Closure :)

Time goes really quick... it's been almost 2 years since I have posted. I started this blog in the summer before I started university when I had lots of free time. Since I started university I have been so busy! I'm not good at balancing time, which is why I stopped blogging. I do still watch TVB series, but much less than I used to. For the first part of this year, I only watched Come Home Love. The Ultimate Addiction was my first long series.

I doubt that anyone comes on here anymore, but I am posting today to officially say that I am leaving the TVB blogging community. In case Lynne and Miriamfanz sees this, I still check out your blogs every so often :)

I'll carry on watching TVB and I hope that there are many good series to come!

Yian

天梯 The Last Steep Ascent Review

I wanted to watch The Last Steep Ascent from the beginning as I thought it was lovely how the script is based on a real story. I'm glad I watched the series, it was never boring and it didn't drag. The ending was quite rushed in my opinion though, as I later talk about!

Moses Chan as Miu Tin and Maggie Cheung as Sun Yuet

Miu Tin first meet Sun Yuet, 8 years his senior when she was 18 on her day of marriage. Sun Yuet had left a deep impression on him ever since. Being born in the countryside, Miu Tin has an excellent knowledge of the quality of chinese medicine. When Sun Yuet's husband and owner of their family business dies the business lies in the hands of Sun Yuet who also has to protect it from the villains Kwan Yiu and Sai Ho. Since Sun Yuet has had no experience of running a business she is under deep pressure. Luckly, Miu Tin comes over to help her, even angering his then boss Chai Man who had promoted him to high positions quickly in his own business.

Miu Tin works with Sun Yuet together to protect the business from a variety of problems. The two trust each other entirely on everything and always have endless conversations. This leads people to start talking of the two having a affair even though the two are innocent.

Later Kwan Yiu and Sai Ho finds a secret of Sun Yuet's husband. Exposing it to the rest of the family, all the seniors decided that the business should be given to Sai Ho to manage. Sai Ho has a plan to make the business fail so he can open his own afresh, so he does not have to share the profits with the other family members. He almost succeeds: he ruins the business and sells it to get a load of money. He escapes to Hong Kong. However, Miu Tin could see his plans and he was the buyer of the business and contacted the police to arrest him. His father, Kwan Yiu suffered a second stroke and became wheel bound. Even though he wanted the business for his son, he had always wanted the business to do well.

Since the business went to Sai Ho's hands, Sun Yuet and Miu Tin hardly saw each other any more. When Miu Tin saves teh business once again Sun Yuet's mother-in-law tells her to leave with Miu Tin as she understands that Sun Yuet had developed feelings for him. Sun Yuet decides to find Miu Tin. She is lead to him by the moon and they decided to live up at a mountain where they could see a laughing moon. She brings her three children to the mountain too. Even when the children grow up and leave the mountain, the couple stay there. Mui Tian spends 50 years to make a staircase from the top of the mountain down for Sun Yuet to walk down safely. Mui Tian dies of age old after these 50 years, telling Sun Yuet to live well and long after he leaves and that he will build another stair case for her in heaven if it is hard to get there. When he dies, Sun Yuet leaves the mountain with her children.

I wouldn't say that this pair is boring. It was always nice to see their interactions. I could see their deep trust for each other but not quite where they fell in love. I guess Miu Tin had always remembered Sun Yuet from when he met her as a child, but I don't see how Sun Yuet would feel anything more for him than extreme gratitude. It was nice watching the series though, knowing that the two would end up together and spend a number of  happy decades together! 

Like I said in this post, it's unbelivable how Miu Tin is so clever. Determining the quality of the chinese medicines ok, but now runnning an actual business?? It's even worse when they promote Cheung Kiu to his position. Even thought he's a great guy I don't know where he would have the knowledge to run his own business. Cheung Kiu had never made any big decisions, it had always been up to Miu Tin.

I thought that Maggie's acting was a bit too "see lai" at times especially when she talks. I will miss her though. I remember seeing her on TVB all those years ago before she got ill and now she's leaving TVB again only after filing a few series with them. I like Moses' acting though. I do think he's portrayed almost every single type o character he can now. The only bit of his acting that bothered me was when he was dying. He's this 80 year old dying man but he still manages to talk like he's full of energy will no pauses in between his lines. Also I didn't like their "old" make-up. It didn't look real at all!



