EPISODE 11

Confirms two things;



1. Chiu Yan is really spineless by mistaking an enemy as a friend (Tin Choi Tip, that evil woman) but did one good thing that is to scheme so that her mom will pursue a case against Tin for wrongfully accusing her of poisoning the dead prince (who died shortly after birth and had nothing to do with the Empress). I feel the Empress should pursue and set her name right. The real battle is actually Chiu Yan vs Tin and that should be interesting because Chiu Yan is obviously evil woman in the making.



2. I realise what is wrong with Cheung Ping. She has no personality, she is as bland as white rice without anything else, a necessary character but not very engaging and interesting.



And there are more problems:-



There is no longer any flashbacks but worse now, we have Turn Left Turn Right, that is Cheung Ping turns right and Sai Hin will walk left, more slow mo, one scenes where they seemed blended with one another walking opposite sides and looking very reluctant. Many many times this is repeated and very very annoying. There was a time either of them is always talking to God (as in Lou Tin Yeh Yeh). Now they are talking to each other, but one would be in the garden and the other in the room, like miles apart but ahhhhhh they can hear one another! I sat there thinking can we just move on with the story? The thing is when the viewers know that they will end up with one another, the rule is please do not make that journey like as if they're not going to be with one another. I know it makes good story to show how longing they are for one another but to drag it in one particular scene where Cheung Ping asks many questions in the garden and Sai Hin wonders too in another place and one scene cut to another, it is very very very time consuming and meaningless. It goes only to show what a bastard Sai Hin is (poor Yoke Han) and though Cheung Ping said she will forget about Sai Hin and let Yoke Han win, there are many scenes which shows her crying and all. Of course it is very pitiful not to be able to be with the man you love who is marrying another whom you really like but at the end of the day it makes her look more like a hypocrite. There she is saying "Yoke Han he is yous" and there she goes, crying and telling herself not to go see Sai Hin whilst almost strangling that poor yellow dog (yes, there is a dog in here, again I suspect the same one but of course not supposed to be the same one), and then Sai Hin says "Cheung Ping" and he says "Why deny our love? Why deny the truth?" and she goes "No, no no" and yet she is crying and crying. I mean Sai Hin definitely will get the message and poor Yoke Han. I do feel Yoke Han should juust give up and find another more deserving man whilst we viewers get to move on with the story. Rather pointless story of a love affair that is already meant to be!



Now let's talk about performances which I did not talk about in length except for some actresses.



I do think Ellesmere Choi did very well as the useless playful young prince. Nothing much i could say though. I do think Steven Ma so far looks very gallant and handsome but he has little to do except to pine for Cheung Ping and wondering how to tell Yoke Han "Sorry, I ain't in love with you" whilst pretending he is happy to marry Yoke Han later. I feel Maggie Siu is wonderful as the Queen being bullied and Jan Lau definitely looks and acts like the evil concubine Tin to perfection. Some scenes she looks absolutely ugly and Jan Lau though haggard is still pretty. Others did well whilst there is little on Moses Chan who looks positively way too young to be the father of Sonija Kwok. Or you may say Sonija Kwok is way too old to play a young girl.



Now let's talk about my favourite superhero in this series, Superman that is Sonija Kwok. She is absolutely expressionless in this series. In one scene where she tried to please Tin and then Tin slapped her, she totally did all those scenes like a total amateur. I see no pain, I see no malice, I see no arrogance, anger, whatever. She looks mildly pissed and when she is happy she looks bored. No dancing in this episode which is worst because now I have to look at her act and it is pure torture. She lacks that Betty Davies eyes. Nevertheless I look forward to evil Chiu Yan's scene because by being evil she has a bit of personality and plenty of attitude, that is her character but definitely not the actress. I want to watch her doing evil stuff because that is entertaining in itself but I don't bother to look at her face when she is acting because that will surely kill my interest in her character. Anyway worst acting moment which I must mention is where she took a bunch of joss stick and burned her arms with it. One arm actually, somewhere up near the wrist. She aimed it right and then the camera zoom off and suddenly her hand holding that joss stick suddenly moved so low I would think she was burning the back of her palms! But there is it was, the joss stick made burned mark on the upper arm near the wrist. I forgot to count whether the marks matched the number of joss stick used.



Now let's talk about the perfect woman, Cheung Ping that is Charmaine Sheh who is really pretty in here but she is too thin, so her face is too long and so when she smiles that dazzling smile of hers, her face looks stretched and therefore horrible. Acting wise I can't fault her much because she has NOTHING to do in here except to pine for Sai Hin. I would expect Chan Yuen Yuen to do all the pining for Ng Sam Kwai but well, we have many pining couples in here. Her Cheung Ping is so badly written no good actress could make her interesting unless Cheung Ping suddenly change to her old expected self that is what legend has to say; smart, witty, articulate, elegant, opinionated, independent, strong, etc. Can you imagine this Cheung Ping as that one armed nun in Duke of Mountdeer? But who knows, something might have shook her up to make her more tough. Charmaine looks nice smiling, crying, pining, working, washing, walking. But expression wise, so far she is rather limited. Her acting is not good at all in here and I am very annoyed not with her chicken voice (which suits a soft spoken Cheung Ping) but the way she talks, dragging her lines when she is about to finish her lines and then end them all with a "la". Sometimes I thought this series is a modern series and I doubt the accuracy of some of the weapons. But let's watch some more before I comment more on her performance since the problem now is her character.



So far I find this series something like a modern day family conflict drama, set in the olden days of course. There's even a refence to magic and illusion which I really do wonder did it exist then in China?



Anyway I think tomorrow's episode would be better because the battle of the century will begin. Tin vs Empress (backed by Superman), one evil woman, one scorned woman and one would be evil woman. And where is Cheung Ping? Sai Hinnnnnnn



You know come to think of it Cheung Ping never noticed her mom's hair is shorter (hey! I didn't notice also, hair still long) and what frustrates me most is the Empress Dowager saw Cheung Ping and yet they didn't show like a happy reunion or something. Zoom and next scene, Sai Hin and Cheung Ping. This is becoming a love story of two people who so happened to have the names of famous characters, not the famous characters themselves. TVB is definitely guilty of character assassination but who knows, it might get better.