[E] CAPTAIN OF DESTINY / CHEUNG PO-TSAI / 張保仔 [TVB][2015]

4 episodes of pure heaven for me, because a large part is on Ruco and some are on another actor I am interested in, Joel Chan who didn't disappoint. I don't think this series is remotely interested in developing the story arc between Man Ho and Mui, in fact it is episode 17 now and no sign they will ever meet. These 4 episodes showcases some great moments for many characters, and even one with is so similar with Yong Zheng Wang Chao, except much more idol worthy (Ruco!!) and much more simplistic. The way how Man Ho so trust Wong Yat Hin beggars belief and a great suspension of absolute faith. How easy it was for the pirates to sneak into the army camp is another frustrating moment for me. Why bother waste fire power and ships when they can just sneak in? Why Fok is still alive is making me wonder, and why the emperor act the way he does is making me feel this is drama for drama sake. The only person who makes sense is Man Ho and even he is subjected to some moments where I wonder maybe the script writer just decided to go juvenile. No no, it is Ruco Chan who saves the day with his portrayal of an increasingly desperate prince. Even how he won over his men is too childish. No no, it would  be Fok who is childish. This series needs only Man Ho's story to flourish as it proves, why bother with the time traveling when in the end it isn't even first perspective story any more? This is supposed to be Mui's perspective but we have anything BUT her perspective. I hate how the writers try to make the pirates cute. It is a slap to my face as a woman to watch those scenes. There is no reason to make them  nice or the Qings bad. Just tell the damn story. But I am happy at a mere suggestion of Mui's parentage which explains her skin colour. So thank you TVB for at least doing something reasonable.

This is gonna be a long recap or maybe short, since I can't remember the details except for many tears by men and the abuse of poor Siu Fu. These 4 episodes require a lot of suspension of logic and reason but most of all, very few scenes of Grace so some  may be ready to open that champagne and sip on your glass as I recap what is mostly the naval army's perspective.

But it does prove one thing; Kelly Fu is so touchy feely with Ruco (sure nothing's going on?) and Ha Sim is rather useless as how much help she can give. She is really really just a maid.

Pirate island. 

They feel they have won and so returns triumphantly, with their women waiting eagerly which seriously makes me wonder are all of them suffering from Stockholm syndrome? Mui waits tearfully when they return carrying a body and saying things like "Oh how young he perishes still calling your name" and so Mui thinks he is dead and she cries and h isn't and she slaps him and let us skip all these ok? In a banquet he asks her to marry him, promises he will love her for-eva!!! and she says no and runs away and CPT in shock cries his heart out by the sea. And she wonders in a cringe worthy dialogue;

"Why can't I love him? It is in this ancient time I find a man so brave to reveal his heart to me and yet I denied him the one thing I can't give him. Why can't I be in love with him and just stay and accept him? Why can't I?"

At the palace, Yim is pregnant. Same time crown prince begs his father to strip him of his crown prince title and find a new crown prince since realistically he is dying of TB I think. The father is most reluctant. As news came of Man Ho's failure, the brothers, the emperor, thee two wives and Eunuch Lai in the room and basically the brothers all had a go at Man Ho. But the emperor was too saddened by the crown prince's condition to notice. He was busy mumbling why a good kind hearted son had to be so sick, why kindness is not repaid with kindness when Yim just told them all to back off and the emperor absent mindedly left whilst the issue of punishing Man Ho is pushed back.

Tung Suet asked Yim why let Man Ho go and she says she has no beef with Man Ho, just his mother and since she now needs an ally or the sake of her unborn child, why not extend him help this one time? She seems pretty sure she will get a son.

Everyone hates Mui for rejecting CPT and so they tod her to get lost. Even Kiu says so, even CPT begs Mui to get lost because he is getting drunk all the time thanks to her rejection. She refuses because she needs the cyclone to get home so in the end she stubbornly refuses to leave even if she does look at him with puppy dogs eyes. o CPT says fine, she gotta be initiated as a pirate to stay and so she must be part of the crew in some pirate stuff. They set sail and Mui says she won't kill, maim, steal or even rape or plunder, she will be a kind hearted pirate and so they laugh and say they just need her to steal the emperor's robe at the naval base. Ahhh finally, she will meet Man Ho, right? WRONG!1

Man Ho at home, dejected at his humiliating lost and I can't remember what happened except CPT could easily smuggle himself in and create such a diversion and makes known to Man Ho he wants to get the emperor's robe and so Man Ho told his men to protect the robe at all cost because if not, death to them all since emperor's robe is like so important, which makes me wonder why don't he just wear it? Long story short, Ha Sim is the last one standing and tries to protect the box with the robe in it and CPT forced Mui to stab Ha Sim who promptly fainted and Mui thinks she killed Ha Sim but she didn't because the knife is retractable and Ha Sim just fainted and they opened the box, and..... they flaunt the robe for Man Ho to see and Man Ho is like how they got the robe and goes to the hiding place and finds the robe there and actually it is a trick by CPT to find out where tyh robe it, that robe they had was fake and so CPT and Man Ho fight and lots of slow mo and posing and all and I was just annoyed how the pirates could get into naval base so easily so why bother with 600 ships when 5 or 6 men can just get in and wreck havoc over a robe. Anyway CPT got away with the robe and once again humiliating Man Ho. Meanwhile Kiu finds Mui and tells her to leave so that CPT could be human again and be whole again and so she leaves and meanwhile CPT has had his fun and said this won't be the last time Man Ho will see him and the next time he will not come for the robe but for his head and leaves and in the end the robe is hung up high with some humiliating slogan by our Scholar Suen insulting Man Ho how easy it was to get the robe. Around the same time Man Ho's conniving brothers arrive to see the mess but Man Ho is too disturbed by what CPT did to notice any of them. Anyway Man Ho and gang left the base since it was breached.

Rewind a bit. How the brothers reach there is like this.

Again they bring Man Ho's failure to the emperor and before that Yim also wonders where her position is until Eunuch Lai reminds her that to ensure her unborn son will be the emperor, must first cultivate the image the emperor loves and the emperor loves the crown prince because he is kind and so Yim must play the part of a kind hearted would be empress dowager.

So when Man Ho's brothers all ganged up to push the father to punish Man Ho with death, and then Shun begging emperor to not kill their son and instead give him the medicine for his Malaria, the emperor was so affected by their arguments that he lost his temper big time. He blamed Shun for Man Ho's failures or rather he berated Man Ho for his failures and he wonders why he shouldn't punish Man Ho and yet he angrily berated the 3 sons (Man Ho's brother was especially quiet) why they are so cruel that they want their own brother dead. He angrily cries;

"Do you all not have brotherly love? Why must you all want him dead?! I have so many sons, so many sons and the one who is kind and thoughtful is the one dying and you, the rest are heartless. Why do I have sons like you? Why? Why is my kind son dying and yet you all, you all.."

Yim knew her time was then so she rushed to the emperor and asked permission to speak and the emperor told her he knew she would want Man Ho dead but Yim said;

"No your majesty. No, I am pregnant ..."

Pause.

Emperor looked shocked. But he already knew she was pregnant in previous scene. So here is a mistake. Previous episode also another mistake when Man Ho called his father "Fu Wong" which is different dynasty, should be "Wong Ah Ma". Sometimes the emperor alternates between "Ngo" which is I for commoner and "Jam" which is I for emperor. Very messy dialogue. Also Man Ho is like the non promoted prince. Maybe "Bui Lap" aka Beile is such a nice sounding ranking when it is lowest. Come on, he has his own mansion, he is commander of the navy, he should be "ye" or lord by now!

Continue.

"And I learn that I must be thoughtful. My unborn child influenced me to do good things, to have kind thoughts. I have done so many bad things in the past, I regret them all and for my child, I will no longer be that person anymore. Your majesty, forgive 11th Prince and send him medicine."

The emperor was shocked to see her change in behaviour and said to himself;

"My unborn son could be so kind to influence his own mother?"

Yeap, into the trap he fell. So she is to give birth to sickly looking Daogguang? So he orders for medicine to Man Ho and warned Shun to advice her son to buck up because this will be his last chance. Brothers look disappointed.

And yet next scene the father secretly met with them and sent the 2 most difficult ones to the naval base to keep an eye on Man Ho and punish him if Man Ho did wrong. He did this because in previous scene he looked at his sickly son and said to himself "I will have to protect you" and when his confused sons asked how come now change of heart he just said "One day you will understand".

Pause.

I guess I do. To keep them busy fighting. He is afraid Man Ho being the most capable one may want to usurp power from either his most beloved crown prince or unborn child but more like for the crown prince. He really loved his crown prince. He knew the others are not capable so I guess this is to create tension and keep them all busy. I suppose Kangxi, he is NOT. What a convoluted plot at this point with the conniving father, conniving sons, and the pirates seem like such a happy idyllic family.

Continue.

The rest of the recap is really about Man Ho knowing he needed one special weapon to destroy the pirates and he needed the cannons from the British armada.

Pause.

I thought his ships have cannon so what's so special about gwailo cannons?? I don't get it. I thought he would equip each sailor with a gun.

Continue.

The idea is ok except the way he goes about it frustrates me because the execution is as sloppy as it is exceedingly silly. He got the idea of finding an interpreter in English to negotiate a transaction...

Pause.

Here I thought Mui will come in handy and she will be his interpreter. Let me just clarify; at the end of episode 17 also Mui has yet to meet Man Ho and she is just lurking around doing basically nothing and the story is not even from her perspective anymore.

Continue.

He was told to find a man named Wong Yat Hin who can speak English and has close relationship with some captain or admirals on British ships.

