Justice Bao

New Justice Bao (ATV)
The Duel in Autumn

Ray Lui as Zhan Zhao
Vincent Jiao as Bai Yu Tang

Story (and comments in parentheses):

(I watched the dubbed version, so it is possible that the story might be different from that of the other review.)

Miss Ma witnessed a man robbing the tributes from Korea and killing every guard. She was frightened and fell off a hill. The robber saw only her clothes as she ran away.

Bai Yu Tang appeared and received her in time; instead, she slapped him as she mistook him for making an advance on her. Bai Yu Tang let go of her and she fell onto the ground. (This scene was quite hilarious.) Immediately, she was not impressed.

Because of the theft of the tributes, the emperor sent the head eunuch to help Bao solve the case. The head eunuch turned out to be the man who did the robbing.

His background was rather tragic. Six years ago, he was a policeman. One day, he met a prostitute and fell in love with her. In order to live with her, he had to assist the brothel owner in certain crimes. However, the brothel owner betrayed him and poisoned him in order to make a goat out of him. He ran away with the prostitute who was pregnant at that time. They hid in a swamp for three days and three nights. The coldness of the water caused his wife to miscarry and the poison left him impotent.

In order to seek vengeance on the brothel owner, he decided to enter the palace and became a eunuch. All this while, his wife was waiting for him faithfully, not realizing the truth about her husband.

The eunuch robbed the Korean ambassadors to get ginseng for his sickly wife and framed Ma for the crime. Ma was in fact the brothel owner in the past.

Zhan Zhao left his room to meet the head eunuch. They started exchanging sword stances as soon as they saw each other. It turned out that they were close friends from the past and the eunuch (a policeman at that time) had once saved Zhan Zhao's life.

Both Zhan Zhao and the eunuch went to the location of the crime. Zhan Zhao met Bai Yu Tang and both were at loggerheads with each other from the moment they met. Bai announced that he wanted to find the criminal and punish him according to the martial world's rules and Zhan Zhao warned Bai not to mess with his investigation.

Because a carrier from the Ma house was found at the crime site, Bao and the eunuch visited Ma and interviewed him. Ma denied any knowledge of the crime. At the same time, he thought that the eunuch looked familiar. At Ma's, the eunuch saw a maid who was wearing Miss Ma's clothes. He mistook her as the witness who saw him that day.

The eunuch went to visit his wife in secret. During that time, Miss Ma stole a jade horse from her father's treasure room and sold it in Kaifeng to get money to help the poor farmers who owed money to her father. Bao learned of that and ordered Zhan Zhao to investigate the Ma family.

Miss Ma meant to inform the police about the robbery but saw the eunuch as he came out of Kaifeng Court. She immediately assumed that Bao was on the same side as the eunuch (the robber).

Zhan Zhao went undercover into the Ma household as a servant. He had to do a lot of laborious work including emptying smelly containers from lavatories! Miss Ma took an interest in him and had him follow her around distributing money to the poor people instead.

On the contrary, she tried to ignore Bai Yu Tang who presented himself as a rich merchant and wormed himself into her house. Bai liked her and tried to woo her but she liked the servant Zhan Zhao instead. (The dialogue between the two men was quite funny. Each was equally surprised to meet each other at Ma's and tried to expose each other subtly.)

The eunuch killed the maid and Miss Ma realised then that her maid died instead of her.

Ma's old comrades came to seek him and Ma killed them with his weapon that incidentally was the same as that used to kill the Korean ambassadors and the maid.

Zhan Zhao accidentally discovered about the eunuch's wife. The eunuch recounted his past to the other and asked him not to reveal his real condition to her. Zhan Zhao promised.

Zhan Zhao stole the code to enter the treasure room from Miss Ma. Together with Bai Yu Tang, they went inside and each found the missing tributes from Korea minus the ginseng there. Zhan Zhao fought with Bai for the evidence. During the fight, the eunuch intervened and snatched both tributes from their hands. He then took them to Kaifeng and wanted Bao to order an arrest of the Ma family.

Bao was not entirely sure and in a fit of impatience, the eunuch personally ordered his soldiers to arrest everyone in Ma's and opened the court. Miss Ma was the only one who escaped the arrest.

The eunuch invited Bao to witness the court session. Everything seemed to point to Ma as the culprit. According to law, Ma and his family had to be executed for robbing the royal tributes. Bao felt that the eunuch tried to frame Ma for personal vengeance. He found out that Miss Ma was not among those arrested, so he ordered Zhan Zhao to look for her.

The eunuch was eager to catch Miss Ma that he arrested every young villager. Bai Yu Tang rescued Miss Ma from the eunuch's soldiers. She finally told him that she saw the eunuch commit the robbery and murder. Bai relayed it to Zhan Zhao who did not want to believe it. Both men visited the eunuch's wife to look for evidence. They searched the house behind her back and found the rest of the Korean ginseng.

Bai Yu Tang brought Miss Ma to see Bao who asked her to be a witness in court. The eunuch was arrested. He confessed. Ma was sentenced to die for his past crimes. The eunuch escaped, leaving word to Zhan Zhao that he would know where to find him. He went to see his wife for the last time. Then, he left her for a last duel with Zhan Zhao. Because he refused to take medicine (he had been sick for a long time due to the poison he had received 6 years ago), he lost to Zhan Zhao and died.

Bai Yu Tang let Zhan Zhao alone upon seeing how sorrowful the other was. He still wanted to duel with Zhan Zhao some other time though.

Rating: 4

Vincent Jiao was a good choice as Bai Yu Tang. He portrayed a playful swordsman well and brought out another side of Zhan Zhao in Ray Lui. Strong chemistry existed there and the scenes where the two tried to outwit each other were amusing and were the epitome of the series.

The subplot on the eunuch's love life was also impressive although it was overshadowed by Miss Ma's relationships with Bai Yu Tang and Zhan Zhao.

The fighting sequences among three men showed the gracefulness and agility of the three actors. Vincent looked really handsome in his white robe and was so convincing as a pugilistic hero. He was more handsome than Ray Lui but too bad Miss Ma preferred Zhan Zhao to him.

On Zhan Zhao:
Ray Lui- Zhan Zhao is different from that of Kenny Ho's. He was more cheeky and emotional in this new version, not to say that he had more serious love affairs with girls. In looks and character, Kenny Ho was more dignified and handsome. However, I found that Ray Lui's Zhan Zhao was more human. He had weak points and vulnerable moments which the audience could identify with.

The costumes of Zhan Zhao were flashier compared to that of Kenny Ho's thus it made Ray Lui look a bit fat although Ray did make up for it with his strong kung fu displays.

On the Four Guards:
The four guards of Kaifeng Court had a new cast. They had more roles in this new version. I especially liked Zhao Hu's character who seemed to shine the most. He had an innocent look that made him distinguished from the rest.