that his wife doesn’t want to give up her vengeance and doesn’t want to see him anymore that he returns at home, but the Shaolin, Wu Tang and Zhao sects plot against them and they corrupt an official in order that he takes away their gold eagle symbol. There is a fight and Lady Ting’s lieutenants kill themselves and Ting Lan’s sister-in-law is killed, while he is trying to save his mother.

Ting Lan is so desperate that he leaves the town and goes to the desert where he befriends a man who belongs to the tribe of a Mongolian prince who had helped Tian Er, her uncle and Ze Tin when they were escaping and had discovered that Ze Tin was actually his cousin. Ze Tin has agreed to marry the Prince and they capture Ting Lan and his friend who were attacked by another group of Mongols, but Ting Lan hides his face in order that Ze Tin can’t recognize him. However, as both friends are about to be burnt, Ze Tin, her husband and their men are attacked by the other group of Mongols and Ting Lan escapes from the flames and helps them to get rid of their rivals and he escapes with his new friend (called Jiu, if I’m not mistaken). Actually, the other group of Mongols is paid by Fei Qing Lung, who wants Ting Lan to be killed.

During their escape, Jiu and Ting Lan are totally exhausted and thristy and they faint in the desert. When he awakes, Ting Lan discovers that it’s Tian Er that has saved them and they finally make up after giving each other some explanations.

On Ze Tin and the prince’s wedding day, the prince is killed and Ze Tin is buried alived and tortured by Fei Qing Lung’s men who want her to tell them where is Tian Er and, in order to avoid talking, she swallows her tongue and dies. When Ting Lan and Tian Er’s uncle arrive, they find that they are dead and they return to Tian Er in a hurry.

Meanwhile, Fei Qing Lung has forced Zhao Lin to marry him, but on the wedding night, she wants to kill him and is killed by his sword by accident. Qing Lung is desperate and he discovers that Master Zhao isn’t dead and he is badly hurt by him and he escapes. He arrives in the Mongolian tribe and is discovered by Jiu, who talks too much and is unfortunately killed by Qing Lung when this latter( who has been saved and cured by Jiu) learns that he is Tiing Lan’s friend.

Ting Lan and his wife return to Ting Lan’s mother and they escape when they are chased by Master Zhao’s men, but Ting Lan still doesn’t know that he is the mastermind. It’s only when Shao Bai kills Fei Qing Lung in order to get revenge for his mother’s death that they finally understand who Master Zhao really is. This latter is so eager of power that he becomes half mad and is confident only in A Yin’s brother, who has a kind of devotion for him and often argue with his sister and doesn’t believe that his master could do harm to the Tings.

Finally, after a lot of twists, Tian Er and Ting Lan finally succeeds in killing Master Zhao, but Tian Er wants her husband to kill her in order that she doesn’t do harm to others because she belongs to an evil sect. Of course, he doesn’t want to and his friend the monk helps her to get rid of all her martial arts skills and she returns to her husband, while poor Shao Bai has lost the use of his right arm due to the bad wound he received from Fei Qing Lung before killing him.

Sorry if my review isn’t clear enough : I watched so many series in a short while, that I don’t remember clearly what I watched and maybe I didn’t described the scenes in the right order…

What a superb series, and it’s so unusual to see Adam Cheng fighting with another weapon than a sword, a fan or bare hands. Here he fights with a triple section iron stick, each stick being linked to the others by an iron chain (sorry, I’m not able to name properly the Chinese weapons…) and he is excellent with this weapon as well as with all the other weapons he uses in his other series or movies.

And the songs are very good, as usual…

March 3, 2015

Fate takes a hand aka Du Xin Wu TVB 1987

When I bought this series 2 or 3 years ago, I got it only in Thai language and I didn’t understand a word, except Adam Cheng’s character’s name, Du Xin Wu. However, I had found it superb and it was the first series with Adam Cheng I watched and that made me being a “crazy“ fan of his.

I recently had the luck to get a Mandarin version of this series and I watched it once again, and this second viewing reinforced what I thought when I first watched it : what a superb series and how excellent Adam Cheng is in it !!