Cue, we get introduced to Wong Yat Hin who so happens to be Ha Sim's uncle whom she has not met since she was a child where she was orphaned and he took care of her or rather she sew to take care of him and he placed her with nunnery because she chose not to go to prostitution den and then she often heard of his stories where he opened many businesses, failed and last she heard was him selling slaves to Penang (Yes, Malaysia) and the ship sank and all died. So he was alive and somehow a man as smart as Man Ho just trusted him. Ha Sim did say her uncle can sweet talk anyone and get anything he wants and he can also be your worst enemy so you want him as your best friend. Man Ho visited Yat Hin and saw how he conned businessman knocking on his door for money with more time to repay the money and Man Ho knew he was the man for the job. Yat Hin tested Man Ho's patience by acting rudely but in the end agreed to help Man Ho buy the cannon (operative word, singular I think) and Yat Hin said he knew a Robertson who he survived the shipwreck with for 1 week marooned on some island drinking each other's piss. I think that part is true but Robertson actually lost the war against the spanish but stashed away the cannons somewhere. Yat Hin wanted $300,000 and Man Ho immediately said yes.

Why he so trusted Yat Hin is called a leap of movie magic faith because I see nothing in Yat Hin to convince me he knows what he is doing. So just assume he knows what he is doing. So he goes to Macau and finds Robertson who was later arrested for dealing in Portugese territory and will be hanged. So now Yat Hin had to bribe everyone to save Robertson because Robertson refused to tell him where the cannons are until he is saved. And he met Suk Kwan (Mandy) and these two were probably the most interesting pair so far. She wanted to con him but he was way smarter. So he insulted her as some whore, she threw alcohol on his face, he threw back and said he had stopped believing in the feminine wiles since he was a young man so he wasn't stupid. For money Suk Kwan agreed to help him but said she will only lend her services and not her body and he laughed and insulted her;

"I doubt I can get anywhere with your body!"

Man Ho waited at base for news but all he got was Yat Hin needed $50,000 more and he had to stretch all he had. Siu Fu delivered the money thinking Yat Him was spending all on whores and so he insulted Suk Kwan and guess what? Siu Fu didn't deserve to be slapped by Yat Him, pushed to kneel and to apologise to Suk Kwan. Well he had to and so he did. I thought why? Why insult Siu Fu? Yes they needed Yat Hin but he wasn't wrong in what he said even if he was wrong. I dread the next episode where Siu Fu and Yat Hin pats shoulder and become friendly because it makes no sense. Siu Fu must hold a grudge against Yat Hin. Anyway Suk Kwan was so touched she slept with Yat Hin and she told him her deepest desires;

"I only wish for 3 things but I know I won't get them from you. But I thank you for giving me a glimpse of what could have been. First, you have already did it for me. I always wanted to see how those mandarin wolves look like when they're on their knees saying sorry to me. Second, I want you to buy my contract and give me my freedom. Third... I want to you marry me with all the ceremony of a legitimate wife..."

But she knew he won't do the 3rd so she rested her head on his shoulder and was just happy for the moment. The significance of the 3rd wish is she is a prostitute and rarely a prostitute is ever the first legitimate wife.

Unfortunately Yat Him wasn't successful and needed more money and so asked for $50,000 and this time it was Shun who sold all her jewelries and then borrowed from other concubines for that money. Man Ho was getting desperate. Ha Sim delivered the  money because she wanted to ask her uncle how much more. But she found him  arrested when he tried to bribe Fabio the chief police who turned out to be the fiance of a woman who rode the same ship that sank because Yat Hin overloaded it with slaves and so it was from the start a trap to get Robertson and Yat Hin. Now both were to be hanged and Yat Hin told Ha Sim to rush back and get $50,000 more because even if he was to die, he will get the prince his cannon.

Meanwhile at the naval base a huge festival is coming and yet Man Ho didn't even have $500 to buy stuff and Fok and his brothers were just waiting for him to fail and Man Ho almost begged them to help when Siu Fu arrived with a  bag full of money and he earned those in the fighting pits. The sailors and the 2 camps were very moved by Man Ho's gestures and began to see Fok as the sly one. They were more encouraging to Man Ho's predicament when Ha Sim rushed in and told Man Ho what her uncle said and that even if they were to rush to save him, he would be dead by now.  Man Ho knew all was lost and Fok and gang laughed happily but not the sailors. Festival time and they said good words about Man Ho and encouraged one another and said Ma Ho was a man who was true to his words, so if he said he could find cannon, he will, even if he can't, they were willing to die with him fighting the pirates and win! Fok was discouraging them when Man Ho arrived and seemed like a humbled man when he read his lists of wishes where he promised to get them new weapons, new uniforms, more funding but the men wanted him to say more, but he could say no more, even Eunuch Lai (who was there because he was tasked with delivering the medicine) and Ha Sim begged him to say more and he became quieter and quieter and said my chosen quote. Fok laughed himself silly, so did his brothers and Man Ho was then so silent. and still as he felt he had lost everything when his other captain rushed in and cried;

"A letter from Wong Yat Hin!!!"

Everyone rushed to read and Yat Hin declared his gratefulness for Man Ho's trust in him and he bought them the cannon! Everyone rejoined and Fok and gang was dejected and Man Ho quietly left and Ha Sim followed.

Meanwhile, how did Yat Hin saved himself and Robertson?


Truth was it was the end of the road. Suk Kwan found out the money he asked for will be her key to her freedom but Suk Kwan promised to save him and so he told her to open a pouch he once told her will be the name of the person who can save him. He hanged a lot of pouches on the window with bells, each with name of a person he must bribe except for the last one which he said he won't use until he had to.

She opened it and it was her name and the method was to bribe the executioner, an Indian fella who was crazy about Suk Kwan and the bribe was her body. So she slept with him...

Pause.

Here I applaud TVB! You see the significance? Yeap like what I said at the beginning this will tie in nicely how come Mui looks foreign and darker skinned! Very good call, at last something intelligent in this messy plot.

Continue.


He saved them by rigging the hanging podium and all that stuff I won't explain. And she did it because Yat Hin promised her he will marry her as his legitimate wife. Even if he didn't she would have done it anyway. She was in love with him.

Man Ho stood alone at the top of the fort and Ha Sim quietly observed him when he tearfully cried and laughed and was brimming with confidence again and took a huge flag and swish around and cried out his favourite slogan;

DESTROY ALL PIRATES!!!!!

Even Ha Sim was tearful.

So.. will Man Ho and Mui meet? Or won't they?

Look, these 4 episodes proves Ruco Chan is TV King. Period. Unfortunately the story, the execution, everything else requires a huge leap of faith. Let's not talk accuracy but let's talk logic. Joel Chan is the next  best thing in these few episodes. He was wonderful, but his Wong Yat Hin should have been given more time to develop and I would love to see Man Ho having a BFF in a properly developed, written and scripted Wong Yat Hin. Imagine the CCTV version of a friendship between a cunning merchant and a proud prince and how the proud prince is humbled and the cunning merchant found his patriotism and loyalty and selflessness. But this ain't CCTV and so all we have is a rushed job. And even in rushed job, Joel Chan proves he has mature as an actor. He really can be devious, despicable and yet likable and relatable. His chemistry with Mandy Wong is sizzling and Mandy hardly is ever a notch above zen. Ruco also was just masterful even if his last scene was a bit OTT to my taste.

The problem now is this series tries hard to make the pirates likable. So as a viewer whose side am I on? Man Ho doesn't come with any background info why he hates the pirates so much. We just assume it is because he loves the common folk and he hates anything that destroys national security. But why not show us more? Build the background for some personal stuff, you know what I mean? For the pirates, what they say and talk is so different from what they do. You can't reconcile those two. And so in the end for a viewer who is the villain? Fok? The princes? Because the bombshell is Man Ho and CPT are probably brothers and so what if they are brothers? So they team up against a third villain but who is the third villain?

Can this series work without a villain? Nope. Because it will show respective party as being particularly unreasonable, like Man Ho and his dislike for the pirates. I hate the scene where CPT made a mockery out of Man Ho not because Man Ho was made into a fool. He wasn't but it showed how easy it was to breach the naval base and so why bother doing it with a war when espionage will work just as well?

And what is the Emperor thinking? And Yim? And everyone? Where is this series taking us? What is the direction? Because I am at a total lost what it is trying to do. Mui no longer has her perspective and hers is biased because she spent so much time with the pirates so if she kisses Man Ho, I am wondering will that be a kiss for kiss sake?

Then there's the costars. I am sorry to say I feel absolutely disappointed with the costars. The girls are not helpful, except for Suk Kwan and there seems to be this innate notion in this story that women tend to be the sacrificial lamb with the amount of attempted rape and rape and molestation and what nots. Suk Kwan is a strong girl and is useful but the rest are just bystanders doing absolutely nothing, Ha Sim included. This is a men's series and I don't mind it at all but even  the men are pretty useless except for a very very few.

I don't get where this series is heading. The acting for some is superb and that is why I closed one eye but the story is seriously flawed. I still enjoyed it all when I stop asking why Man Ho so trust Wong Yat Hin and why can't Man Ho officially buy the cannons from the brits like any trade. And how many cannons did..

$300,000
Note : Yat Hin promised Robertson $100,000

plus $50,000 and another $50,000 (I assume Man Ho did not pay this sum)

could get them?

And Man Ho promised also house lar, mansion lar, even 4th rank official lar.. did he have authority to do all that since in prince pecking order, he is at the lowest in his father's heart?