Kenny Wong as Cheung Kiu and Aimee Chan as Oi Tai

Cheung Kiu lives in pain as his wife and son had deceased due to him being drunk when his wife gave birth so there was no one around to give her help. Similarly Oi Tai lives in pain. Being the 3rd party of Sun Yuet and her husband's marriage, she is left with nothing when Sai Cheung dies. Worse still she is raped by a stranger and becomes pregnant. When Cheung Kiu finds out after she attempts to commit suicide he assumes that the child belongs to Sai Cheung. He decides to elope with her to a place where no one knows them to start fresh. However on the day where they were to escape Sun Yuet finds out and brings Oi Tai to her home. Oi Tai follows her as she doesn't want to be a burden to Cheung Kiu: she belives that he would be much more successful without her. However it is soon found out that her child doesn't belong to Sai Cheungs. Sun Yuet and her mother in law sympathises with her and forgives her. Cheung Kiu and Oi Tai finally both decide to be together and they get married. Later Cheung Kiu  runs the business owed by Chai Man.

I quite liked this pair, even though like the former pair I didn't really know how they fell in love. I did wonder of Cheung Kiu would look after Oi Tai so much if she didn't have the same name as his wife. But after all the beating ups and sacrifices he made for her I knew that he loved her for who she was. I was very very happy when they finally got married. They deserved it so much! Infact I was worried that they would kill of Cheung Kiu's character just for laughs. Luckily they didn't!

Also as I said on my previous post I enjoyed Aimee Chan's performance in this series. Maybe it was because her character was so pitiful and likeable too. She's going to be in a new series "Cold Mountain, Hidden Dragon"  with Kenny Wong again. I wonder if they will be paired up together again?

Joel Chan as Chai Man and Samantha Ko as Yim

The Cheung Kiu and Oi Tai couple is fighting this one to be my favourite couple. As I said in my previous post it's the first time I've actually seen Samantha Ko acting. I think she did pretty well for her first time in a more prominent role. I thought her crying scene was pretty good when she was in the hospital talking to Moses. The scene dragged on a little though and her crying became slightly whiny and annoying. I'm still suffering from the horrible crying that Christine Kuo does though, so if I can understand what the actress is saying when she is crying, I tend to think she did a good job of it!

I'm happy the pair got a happy ending. It would be too sad if Chai Man stayed blind. I was also worried that the two would die in a plane crash (yeh, I'm always scared that TVB will kill random good character off). I'm a little confused of the two's relationship though. I thought she was his third wife, but then he bought her a ring and said that she would be his first wife?? Can anyone clarify that for me?


Raymond Wong
Raymond Wong woo! I thought I'd dedicate a little paragraph to him. I kept seeing him in the theme song but he never turned up until the finale. I was thinking "RAYMOND WONG!" as soon as I started to hear his voice over. I like Raymond Wong. And that ends my little paragraph :)

The Ending
I said at the start of the post that the ending was rushed. I thought this especially when the police arrested Sai  Ho. It felt like TVB was forcing the baddy to be captured. But then I guess it's revealed that it was because Miu Tin had been watching his steps. 

I also think that Miu Tin wasted 50 years of his life making the staircase for Sun Yuet. She only used it once when he was dying then she left the mountain anyway. Even so it's a good thing. She's accepted his death and is willing to carrying on living for as long as she can for him. It'll probably be scary for her though since everything below the mountain will have changed in the 50 years. As her son said, the mountain had no TV or mobile phones!

I'm happy with the ending though. Everybody lived happily ever after. That's always good!

Sorry for the lack of posts!! +mini thoughts of The Last Steep Ascent 天梯

Sorry I have not been posting much lately or replying to comments, I've just started university and I've been busy, but the biggest reason is because I haven't had time to watch much TVB!

I'm behind on Highs and Lows, I've only watched the first 2 episodes, so my review for that show will most probably be late. I've kept up with the Last Steep Ascent though, so I'll try my best to write a review for the show on time!