So, here is my review for this series.

Fate takes a hand tells the story of Du Xin Wu, who was a rich scholar and martial arts expert in a small town.

The series begins with some assassins trying to kill Sun Yat Sen, but they don’t know that they are actually following his bodyguard Du Xin Wu and, while this latter fights with them and creates a diversion, Sun Yat Sen escapes in his car. During the fight, Du Xin Wu is hurt by a gun and while he is curing his wound, he finds some photos in his suitcase and he remembers his past…

One day, a guy called Lu brought a coffin in front of the Dus’ house (I didn’t understand why) and, after a short fight won by Du Xin Wu, the two men became friends and Lu left the town. Later, Du Xin Wu and another scholar and martial arts expert, Nung Siu Fu (played by Simon Yam) are in a boat with the Qing Court officials and they discuss of strategy because the French boats are going to attack them. While they are discussing, a few men lead by a girl introduce in the boat and tell something I didn’t understand to the officials, but they don’t want to believe what she says and she has to fight in order to be able to escape from the boat, and Du Xin Wu is very impressed by her. Later, the Chinese boats are attacked by the French boats and many soldiers are killed, and it’s Du Xin Wu and Nung Siu Fu who use the canons in order to destroy the French boats, but their own boat explodes and they have to swim in the sea in order to escape. It’s not shown how Nung Siu Fu escapes, but it’s the girl who saves Du Xin Wu and, in order to thank her, he gives her his sword, on which his name is carved, and he learns that she is called Guo Feng.

Later, while Du Xin Wu is training with his master (Shih Kien ), who is also an official of the Qing Court in the town, they are spied on by a young girl disguised as a man and it happens that it’s Fan Jie, who is the daughter of a master of Feng Shui, who is a good friend of Du Xin Wu’s father (played by Shaw Brothers’ actor Tien Ching).

A more important Qing Court official (played by Kong Ngai, hatable as possible in this role !! ) arrives in the town and when he sees Shih Kien, he recognizes him and from what I understood, there is an old grudge between them due to the fact that Shih Kien married the woman Kong Ngai loved. This official is very hard on people and he is very servile towards the French officials who despise the Chinese. One day, the French organize a kind of tournament with rickshaws ; the rickshaws pullers are Chinese, of course, and the people who compete are French people, playing a kind of hockey match. Among the rickshaws pullers, there is a young guy called Liu Fu Hai, who has an elder brother (who is also a rickshaw puller, but his health isn’t very good and he hasn’t been selected for the tournament), and an uncle who is an opium smoker. The French competitors hit their rickshaw pullers without any hesitation, and when he saws that Kong Ngai doesn’t interfere in order to protect his own people, Du Xin Wu is so angry that he jumps among the rickshaws and he beats the French officials. Kong Ngai fights with him and Du Xin Wu is forced to stop the fight because the French officers threaten him with their rifles. Kong Ngai humiliates Du Xin Wu and wants him to kneel down in front of the French people, but he doesn’t want to. His father begs him to obey, and when he sees that his father is about to kneel down in his name, he is forced to do it and it’s evident in their eyes that the war is declared between Du Xin Wu and Kong Ngai. Du Xin Wu is lead to jail, but before leaving, he shows Kong Ngai that during the fight, he has succeeded in taking away his jade pendant, and Kong Ngai is stunned to discover that he has found a better fighter than him in the town.

As punishment, Du Xin Wu is hanged by the hands to the door of the town for three days and three nights. During one of the nights, three assassins are sent in order to kill him, but he is saved by Fan Jie, who also climbs on the roof in order to protect him with an umbrella when it rains.

Finally, Xin Wu can return home and Kong Ngai goes to the Dus’ house and bring them a sign and he fights again with Xin Wu and is surprised to discover that after three days and three nights he is still a good fighter and is able to counter attack all his strikes.