"You said I listened to one unworthy servant's side of story to make my decision. Well, didn't you also make your decision based on the words of two unworthy servants? I am unreasonable? So is each of you! You (Yim) used your position as my imperial father's favourite concubine to get what you want. You (Fok) too used you position to assert your authority on others. And you both (Hon Yung & Tung Suet) bullied others and act like you own the others! Why should I be reasonable to the likes like you who are unreasonable as well?" - Man Ho

FUNNLING METRE

For most of the time during these 3 episodes.  That's my reaction. I am beginning to be annoyed with everyone, Man Ho included. And at episode 12, Mui has yetto meet Man Ho. It is like we know the pre ordained  ending when series doesn't even bother to develop the relationship between our hero and heroine early. These episodes can be summarised as men getting angry, pirates going cute and the women breathing hard, like in labour. And some serious mistake perhaps and obviously a scene showing what is no longer in existence for I suppose 10 long minutes. I didn't clock the time since I just fast forwarded and I missed nothing. Whilst Man Ho and Mui are match made in heaven with their propensity to talk very loudly, Ruco and Grace are so apart in terms of acting skills eventhough in episode 11 Ruco did go OTT a lot. And maybe TVB doesn't like to count but where is 100000 sailors? In short, a lot of head scratching. Summary; I like some parts most of the time but some of the time I just wish the series get on with it and a few times I wish this series never existed.



Ok, we have plenty of heavy breathing by Ha Sim but none is sexy. So Shun takes her and says she will protect her when guess whose here? Yim! Yim turns and basically says to Ha Sim;

"Don't you even realise who is you mistress? So why make life difficult for Concubine Shun since I am your master and you should be clinging to me for help"

When Fok comes running in with the gun pointing onto her head, Ha Sim is scared and clings to Shun and Shun warns Fok and then says to Yim;

"Sister, since you once said I was kind to you when you were my servant, perhaps it would not be too much for me to ask you for a favour to help Ha Sim"

Yim looks at Shun and says perhaps the bitchiest speech thus far;

"And you dare to remind me of that? Don't you get it? I am now the emperor's most favoured concubine. Maybe you once was but that was ages ago. Your beauty has faded, your face is nothing but wrinkles, age has betrayed you and to the emperor he no longer finds you sexually alluring. You are nothing but a dried up old prune and so why should I even give you "face"? Why should I help Ha Sim just because you said so? Ha Sim. Don't you know who your mistress is? Who you should be begging to spare your life?"

Poor Shun is horrified to hear the reality and so shrink away and Ha Sim, not very smart so her intention is simply to survive, goes to Yim and Yim looks at her and smiles a little as she looks at Fok and says;

"Here, take her. I have no need for her. Do whatever you want with her"

And Ha Sim is shocked that Yim pushes her to Fok who then drags her away but bumps into Man Ho who sternly looks at tearful Ha Sim and deliveres a stinger;

"How long have you been in my residence? Look how much trouble you have caused me"

Very cruel things to say to a very scared girl. Yim sees Man Ho and basically warns him not to interfere and this is none of his business. He smiles and says sarcastically;

"Do you even think I will bother with a mere servant? Why should I eh?" 

Fok says;

"Remember what you said! You said you will find her and deliver her to me to avenge the death of my son!!"

Tung Suet and Hon Yung both chimed that she did it, she pushed the kid, got evidence, etc etc.

Man Ho looks casually at all of them and says;

"Ha Sim, what really happened? Can you still speak up for yourself? Speak girl!"

Ha Sim says tearfully;

"My lord, I swear, please believe me, I have nothing to do with the young boy's death!"

Man Ho looks at her and smiles and says;

"There it is! She has denied any involvement. Ok Ha Sim, go back to the kitchen and make me the fatty pork now. I am famished!"

Ha Sim was confused and shocked and then realised Man Ho was protecting her.

Pause.

I don't even think Man Ho cares whether she really did it or not. He is just happy to piss off Yim. Of course anyone with any sense knows Ha Sim did nothing.

Continue.

Yim says angrily;

"11th prince, you better not go against me. Get away from this now and don't make me your enemy"

Man Ho smiles at her and basically says he really doesn't give a shit what she thinks and Fok cries;

"You are letting that bitch murderer go! She killed my son!! You can't be that unreasonable to protect her!!"

And this is where he said my chosen quote. But Fok doesn't care and he raises his gun and Man Ho nonchalantly slaps away his hand holding the gun and says;

"If you want to shoot her, shoot me first. Do you dare to shoot me? Can you face the consequences? Go on, shoot... SHOOT!!"

Fok doesn't dare. And Man Ho just takes Ha Sim's hand and walks out of the door but... Man Ho, isn't this your house? Anyway they walk away and Yim says;

"Sigh....you can't even avenge your son't death"

Fok being so angry takes the gun and says he doesn't care for the consequences and rushes out and points the gun at Ha Sim's head and even Man Ho stops and did a double take when Fok says he doesn't care, he will kill the bitch when Eunuch Lai happily rushes to Man Ho, doesn't even bat an eyelid why these people are frozen and there's a gun involved says to Man Ho;

"11th prince!! 11th prince!! Great news! The emperor has approved your plans and has granted you the emperor's robe!!"

Everyone is shocked and Man Ho is so overwhelmed, he stroked the golden robe and almost in tears and he says;

"With this robe, no one can punish the wearer for even the worst crimes..."

and he dramatically takes the robe, spins around and places it on a shocked Ha Sim and says;

"From this moment onward, no one will be able to hurt you anymore"

as Ha Sim looks at Man Ho like he's her god and Fok is so overcome by his emotions he basically vomitted blood.

Poor man. But he got the wrong person.


Pause.


Oh so dramatic!! But Man Ho should have asked for the imperial sword for what is to happen later.

Continue.

We get some flashback of the emperor signing the edict and stern warning where  basically Man Ho must win the war if not he will be punished with death because he has lied to the emperor and disgraced himself before his entire ancestors. Really heavy stuff. BUT I wonder, if no one can kill him if he wears the robe, technically if he fails no one can well.. kill him unless it is the emperor wielding the imperial sword!

Where was I? Yeah so Man Ho declares war on pirates and set sails and he is so exhausted he is asleep as Ha Sim sits next to him to ensure he is not too cold and is excited of the voyage ahead.

And now we shift to the most pointless half of episode 10, that is the pirates.

I don't want to recap the waste of time and nonsensical scenes. I mean what is the point of having cutesy scenes of everyone interrogating Kiu on her supposed affair when  it is just Yat having sex with her in the temple? What is the point of Yat revealing that the 9 dragons pearl is not the huge golden one on the altar but what is hidden in it? That he believes in the power of the 9 dragons as many years ago he was losing to the best Qing fighters when cyclone appeared and something flew towards them and slashed them. So Yat reveals dramatically what is inside the pearl box; a motor from the motorboat. Mui laughs hard and feels how silly of these ancient people believing in such stuff and then she asks why it is called 9 dragons pearl and Yat pointed to some words on it and in English it says "Kowloon Motor Factory" or something like that and in Chinese it says "Gau lung" and the rest he can't understand and so he names it Kowloon dragons pearl and everyone is in awe of the contraptions and somehow Mui thinks she can use that motor to return to modern time. It if uses battery, it won't work anymore? And Mui never wonders so she is not the first to travel back in time but anyway the rest of the series have everyone thinking Mui is in love with CPT who obviously likes her and .. you know what? Spare me the torture. There's an impossibly long and pointless 10 minutes underwater scene of Mui marveling sea life as she rightly points out modern HK no longer has all that SO WHY SHOW US WHAT IS NO LONGER THERE?!?!?? They swim and swim and swim and I was like what on earth is going on? Is there a quota to bad CGI scenes? Then they had hotpot with lobster and all and I was like when is CPT meeting his long lost brother, Man Ho? And then there's Mui declaring her love for Qing and that it is not so bad and everyone thinks she likes the era because of CPT. And all along we have Mui who speaks with an English word in every sentence she utters, when in modern times, did she even utter a word of English?

And help me!!!! Grace was god awful OTT in most of her scenes that I feel like... help!!

It gets worse.

Anyway all you need to know is Mui declares she is not interested in CPT who then insults her physique who then regrets it who then waste my time with nonsense until thankfully back to Man Ho now at... not sure where but his ships are parked. He greets the two camps (since 1 follows him) and I believe one speaks Fujian, the other teochew and they hate each other and laughs at each other and Man Ho is so disappointed at they lack of discipline or even good equipments and uses some words that I feel no prince will use and he solely blame Fok who arrives to shout at Man Ho to be careful with his words and then tells the men to disperse but none dares as Man Ho says whoeever leaves will be court martialed (DEATH! THROWN OUT OF STATE!) and why is it winter dress but the sun is so hot and still Man Ho is wearing fur? Anyway Fok insults Man Ho to say he is just talk the talk but not walk the walk and Man Ho says he will stand in the sun until the sun sets with ALL the men. Remember 100000 men? Looks no more than 30. So they stand and stand and Fok and Hon Yung also stands and one by one faints and carried out and still Man Ho is stubborn...

Pause.

Man Ho should just relax.

Continue.

Meanwhile we have a pointless scene of Ha Sim cleaning rooms and listening to soldiers complaning about Man Ho and about Man Ho insisting on staying with the soldiers in some terribly inadequate accomodation full of mosquitoes when he could have stayed in big mansion and then how she is so concerned she prays to Ma Tzu I think and asks for rain and rain it did but so heavy when Man Ho thinks the Heavens is trying to defeat him and Ha Sim cries to Ma Tzu I think to ease on the rain and it stops and Siu Fu declares Man Ho has beaten the heavens and finally he lets them dispers when Fok has already left pretending to be faint and his one subordinate looks at him like WTF and Man Ho says whoeever is still standing will shares the 3 months salary of those who has fainted who is punished for that reason and everyone rejoice and Man Ho is pale when Ha Sim runs to him with an umbrella unaware that rain is no more and Man Ho is kinda touched and Man Ho complains about the unpredictablity of the weather when Ha Sim whispers it could be her fault and Siu Fu laughs and says now even Ha Sim thinks she can control the weather and well...


my hand hurts from the typing.