******************************************************************

I'm enjoying The Last Steep Ascent so far. It's not the kind of show that ends dramatically every episode to draw viewers in, but it does leave the watchers with a longing to see how the characters will progress.

My favourite characters were Samantha Ko and Joel Chan. Their characters are fun, together with having a big heart. It's the first time I've seen Samantha Ko actually acting, not dressed in some low cut clothing following a man around with no dialogue. Even though her character is still of a vixen, she has had much more opportunity to show what she can actually do here. I'm enjoying it very much so far!
I don't quite remember when I started liking Joel Chan, it was either during Relic of an Emissary of Curse of the Royal Harem. I definitely remember thinking that he had an excellent performance during that latter show.  I'm sad that Joel Chan has left TVB now, even though he's never been cast as the main character of a series, I've been looking for his performances since COTRH, and there's not been many!
Unfortunately  both Samantha and Joel have had much less screen time in the recent episodes, and I don't see them getting much more towards the end of the series.

Talking of big hearts, the two main characters have massive ones too, but Moses' is slightly less believable. I can see how Moses character knows his stuff with the chinese medicine, seeing how quality the plants are, but he knows what they're for, and recognised the pack of medicine Aimee had as being one for making her pregnancy go well. I think it's unbelievable that a farming man like him can be such a genius!

Another thing I want to talk about is Aimee Chan. I'm not particularly fond of her acting, but I've been touched with her pitiful character this time. I'm still not sure how she's going to do on those series where she's the main female character though, but I'm more confident for her now. I guess we'll wait and see!!

Character map of Highs and Lows 雷霆掃毒 (English)

Click on the picture to see it in full size.

巴不得媽媽 Review of Divas in Distress

Divas in Distress was surprisingly good! I liked all the relationship lines and they were all very sweet. As I said before, I wasn't actually interested in this series, but I'm glad I watched it. It had the freshest cast for a while and  there were many times I chuckled at the show (I'm not a laugh out loud person).

I quite like the idea of using the 21 December idea for the ending. It got everybody together and made everyone think about who is important in their lives. The ending was an open ending, that I think we can assume that everyone survived and lived happily ever afterwards!

The use of english songs in this show was also very nice! See the list of songs here.


Liza Wang as Hung and Gigi Lai as Ho

Hung and Ho both used to be actresses. They have been rivals for years: Hung's daughter carried Ho's son's baby and died whilst giving birth. Hung blames this on Ho's son. Ho is stubborn and likes to get her own way and will do anything for that. This includes causing her son, Vincent to run away from home when Hung interferes with Vincent and Yi Hei's relationship.

Ho finds out that her children did not like her demanding ways, and that her daughter got married so early to get away from her. She hides away and it is revealed that she has bipolar disorder.

Hung helps Ho get over her bipolar disorder and she realises that people are not against her. The two become friends again.

Later Hung gets led to think that Ka Long not is Sau's (Ho's husband) biological son. Sau and Ho finds out Hung's suspicions and Ho demands a divorce as she feels mocked that her husband should think that she was not loyal to him. Sau later finds out it was all a mistake and that Ka Long is indeed his son. However Ho is still angry at him.

Time approaches 21 December, and the sky turns red. At this time, Hung helps Ho realise that even though she is angry at Sau, she would want to be with him if it was the end of the world. She forgives and and goes to find her husband. It turns out he was fighting over a bottle of salt with a sei lai as he wanted to cook a meal for Ho. Moved, they return home, inviting Hung to their meal.

The show ends with the two ladies playing on the wii with their family.


To be honest, I thought that there would be more rivalry scenes between these two Ah Jies. But that could be a good thing as the show could be annoying if they were arguing throughout the whole series. Liza's character was really annoying when she tried to split Vincent-Yi Hei and Yi Long Shen-Hannah up, but I'm glad her character thought things out quite a few episodes before the ending. I really liked Gigi in this show, her character was comedic and I thought her interaction with everyone was great! As I said in an earlier post, Hung is another one of those characters Liza portrays all the time. She does do it well though! I'm glad they are all good friends at the end and Hung told Ho how she admired her family. At the start Hung had a hard time befriending people. I'm sure she'll have no problem in doing so anymore!