Fan Jie’s father looks for a good place for the Du’s family gravestone and when he finds the right place, there is already the gravestone of the Liu’s family. Du father doesn’t hesitate to order his men to dig up the dead corpses and they bring the bones to the Lius’ house with some money to compensate. Liu Fu Hai is furious and he doesn’t want the money and, with his brother’s help, they go to demolish the Dus’ gravestone and recover theirs, but they are arrested and Du father wants them to be jailed, but Du Xin Wu doesn’t want them to be imprisoned because he thinks that it’s his family’s fault if the Lius did this and he asks his master to speak up for them to Kong Ngai and, after a fight between the two officials, they are finally free. Xin Wu wants to give money to the Lius, but Fu Hai doesn’t want to, so, he wants to help them to find a better job and after a quarrel, Liu Fu Hai tells him that he doesn’t want his help.

Later, the Lius ask Kong Ngai to help them to work for him, but he humiliates the elder brother and this latter finally kills himself and Fu Hai and his uncle are desperate. When he learns about Fu Hai’s brother’s death, Xin Wu still wants to help the family, and after another quarrel with Fu Hai, this latter finally accepts to work for the Dus and they become friends.

Fan Jie’s father dies and before dying, he asks his friend Du father to marry Du Xin Wu to his daughter and Du father promises him that he will do so, but Du Xin Wu sees Fan Jie only as a friend and is in love with Guo Feng and he doesn’t want to marry her, but his father orders him to do so. On the wedding day, with Liu Fu Hai and his servant’s help, Xin Wu escapes from the house and the Dus marry Fan Jie to a rooster (! ). When she discovers that, Fan Jie is furious and she goes to the town in order to find the three men and she steals Du Xin Wu belongings as a compensation for her cancelled wedding. Xin Wu then decides to go to the capital in order to become an official and he meets Nung Siu Fu, who lives with his uncle Nung Yuen Tian (played by Kwan Hoi San), and his cousin, who is a little bit simple minded and the two friends participate to the tournaments in order to become officers.

As they are the strongest among all the candidates, the Empress Ci Xi decides to decide between them by asking them to teach a few moves of martial arts to the royal princesses. These ones prefer to chat and laugh instead of listening to Nung Siu Fu’s orders and he fails. When it’s Du Xin Wu’s turn, they do the same, but he hit one of the princesses with his long stick on her acupuncture points and she faints. The other ones are so scared that they immediately obey to his orders and they handle their long sticks the way he asks them to do, and he finally wins the tournament and Nung Siu Fu will be under his orders. And then, it’s the beginning of Nung Siu Fu’s jealousy towards Du Xin Wu…

Meanwhile, Guo Feng has been joined by her neighbor Ming, who is also a very good female fighter, and they have gone in another part of the country in order to join the Tang clan, who is a rebel group. One of the lieutenants of the Tangs’ chief doesn’t want them but Guo Feng succeeds in convincing Tang that he has to accept them and she even becomes the second chief of the Tang clan.

Du Xin Wu , Nung Siu Fu, Liu Fu Hai and a group of soldiers are sent to the part of the country where the Tangs are, with the mission to capture the rebels. Later, the rebels attack the camp and set the provisions on fire but when he discovers that Guo Feng is among the rebels, Du Xin Wu can’t kill her nor capture her. They have a quarrel because Guo Feng tells him that he hasn’t chosen the right side, but he tells her that he thinks that he serves better his country by being an official rather than a rebel and he lets her go. When Nung Siu Fu learns that, he becomes suspicious towards Du Xin Wu and he decides to do all what he can in order to get rid of his former friend. The former second chief of the Tang clan has spied on Guo Feng and he accuses her to be a traitor because she holds Du Xin Wu’s sword, and, in order to show Tang that she isn’t a traitor, she breaks the sword, and, while Du Xin Wu and a few men are waiting on the beach a night in order to trap the Tangs, she comes and discovers that Du Xin Wu has fallen asleep and she puts the broken sword near him and leaves.

As there are no provisions and as Nung Siu Fu is so jealous towards Du Xin Wu that he has poisoned the water, the soldiers leave the camp little by little and even Liu Fu Hai decides to leave.

