| Where The Legend Begins |
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| Themesong – Steven Ma In the river glow, the flower is sad The landscape is eerily quiet The mountain shines as beautiful as you As beautiful as the big open sky Fresh water immortals drifts aimlessly Hoping for a chance to meet you Living only to see your smile Hundreds of flowers in the great distance In this world, dreams are short Shadows can cause pain In this flower, half a lifetime consumes Who would have know that a flower can cause tears The colors in the scenery fade away In this flower, the body leans toward the flowing water The bright snow reflects loyalty Asking the vacate mountains Without your smile one day What is the point of living P.S. I don't have the subthemesong so I couldn't translate it. It is sung by Steven Ma & Rain Lee |
| Synopsis This is another ancient series that TVB seems to be producing a lot of lately. This time around the stars are Ada Choi, Steven Ma, Evergreen Mak, Lau Dan, Sonjia Kwok, Moses Chan, Cheng Chi Sing (Chi Ho from A Kindred Spirit), and new to TVB, Gilbert Lam (formerly of ATV). The “Legend” part of the title refers to the Lok Sun Legend where Ada is the Goddess of Lok River who gets send down to earth because she committed a crime up in heaven as punishment. In this earthly life, Ada is a renowned beauty graced with intelligence and kindness. Steven (the youngest son) first fell in love with Ada’s beauty, but loved her for herself. Moses (the oldest son) first hate Ada because of her beauty as he thinks beautiful women are the downfall of men but later fell for her anyways. Lau Dan (the father) also falls under Ada’s charm as he admires her intelligence so he brings her to his household after capturing her city. Sonjia is the sworn sister of Ada who is very jealous of the fact that Ada is so perfect and is loved by everyone. In order to ensure that Lau Dan’s wealth and power will continue on in future generations, he decides to give Ada to his eldest son instead even though he knew that Ada and Steven are in love. His reasoning to Ada is that Moses will never be satisfied losing Ada to Steven and caused Steven harm. In order to guarantee his youngest & most favorite son’s safety, he has to sacrifice Ada. Lau Dan tells her that he believes she can still have a good life because Moses is so in love with her that he will treat her well, and she can safe Steven’s life. Ada sadly has no choice but to agree as she knows that he speaks the truth. Moses, prompted by greed and insecurity, plots with the help of Sonjia (who becomes his second wife after she tricks him into bed) and Cheng Chi Sing to destroy anyone who stands in his way. Afraid that his brothers will fight him for the throne, Moses decides to kill Evergreen (the second brother) and Steven. He succeeded in killing Evergreen and tried to with Steven. He ordered Steven to create a poem within seven steps or else he will be beheaded while knowing that ever since Ada married Moses, Steven has lost his creative inspiration in writing poetry. Ada comes through for Steven though as she becomes his muse but causes her own death by doing so. With Cheng Chi Sing and Sonjia planting seeds of doubt in Moses’s head, Moses believed that Ada cheated on him with Steven and that their son is not really his son. Sadly, Moses discovers the truth too late as Ada has already drank the poison he sent her. The series ends with Ada’s son becoming the emperor. After cautioning his nephew about Cheng Chi Sing’s evil intentions, Steven sees Ada on a boat waiting for him so he walks into the river to join her. Personal Note: This is one sad series where it seems everyone dies. The poetry is very pretty but hard to understand. For those of you who are not familiar with ancient Chinese, you will find this series hard to follow as everything they say is in a metaphor and most of the time, the conversions seems be in poetry form. In Chinese history, Lau Dan’s character is supposed to be really evil but here he is portrayed as a family man who occasionally can be ruthless. While the story on paper sounds interesting, I couldn’t help but thought something was lacking when watching it. Maybe it was the chemistry or the acting but I didn’t like the series as much as I thought I would. Rating: $$ |
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