A special mention to Henry Lee who played Sau. He's been in so many series this year! From villain to Sau, he has been enjoyable to watch in all of them!!

Chin Ka Lok as Ka Long and Eliza Sam as Hannah

Ka Long's wife died 7 years ago whilst giving birth to their son. He never forgets her and promises his mother in law that he will never marry another women. His new colleague, Hannah does not like him at first due to misunderstandings. However after Hannah gets to know Ka Long, she develops deep feelings for him. After a while Ka Long also develops feelings for Hannah but does not dare reveal it as he feels that he is doing his dead wife wrong.

One day Hannah gets ran over by a car, and Ka Long manages to lift a car up so Hannah could be taken out . She goes into a coma. Ka Long visits his wife's grave and admits his feelings to Hannah, and Hung secretly records the dialogue and plays it to Hannah in hope that she wakes up. She does, but she pretends to have forgotten all the memories of her and Ka Long after her dislike for him got changed. Ka Lok confronts her for this when he realises this, and she tells him that she did so as she heard his recording in which he said that  he could not love her. After this she quits her job, and no one can find her.

21 December 2012, apparently the end of the world approaches. Ka Long thinks about Hannah and remembers that he once imagined her in front of him, and there, he said that he would be with her if 21 December was indeed the last day ever.
He receives a withheld call but no one answers on the other side. He knows that it is Hannah, and he tells her that he would be with her. Then a man's voice comes from the phone, and the voice says he is Ka Long's old friend.

Ka Long's boss tells him to make some interviews at a church where youngsters were collecting up to change their ways in hope to go to heaven since it was 20th December. He goes, and Hannah turns up and he reveals his feelings in front of her. The youngsters get annoyed at Hannah getting in their way from cleansing their souls and start to run after the couple. Ka Long states that she hadn't changed as things turn out badly she's around. She asks him if he wants her to change. Ka Long tells her that he doesn't want her to change.

This was my favourite couple in DID. I think that most people like Him / Mandy, but I fell that this pair is happier and Hannah's character was so cute! I loved their development, and seeing Ka Long from nothing to denial to finally admitting his feelings. I was pretty annoyed when Hannah lost the memories of her and Yi Long Shun. Thankfully she was just pretending and she still liked him! 

Eliza Sam had a big role in the series and although there were room for improvement, I could see that she gave it her best. I really enjoyed her performance! I also thought she tackled the crying scenes quite well. I wonder how her status in TVB will be now, going up or down due to this performance. Right now I think it's nice of TVB to give her such a big role so early to try, but if she doesn't improve and TVB shouldn't continue to give her roles as big as this one.
I also mentioned that I didn't like her accent in my initial thoughts of this series. I got used to it pretty soon after though.

Chin Ka Lok was great too. It's not often at all that we get to see him on screen. I hope he gets some recognition from this show as the hot topics will be Him, Mandy and Eliza.



Him Law as Vincent and Mandy Wong as Yi Hei

Vincent is from a rich family and Yi Hei is a decorator with a complicated past. The two give each other a bad initial impression. Vincent's thoughts of Yi Hei changes when he finds her graffiti work and starts to admire her artistic skills. He begins to develop romantic feelings for her and makes excuses to see her more. Still disliking Vincent, Yi Hei insults him and attacks him for being successful by his rich mother and unnecessary body building. Her friend So Gei tells her that Vincent used his own capabilities in his work, and was built up to strengthen his body since he had asthma. He also tells Yi Hei Vincent's admiration of her. Yi Hei decides she likes Vincent, and the two get together.

Vincent's mum finds out, and she does not approve of this relationship. She also finds that Yi Hei has a criminal record and exposes it to Vincent. Yi Hei does not want to share her past with him and they break up after an argument.

Time passes but the two still has feelings for each other. Vincent finds out Yi Hei's past and that she has dysgraphia, he follows her around and sees that she is stuck when applying for a competition to win a holiday in Japan. She cannot write her name and Vincent steps forward to do it for her, writing her name out 68 times. He also convinces her to get  beak together with him.