Then, a Qing Court official called Wang, who must be a royal prince because he wears the yellow clothes under his uniform, is sent to the camp and he decides to give the commandment to Nung Siu Fu and to place Du Xin Wu under this latter’s orders.

Later, Nung Siu Fu captures Tang and there is a negotiation between him and Guo Feng in order to release him, but Guo Feng demands that the negotiation will be between her and Du Xin Wu. Nung Siu Fu is so furious that he takes the opportunity that both lovers are discussing in a shaolin temple to help Tang to escape from the camp, and then, he kills him without any mercy. Tang’s men are convinced that it’s Du Xin Wu who has ordered to kill their chief and they run to the temple in order to kill him and Guo Feng and Ming fight their men in order to help him to escape, but they run after him and it’s Liu Fu Hai (who has joined the rebels’ camp) who saves Du Xin Wu (who is hurt) by throwing smoke grenades.

Later, Du Xin Wu is sent to another part of the country in order to be placed under an officer called Tang (not the same Tang as the rebels) and they become good friends and they win a naval battle against the English and Japanese boats (if I’m not mistaken). However, as there was an assassination attempt against Ci Xi, Du Xin Wu is called back to the palace in order to protect the Empress, and he is very worried towards his friend Tang because it’s Nung Siu Fu who replaces him under Tang’s orders.

Unfortunately, he discovers that he was right to be worried, since he learns by a survivor of his former soldiers that Nung Siu Fu has plotted in order to get rid of Tang, who was killed in another naval battle (if I understood well) and he is so furious that he wants to kill Nung Siu Fu, but Wang arrives and don’t let him do it.

Later, Ci Xi receives a foreigners delegation and when Du Xin Wu hears how she is selling off her own country to strangers, he can’t help but interfere and Ci Xi wants him to be killed, but all the other officials plead his cause and he is only dismissed.

Later, Du Xin Wu opens a school in order to teach the country’s love to the people of his native town and when Nung Siu Fu discovers the school, he fights with him but it’s Xin Wu who wins and he is furious.

Nung Siu Fu now works for Wang, and, after a reconciliation with Fan Jie, Du Xin Wu asks her to leave because she behaves as if she was his wife and he doesn’t love her, so, she becomes Nung Yuen Tian’s goddaughter after his son’s death, due to a bad mistake of Liu Fu Hai (I think that this part of the series takes place a little bit earlier than the events I described above).

I don’t know how nor why, but Guo Feng, Liu Fu Hai, Ming, Wang and Nung Siu Fu negotiate something and, from what I saw, some weapons are supposed to be delivered to Guo Feng, but the delivery fails and Nung Siu Fu hides the rifles in his uncle’s house. Unfortunately, Fan Jie losts something in the warehouse where there are the rifles and the whole warehouse explodes and fan Jie and Nung Yuen Tian have just the time to escape from being killed by the explosion.

When Nung Yuen Tian learns by his servant that it was his nephew who hid the rifles in his warehouse, he is furious and he has a quarrel with him, but Nung Siu Fu tells him that it’s not true and he swears that he isn’t responsible for this matter, and his naive uncle believes him. Then, Nung Siu Fu goes to Wang and tells him what happened with the rifles and Wang decides to accuse Nung Yuen Tian of that, though Nung Siu Fu doesn’t agree, and he promises him that nothing will happen to his uncle.

On the contrary, the unfortunate uncle is lead to the magistrate, who is no one else than Wang, and he is accused of having robbed the rifles and his nephew even has to testify against him. Nung Yuen Tian is so furious against his nephew that he tries to hit him, but he can’t. When he learns that Wang wants to execute his uncle, Nung Siu Fu is furious and he helps his uncle to escape and gives him some money, but he doesn’t know that Wang has anticipated his move and three killers attack his uncle and he falls from a cliff.

When he learns that his uncle is supposed to be dead, Nung Siu Fu wants to kill Wang, but this latter succeeds in making him change his mind and he goes on working for Wang.

