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Currently watching: Manchurian beauties slugging it out

I am hooked on this 2004 TVB serial. The English title is really too mundane - War and Beauty. Wish they had come up with something more poetic. Chinese title - Kum Ji Yuk Yip or Jin Zhi Yu Nie, badly translated as 'golden branch, evil ambitions' or something like that. Apparently the Chinese title is a play on a Chinese phrase, which I have no clue about.

The show is a 30-parter about palace intrigue. The Emperor, a rather forgettable character in this story, has got all these beauties in the palace who are filled with ambition and are catfighting their way to the top. By episode 9, we have had concubines forced to die, palace maids forced to die, concubine wannabes sabo-ing each other, getting exiled, going mad, etc etc...

War and Beauty beats Jewel in the Palace, the Korean 70-parter, hands down. Jewel in the Palace is also about palace intrigue but my, the pace is just slightly faster than a snail's. And there are also all these herbal concoction scenes (Imperial Physicians) which can rival the imperial kitchen scenes of Jewel. If I were a real tai-tai, i.e. if I had the time and money, I would be sitting at home watching the whole series on VCD. I am a period drama serial junkie but alas, I can only feed my habit episode by episode.

Sheren Tang, playing the favourite-but-soon-to-lose-favour concubine, puts in a superb performance as Yuk Fei. She's got this wonderful pouty, I-couldn't-care-less-about-minions look. Someone said her performance here was comparable to that of Francis Ng in Triumph in the Skies. Now that is absurd. Thought he was awful in that show. Sheren's portrayal in the show is peerless, by TVB standards. That's her on the left in the picture.

The show has also got all these one-liner palace truisms, spouted so far mostly by Sheren's and Bowie's characters. Ya, his name is really Bowie and he apparently was a policeman before becoming an actor. Bowie (not the guy in the picture) plays an Imperial Physician. Here are a couple:
[ Deception lies beneath the glittering facade of the palace.

[ If you think you are good, there's always someone better than you.

Read on a website that the Emperor was SUPPOSED to have 121 concubines! Imagine that. It's mind boggling just thinking about how many emperors were given free reign to behave in this thoroughly chee koh pekish manner. One thing I like about the show is how it sticks to history in showing how the girls have to rise through the different concubine ranks. In many other shows, they are just 'concubines'.

Why are TV productions so fixated on the Qing Dynasty? Many period dramas are set in the Qing Dynasty even though the Manchurains were like the enemies, the destroyers of the Han Chinese. Could it be because there are more records from this period? The costumes and palace settings more elaborate?

I'm sure this serial will make its way to Channel 8 or U. When it does come, prepare to be glued to the telly.

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