Member Gaijin84 Posted March 30, 2018 Member Share Posted March 30, 2018 (edited) Some quick reviews/info of the individual stories from this supernatural series. Originally broadcast in mainland China on the Pearl River Channel. A Bao 阿宝 (6 parts - ~4.5 hours long) Starring Rainie Yang and Yuan Hong, A Bao is about the daughter of a rich family that has the unfortunate condition of forgetting everything that has happened to her during the day after she falls asleep at night. A veterinarian, Sun Zi, falls in love with her, but his status is such that her father has no interest in him marrying A Bao. There is also a wealthy man, Chai Shao, in town who is in love with A Bao, but his spoiled attitude makes him equally undesirable for the family. After A Bao rejects Chai, he requests his Taoist priest wet nurse (Cheng Pei Pei) to assist him in casting spells that will make A Bao his. After a series of events ends with both A Bao and Sun Zi in limbo between earth and hell, they must convince the King of Hell to send them back to the living world so they can be together. I wouldn't really consider this story supernatural in any way, but maybe I was looking for a suspenseful story. Rainie Yang is good in her role, as is Cheng Pei Pei, but the rest of the actors are not quite up to par. Pretty mediocre special effects, even for 2005, don't add much to the story either. I would be interested in reading the original story though, as the plot is interesting from a cultural aspect. Rainie Yang (楊丞琳) as Zhao A Bao Yuan "Justin" Hong (袁弘) as Sun Zi Chu Cheung Tat Ming (張達明) as Chai Shao An Cheng Pei Pei (鄭佩佩) as Granny Miao Ma Zhong De (马忠德) as Judge Lu Pei Yu, A Bao's sister Zhou Lan (周岚) as Xiao Rong, as the Zhao family maid Liao Qiu Wan (廖秋万) as Gao Jun Ning, Sun Zi's friend A Bao's father The King of Hell Bei Bei, A Bao's cockatoo Edited December 14, 2018 by Gaijin84 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member whitesnake Posted April 1, 2018 Member Share Posted April 1, 2018 (edited) Strange Tales of Liao Zhai (or Liao Zhai Zhi Yi) uses six stories from the Chinese classic, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio by Pu Songling, "a collection of nearly five hundred mostly supernatural tales, published during the early Qing Dynasty". The Penguin Classics edition on Amazon, by Pu Songling and John Minford, includes about 100 of the tales. A summary of the six tales used for this TV series is at - http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Liao_Zhai_Zhi_Yi The series has 36 episodes. All of them, with English subs, are on the Liao Zhai Youtube channel. The opening has nicely spooky music. The first episode is here - Edited June 13, 2018 by whitesnake 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Gaijin84 Posted April 1, 2018 Author Member Share Posted April 1, 2018 (edited) On 4/1/2018 at 3:36 AM, whitesnake said: The series has 36 episodes. I think there are actually only 6 episodes, but multiple 40 min chapters for each episode. The A Bao “episode” was about 4.5 hours long. Edited December 14, 2018 by Gaijin84 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Gaijin84 Posted July 18, 2018 Author Member Share Posted July 18, 2018 (edited) Painted Skin 画皮 (6 parts - ~4.5 hours) The classic tale of a betrayed woman that comes back as a ghost to haunt her former lover. This version stars Zeng Li as the ghost and singer Kwong Wa as the philandering and scheming painter An Xu. After painting a portrait of a famous singer and dancer on a canvas of human skin, the ghost of that woman comes to life to exact revenge on the artist who killed her. The painter is a social climber who will ruthlessly discard his current wife in order to gain more power and prestige. The spirits of those women are eager for retribution though, and pursue him from the afterlife. This story was much better than the first one I watched from the series, A Bao. The acting was stronger, especially from the two leads, and the special effects are a bit better as well, but only to the standard of a TV series from more than a decade ago. Painted Skin has be told in many movies with different characters representing the similar circumstances, and this version is a strong addition. Zeng Li (曾黎) as Mei San