I don't get why Man Ho is so insistent on being super harsh or we are shown Ha Sim being rather ignorant and not helpful at all. Don't worry; it gets worse.

Fok doesn't get why the "rabid dog" or direct translation is "crazy dog" but he means worse than crazy. Anyway he doesn't get why Man Ho doesn't want to stay in such a comfortable mansion.

Pause.

Will we at some point get to see Fok actually at peace with Man Ho? Will we? Can't we?

Continue.

He swears to make life difficult for Man Ho and make sure Man Ho fails in his mission and Hon Yung says he has an excellent plan.

Man Ho is discussing on plans of attacking the pirates and wants to focus on CPT who is the emerging huge force in pirates when he decided let's hit the lessers ones like Wong Yee when news come to him that two camps are fighting. He rushes there and tries to stop the fighting but he himself falls in exhaustion as he is sick and our villains laugh. Man Ho finds out it must be Hon Yung who did the poking and instigation and that man has no talent except his mom is from one province of one camp and his father from the other and so he can speak both Fujian and Teochew and only he can unite both camps and Man Ho doesn't want to use him when he isn't well and faints and doctor diagnose him with MALARIA!!!!

Man Ho doesn't want to go back to the palace where the medicine is there and so prefers to manage the disease hoping it won't flare up but the stress is not helping and so he remains bed ridden.

Pause.

And at that point I feel like this series is taking forever for Mui to meet Man Ho and forever for Man Ho to start fighting the pirates. Now he is bedridden. Oh dear, when oh when? Worse is to come.

Continue.

Man Ho refuses to rest. Stubborn fool! And yet he doesn't want to ask Hon Yung to help with maintaining peace with two camps. So suddenly we have this impossibly idiotic scene where Ha Sim goes to Fok and Hon Yung to beg Fok to help Man Ho. Stupid eh? And Fok slaps her, pushed her and basically says;

"Ok, I will help him on one condition. You repay my son's life with your life"

And well, she obviously doesn't want to die. And weird is later Hon Yung sees her at night at some alley and she is carrying a lantern and walking in such a happy bouncy way, I was thinking is that the same girl who just begged Fok who tells her to go to hell and why she walks like she is going shopping happily? Hon Yung follows her and basically tells her he can help only if she gives him what he wants; molestation in the street and one scene is censored and next we see her being pushed to the wall. A flashback later shows he grabbed her arse so why bother to censor? So poor girl keep mum as the guy says quite succintly Man Ho needs him, so what can she do if she is molested eh? Nothing.

Later Man Ho refuses to entertain the idea of Hon Yung who is proposed by Siu Fu himself and poor Siu Fu gets slapped hard by Man Ho and Man Ho not a tinge of regret saunters off to bed and swears to get better fast so that he can solve the problem and Siu Fu is on his knees, his ego hurt and he is crying.

Pause.

Is there a reason to show Man Ho so impossibly stubborn? If that slap leads to Siu Fu betraying him, I guess I understand that scene. I feel Man Ho is such an unlikable man and not even a gentleman as opposed to CPT who is supposed to be the uneducated one but he never slaps his subordinate and make them feel small. Man Ho can learn from CPT about earning respect, treating his man as equals and all that.

Continue.

I forgot what happened but in the end when Man Ho hears how Ha Sim begs Fok and all he realises he needs to ditch his ego and asks Hon Yung for help. So he summons Hon Yung who sees Ha Sim praying, goes to her and basically feels her up and she could do nothing.

Please dear lord, how much more of this idiotic nonsense of "poor Ha Sim sacrificing herself for Man Ho" when the best would be her taking poison, dying in front of Fok and doing exactly what Fok wants her to do?

Anyway Man Ho asks Hon Yung to attack the Black Flag's island and Hon Yung agrees. He sees Fok later who says how dare he agrees, wanting to reap the fame and glory for himself and Hon Yung says he knows Wong Yee won't be on his island so he will just capture a few old ones and consider that job well done. Fok then tips him and says he knows why Wong Yee is not there; he will be in I think Guangzhou holding a wedding to marry 6 concubines at once. Woahhhh!!

And why Man Ho doesn't know? He has no spies?

And so we shift to pirates on a ship with usual gang except Yat attending Wong Yee's wedding and Mui comes along and they don't get why she is there and later we see CPT rowing her to the harbour and says she is free to go and gives her back her bag (didn't she already got her bag back earlier???) and so she understands and walks away and then realises she needs the cyclone and if she leaves pirates island now she can't go back so she runs to the harbour and screams for CPT faraway in his ship and waving for him to come back and it is like the longest screeching ever and CPT and gang thinks she is so joyous to leave them she is waving happily goodbye and CPT is so sad he just closes the window and sails away and our heroine screams and screams and screams and I am like HELPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP!!!!!!!!!!!!

Why is everyone raising their voices today?

First Mui is screaming or acting cute in an annoying way!
Then there's Man Ho being god damn stubborn and screaming as well!
Then there's Ha Sim and her heavy breathing and idiot things she did!

It seems like only CPT seems normal!

Anyway worse is to come.

Mui remembers something and happily runs and we have the obligatory scene of her marveling at the markets and comparing it to modern HK markets.

Our gang is at Wong Yee's wedding and there are 5 brides sitting in the room and they replace the 5 brides as they let them go. So we have men dress in women's wedding dress and they joke how Kiu chooses the best one and is so happy wearing her wedding dress when she looks sad and they shut up as she says;

"When I was taken and had to marry Yat, it was such a rush we never had a wedding. In fact we consummate soon after without a proper wedding.. well.. who cares about such useless tradition anyway!"

And they console her by saying she looks great, she is beautiful, Yat was so eager to consummate the marriage since she was so beautiful he never bothered with tradition...

PAUSE!!

Seriously? She was kidnapped! She was forced to marry a man twice her age! And he was in such a rush to RAPE her! And tell me, is that cute? Is that romantic? Is that even remotely funny? I don't get it! It was pretty clear what she meant. How crazy is the logis here?

CONTINUE!

They suddenly remember there are supposed to be SIX brides and now there are only FIVE and so one is hidden and finally a new character; Mandy Wong looking demure and somewhat lovely so yeah, we see Mui's great great great great whatever grandma. She escapes, Wong Yee enters and can't do a thing since only 5 brides and he must marry 6 plus his actualy 1st wive to make 7 so that it is good feng shui for his battle to be the lord of 7 seas against Yat. So they go in search and Mui bumps into Mandy whose name I can't remember and she saves her and suddenly sees her birth mark and remembers that her g.g.g.g grandma and when Mandy says her life is bad because she got orphaned when her parents die from disease and then her uncle took her in and her aunt bullied her and then chased her away when she is accused of seducing her uncle and her uncle gave her some money where she met Wong Yee who made her gamble her money away and then forced her to marry him and she doesn't want to and so she goes and change her clothes when dear lord, she is kidnapped, AGAIN! So Mui goes to save her as she fears Wong Yee, surnamed Wong may be her great great great great great grandpa and CPT recognises her voice but refuses to reveal himself and still underneath the head dress and Mui takes Mandy away only to have Mandy sort of cynically freaks out when Mui says she is helping because Mandy is her great x 5 grandma and Mandy suddenly takes a knife and holds it to Mui's neck and says since she is insane anyway, might as well they switch places and they change clothes with Mui tied up as Manday confesses;

"You fell for my story didn't you? (Demure voice) I was orphaned when my parents died from disease... well I wanted them dead anyway, they were so damn poor they had no right to bear children and make their children suffer! (Demure voice) My uncle took me in and my aunt accused me of seducing him... well I did and that fat bitch found out and kicked me out! (Demure voice) My uncle gave me some money .. yeah like as if he did! He wanted to have sex with me more, that's what he wanted that miser! (Demure voice) I was forced to gamble... I did not. Wong Yee bought me from a prostitution den. I am worth more than what he paid!"

Yeap, grandma is a female scumbag. So she runs and Mui is taken since Wong Yee likes her the first time and doesn't mind. On the stage for the wedding CPT recognises her voice and basically Mui claims she is CPT's woman/lover and so Wong Yee can't break the code of brotherhood and claim her for himself. Other pirates also agrees with what Mui says but Wong Yee says since CPT is not here, he will take Mui for himself and Mui screams ;

"CPT!! SAVE MEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!"

And CPT is smiling happily because he thinks Mui means what she says and so reveals himself and fights Wong Yee in a surprisingly lame fight culminating in Wong Yee falling from 2nd floor and breaking his leg. And then he hears announcement of the return of Hon Yung and he hides and he sees his people, especially his advisor in carriage in chains looking defiant and he wonders what the hell is going on.

CPT teases Mui never to tease his heart that way and he confeses he likes what she says and Mui tries to explain when they hear the same commotion and they see the pirates and they observe even if they do not get along well with Wong Yee, there is still a pirates code of brotherhood and so CPT wants to plan something but Mui must go back to the island first and so she leaves AND WHEN WILL SHE EVER MEET MAN HO?!?!??!?!??

Man Ho is delighted to hear the success and even if Wong Yee is not captured, he is the chief no more! He also declares he never trusted Hon Yung and will transfer him away when his health permits and he is getting better and Ha Sim is most happy to hear that. Siu Fu asks what then of the pirates and Man Ho is bouyed by the success and says the pirates have been bullying the common folks for so long and since Fok did a bad job as an admiral here, he decides...

"We shall execute the captured pirates in front of the army camp here"

Next episode, FINALLY MAN HO MEETS CPT!!

FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!

I am too tired to comment on the acting. Too much typing. Just know...


