Love is Beautiful
A 2001 TVB Production
| Cast of Characters: | |
| Eddie Cheung Siu Fai | Marianne Chan Miu Ying |
| Marco Ngai Chun Kit | Anne Heung Hoi Lam |
Number of Episodes: 30foreshadow
Theme Song by Cheh Yuen Yuen
Rating: Good
Summary:
Trying to explain the characters in this series could be troublesome. At the start, Marianne Chan Miu Ying plays a girl named Chau Chau and Anne Heung Hoi Lam plays a girl named Ling Wan. Chau Chau is the main evil villain in the show. She is filled with jealousy and evil. Her supposedly good friend Ling Wan is exactly the opposite. Ling Wan takes Chau Chau as a her best friend because Chau Chau had accidentally saved her when they were still kids. But Chau Chau doesn't see it the same way. She often takes advantage of her naive friend. They live in a village called Beautiful Women's Village. But because both of them were born ugly, they were common victims of gossip and jokes. When Ling Wan's father was ill many years ago, Ling Wan had made a prayer to the gods to better her father's health even if the consequences were too lessen her own life span. The gods had granted her wish and also at the same time, cleared up the tiny dots on her face. Ling Wan was the most beautiful girl in the village but she decided to fool everyone by continuing to mess up her face with tiny dots she put on herself. Ling Wan didn't want her best friend to be the ugliest girl in the village all by herself and she didn't want to get married so she could continue to pass on her father's skills with horses. One day Chau Chau meets a man named Siu To, played by Marco Ngai Chun Kit, on the streets. He claims he could change people's faces, but the change could only withstand for a certain amount of time before everything is reversed back to normal. After Chau Chau's first experience of being beautiful, her ambitions grew and she wanted to stay beautiful forever. On a lucky occasion, the two girls met the King played by Eddie Cheung Siu Fai. He had disguised himself as normal civilian touring different places. Under circumstances, Ling Wan saves his life from assassinators sent by his Royal Uncle in an attempt to overthrow him. When some villagers were mocking Ling Wan's appearance, the King promised to marry her. Ling Wan reveals her true face and the King instantly falls in love with her new look. Returning to the palace, the King sends messengers to the village to bring Ling Wan back to the kingdom. Everyone in the village is surprised that the man who promised to marry Ling Wan, was the King. Angry and jelous, Chau Chau feels that she should be the next concubine and not her friend. She once again begs Siu To to make her beautiful eternally. She promises him riches if she were to become concubine. Siu To finally agrees because he is also curious to test out the highest skill in face changing, to change the faces of two different people forever. After seeing Ling Wan, Siu To tells Chau Chau that her friend is perfect for the experiment. Under circumstances, Chau Chau kills someone and is now wanted. On the night before Ling Wan was to head for the kingdom, Chau Chau drugs her friend and brings her to Siu To. Although thunders broke out as a sign of heaven's displeasure, the operation was a success. From here on, the characters of the two actresses are reversed. Marianne Chan Miu Ying now plays the role of Ling Wan and Anne Heung Hoi Lam plays Chau Chau. Now with Ling Wan's physical look, Chau Chau heads off to the kingdom. Ling Wan who has Chau Chau's appearance is arrested for murder. From here is where the real story begins. With no one believing her and not even her father, Ling Wan escapes with the help of the New Scholar played by Dung Ho Kwong. On her journey to the kingdom she encounters many obstacles and meets a new friend, Lok Yun played by Mak Bau. Although Lok Yun lives off of deceiting people at the start, he changed his way after he falls in love with Ling Wan's kindness and pure heart. He decides to aid her in her quest. Eventually the King finds out the truth and sends Chau Chau to prison. Although he finds out about the truth, the King is still in love with Chau Chau's appearance. He finds Ling Wan's new appearance hard to swallow. He orders the capture of Siu To and for him to switch their faces back or else he will be punished with death. Siu To was injured by General Man during the arrest and claims the only thing that could heal him is three drops of the King's blood. The King grants him his wish. This scene play a purpose near the end of the series. After the operation, Siu To is released. The King finds out that Siu To had not reversed their appearances. Chau Chau still had the appearance of Ling Wan. Ling Wan had teamed with Chau Chau to put on a fake show of the operation being a success. Ling Wan did this to repay a favor from Siu To long ago. During the operation, Siu To had told Ling Wan that it was impossible to reverse their looks but he had lied to the king because he didn't want to die. Before figuring out what had happend and out of excitement, the King had accidentally told the truth that Ling Wan with Chau Chau's appearance was too much to handle for