Later, Liu Fu Hai is introduced to the palace and he works for Wang. Guo Feng and Ming meet Lu and they plan to kill Ci Xi, but their plan needs that Guo Feng introduces in the palace as a maid or something like that, so, as Liu Fu Hai is already an official in the palace, Guo Feng decides to marry him in order that he presents her as his wife to Ci Xi. Of course, Du Xin Wu is devastated to learn that the woman he loves prefers to marry another man and, as she can’t reveal her plan, she can’t tell him why and he doesn’t understand anything, as well as Fan Jie, who asks Guo Feng to give up her idea of marriage and to marry Du Xin Wu since she knows that they are in love, but Guo Feng leaves without any explanation. Liu Fu Hai isn’t aware that his wife uses him to plot against the Empress, and he doesn’t understand either why she has married him since he knows that she loves Du Xin Wu, but, as he loves her, he doesn’t try to find the truth.

On the day she is supposed to meet the Empress, Li Fu Hai comes to talk to his wife and he finds that she has prepared a snake in order to poison a sword and he knocks her out and runs to the palace in order to inform the Empress, just at the same moment when Lu is attacking the palace and tries to kill Ci Xi by using his sword against the guards, and then some grenades, but he is hurt and he has to escape.

When he returns at home, Liu Fu Hai is beaten by his wife and Ming even wants to kill him, but when he tells Guo Feng that if he knocked her out it was because he didn’t want her to be killed, she stops Ming from killing him.

While he is walking on the street, Du Xin Wu meets some officers and he asks them why there is so much agitation and they tell him that they are looking for the killer, and, after they left him, he finds Lu by a stroke a luck and he helps him to find a hiding place and he wants to cure him, but Lu tells him that it’s too late and they talk once again about the country’s love and Lu tries to make Du Xin Wu understand that he has mistaken himself by being an official instead of being a revolutionary and they swear to be sworn brothers, but Lu dies and Du Xin Wu is very sad.

When he is at home with his parents, he is summoned to the palace by Ci Xi, and he is accused by her to have helped the killer and he sees that the officers have found Lu’s corpse and a beggar, who has witnessed him helping Lu, testifies that it’s Du Xin Wu who helped Lu and Ci Xi orders her guards to arrest Du Xin Wu, but of course, he resists and takes her eunuch as hostage in order to leave the palace, but he is hurt by a gun. Outside the palace, he is helped by Fan Jie and Nung Yuen Tian, who isn’t dead but has lost the use of his right arm. Du Xin Wu faints in a street and he is cured by the Doctor Sun Yat Sen who extracts the gun ball in the street and then lead them to his house, where they find a place to hide.

Several days after, Guo Feng comes to see Du Xin Wu and they have an explanation and he finally admits that he was wrong and that Sun’s ideas are good and he decides to help Guo Feng. Later, he learns that his parents have been arrested and, with Guo Feng’s help, they kidnap Wang and asks Nung Siu Fu for an exchange with Du Xin Wu’s parents, but Nung Siu Fu tells them that since he holds Wang responsible for his uncle’s death, they can kill him. They finally come to an agreement and the exchange is supposed to take place along the river. On a side, there are Du Xin Wu, Guo Feng and Wang, and on the other side, there are Nung Siu Fu, a few soldiers and Du Xin Wu’s parents. These latter are placed in a boat and, while they are on their way to the other side, some archers shoot fire arrows on the boat. Then, Nung Yuen Tian jumps on the boat in order to stop the fire and Siu Fu shouts at him to go away, but it’s too late and the boat explodes, killing Du Xin Wu’s parents and Nung Siu Fu’s uncle. Du Xin Wu is devastated, and he swears to avenge his parents death, and together with Guo Feng, Fan Jie, and Ming, they discuss of a plan.

On Nung Yuen Tian’s funerals, Du Xin Wu disguises as a monk and waits for Nung Siu Fu in the temple and they fight, but some soldiers arrive and Du Xin Wu is hurt. While he is fighting with them, Fan Jie comes to help him and she is killed by a gun and he is devastated.