1. Grace is a disgrace to her own potential

2. Tony ain't that bad but he is no CPT

3. Mandy is ok but I am disappointed her character is another sassy one. Can't she be demure and yet streetsmart?

4. Kelly is actually ok but I hate where her character is going

5. Lee Seng Cheung is fantastic

6. Ruco overacts at times too, like his expressions don't measure up to the situation. But overall, thank god it is him even if I am disappointed with the Malaria, etc etc etc. It just takes forever for him to get somewhere and then a setback.

7. Elaine is not that bad but she is no concubine. She slouches and she gives me an impression she is not regal.

8. Too few sailors.

9. Too few advisors. In fact Man Ho needs an advisor pronto.

10. So many waste of time scenes.


Is there so little contents that they had to stretch it? And the logic defies logic. It is trying too hard to justify the pirates being ordinary folks. Yeah right! And I think what I fear most will happen; this series will go Bollywood.

Imagine Man Ho shaking his hips as he sings...

"I have to kill a pirateeeeeeeeeeeeee... but he is my bradderrrrrrrrrrr ... oh ma maaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!"

God help me. What is TVB trying to do?

"If you don't trust me, father, then there is no longer any reason why I should undertake this great responsibility" - Man Ho

I am very very very unsure what to feel about these 2 episodes. It is already episode 9, and our leading lady has yet to meet our leading man. The series is as if split into two different stories, with two different tones and none has any logic in terms of reasonable logic. It is frustrating to watch certain performances, difficult to stomach certain plot lines and so hard to understand the emphasis. I am  not sure this series is a celebration of girl power or quite simply a reaffirmation the notion of male dominance. In short, I enjoyed certain parts and Rucos is giving one of his most explosive performance ever, but his lead co stars are really pulling him down and the story should have just kick out CPT and just give us War & Beauty part 3 because the palace intrigues dominates.

Recap, two episodes in one. So this might be a little bit longer than usual.

Episode 8 and I watched it just now and I already forgot the story!!

Basically it is some festival where everyone on pirate island is celebrating the event with kung ming lantern. Our heroine is wondering when the day will come when she can go home to her sister when she overheard someone entering the temple which is forbidden to women and to her shock, she sees our Sister Kiu and some unknown man doing something which she thinks as committing adultery. Sister Kiu has been feeling hot in the cold weather (probably post menopausal hot flashes) and so Mui thinks she is just horny, no other word to put it better. Mui begins to think of her as having loose moral. Oi, where are we? Pirates island! Where men marry women they kidnapped!

Anyway later in her room, Sister Kiu gives Mui some new clothings to wear for special occasion which Mui accepted after thinking to herself she will be leaving soon, so better to just be quiet and obedient. They had a chat and to my surprise, Sister Kiu was kidnapped too and forced to marry a man many years her senior. The way she said it was like nothing and she assimilated and over time is happy in her situation. Kiu feels a tad disgusted and even suggests Kiu may wish to find someone she can fall in love with and Kiu is disgusted she is seen as so loose moral. CPT comes in and is worried about Yat and Kiu promises if Yat dies, she will make sure he is buried in a mega way to honour him and Mui thinks yeah, maybe she does want her husband dead so she can find someone new since Kiu did mention just minutes earlier they may live in Qing and is moral, they are allowed to remarry once their husband die. Not so strict in that sense.

Pause.

So strange, this logic.

Continue.

Mui walks around town and hopes to go home soon and she sees everyone doing things like any ordinary people and Mui thinks to herself;

Pause.

At this point I almost switched off the TV. I know it tries hard to get me to sympathise and empathise with the pirates but where is the logic? Most women were kidnapped from their ordinary daily lives, forced to marry a man they hardly know, raped perhaps, over time got so used to it that they just accepted their fate and in so earned a place in the pirate world. They also kill ordinary folks like ordinary ships, for their stuff. Does it make sense to you?

Continue.

Before Mui leaves for the temple she writes a message for CPT in English and in Chinese writing "She commits adultery". Not her place to say it, just saying. Prior to that she tries to tell CPT who is going for a bath and he strips in front of her (pants still on) and she promptly leaves as she cries "YOU ARE INSANE!!" or something like that.

D-day. Mui at the temple. CPT and father and gang arrive to make offering to the huge golden pearl and Mui sees a cyclone and so excited she drops her bag and in it, strangely a bottle of nail varnish that broke and drops into a cup of wine on the offering table.

Pause.

She carried that knapsack like ordinary day out. I suppose we take tissue, whilst she needs to colour her nails?

Continue. 

Mui notices the broken bottle and says to herself what a pity, but luckily she bought it with a discount. Then she noticed from upstairs as she peeped down our men are shocked to see the wine changes colour to glittering red and Yat is about to drink it ("Old man don't drink it! It will kill you! So stupid!") and CPT stops his father ("At least one of you is smart") and he volunteers to drink it to try first ("So stupid! I take back my word!") and he drinks and immediately feels a burning sensation and stomach pain. Mui by that time is running into the beach and after the cyclone when she stops and turns back as she feels guilty for perhaps killing CPT (if she reads her Ipad, maybe she will know he didn't die of poisoning perhaps?) and runs back. Our guys could only think of using incense to burn two acupuncture points to remove the poison since Lau Sing interestingly worked in the Shaolin temple before! The points happen to be at the groin area and poor CPT cries no nononono. Quite funny antics and then Grace ruined it all.

If anything marks these 2 episodes, is two women screaming a lot.

Mui enters and the men tries to push her out but she screams GET OUT OF MY WAYYYYYYYYYYYYY and they all got scared and stand aside and she basically did Heimlich Maneuver and he vomits the varnish and faints. She then does CPR and then she has no choice but to do mouth to mouth and the men are shocked at her boldness and CPT is ok and wants  more kiss and pushes him away. Still in pain, she gives him dog's medicine to cause diarrhea (remember the vet gave her the meds for Sonny the dog?) and makes him take it and runs after the cyclone. CPT feels red hot, since later we find out it is his first kiss and then the meds take effect and you can guess what happens next.

Pause.

Sigh. This series is shooting itself on the foot. So am I to believe they kidnapped these women, not touch them until each is assigned a husband? So he is a virgin? What utter rubbish. At least show him sexually experience, that will make things very interesting.

Continue.

Well.. cyclone gone and Mui lies on the bed of sand and is frustrated and then stands up and says;

And I was thinking, Mui, take out your mini ipad and just check when is the next cyclone. What is so difficult?

Oh dear, Grace was screaming almost at every scene, either that she is acting cute and pursing her lips. Is it necessary? Girl, whatever potential I think you have is quickly eroded by your god awful OTT acting. Mui is an ok character but Grace just isn't giving her justice.

8 episodes in and we still have yet to meet some major characters or each meeting each other.

Anyway continue ..

CPT is in love with Mui. Yat feels even if he fails to benefit from the ceremony with the pearl, he gets to see something unusual; a woman saving a "damsel in distress" except the damsel is CPT, a man. The men are teasing CPT, saying she got his first kiss and does it mean Mui likes CPT since she was so bold and Kiu says not to mention unless he mentions it. And so he asks about Mui and they know he likes her. Kiu sees the lanterns and so writes her message of hope and it flies. CPT wants to write one to and so confiscated one from 2 young kids and writes his wish to marry before he is 28. He doesn't want others to know but Mui sees him and is acting cute and all that. But she sees two goods in him; he is filial to Yat and he is not that bad a guy at all. CPT is very happy to hear her say that but she does clarify he was in pain because of her undoing. So CPT is so angry at the truth he wants to hit her and she says go on, so that she won't owe him anything but he refuses, mumbling he hurts more if he hits her and then says since she saved him life, they're equal. And Mui remembers her notes and rushes back, leaving CPT feeling rather sad at the turn of events when quite funnily, the kung ming lantern he lit fell in front of him and burn. He wonders sadly is the heavens also denying his wish?

Mui searches for the notes, nowhere to be seen. Young boys take it and lit it as lantern and off it floats into the sky as we see Kiu sitting comfortably in Yat's embrace enjoying the view.

Then story switches to the palace and we have a 2 in 1 short of story except with Ruco, it is more buffet for me. What I don't get is why oh why make his future wife such an idiot. I understand Mui is probably 24 or 25 and Ha Sim is probably 16 at most. But still... poor girl though.

Her first day officially at work and her boss got a huge scolding by the emperor. He comes home and then he is busy scolding Fok and I believe his name is Hon Yung (do correct me if I am wrong - the one eyed guy played by Stephen Wong Ka Lok) for giving no contribution but is snickering, laughing that yeah, other admirals and captains are ready with 3000 rifles lar, xxx ships lar, whatever and still they can't do anything because no royal edict. Why the emperor doesn't give the edict? We shall know later. So Man Ho refuses to let any of them eat or break for lunch until they think of a plan. Of course two men were arguing about this and Fok said he never ever let his men go hungry and Siu Fu wants to beat him up because that's a lie and Fok says they agree never to mention the past, etc etc.. all very very juvenile.

Meanwhile Ha Sim is at the kitchen and notices her favourite, fatty pork and notices that's food for Man Ho but the kitchen helpers warn her never to bring food to him unless he requests since he is busy and he is popular with being a stern boss who likes to scold people but Ha Sim is concerned for his health and so brings the food to him. 

At the same time, Man Ho is at the height of his lecture about no food, think of a plan when Ha Sim rushes in and says happily;

And Man Ho stops mid sentence and stares at her as Fok and Hon laugh themselves silly and 13th and Siu Fu are worried for her when Man Ho laughs and sarcastically say;

"You know what? You wanna eat? Go go. Haven't rest? Never mind the plans. Go go" 

And our two men leave laughing and Ha Sim still doesn't get it when she brings him a plate of delicious food and Man Ho stares at her and promptly slaps the plate of food from her hands and told her to basically get lost and...

