Cast:
Main Characters:
Charmaine She- Lau Sam Ho
Tavia Yeung- Yiu Kam Leng
Susanna Kwan- Yuen Cui Wan
Michelle Yim- Chung Suet Ha
Moses Chan- the emperor
Kevin Cheng- Ko Hin Yeung
Supporting Characters: (many many!)
Lee Kwok Lun- Ma Yuen Tze
Selena Lee- Man Bo Yin
Susanna Tse- empress kwok
Ram Tseung- Bou Gung Gung
Mary Hon- Empress Cheng
and many more
What, When, Where & Who (from http://main.tvbsquare.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=224&Itemid=35) Inside the palace, within the walls, there are wars between beauty and power. In order to survive, people uses different strategies to gain control. The story mainly focus on the Imperial Household Bureau, which is responsible for Embroidery, Jewelry, Food & Beverages, and Furnishings. It's a story about power struggles, and a group of girls who needed the power to survive...(and a group of guys we can ignore)
The main character, Charmaine Sheh, who always uses "Speak good words, do good deeds, show good will" as her motto, her motto also helps her survived inside the palace, and she was able to make good friends with almost everyone. Well, almost everyone admires her motto, but her evil best friend Tavia Yeung, who can care less about the motto, instead, Tavia uses many harmful ways to get what she wanted... The story not only focus on Charmaine and Tavia's struggles, it also focus on the power struggles between Michelle Yim, the head of Embroidery and Susanna Kwan, the head of Jewelry. Their arguments, acting skills and misunderstandings shine the entire series. Without the two of them argue with each other, the whole series will be awfully boring.
Comments
Charmaine She vs Tavia Yeung
Lau Sam Ho is the perfect saint. She does all the right things. On the other hand, Yiu Kam Ling is the ultimate villain. She does all the wrong things. In fact, almost every good thing that happened in this series has something to do with Charmaine, and every bad thing has something to do with Tavia. Charmaine and Tavia are great actresses. They have brilliant chemistry when they were best friends and when they were arch rivals. Unfortunately, I think the script writers did not do the best job crafting their characters.
On one hand, Charmaine's 'goodness' in the series is seriously overemphasized. She also gives off a 'weak helpless girl' image, often bitten by a snake, hurt by an animal trap or knocked down by evil people. She lacks the special factor like Dai Cheung Gam, which make the audience want to remember her character.
On the other hand, Tavia's character is rather intriguing at first, when she was still good, but has many different values from Charmaine. I loved the scene when she was crying and laughing at the same time when Charmaine got promoted over her. Tavia may not be a living goddess like Charmaine, but she was real, and made the audience empathize. BUT, all of a sudden, Tavia becomes really wicked. She no longer do things to defend herself. She becomes a sadist who wants everyone dead except for herself. She is already a concubine with only ONE rival, Selena Lee. Don't other emperors have 3000 concubines? Yet, she's never happy with what she has, and she becomes extremely petty. She kills people like drinking water. I was wondering throughout the series, what made Tavia so evil?
I would also like to comment on their outfits. All the outfits and accessories are nicely and intricately designed, you can't deny the efforts. But, sad to say, I think Tavia looks ridiculous. Her make up is way too thick, her hair is in a funny shape, and her eyes look scary. Wouldn't it be more interesting if the producers made Tavia the concubine look more gorgeous, and Charmaine the servant more plain-looking? I thought the message is that goodness lies in the heart and looks are not as important. But this series is totally trying to prove otherwise.