Niang Kwong Wa (江華) as Wang An Xu Joy Pan (潘儀君) as Chen Chu Hui (An Xu's wife) Yue Yao Li (岳跃利) as Priest Zhang Luo Lan (羅蘭) as An Xu's mother Li Fei (李飞) as Shi Yi Ming Wang Lei (王蕾) as Consort Shi Nicole Wan (万妮恩) as Princess Ming Xia Zi Yan, Chu Hui's servent Edited January 23, 2019 by Gaijin84 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Gaijin84 Posted January 17, 2019 Author Member Share Posted January 17, 2019 (edited) Xiao Cui 小翠 (6 parts - ~4.5 hours long) After saving the life of a fox spirit, a powerful merchant is granted a wish and 30 years later decides to use it to help his mentally-challenged son Yuan Feng find a wife. The spirit decides to send her only daughter (Xiao Cui) to be the partner for the son, but they eventually fall in love despite the arranged nature of their relationship. After one of Yuan's pranks offends the emperor, Xiao wants to cure him of his disability but gets tricked by the evil snake spirit She Ji into making him smart, but cruel. After She Ji hatches a plan to seduce the emperor and rule the kingdom, Xiao and her mother must fight She in order to restore Yuan to his fun-loving ways and save the emperor. Not quite to the standard of Painted Skin, Xiao Cui suffers from some pretty annoying characters in Yuan Feng (Jimmy Lin) and Xiao Cui (Li Bing Bing {The Meg}). They both have the attitude of an 8 year old and it grows tiring after the first couple episodes. Jiang Xin is good as She Ji, but there isn't much more to recommend. There is also a sub-plot with the God of Thunder searching for a magic gem that the fox spirit possesses as well as a conflict between the Wang family and another powerful merchant. Li Bing Bing (李冰冰) as Xiao Cui Jimmy Lin (林志穎) as Wang Yuan Feng Jiang Xin (蔣欣) as She Jin the snake spirit He Gui Lin (何贵林) as Wang Yuan Zhi Lin Li Pin (林里嫔) as Yu Ji, Xiao Cui's fox spirit mother Ji Qi Lin (姬麒麟) as Wang Jin Pin Zhong Liang (钟亮) as Hong He, jin Pin's son Zhang Shan (张山) as the Emperor Wang Yuan Feng's mother Edited January 18, 2019 by Gaijin84 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Member Gaijin84 Posted September 17, 2020 Author Member Share Posted September 17, 2020 (edited) Judge Lu 陆判 (6 parts - ~4.5 hours long) In Hell's Court, two judges make a bet whether or not evil is inherent to more intelligent people. Judge Situ and Judge Lu decide to test the theory by placing the heart of a highly educated man in the body of a very nice, but very stupid man. They want to see if the new heart will cause the otherwise unintelligent man to start committing evil acts. After the untimely death of a local scholar, Judge Lu takes the heart and transplants it into the body of Zhu Er Dan, a kind but dimwitted fool. Suddenly, Er Dan becomes a brilliant lawyer overnight, but goes about trying to imprison a man, Bai Yang, whose wife he covets. With the rape and murder of Bai Yang's wife, Er Dan asks Judge Lu to transplant her head onto the body of his own wife, who he deems as ugly. Judge Lu agrees, hoping that Er Dan will change his evil ways and thus win his bet with Judge Situ. The story follows Bai Yang as he travels to hell to save his wife and have her reincarnated as well as punish Er Dan for his deeds. Another mediocre entry in the series with characters that are too whiny and annoying. Bryan Wang is virtually unwatchable as the slow version of Er Dan, and doesn't improve much as the evil incarnation. Huang Xiao Ming (Bai Yang) is decent as the virtuous husband, but he starts to wear thin after awhile too. The most entertaining character is Judge Lu, who is constantly trying to fix the situations that he and the mortals he depends on get in to. Luckily, those who deserve their comeuppance get it by the end of the episode. Four plus hours is a lot to sit through though. Huang Xiao Ming (黄晓明) as Bai Yang Bryan Wang (王禄江) as Zhu Er Dan Li Li Qun (李立群) as Judge Lu Hu Ke (胡可) as Zhang Xiao Man Cutie Mui (梅小惠) as Ke Shao Rong (Er Dan's wife) Xu Min (徐敏) as Judge Situ Xu Ming (徐鸣) as Minister Zhang (Xiao Man's father) Dong Xian as Madame Zhang (Xiao Man's mother) Zhu Hai Fei (朱海飞) as Ren Yuan Wu Edited September 22, 2020 by Gaijin84 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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