Meanwhile, Guo Feng, Ming and Liu Fu Hai has been imprisoned by Wang, and, in order to lure Du Xin Wu out, Nung Siu Fu helps them to escape and to attack Wang and he takes this opportunity to kill Wang in order to avenge his uncle’s death. Then, he meets Du Xin Wu for a last duel and they have a big fight and both are hurt, but Nung Siu Fu finally dies and Du Xin Wu escapes with Guo Feng, Ming and Liu Fu Hai.

At the end of the series, there is a Chinese text written and read, telling what happened to Du Xin Wu (who is shown cutting his braid), but I can’t tell what it is, since I din’t understand what was said or written.

I made some searches on the internet and, though the reviewer from specnet tells that is a 20 episodes, I only saw it mentioned with 18 episodes, so, I don’t know where he saw that Du Xin Wu killed Ci Xi, but it’s not in the series at all…

The songs are good and, as I already said, Adam Cheng is excellent. The fights are very good : he practices the drunken sword with Lu, and the drunken boxing with Nung Siu Fu, and all his other fights are superb. This series is a must see…

And for those who are interested in getting more informations on Du Xin Wu, here are two links :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du_Xinwu

http://en.cnws.tv/article_details.php?id=6

I forgot to mention an important part of the series which takes place before Du Xin Wu escapes to his marriage with Fan Jie.

As he hates Du Xin Wu, Kong Ngai does all what he can in order to harm this latter, and when he discovers that Fan Jie is Du Xin Wu's friend, he kidnaps her and keeps her in his house. Du Xin Wu tries to help her to escape, but he fails. He asks Shi Kien, who does justice in the town, to ask Kong Ngai to free her, but Kong Ngai swears that Fan Jie isn't in his house and they don't find her.

Later, while Du Xin Wu and Liu Fu Hai are in an inn, discussing of a plan to free Fan Jie, they find Kong Ngai and his corrupted officers who are making fun on Fan Jie by making her to be drunk and Du Xin Wu can't help but fight with Kong Ngai. Liu Fu Hai finds the gun of one of the officers and he threatens Kong Ngai with it and the two friends, together with Fan Jie, lead Kong Ngai to the court of justice and Shi Kien puts him to jail.

Later, Kong Ngai's corrupted officers ask Shi Kien to free their chief, but he refuses and he and his men prepare to be besieged by the corrupted officers, who have given him and Du Xin Wu an ultimatum to free Kong Ngai.

When he understands that his master and his men may be killed by the corrupted officers and their soldiers, Du Xin Wu goes to Kong Ngai's cell, and, while Shi Kien and his men stop the corrupted soldiers, the two enemies have a duel to the death and Du Xin Wu finally kills Kong Ngai.

I don't know if Kong Ngai was a martial artist in the real life, but his fights in this series were very good.

May 27, 2015

The quick step of passion TVB movie 1994

Sheren Tang and Adam Cheng are married and they have a little girl.

As Sheren feels unhappy because her husband works too much, she decides to learn dancing and she meets Jeff (Michael Tong) and day after day, they become attracted to each other, but Sheren doesn't want to become his mistress because she is married and she is a mother.

But when she discovers that Adam has an affair with his secretary, she turns furious and she goes to see Jeff and what had to happen finally happens, though Adam pleads guilty and fires his secretary and tries to be good to his wife.

They finally reunite when the girl has an accident and Sheren doesn't want to see Jeff anymore and when she goes to tell him, she discovers that he already has another woman.

Meanwhile, Adam has received an anonymous package in which there are pictures of his wife and Jeff and he becomes furious. He goes to see Jeff on his boat and they fight and Adam's nose bleeds on the boat. They both fall from the stairs and they both faint.

When Adam awakes, he discovers that Jeff is dead and he believes that it's him who killed him and he tries to remove all the traces he might have left before returning home.

But the police finds his dna on the boat and he is arrested,but he tells his wife that he had fainted and that he even doesn't know if he really killed Jeff or not and she decides to help him.

She finally discovers that it's her friend and neighbour Bonnie who was Jeff's mistress and she finds the crime weapon hidden in Bonnie's garden.

The two women have a great fight and finally Adam is reunited with his family.

Good movie.