At this time, Vincent's mum realises she was wrong to separate the two, so makes Yi Hei the winner of the holiday. She hopes the two get back on good terms on this holiday. The two go to Japan and Vincent proposes and she accepts.

Back in Hong Kong Yi Hei finds out that Vincent had won a highly regarded award and that he had proposed to her before she found out in case she had thought she wasn't good enough for him again. She also finds out that he had been taken twice his asthma medication because he had n allergic reaction to her smalls as she is a decorator. She decides to sacrifice for him by giving up her job. Vincent knows that being a decorator is a thing that makes her confident so he doesn't wnat her to sacrifice for him, so he decides to end the relationship and leave HK. Yi Hei realised this and manages to stop him, and tells him that it;s her turn to sacrifice. The two hug and stay together.

Vincent takes Yi Hei to the top of a mountain where there is a beautiful view of HK. The two look at the scenery.

This was my favourite couple at the start. I loved the bickering scenes between the two and the things Vincent did in order to be able see her more, only to give himself a bad impression! Vincent stalking Yi Hei should be creepy but I found it sweet. I was happy when they finally got together, but then Vincent's mum spoiled everything- their relationship didn't feel very romantic any more when Yi Hei repeatedly distanced herself from Vincent. It was just too long winded and draggy! 

I didn't like the forceful nature of Vincent's, trying to force Yi Hei to have lunch with him, trying to force her into inviting him to Japan. I thought it was funny at the start before the two were together, but it must be annoying to be with someone like that! But we could really see how much Yi Hei meant to Vincent. Vincent was always the one in the pair trying to make things work and he even left home when his mother didn't approve of Yi Hei. I guess that makes up for his creepiness :) To be honest if it wasn't Him Law and Mandy Wong playing their respective roles, I would find Vincent to be very creepy.

We know that Vincent likes Yi Hei as he admires her art. I don't know what Yi Hei likes Vincent for: at the start of the day she hated his guts, by the end of the day she decided to be with him. But she did cry for him and sacrificed her job for him in the end which showed that she did love him deeply.

As I mentioned in this post about TVB newbies, Mandy Wong already seems like she's been acting for years. Same stuff here. I'm still looking for a character from her where she doesn't pull a really annoyed face all the time. Such as this one:


Him Law also has a face that I find him pulling in lots of scenes such as


And especially when his character is stalking Mandy's. However I do find that wooden expression of Him's very appropriate for those scenes.

Gu Ka Ming as So Gei
I loved this character! I recognise his face from past TVB series and I'm very happy that I now now see Gu Ming Wah and think "He's So Gei from Divas in Distress!" His stylist did a good job and so did his interpretation of a feminine man! 


I guessed that he would be with Ka Long's boss (posted that on twitter). What a compatible pair! I love the dance that they did that brought them together!










Chung King Fai as Han Man and Mimi Chu as Jenny
I loved this pair as well! They were really funny and their story was sad. It's great they had their happy ending though! I thought their walk on the beach in their white clothings was very romantic! 

Mimi Chu has always been a comedic character to me, and even though there are comedic sides to her character, I could see the serious side to her which was hurt deeply from her relationship, but still thought fondly of the good memories. 

I liked how Han Man always said "To ____ or not to ___", but I do think he overdid it. But he didn't deny Jenny being his girlfriend which was sweet, but they proceeded to link arms afterwards which implies that he admits in indirectly. What a sweet couple :)

The fate of the characters in King Maker

I was just thinking about the fates of the main characters in King Maker. It's quite depressing,click the picture below to see it bigger:

See my review of King Maker here.

造王者 King Maker review

Spoilers alert!
Click here to see the fates of the main characters from the character map. It looks depressing. 

This series started out great: the first few episodes of this show were the highlights of the show. They were gripping and entertaining to watch. I started to get bored of it when Pierre Ngo's character when back to the palace and became his normal self again as the storyline slowed down. The last episodes got more exciting again, but I then thought the plot in the last two episodes were quite horrible!

In fact, thinking back, the whole storyline after the first few episodes was wibbly wobbly. I'm don't know what the heck what happened. I really wanted to like this show. I did at first too until I watched the last episodes. The Show shouldn't be called "King Maker", it should be "I wonder what Dong Chiu is gonna do next?". The show seemed to be revolved around Yu Jing and Dong Chiu, whilst the next to the throne was just a sub-story. Dong Chiu just creates havoc.