Poor Ha Sim got so scared and scurried away and goes to the Guanyin temple and cries that she has offended Man Ho on her first day, that she is so stupid and slow. Just so happen future mom in law is there and likes her frankness and advises her that Man Ho may be strict but he is also very compassionate. Just that he is having a hard time and thanks her for taking care of him and for being such a good girl without any ulterior motive. She also likes Ha Sim because she can recite Buddhist scriptures and all and sees her having a pure heart. Ha Sim promises to be patient with Man Ho and to calm him down and serve him wel and Shun is pleased to hear that.

Meanwhile Fok and Hon are walking and laughing happily at Man Ho being upstaged by a simple maid called Ha Sim and Fok loudly says thanks to Yim for sending a maid as spy and how Ha Sim has actually helped him to give Man Ho his comeuppance. By that time Hon walks away to get transport when someone throws a ... you know those tong that is used to spit in? Yeap, ewwwwwwwwwwwww. Poor man gets his head stuck inside and trashes wildly. The guy who does that is Siu Fu and he thanks Man Ho for letting him do that, as revenge. 13th wonders is that appropriate but Man Ho says he has longed wish to teach that bastard a lesson.

Pause.

Kinda juvenile isn't it, Man Ho? I never thought he will indulge in such pettiness.

Continue.

Fok then bangs his head hard on some rock and the tong breaks. Oh it's a porcelain. I thought it should be not porcelain?  Maybe olden times is porcelain. His action that day will have serious repercussions later.

And so back to drawing board for Man Ho. Ha Sim just wants to serve him well and so brings him food again but no one is in the room and she puts the basket onto some documents which got stuck at the bottom.

Pause.

Seriously dumb. What kind of maid is she to put stuff on top of documents? No other space meh?

Continue.

She hopes to bring food to Man Ho, as peace offering I suppose when she couldn't resist and took one piece of fatty pork to eat.

Pause.

Why? Whyyyy? Whyyyyyyyyyyy? Where is the decorum? If you want a fictional series based on historical character with probably real decorum, go watch Bu Bu Jing Xin. That's how servants behave!! Worse is to come.

Continue.

She hears someone coming, that's Man Ho's voice and so she remembers his warning about not wanting to see her and so she takes the basket (with the paper at the bottom) and rushes out.

So why she brings food in the first place? Can't she leave the basket there?

Man Ho sees her and remembers what Fok said about a spy by Yim and he wonders when he sees a missing paper and he suspects her. 

You don't ever want to see an angry Man Ho. Oh so man!

She rushes to some resting area at the gardens and notice something stuck at the bottom when an eunuch says Man Ho wants to see her and drags her with him and she feels very timid facing Man Ho who is eating loudly. She is very hungry and he notices that and asks;

And she says she hasn't eaten since morning and he offers a fatty pork for her like she's some poodle...

Pause.

I can see what the emperor will say about Man Ho later.

Continue.

He says;

and Ha Sim immediately kneels and says she hasn't stolen anything at all and Man Ho angrily pushes the plates off the table (oh such temper!!) and Ha Sim gets so scared she is trembling when Man Ho asks angrily;

and Ha Sim is almost crying and says she doesn't know what he is saying as Man Ho sternly asks again if she has lied to him and trembling she says;

And Man Ho thundered that is not what he is asking and she rushes her sentence;

And Man Ho calms down a bit and says;

Ha Sim cries hard and holds onto his sleeves or something and begs;

But he pushes her away and leaves and Ha Sim cries and the other eunuch who is there shows her now pity.

Pause.

Poor Ha Sim. She may be dumb and all but she is right; better she is by his side where she will try to outsmart Yim by giving her false leads than someone else. Unfortunately I hate how dumb she can be sometimes when I was hoping she is more street smart and Man Ho is a bit too temperamental. Everyone is scared of him. Reminds me a bit of 4th Prince in  BBJX except people respect 4th prince, not fear him only. I must add Kelly Fu did exceptionally well in this explosive scene. You never want to get into an argument with Ruco Chan! He was scary and Kelly was trembling at the right place, and suddenly she talks normal and not cutesy way and she actually seems better than usual! Why cutesy way of talking? Talk normally! And she was trembling so hard I would think she really is shocked by Ruco's explosive performance in here. Great scene!

Continue.

It is snowing and Man Ho speaks to his men on the ship and promises as soon as the emperor gives the edict, they will move out and kill pirates!! Suddenly 4 princes (or 3, can't remember) appear and openly in front of everyone asks to split the funding for the expedition! So bold! Well there's funding so why is the father not giving the edict? Well the princes did tease Man Ho about no edict. Man Ho sarcastically says well he will tell the emperor to give each prince a share so each can gamble away the money or seek prostitutes, etc. Siu Fu is happy to hear Man Ho's retort. Then the eldest asks for Man Ho to give positions to 3 men he names and Man Ho smiles and tells Siu Fu to jot down their names and remember to NEVER EVER employ them in his service! Siu Fu gladly agrees. Princes got angry and leaves. However Man Ho knows he is in deep trouble. One admiral or whatever says if the emperor doesn't give the edict by tomorrow, the snow will set and they can't leave until snow melts and that is next year. Man Ho promises whatever and however he must convince the emperor to give the go ahead by tomorrow.

Pause. 

Why is the emperor jeopardising his own agenda?? Why?!

Continue.

Meanwhile Fok brings his adopted son (handsome boy) to see Yim who likes the boy so much decides to spend the day with him whilst Fok rushes back to see our hero since he is scared of Man Ho's nagging and all. In short, boy peed on Yim and she basically orders Tung Suet (oh still there!) to bring the boy back to Fok, wherever he may be.

At Man Ho's place, Man Ho is again scolding them all  when Tung Suet brings in the boy and Man Ho is pissed and leaves to see the emperor with the new plan. Tung Suet is tasked with taking care of the kid but she is busy flirting with Hon as the kid runs around wildly and we are ominously shown a piece of the broken porcelain on garden floor  near the rocks, the same one which Fok breaks to free his head.

Ha Sim walks along the corridor with her baggage when she sees Man Ho walks by and ignoring her. Err Ha Sim you forgot to greet him! Where is the decorum?!?!? This is like the Curse Of The Royal Harem!!

Man Ho sees his father with his plan and for once the father likes the plan until he reaches one particular page and again he throws the book at Man Ho. Must be the same sentence than Man Ho refuses to change and now we know what;

Ohhhhhhh!!! Imperial robe! Meaning if Man Ho wears it, anyone there must treat him like as if the emperor is there so basically no one can kill him. I feel it is essential since he will be commanding an armada of 100,000 sailors (urghhh so few) and he may need to subjugate a few corrupt ministers to get his way. In fact it is essential he is also granted an imperial sword so he can chop off any heads, except the emperor! But emperor clearly disagrees.

Man Ho realises the issue, I think he already knows the issue and he slowly says;

Father isn't convinced or so we think when Man Ho threatens saying my chosen quote and emperor states is he threatening him and Man Ho calmly asks for permission to leave and the emperor calms down and says;

and so Man Ho turns and leaves as his father stares at him. I forgot who tells Man Ho that perhaps his strategy back there with his father might backfire on him but Man Ho says he will just have to wait for the edict.

Back at Man Ho's residence, Ha Sim kneels to say bye bye to Guan Yin and asks for Guan Yin to bless 13th prince lar (he is the only one to show concern when she is hungry and all that), Shun lar for being so kind and also our hero. Shun so happens to be there and sympathises with her and Ha Sim swears she has never ever ever ever betrayed Man Ho and Shun tells her she took some papers and she realises the issue and remembers the basket and goes in search and finds the paper in the bushes but stupid kid takes it and runs and she runs after him and Fok sees Tung Suet busy flirting with Hon when argghhhhhhh and Ha Sim is actually elsewhere after she gets back the paper, dismayed that the paper is torn whilst the kid sees some bird, climbs up rock, falls onto the sharp edge of the porcelein and dies. Poor kid. Fok sees him and cries hard and Hon and Tung Suet lies and says Ha Sim probably killed the kid (never bothered to wonder why eh?) and Fok swears to kill Ha Sim and Ha Sim overhears and runs and road so big and she gotta kick some vase and they see her and runs after her. Man Ho intercepts and knows the son has died and angrily remind them where they are and not to act rashly and promises to find Ha Sim and asks Siu Fu to do it to give him an answer and meanwhile forces Fok to go back to the room to discuss as they wait for the edict. Kinda cold of Man Ho. Anyway Fok is forced to go back to discussion room. 

Meanwhile 13th finds Ha Sim hiding and when he sees Hon with a huge knife, he tells Ha Sim to run. 

At the palace, the emperor is considering his options. Eunuch Lai says;

Emperor sighs and explains;

Oh I see! The emperor is right and he is using tough love.

Eunuch Lai wisely says;

So the emperor thinks they will lose? But 100,000 lives depend on this expedition, isn't this a too costly way to teach someone a lesson in life?

Anyway emperor agrees and is about to place the chop chop when 4 princes rushing in and cries;

Emperor is in a dilemma and Eunuch Lai sighs... so close yet so far. But he will chop lar, if not stuck for another episode and this series won't ever move on, ever!

Back at the residence, Fok losses his cool  and could not concentrate and when someone opens the door, Man Ho thinks it is the edict when it is Hon who says he couldn't get Ha Sim since 13th let her go and Fok accuses Man Ho of siding with the maid and Man Ho thundered;

And Man Ho asks for something from him and Fok is forgetful, as he is grieving and Man Ho is insistent (kinda heartless of Man Ho) when Fok losses his cool and says;

I get his anger. What I don't get is how nonchalant Man Ho is. I mean give that guy a break, he just lost his son! And true. Man Ho means it; he doesn't give a damn about Ha Sim. He only cares about the edict.  Anyway Fok gets so angry he takes the golden pistol on display and  leaves to find Ha Sim herself and Man Ho who likes to be in control lost total control of the situation.