him. Ling Wan is upset and wants to leave but with the King's plea, she decides to stay. Later into the show, both she and the King head off to war. Because of Ling Wan's kindness, she earns the respect of the soldiers and generals, much to the King's displeasure. The King returns to the kingdom and Ling Wan stays at the battlefield to raise the troops' morale. Meanwhile, the King's mother had ordered the execution of Chau Chau. The Royal Uncle had saved her and planned to use her to plot against the King. Together they tricked the King in thinking Chau Chau was dead. The Royal Uncle planned Chau Chau's return into the King's life by tricking him into thinking that she was actually someone else who had looked like her. Thinking Chau Chau was already executed, the King believed that the Chau Chau standing before him was someone else. In fact she was still Chau Chau. Ling Wan had talked the other country into peace settlement and made her way back to the kingdom. She was also fooled by Chau Chau. The two of them were both pregnant and gave birth to two baby boys. But Chau Chau gave birth to a boy that was black. She quickly switched her son with Ling Wan's baby. Despite Ling Wan's plea, the King believed Chau Chau. She later influenced the King into thinking Ling Wan had had an affair with the general from the other country and gave birth to a black baby. Out of the jealousy fron Ling Wan's popularity and anger from Chau Chau's influence, the King orders the execution of Ling Wan. During the execution, all kinds of natural disasters occurred to show the anger of the heavens. Ling Wan is finally beheaded. But strangley her head is missing. For those who haven't watched this series, this is where I'll stop because I've given the story away far too much already.
I would like to make a comment on the great acting by the two actresses. Anne Heung Hoi Lam played the first few chapters easily because the softness of her character was much like her real nature. But when her identity had been switched and now she had to play the ruthless Chau Chau, it was a big challenge. It was sort of like in The Ruturn of The Cuckoo where Charmaine Sheh had a similar challenge. At first I thought TVB might've made a big mistake in this decision, but it turned out alright. Her acting has much improved since her debut in Detective Investigation Files IV. In Love is Beautiful, her role was much more difficult than what she had ever encountered. It wasn't a fantastic job, but Anne did well enough for a pass. But Marianne Chan Miu Ying was great. She made a great start in making Chau Chau hated by the audience members. When she played Ling Wan, she also was able to get viewers to be sorry for her. This reminded me much of her appearance in Life to Life. She succeeded in playing both of these series. Except in Life to Life, Mui Siu Wai also showed her ability was equal with Marianne's. Marianne is definitely one of the more skilled actresses in TVB. Anne earned a pass and Marianne passed with flying colors. Eddie Cheung Siu Fai did an okay job as the King, but it was surprising to finally see someone else playing a king who falls in love with beauty other than Kong Wah. I think Marco's character is a little unconvincing. Too much information was left out about him. Like his real age, he looked pretty young too me despite the hair. A little more background about his character would be more convincing. Another comment I would like to make, is with regards to one of the supporting cast members. This person believe it or not, was my favorite character in the whole series. It was General Man San played by Lee Wai Kai. I thought he was kind of cool and that's not only because he had an arm missing and kind of looked like Yeung Gau. Although not many people know his name, I think he's done a great job for TVB over the years. He played mostly supporting cast members and his more recent showing before this series was playing the character of Jason in At a Threshold of a New Era. I hope TVB gives him more opportunities in the future. Who knows, maybe he's the next Gordon Lam. The last thing I would like to comment on was the good suspense at the start. For me, the start was even kind of mysterious. But this faded out as the series progressed. This is one of the parts that I thought needed some improvement. Another was that there wasn't really a good defining male main character. The leading male role in this series is of course Eddie Cheung Siu Fai, but it would've been better if he was more valued in this series. Some of the things that added to the mysteriousness was good foreshadowing. Most of this came from Siu To's character, finally something good about this character. Foreshadowing occurred when Siu To told the King at the start that he would be saved by a very ugly woman and when he warned the King that beauty could be very lethal, foreshadowing Chau Chau's new beauty will end up threatening the whole country. Another foreshadowing scene is Siu To's request for three drops of the King's blood. And of course, the title of this series is the foreshadow of Ling Wan's execution. Overall, well done TVB!
Overall Production
8 Dragonballs