May 27, 2015

Dismayed patriot Qu Yuan TVB 1986

From what I understood (the movie was in Cantonese, so, I didn't understand very well...), the story takes place during the Warring States, since I heard the names of Chu Kingdom, Liang Kingdom, Wei Kingdom, Chun Kingdom, Liu Kingdom and maybe other ones that I don't remember of.

If I understood well, Qu Yuan (Adam Cheng) is a minister of the king of Chu Kingdom.

He has a friend (Shek Sau) who is a minister in Chun Kingdom and when this latter comes to see the king and tell him something I didn't understand, Qu Yuan tries to persuade the king to avoid doing what Shek Sau told him.

The king's wife and two ministers who dislike him plot against him because the king likes him and the people appreciate him very much, so, they try to make the king believe that he tries to take the power and the king finally fires him.

Qu Yuan then leaves everything and goes away, but he is attacked by assassins and he is saved by a woman (Liza Wang). Later, there is a war between Chu and Chun kingdoms and the two of them (Adam and Liza) are desperate to see how many dead people there are everywhere.

Then, Shek Sau and his king cheat the Chu Kingdom king in order that he goes to the Chun Kingdom and when he learns about that, and though he was badly treated by the king, Qu Yuan tries to stop him, but the bad ministers and the king's own son don't let him persuade the king that he makes a mistake and the king is finally prisoner in the Chun Kingdom.

Qu Yuan and the woman then try to free him and they almost succeed, but the king is imprudent and they are chased by the guards and the king is badly hurt, and he finally dies.

While Liza Wang lures the guards with the king's clothes, Qu Yuan escapes with the corpse and when they meet again, Liza is badly hurt and she dies and Qu Yuan returns to the Chu Kingdom with the king's corpse.

The queen, the new king (the king's son) and the two ministers accuse Qu Yuan to be responsible for the king's death and he is fired again.

He meets Shek Sau who offers him to become a Chun citizen, but Qu Yuan refuses and tells him that he was born in Chu Kingdom and that he'll die in Chu Kingdom too and Chun soldiers invade Chu Kingdom and kill many people.

Qu Yuan is so desperate that he finally kills himself.

Very good historical movie, with several good fights (but too short) from Liza Wang.

December 14, 2015

Song Jing Shi TVB 1976

From what I understood, Adam Cheng plays Song Jing Shi, who seems to be a rebel to the government and he is helped by some friends and also by the villagers who are bullied by the officers.

After several battles and pursuits, he finally succeeds in getting rid of the corrupted officer.

That's too bad that this series was only in Cantonese language, because I didn't understand a single word.

Though it's a story relating battles between the government and the heroes, it's rather a " talking " series than a fighting one and I'm sure that there are a lot of explanations regarding the battles that one can hear that are given, together with maybe historical explanations regarding this hero called Song Jing Shi, but the language barrier didn't help me to understand the plot.

Chow Yun Fat and Kong Ngai play Song Jing Shi's friends and there is only a mini fight between Adam Cheng and Kwan Hoi San at the end of the last episode.

December 17, 2015

Forced marriage TVB 1975

Adam Cheng plays a scholar who meets a guy who is married to a woman matchmaker (if I understood well) while they are watching a father and his daughter performing martial arts in the street, and he falls for the girl.

Later, there is a kind of chase of all the single men (even the old ones ) by all the matchmakers of the town and they are forced to marry women they don't even know.

Adam tries to escape, but he is captured by a rich guy who wants to marry his daughter (the same actress who played the one who used poisons in Heaven sword and dragon sabre) ; he succeeds in escaping thanks to the help of his friend and this latter's wife, but he is almost immediately captured by another rich guy who also wants to marry his daughter, while he was trying to hide in the girl he loves' house.

While Adam is already wearing the groom's clothes, the other rich guy, the girl he loves, this latter's father and the couple of matchmakers arrive and they try to " save " him from this marriage, but it's only after the magistrate is being aware of the situation that he finally reunites with the girl he loves, while the two rich men adn their daughters have only their eyes to cry...

A funny and good series.

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