Apart from the first episodes, there are only two good things I remember from the show:

1) I thought it was funny that Dong Chiu called his son "Chuk Sang" (animal) and his son would answer immediately as if it was his real name. I found this funny every time!

2) Yeung Chung didn't die and got a happy ending. I was worried throughout the series that he'd get murdered trying to protect Yu Jing, but he didn't.


The ending reminded me of The Life and Times of a Sentinel. There was a big scene where there was someone trying to steal the throne and talking about who is the King's son. Also Yu Jing giving the false poison wine to Dong Chiu is like Steven Ma giving Kenneth Ma the fake poison. I also started laughing when Dong Chiu said that he would be king and his people got their swords out as once again, because I thought that but was really out of place.

It's a bit sad that there are not many character with truly happy endings. Yeung Chung does, even though he'll have to listen to Yu Ching's woes. Yu Ting does even though I think she's married a silly man.

I think the 3 happiest people will be Guai Wor, his mother and wife. Even though they got sent to a poor place, they have each other, no more schemes and most importantly, freedom.


Overall storylines and thoughts of the main characters:

Wayne Lai as Yu Jing 余靖

He is banished to an island for a lifetime of laborious work after the crown prince, Guai Sing is captured by the King's opposition. He loses contact with his two younger siblings, who he knows have gone missing. 10 years later, he is released from the island when Guai Sing is also released. By now, Guai Sing is no longer the next in line to the throne, for his brother Guai Wor is instead. Yu Jing continues to work for Guai Sing, hoping that he could still be king one day. Since released from the island, Yu Jing meets Sam Niang, a widow and clever women and they immediately bond, trusting each other with their secrets.

Later on Guai Wor gets thrown out of the palace due to taking part in a scheme designed to kill the king.  Guai Sing becomes crown prince again. Later on Ju Ying finds that his two younger siblings are two people he recently met and they reunite.

His enemy Dong Chiu is looking for a way to get rid of Yu Jing as Dong Chiu also took part in the scheme to kill the king. The two men was already in bad grounds from before, Yu Jing did not agree with the methods Dong Chiu used to get what he wanted.

Dong Chiu eventually frames Yu Jing for helping the people that captured Guai Sing. Sam Niang takes all the blame and is imprisoned and sentenced to death. Having developed mutual romantic feelings for each other, Yu Jing vows revenge.

Yu Jing finds out that Guai Sing is not actually the King's son, but still helps him as long as he agrees to give the throne to the King's third son after 10 years, and be a good king in the meanwhile. Dong Chiu finds out about Guai Sing and plans to expose this secret but Yu Jing manages to turn it around and fool everyone.

Dong Chiu's daughter and Yu Jing's old romance Yuk Kiu sacrifices herself to save Yu Jing being stabbed by Dong Chiu's servant. Before she dies, Yu Jing promises that he wouldn't kill Dong Chiu for his evil deeds.

5 years later all the men grow facial hair. Meanwhile, Yu Jing continues to help Guai Sing run the country and keeps Dong Chiu on a deserted island, giving him enough food to survive. Dong Chiu tells him that the real loser of the two is Yu Jing, as he now is trapped into aiding the King forever whereas Dong Chiu can do what ever he wants on his island.
The show ends with Yu Jing considering Dong Chiu's statement.

Apart from his little sister, Yu Jing lost everything that was important to him: Sam Niang, his brother and helping the rightful king. It's sad that he probably won't be ever happy again, his life now only consists of running the country. I'm glad he still has Yeung Chung who will stay his loyal friend forever. I don't understand why Yeung Guk sides with him instead of Guai Sing, getting rid of the killers Guai Sing got to kill Yu Jing. I thought Yeung Guk was loyal to the king, which Guai Sing would soon become, but he's working under the orders of Yu Jing now.

I like fact that there aren't any major lovey dovey scenes in any of Wayne's performances. It's not that I don't like them, but sometimes you can see affection between couples without having to have those scenes. 
I don't like how nasty he was to his little brother just because he was an eunuch. Yu Jing doesn't seem to be a person who discriminates other people!