Susanna Kwan vs Michelle Yim
Like Charmaine and Tavia, Susanna and Michelle were also best friends turned enemies. But unlike Charmaine and Tavia, their misunderstandings are cleared at the end. Both Susanna and Michelle are great actresses. They can argue really well. I especially liked Susanna's character. She's the more forgiving and understanding one, with a secret romantic history which she keeps to herself. Michelle, on the other hand, misunderstands her good friend easily. As a result, their misunderstandings never end. It keeps the story going, but it's also tiring to watch. For some reason, I feel a bit uncomfortable watching Michelle's performances in some scenes maybe because of the exaggerated expressions and movements. But all in all I think they both did great jobs
Moses Chan and Kevin Cheng
You can say that the male characters in this series are rather forgettable. I liked neither Moses nor Kevin, but Moses' character is more interesting of course. He starts off as a prince, and has to pretend to be stupid for (is it 20?) years to protect the lives of his mother and himself. Lee Kwok Lun wanted to make use of Moses' character to be his 'puppet emperor'. On the day Moses becomes the emperor, he surprises everyone with his intelligence, making all the evil people very angry. For the rest of the episodes, Moses struggles to overthrow evil Lee Kwok Lun's powers. It is an intense and interesting fight. In terms of love, Moses knew Charmaine way before Kevin. It is Charmaine who helped him survive his toughest years. However, Charmaine loves Kevin and only Kevin. Moses forgivingly hides his love and only tells charmaine at the very end. Unfortunately, Charmaine did not accept the emperor's love. I love the last scene in the last episode, when Charmaine walks out of the palace, and Moses looks at her from behind, and his eyes were red. What a bittersweet scene...
Yet another stupid villain- Lee Kwok Lun
Basically there are only 2 villains in these series doing all the bad things, Tavia and Lee Kwok Lun. I simply can't stand watching Lee Kwok Lun's character! He's and arrogant man who thinks he can have anything he wants in the world and he is convinced that anyone against him deserves to die. He also likes to humiliate people to show his power. I just hate watching this character because he is ridiculously evil. The scene I liked the most is at the end when Tavia kills Lee Kwok Lun. It's absurd that the emperor could not kill this guy for 32 episodes, but Tavia does it in 1 second. But, I still love that scene because of Tavia's crazy performance. She insults him as a 'castrated man', and tells him, "Not only did you lose to the emperior, you even lose to a woman like me!". He totally deserves to die in humiliation, for all the sins he has committed, but I still think it's not painful enough. Just a stab? Way too easy!
The ending- too fast, too easy
Many things were happening, everything had to be settled fast. The thing which I really can't accept is Tavia's ending. I don't understand why the emperor cannot kill her. Tavia killed SO MANY people. And of all the people, she killed Selena, who is the emperor's wife, Selena's unborn baby, who is the empror's child, and even the emperor's mother who has always treated her so well! Tavia killed 3 very important people in Moses' life, but Moses spares her life for a stupid reason. Before Charmaine leaves, Charmaine even asks Moses to be lenient on her, and Moses agrees! Lucky Tavia, she just turns crazy and live in her own happy world, to me that is way too easy for her. Now that is driving me crazy. This has happened many times to TVB villains. I really don't know what's the message they are trying to drive at.
The Series vs Sales Presentation
As we can see, there were some differences in the story in the sales presentation clip and the series itself. I obviously prefer the story in the sales presentation. In the sales presentation, charmaine and Tavia were junior servants at first. The seniors had their own fight and caused Charmaine and Tavia to suffer a lot. Tavia, having suffered so much, wants to rise to power and have her revenge. Charmaine, on the otherhand maintains her goodheartedness. In the series, Tavia did not have to suffer THAT much. She abruptly became another person, incredibly selfish and greedy. She lacks the 'human factor' and inner struggles which i was looking forward to. In the 2nd half of teh series when Tavia was bad, she lacked the depths and layers which she had at the beginning. It was rather disappointing, no matter how awesome Tavia's performances were.
Overall comments:
I do not have the energy to comment on the other characters because there are so many of them. In short, this series has many plus points. The great ensemble cast, the novel villain performances from Tavia, the carefully crafted dialogues, the grandness, the beautiful decorations costumes and accessories, all these efforts are highly commendable, and impressive. On the other hand, this series also has many ways to improve, I just cannot bring myself to call it a 'classic'.
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