Meanwhile Ha Sim hides in the  Guanyin room and cries for help and swears she never killed the kid when Fok finds her and wants to kill her by pointing the pistol to her head but Shun arrives and says he will do no such thing and takes Ha Sim by her side and when Fok ignores Shun and points the gun at Ha Sim, she coolly says whilst pushing the pistol away;

And promises to takes Ha Sim back to the palace and leaves.

Meanwhile Tung Suet reports to Yim who in her own way doesn't believe Ha Sim would kill the kid and knows Tung Suet is manipulating the facts but in her own words;

"I really couldn't care less about that Ha Sim, whether she did it or not. But this is the perfect time to give that 11th a lesson and to destroy Concubine Shun and her followers".

And so whilst the drama is happening inside the 11th residence, Yim arrives and see Shun's transport (errr litter?) and smiles knowingly to herself as Tung Suet says;

"Oh Concubine Shun is here"

and Yim says slyly;

"Oh  very good"

What dastardly plans has she cooked up this time? When will our two sides meet? How long with this draaaaaaaaaaaaaag on? I want Man Ho to meet Mui because both as hot headed and so they can scream at one another. Will be quite a passionate pair.

Last scene, we see Ha Sim on a horse with Man Ho who is fighting an army of err.... pirates I guess.

Strange. The first meeting between Ha Sim and Man Ho is rather romantic and suddenly it descends into total madness. I don;t find Man Ho very gallant and he is very class  based; maid is servant, he is prince. If he can talk that way to his older brother or even the emperor, I don't think he cares about a maid. The emperor is right; he is arrogant but he means well. In one scene he actually sigh "Why I bother to take on this responsibility and put myself in this situation?" and the word he uses is I believe "jok jin" "fan jin" which in Cantonese is the worst one can say to describe anything. Like why bother but in English it is too mild. I am sure later when he knows she did not betray him he will go all out to help her.

NOTE: 01.10.2015Thanks to a commentator, the word used is actually used is "fan jin" instead of "jok jin" but both means the same thing eventually

And I find it so frustrating to watch the pirates' version of what is normal and also the total lack of decorum in the palace. Anyway this is total fiction but still must operate within reasonable logic!!

I am hoping to see more of the costume beneath the black robes. The hand sleeves look quite intricate and colourful.

Anyway performance...

Ruco Chan rocks! This has got to be his best performance until todate. Yes his Man Ho is highly strung because he is highly stressed and he is arrogant bastard but I like his Man Ho except when he showed so little concern for the death of a child. But I guess he never liked Fok and would not show single shred of pity for him. That is the only part I did not like him at all. My most favourite scene thus far is his confrontation with Ha Sim but anytime he sees his imperial father, you can literally feel fireworks. Can't fault his performance.

However his sidekicks and all are poorly written. It seems Man Ho is the only prince like character. The rest seems so petty, even Siu Fu. And for such a huge undertaking, I expect he will meet with admirals and generals and captains and minister of foreign affairs and not the few inept people and a 13th prince who by Man Ho's own words, knows so little about war fare and politics. It beggars belief that I am expected to believe this is a huge undertaking and all.

Kelly Fu is ok when she is acting scared. She does look scared. The rest, I am disappointed why her Ha Sim is such an inept idiot even if I were to consider perhaps she is very young.

Tony Hung is ok but I can't believe he will be commander of 7 seas OR a virgin.

Grace Chan disgraced her own potential. She is god awful and I guess she needs a great actor like Ruco to stabilise her. I don't get why she is acting cute or talking cute because it is just bad bad acting.

9 episodes and still TWO stories are not meeting one another.

I am losing my patience. 

"Absolute rubbish! What sort of rubbish proposal is this? Do it again!" - Emperor Jiaqing

As I feared, the story is a bit icky. We have two stories now; one of CPT and his pirate gang where Mui is and another is the armada and Qing perspective where Man Ho is. Mui will soon be in that world as well. Confirmed Man Ho is not married and I am not sure how old he is, but he must be in his 20s at least. So to be unmarried, his father must really hate him not to arrange a marriage for him which is as well know total BS. I would have wished for once TVB gets it right; at least show him widowed, after all women routinely die back in those days when giving birth or something. To show him married and widowed without a 2nd wife or more wives is more believable than having him be a diamond bachelor. I can't fault Ruco though; in this episode he has that moment where all girls wish they're in that position except.. I don't get why all other male characters other than CPT and Man Ho are dumbed down whilst all girls other than Mui is either scheming or just plain simpleton. I guess that's why Man Ho will like Mui because she is neither scheming nor simpleton.

Well, TVB is not here to give us historical accuracy nor are they even interested in fictional accuracy if there is such a term.

Recap.


Man Ho faces his father for a long period of time presenting his proposal on how to eradicate the pirates and each time his proposal is thrown at his face and he is ordered to do it again. After a while it is evident the father was not interested in what he has to say but rather to discourage him for reasons I do not know why. Man Ho goes back each time to rewrite the proposal only to be thrown at his face, again and again and again. He doesn't give up hope and persistently tries to do better even if knows that his father is just personally against him.

Pause.

Just checked; the one who became the sickly looking Daogguang is 2nd prince.So Man Ho definitely won't be emperor. Unless history is changed and I rather not because the one who comes after Jiaqing is the continuation of the spiralling down of the Qing empire and if I were Man Ho, I just leave for HK and build my OSK or something.

Continue.


Yim wakes in the morning, smiling happily to herself as she remarks to her maid, Tung Suet;

"The emperor was very energetic last night. He hasn't been so energetic since a long time ago"

Pause.

Energetic = rough sex.

Continue.

Tung Suet says some nice stuff but Yim sorta insults her by telling her to know her place. Meanwhile announcement is made that Man Ho's mom, can't remember her name yet, has arrived to see her. Tung Suet wants to chase her away since the emperor is still inside sleeping late but Yim tells her to let her in. So mama comes in and talks gently to Yim and asks her how's the bird's nest and all and remember in previous episode Yim takes credit for finding the bird's nest when actually it was mama who bought it. Anyway Yim thanks her and even lies that she has informed the emperor about who bought those bird's nest. Emperor comes out of the bedroom, surprising mama and emperor is not pleased to see her. He asks why she is here and she truthfully says;

"I know Man Ho has hurt the feelings of my dear sister by persistently prosecuting Admiral Fok so I am here to apologise to dear sister on my son't behalf"

And what does she get? Scolding by the emperor who says she doesn't know how to teach her son manners, fails as a mother, warns her to remind him he better do well in the armada, if not he will face consequences and the emperor leaves. Before he leaves, he thanks Yim for the bird's nest and mama then knows Yim took credit for herself and looks very shocked and hurt.

Pause.

Man Ho is the commander for 100,000 strong men in the armada of 3 provinces; Guangxi (Kwong sai), Guandong (Kwong dong) and Fujian (Fook Kin/Hokkien). All major cities but 100,000 is bit too few. Should have been 300,000!!

Continue.

Emperor leaves and spineless mother does not advance his own son's cause when she apologises profusely for Man Ho's actions and asks Yim to give in a few good words on behalf of Man Ho whenever she is with the Emperor. Yim smiles satisfactorily.

Pause.

I feel what the mother did is so unnecessary especially after knowing what Yim did with the bird's nest. This is like kicking your son to the gutter and it doesn't help wit Man Ho's cause. Silly mother.

Continue.

Back to pirate's den.

I have yet to catch the name of Maggie's character, and since I don't have access to the cast list when I am writing this, I will just call her Maggie for now. Maggie, for some unknown reason decides that she wants to curry Mui's favour and encourage her to assimilate into the pirate society. So she orders CPT to return Mui's knapsack and all items in it to her.

Pause.

Somewhere here there is a short interesting moment about sex. Yim and Maggie share a few things in common; position of authority, power and married to men much older than themselves. For Yim, the emperor was still able to perform and satisfy her sexually. For Maggie, her husband is old and he has trouble walking up stairs and the way they talk, they have an active sexual life except Maggie isn't satisfied due to his physical condition whilst the elderly pirate denies having any problems at all. A weird scene if you ask me.

Anyway... continue.

Mui is free to roam the town. After all, as pointed that is an island surrounded by sea. Where can she go anyway? She sees women cleaning stuff and overhears their conversation; one woman complains having to clean the necklace or something, that her husband shouldn't have cut the neck of the person wearing it, now there's so much blood and she had to clean it. Mui was horrified and went to them looking appalled as she said;

"You all talk as if the person wearing it meant nothing! You're murderers! Someone wore that necklace! You killed that person to get the necklace and you talk as if the person's life means so little! Aren't you afraid of being arrested??"

The 3 women laugh very very hard and each tells her their tales;

"I am considered a gentleman's daughter; she was a scholar's daughter. That one was an official's daughter. We all were kidnapped by pirates and taken here. We were all like you; fighting to escape and maintaining our stance that they're criminals. Guess what? Over time we assimilated into this society and made to marry our respective husbands. You too will!"

Mui horrified at that idea said with much anger;

"NEVER! I WILL NEVER ASSIMILATE WITH THESE... CRIMINALS!"

She angrily leaves as they laugh at her and she curses CPT for her predicament when he greets her and tempts her with her knapsack. He throws it onto the ground and she falls trying to retrieve it and dirtying herself and he laughs himself silly as she takes her revenge and I can't remember what she did but he ended up on the dirt, dirty as well. He wants to beat her up when Maggie arrives and twists his ear, warning him to treat her nice.

Later CPT has to move out of his room to give his room to Mui who ecstatically and sarcastically laugh when Scholar Suen arrives but not to assist him but to assist her.