We'll be seeing Wayne in The Confidant soon! Let's see if it's TV king worthy! As the chinese say, his next character is going to turn around by 360 degrees. I also look forwards to seeing Michelle Yim again, and the ambiguous relationship between Wayne and Nancy. I do like their collaborations!



Kent Cheng as Dong Chiu 董昭

A man who will do anything to benefit himself, he lied to his daughter so she would marry a bad man to save the family. He blames his schemes on other people and is the enemy of Yu Jing who does not like his ways of doing things. Dong Chiu gains the trust of the King, Guai Sing and the Queen. In order to make Guai Sing the crown prince, he tricks Gwok Chu, an old acquaintance of the Queen to work together to kill the king, but he actually causes the plan to fail and also cause the king to abandon Guai Wor as the crown prince.

Yu Jing guesses that Dong Chiu is behind everything, and the latter is determined to get rid of Yu Jing. Along the path he frames Yu Jing for working with the King's opposition, but Yu Jing's acquaintance Sam Niang takes the blame and is put to death instead.

He continues to plot, and when he finds out Guai Sing isn't actually the King's son he tries to steal the throne. He fails and Gets put on an isolated island by Yu Jing who regularly supplies him with food. There are subtle hints that he may have gone mad.

I don't really understand what he was evil for. He wanted status and he had it (fair enough with Yeung Chi San). Otherwise he just decided to be evil and kill random people along the way. It seems that Kent just talks very loudly every time he is angry, and occasionally waves his arms about. I didn't like his expression when he was trying to convince the Queen that he was always loyal to her at the end of the series, it just looked like a puppy face a child would pull.

I remember his hand started shaking, the first time when his daughter was really angry at him, but him insisting that he always loved her, the second some time in the palace. Nothing came out of the hand shaking, unless it was the start of him going crazy, but he never did. I think he talked to the dog on purpose as Yu Jing was there to show that being a King Maker does not bring a pleasant future.

Also I thought it was random that a dog was on the island in the end. If Yu Jing didn't bring it there there shouldn't be a dog on the island!


Krystal Tin as Sam Niang 嚴三娘

A smart and caring widow, she meets Yu Jing and even though they know nothing about each other, they quickly develop a strong friendship which later turns into romantic feelings. She takes blame from Yu Jing who is framed by Dong Chiu to have been unloyal to the king and is sentenced to death. Even though the King takes back the sentence after finding she really wan't guilty, Dong Chiu  brings her sentence forwards, and she takes the poison wine just before Yu Jing arrives in attempt to save her. She dies in Yu Jing's arms.

No comment about her character, it wasn't very memorable and it didn't seem to be important at all apart from her sacrifice. It was very sad when she died but at least she got to see Yu Jing before she did. She had many happy moments in her life.


Natalie Tong as Yu Ting 樊紅纓

The long lost sister of Yu Jing, she lost her memory as a child and was bought up by Sam Niang, and thought that Gwok Chu was her Dad. Her "Dad" finds out her real identity, and that her real father caused Gwok Chu's family to be sentenced to death and uses her to harm her big brother before telling her the truth. Yu Ting then remembers who she really is and is reunited with her brother. Meanwhile she gets to know Guai Sing who develops feeling for her.

Gwok Chu attempted to assassinate the King but failed but escaped. Since everyone thought Yu Jing really was Gwok Chu's daughter, they wanted to kill Yu Ting too. Yu Jing reveals to others that she is actually his long lost sister so shouldn't get punishment. Furthermore Guai Sing and Yu Ting lie to the King saying that she was carrying his baby so she could not be murdered.

She is then brought to live in the palace, as the Queen decides to determine her fate after she gives birth to the baby. She does later get pregnant and becomes Queen when Guai Sing becomes King.

I liked Natalie Tong here. I'm still recovering from her performance from The Life and Times of a Sentinel as I also mentioned on my review of No Good Either Way. 

