Sword Stained With Royal Blood
Since there's a great synopsis below, I will omit the plot and character summaries and comment on the general adaptation and performances by the actors.
------------------------------------------
Overall, this series was quite entertaining and I rated it 3.5 out of 5. I thought using Bobbie Dou as play Yuan Cheng Zhi was a very good choice, he managed to portray the chivalry, courage and heroic aura of a martial arts hero and descendant of a patriotic general, very very well. It's difficult to criticize much of his acting, his emotions and overall performance deserve much praise. His costume was also wonderful and he met every expectation of a real life Yuan Cheng Zhi.
Unfortunately the romantic storyline in here was a little disappointing. Starting with the main love story between Eva Huang's 'Qing Qing" and Cheng Zhi, well, I'm not sure whether it was the script writer's adaptation or just the novel itself, I didn't feel a strong relation to them whatsoever. It was somewhat forced, as though Yuan Cheng Zhi was with her because her mother has asked him. Their scenes together felt more 'older brother- younger sister' to some extent because of Qing Qing's childishness and jealousy. Most Jin Yong novels have a very admirable female protagonist who has commendable abilities of some sort - Huang Rong and Zhao Min (Condor Heroes and Heavenly Sword)are very clever, street smart and help their male protagonists succeed, while Huo Qing Tong and Ying Ying (Tale of Book/Sword and Proud Wanderer) are female warriors and Wang Yu Yan and Xiao Long Nv (Demi Gods, Return of Condor Heroes) are classical, calm beauties with superb kung fu. But Jing Jing is one of the few female lead characters who I must say is not likeable, at least not Eva Huang's portrayal of her.
It's very difficult to play a character like Qing Qing and be liked for it, but I think the disappointment is from a mixture of Eva's interpretation as well as the character itself. Compared to Huang Rong in Condor Heroes, who is also quite jealous and childish sometimes, Eva seemed to be better in portraying the immaturities of the character than the better qualities. I recall watching Athena Chu's version of Huang Rong (TVB, 1994/5) and I preferred her interpretation of a jealous lead lady better. Eva's acting deserved about 3 out of 5 I thought.
Meanwhile I absolutely changed my opinion on Sun Fei Fei because of this drama - she plays the typical beautiful second lead in this story, like in many of her other dramas, but her acting here actually did shine more. I can't say I really liked her much when she first appeared in the series, her character is somewhat boring, but as the story progresses, there's much more chemistry between her princess role, Ah Jiu, and Yuan Cheng Zhi compared him and Qing Qing. The way they exchanged glances almost had this longing and I felt like I could see her being 'torn' between Kingdom and love. Thus, the ending was disappointing to me because it's very brief and barely gives us an idea as to how she suddenly decided to become a nun.
On the other characters, there were many, I think one of the more distinctive ones was of course the veteran Vincent Zhao who played the Gold Snake Master. A wonderful performance of the coldness of a son/brother seeking revenge for his family and then reluctantly falling for the daughter of his enemy. Personally, this was my favourite love story of the series. And Tie Shou was also well played, although I didn't find her interpretation all that striking, I'd rate her about 4 out of 5. The choice of the Ming king was also great! I think he gave a great portrayal of the last ming emperor - a good person but a terrible tyrant who took the throne in bad times.
Overall, this series is a worthy watch, but not particularly terrific versus some of Jin Yong's other adaptations.