Pause.

I am troubled by how lightly these women are with their predicaments. Each of them was technically kidnapped, forced to marry a pirate and forced to stay as wife and do wifely duties which mean they were essentially raped into subjugation and when no hope lies in escape, they had to stay back and probably never left the island and so is lulled into belief that life there is best and being the pirate's wife means a certain standing in that society. Each of these pirate may have had a hard life, driven to piracy due to certain reason but the way the women talked on how they obtained the jewelry and my feeling is women will be wearing such jewelry and so the pirate husband must have killed women as well, it felt cold, as if those people did not matter. Like a matter of fact; I need the necklace so I have to cut the throat of the person wearing it. I understand Mui's disgust but I don't understand the women rather lighthearted approach to this sticky dilemma; are the pirates really good people driven to piracy when they too take innocent lives? If Mui falls for CPT, how does it explain the actions of CPT who may be noble but is an outlaw who was kidnapped by his adopted father and does bad things? How can Mui who is essentially a person about punishing wrong doer ever legitimately fall for a character like CPT?

It is a moral dilemma. Qing may be terrible but the pirates are no better.

Continue.

Maggie asks Mui who she really is she so she reveals her name and they mistaken her name as to mean "Emperor's sister" when it is different pronunciation. CPT goes a-ha!! She finally reveals her identity.

Pause.

I think from day one she has already told him her name, so I don't get why he goes a-ha unless he is thinking she is really the emperor's sister.

Continue.

As Mui explains how she arrives where she arrived, Maggie says it is very rare for anyone to survive a water cyclone and there will be quite a few now it is around October. Mui suddenly hits on an idea;

"If I arrived to this time thanks to that cyclone which also appears during the time of the Leonid, that means all I need now is to find a cyclone and go into it and I will return to present time!"

So she asks Scholar Suen when was the last cyclone and Scholar Suen says she can check into the local authority's book of recent natural events and so she asks where can she find information about the next cyclone and Scholar Suen says usually people talk about past events, so for future forecast, it has to be the almanac. Mui knows she has to be certain and is dumbfounded until she remembers she once downloaded the Qing's entire history into her mini tablet and she takes out her mini tablet to check and it says 4 days later a cyclone will appear at xxx that disturbed the peace of many local residents.

Obviously she will miss that cyclone since her time in Qing can't be over in 4 days.

Anyway she is very very very very happy about that.

Pause.

Woahhhhh.... Grace oh Grace.... absolute so OTT it is so painful to watch. No one told her to just calm down but she went wide eyed and heavy breathing and smiling like a lunatic that it was absolutely horrendous to watch. Nothing attractive about those moments, even when she was angry and mincing her words with gritted teeth, angry at what was told to her or when she was teasing CPT... all so very OTT that it is to me the worst acting. No worries though. Because she has a competition coming up!

Continue.

Yim and Fok together and Fok says Man Ho has been scolding him for every little reason. I find it hard to believe. Anyway Yim says that's his character and she considers sending someone to spy on him. Fok says it must be someone able to get very very close. So one day Yim looks at Tung Suet and says slyly;

"You're ambitious aren't you? You want to be able to sleep on my bed next to the emperor don't you? Well I wouldn't want to keep someone as pretty as you next to me, you're a ticking time bomb. I hereby order you to be re-entered as palace maid"

Tung Suet is shocked and begs for mercy, that she has no intention to usurp her place but later Yim explains she wants Tung Suet to get near Man Ho as his personal maid and to spy on him and to do so she must be in a way retrenched as her maid and re enter as a new palace maid so that Man Ho won't suspect a thing. So Tung Suet swears she will do her utmost.

Pause.

Silly isn't it? Tung Suet is so high profile and exposed as Yim's personal maid, you think Man Ho doesn't know who she is? After all Man Ho probably often sees her around since he targets Yim and he probably knows ALL MAIDS AND EUNUCHS under Yim's household, unless he is like Bowie, never lock doors, never get rid of evidence, aka being very very careless. I can't believe this super efficient Man Ho is that sort.

Continue.

And so we have new young girls coming in as Palace Maids. Very excited girls, young, carefree and happy. Moreover as Palace Maids, if they get to sleep with the emperor, they can get promoted to concubine status.

Pause.

But I doubt they can get married to the princes, after all they are earmarked as Emperor's play things and for a prince to marry any of them, it is as if adultery with father's woman, you know? Unless the emperor allows for the marriage. And it really depends on the status. Yes, palace maids can be from high society but to be the FIRST WIFE of the prince, it has to take someone special in that high society however unloved the prince is. It is after all a political alliance. So for Man Ho to not be married and in the end marries a maid whom he will fall in love with as FIRST WIFE, I don't know... the emperor must really hate him.

Continue.

And so we get to meet Ha Sim, a young girl who loves to eat and is recommended by a nunnery who adopted her to enter as a palace maid because only in the palace she gets to eat a lot. Man Ho is walking into the palace and meeting Eunuch Lai, emperor's own personal eunuch and Man Ho says he is here to see the emperor about the pirates issue. Eunuch Lai is kind enough to give him tips on when is the best time to see the emperor so that he catches the emperor in a good mood. All the girls ooh and ahhh over the dashing handsome man (Well he is pretty dashing here) and overhears he is the 11th prince (unfortunately the most unloved of them all - if he isn't so ambitious, he would have had a more carefree life). Ha Sim doesn't quite care since she is not ambitious at all and anyway she goes to the horse that pulls her carriage to say goodbye.

Pause.

Seriously? Kind nice girl MUST talk to animals issit?

Continue.

Eunuch Lai predicts a lunar eclipse I think since he was an errr.. astrologer? Astronomer? Before he became an eunuch which means what? He became eunuch pretty late in life? But why? If he is so good at what he does, why castrate and become eunuch?

Anyway true, it happens, he is happy he still has the skills and Man Ho was smiling when the horse freaks out and runs and the rope wraps around Ha Sim's and and she got pulled along and she screams in fear and guess who comes to her rescue in spectacular fashion?

Man Ho springs into action, cut the rope and spins her around and ends up carrying her in his arms as she looks at him in shock and he looks at her in errrr.... surprised by her beauty I suppose? Never been near a woman I suppose? Well they look at each other and then he sets her down and walks away and Ha Sim looks at him gratefully and with admiration.

Yeap, therein lies Member no. 1 of Man Ho's Fan Club with a pledge to die for him. Anyone wants to sign up?

Man Ho faces his father who again bans his idea and basically says his idea is terrible and to do it again and warn him that he is given an opportunity, do not disappoint him in a rather mean way. He says to Man Ho my chosen quote for this episode. Whatever Man Ho says, the father won't agree. I think even if Man Ho writes "I will personally ram a ship into the pirate's ship and kill myself with them", I doubt the father even cares because he doesn't even read beyond the 1st sentence. He throws the proposal in front of a kneeling Man Ho who is dejected and could only utter a quiet;

"Yes, your majesty"

Pause!

WHAT? YOUR MAJESTY? NOT IMPERIAL FATHER? Yeap, he said YOUR MAJESTY. I believe it was a mistake in the script. I mean to call him Emperor instead of father is a bit too cold but Man Ho isn't pissed off at that point but disappointed his father refuses to accept his contribution and therefore himself. So he has no reason to be so cold.

Continue.

Ha Sim gets on well with everyone and charms even Eunuch Lai with her innocence and non-ambitious stance. She is just happy she gets to eat fatty pork and everyone says she will probably serve 11th Prince though she says she is here to serve the concubines. Jealous Tung Suet overhears and basically pushes her fatty pork out of her hands and then slaps poor Ha Sim who is clueless as to what she did wrong to offend another new girl. Ha Sim is no pushover as she raises her hand to slap Tung Suet when Eunuch Lai arrives and orders for them to stop and then see Tung Suet who looks at him knowingly.

In a room, Ha Sim thinks it is all because of fatty pork and Eunuch Lai questions her intentions and all and is pleased to hear how simpleminded she is and finds her a rarity. Still he has to punish her for being involved in a quarrel, so she is ordered to wash all the maids' buckets (those you know where you do your business in) tomorrow morning but since she needs energy, she can have one bucket of white rice and three pieces of fatty pork. She is so happy she says she is willing to wash all buckets from now on if she can have the same sort of food and Eunuch Lai is charmed by her innocence.

Pause.

I do like the fact that Ha Sim was about to fight back at bitchy Tung Suet. However I do not like why nice innocent simple minded girls have to love animals, talk to them and have a huge appetite?

Continue.

Ha Sim was washing the buckets when she sees a dejected Man Ho walking by. She rushes out to say thanks to him when she sees his back walking forlornly, and she looks at him as if he is the loneliest man in the world.

Last scene, we see probably the next episode or maybe not but anyway, we see a super OTT happy Mui who sees a water cyclone.

Urghhhh... more OTT acting.

Kelly Fu is ok as Ha Sim. She is not exceedingly pretty but she can be cute and when the time is needed, she can be tough as well. However historically she will never marry Man Ho but since Man Ho in this version is so hated by his own father that doesn't bother to marry him off at all, well anything can happen. However her acting leaves much to be desired. If Grace is OTT, she is... I don't know, not very reality based sort of acting. A bit too fluffy for my taste. Poor Ruco is stuck with C list actress but well, I kinda like her Ha Sim and I bet she is asked to spy on Man Ho but she will instead protect him with his life. Question is, will she die?

The rest no comment.

Katy Kung is stuck in bitchy roles. Maybe she will become a concubine. If this series turns into palace concubines fight each other series, it will be way off the point. Right now it is still ok in that way except it is beginning to get a bit convoluted.

And I am waiting for Mui to meet Man Ho. I am getting impatient.