I was not impressed by the scene where she stabs Yu Jing in the chest, and thought it was rather a fail. Not the acting, but that bit of storyline. When Yu Jing stabs Yu Jing, Pan Gwok Chu comes out all proud because he achieved his goal of seeing the Yu siblings harming each other. Apart from Yu Jing looked pretty fine and still managed to smack his head on the ground 36 times before fainting (in fact I think that's what made him faint, the headbutting, not the stabbing in the chest. Then when Sam Niang comes out she and Pan Gwok Chu seem to be equally matched in fighting, but Fan Bong Jue remains unharmed when all the other Fan people came out to fight him too. I don't understand too how he managed to escape, his loyal person came out and suddenly all the Fan men forget about capturing him? So he manages to escape with 2 people against about 20 people. Yeah right. At least she had a happy ending.

Pierre Ngo as Guai Sing 趙貴誠

He is the crown prince, but due to his brother's scheme, he gets captured by the King's enemies. He loses his status and his dignity as the capturers frequently abuse him. He is released back to his home after 10 years a nervous wreck and took a period of time before returning to his usual self with the help of Yu Jing. He becomes crown prince again after scheming by Dong Chiu. Guai Sing later finds out about the bad deeds Dong Chiu commits.

Guai Sing also finds that he isn't actually the King's son. Dong Chiu also finds out and plots against Guai Sing, however he fails. Guai Sing puts him in Jail and leaves Yu Jing to sort him out.

Guai Sing becomes king. His third brother dies of illnesses, therefore he gets to keep the throne.

Much like the series, his character was best to watch in the first few episodes. Even though what happened to him was cruel, it was touching to see. He randomly got evil for a bit in the end as he wanted to kill everyone. But I don't think the killing personality is his personality, but just there to show how greedy someone can be to become king. I'm still not convinced. But I think it might also be because he is really indecisive and can't make his own mind so when his real dad says "Kill Yu Jing" he thinks "ok then", but then Yu Jing says "don't kill me" he thinks "ok then". Without Yu Jing, he would be a terrible king as he doesn't seem to be intelligent at all. In fact, if the king is not blood related to previous king he should let Yu Jing be king instead. Silly king solved.


Elaine Yiu as Yuk Kiu 董玉喬
Yuk Kiu was the most pitiful character. Her life just went wrong after Yu Jing got sent to that island for 10 years. She got tricked into marrying a villain by her father and was not treated well and beaten. The love of her life, Yu Jing does not want her anymore. When she finally gets to leave her husband she leaves as a scheming bitter women who will trust no one at all. Which is a pity because before that I very much hoped that one day she could get together with her step son Yeung Guk. 

I thought her character would get really annoying after she got crazy and slapped her servant, thinking she was Sam Niang. Apart from nothing actually grew from that random crazy-ness so it was a pointless scene. Also the scene were she was really determined that she would never get used again and hated everyone was also pointless as she still got used and still head over heels with Yu Jing.

Then she got used again by her father, what a poor girl. Then she died for Yu Jing too.

Patrick Tang as Yu Ting 余清 (Sheung Hei 常喜)
I don't know why his big brother had to be so nasty to him at first. I also thought that Sheung Hei was a villain for some reason. The ending would have been much happier if he hadn't died, as Yu Jing would have had both his siblings alive. Sheung Hei's life is sad too, he lost his family at a young age and was deceived into becoming an eunuch. But his last part of his life was happy as he was reunited with his family, and at least he took his own life, not murdered.


Samuel Fong and Kingdom Yuen as The King and Queen

The King is quite a useless king. He listens to and then believes in everything anyone says and does not seem to have much judgement himself. I remember in the scene where the men were blaming the failed attempt of the assassination of the king on each other, everyone had their say, Yeung Chi San, Dong Chiu, Yu Jing... and the King just believed in the latest story he was told. I like the actor that played the king. He can do any character at all and be really convincing...

...I hadn't seen Kingdom Yuen for a while and she had a measurable amount of screen time here. It was quite weird for me watching her play such a proper character. I'm used to her playing those feisty and comedic characters so I just couldn't watch any of her expressions without feeling like I'm watching something weird. I can't really comment on her acting because of that, there's an image of Kingdom Yuen that has formed in my head from the past and I can't get rid of it. My Mum says that she did really well though.