This is the first time I ever laid my eyes on Deric Wan - and I
absolutely despised him. Now I am a pretty big Deric fan, but that
took years of filtering out anger I experienced from watching his
stupid character in this series.
I originally wrote this review for Seagull for her Ada Cache
site. Since it was for Ada Choi fansite, I obviously buttered
up Ada's character to please the fans... and rightfully so, because
Ada really WAS sweet in this series. With some modification, I
present to thee the almost same review.
Deric's father possessed some secret powerful kungfu that everyone
was after. His death was exceptionally cruel, brought onto him
by the so-called righteous clan leaders. One of them also poisoned
the baby who would grow up to be Deric. His mother did not fare
well either, as she had worked for a man-hating freaky lady (played
by Chor Ka Po) and died in her prison.
To make a long story very short and focus mainly on Ada's character,
Ada and Catherine are twin sisters, fraternal obviously. Ada is
the younger one. When their mother, Chor Ka Po gave birth to Catherine
at first, her enemy played by Eddie Cheung came and abducted baby
Catherine. Eddie did this because he had been in love with Chor
for a long time, but she rejected him and also put him through
a substantial amount of hell. He wanted revenge. Chor went frantic
(this happened while she was sleeping, can you believe it!) but
a few hours later, she gave birth to another baby who grew up
to be Ada.
Because of this incident, Ada was seldom let out of her palace
that she lived in with her mother and a bunch of other angry women.
On a very fateful occasion, she met Deric, whom she fell in love
with. She also met Catherine who was raised as Eddie's daughter.
Eddie did some horrible things to Catherine so she was very cold
and mean apparently. But because of Ada's unpolluted way of thinking
and treatment, Catherine started opening up. Alas, Deric fell
in love with Catherine and she returned the same affection, although
on the outside, she kept on rejecting him.
Eventually, the secret surrounding the two girls' birth reveals
itself. Funnily and disgustingly at the same time, Eddie falls
in love with Ada as well. If I disregard the 20+ years of age
difference, I actually think Eddie and Ada made a better couple.
For one thing, he would have been very nice and devoted to her,
as he was to her mother. Deric, although he was nice to Ada, only
thought of her as a friend/sister.
One key incident is where Eddie rapes Catherine thinking that
she was Ada. The girls were trying to save Deric at that time
from Eddie. Deric was led into thinking that Ada sacrificed for
him and agreed to marry her. On their wedding day, Ada came out
with the truth and told him that Catherine had been the one victimized.
So the wedding was cancelled, Ada was heartbroken, Deric and Catherine
did some more cat-and-mouse chasing, Eddie became more evil, and
everything in the end just exploded.
The explosion as such: Eddie came and killed Ada's parents (Chor
and Law Lok Lam) I believe. Ada was also attacked. As she was
dying, she asked Deric to go on a kite-riding with her for one
last time (they used to ride on this huge kite). By this time,
Deric's hair was all white due to his complicated birth story
and Catherine was all screwed up as well due to Eddie's poisoning.
Anyway, as Ada and Deric were flying on their kite, Ada asked
Deric if he had ever loved her. Feeling sorry, Deric said "yes."
Ada died happily.
The ending is very sappy and unsatisfying. Catherine and Deric
both had the antidote that would cure them from their poison,
but it was not enough for both of them. So they decide to throw
it away and wait for their death peacefully, together.
For more detailed summary, SPCNET.TV is worth visiting.
There are people who liked Catherine in this series for her "righteousness."
And there are people who hated her for that same quality. I am
in the latter category.
Catherine's character had endured a lot of abuse from Eddie,
so I could understand where her inability to express her feelings
came from. But her selfless nature sometimes was too much, as
she tried to carry every burden on her back. This, although admirable,
was quite disturbing at the same time. She seemed to have this
notion in her head that if she could sacrifice, everyone would
be happy.
And everyone would have been happy, except Deric also had feelings
for her. He liked Catherine and only her, so her idea of "yielding"
Deric to Ada did not work. Plus, Deric was not something that
could go back and forth - Catherine had disregarded his feelings
in order to fulfill her selflessness, which in turn, is not really
being selfless, but rather selfish.
Deric was not a typical indecisive character, but his decision
really ticked me off. Why couldn't he appreciate a girl who cared
for him and loved him dearly, and who was always next to him?
This all comes down to each viewer's perception. For me, Ada was
definitely more worthy of a candidate. But no, Deric had to engage
himself in some dramatic situation where he could never be with
the person he loved.
This series made me fall in love with Ada Choi as an actress,
but unfortunately, she did not have a happy ending. Ada, along
with Deric's themesongs and Eddie Cheung's nasty, evil character
portrayal, are the only elements that saved this mediocre martial
arts series. The costumes made the girls look like they were pregnant,
so that sure was a minus factor.
Totally irrelevant advertisement:
Oooh, ooh! Speaking of the music in this series, I have Deric's
"Get into Life" CD, which has both the themesong &
subtheme from this series. I don't particularly like the main
theme, but the subtheme is really nice and remains one of my favorite
songs. This CD also has songs from "Heroes From Shaolin,"
the theme from "One Step Beyond," sub from "War
of the Dragon," and the remake of "Sara" originally
by Jefferson Starship.
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