Gods of Honour

The Cast (according to Vietnamese names)
Benny Chan- Ly Na Tra
Irene Wan- To Dac Ky
Yuen Wa- Ly Tin
Chin Ka Lok- Duong Tien
Yuen Kin Dan- Han Thap Nuong
Angela Tong- Lieu Bi Ba
Rain Lau- Dan Thiem Ngoc
Michelle Yip- Duong Lien Hoa
Winnie Yeung- Win Nang

The Plot (Spoilers!)
This story begins with Ly Tin hunting down a special type of mountain deer to cure the king's illness. It turns out these deers are protected by Na Tra (in his former life). In the process of protecting these deers, Na Tra gets killed accidentally by Ly Tin. Three years later Na Tra is reborn into the "Ly" family. Han Thap Nuong (Na Tra's mother), was pregnant with Na Tra for up to three years and six months, and when he was finally born (in the middle of one of Ly Tin's battles), he was unusually large for a child of his age and he had the unique ability to breath out fire. He then remembered back to his past life and remembered that Ly Tin was the one who had killed him and so he created commotion for the entire family. His father was so enraged that he kicked him out of home and he was then sent to live at the 'Nu Hoa' temple. At the temple, Na Tra was so uncontrollable that the only way to keep him under control was to impersonate ghosts to frighten him.

Then Thap Nuong came with his brothers and she then taught him manners and to be respectful. When it came to Ly Tin's birthday Thap Nuong pleaded with him to give Na Tra a second chance, he agreed but Na Tra had to overcome a certain obstacle to be accepted into the Ly family once again. With the encouragement of his mother and his brothers, Na Tra overcame the obstacle, and was accepted back in to the family once again. He lived a peaceful few months with his family.

The king then had a vision that Na Tra would be a threat to the kingdom so he forced Ly Tin to kill Na Tra. That same day, Thap Nuong also found out about Na Tra's death threat from Tay Ba Ho (an incredibly well known fortune teller), that unless he is saved by 'a tiger with wings' he would die. So after an argument with his family, Ly Tin agreed to leave Na Tra up in the mountains where he is meant to meet his death.

After he was left there he was found by 'Hoang Phi Ho,' who adopted him and took him to his home but under the condition that he performed his fire-breathing trick for everyone to witness. But after a while he couldn't take it anymore and decided to run away. This is when he meets Loi Chan Tu, and the three eyed god Duong Tien. Then a mountain spirit (sent by Nu Hoa), keeps them at a mountain, telling them in order to leave the mountain they must overcome his obstacle.

Meanwhile, at the palace, the new prince comes to the throne. During the time of a few months he proved to be an irresponsible king, only interested in having fun and enjoying himself, and neglecting his duties. Then he finally went too far by insulting the Nu Hoa goddess. She then plans the fate of his entire kingdom.

Back to Na Tra, they are now older and are on their twenty-something time of trying to overcome the mountain spirits obstacle within the period of seven years. When they overcome his obstacle, he then goes on to tell them that their future is to become gods of war. With this in mind, they head for the closest town where Tay Ba Ho is currently staying. Everyone in town is so frightened by their appearances that no one is brave enough to go anywhere near them, so they set back to find the mountain spirit. At the same time, Tay Ba Ho was also passing by and saw the scene where three young boys were bashing up one old man. He then asks what is the problem. When aware of the situation he also quotes that he can also predict the future and what the mountain spirit said was right, the only thing that they need right now was manners to be accepted.

They then go to school where they meet Lien Hoa, who turned out to be Duong Tien's sister, then his identity is revealed.

Back at the Ly family, due to an argument between the king and Ly Tin, the king orders Lieu Bi Ba to be married into the Ly family as Ly Tin's second wife. After being wedded into the family, she helps Thap Nuong find out that Na Tra is still alive. After years of longing for her son she sets out to find him. Her actions causes the entire family to be unhappy.

At this time, due to Na Tra's playfulness, he meets the third sea dragon prince. The dragon prince falls for Lien Hoa. After a few encounters with the prince and Lien Hoa in which she comes back crying every time, Na Tra then decides to stand up for Lien Hoa. This decision leads to a battle between the prince and Na Tra. In this battle he discovers that the shirt that he had been wearing since birth has the ability to protect him from harm, and the bangle around his wrist has the capacity to grow and become a useful weapon for him to use against the dragon prince who once was defeated, flew away. After that incident Na Tra became dangerously confident. When he finally met up with his mother (without realizing it at first), he decided to listen to her because she could teach him magic. After educating him and, trying to set him up with Lien Hoa, She had to leave home to Ly Tin who had lost in a battle. But when she got home she found that her entire family, including her own two sons, had turned against her. Lieu Bi Ba, who now had power over the entire Ly family (including Ly Tin's sister and mother), put Thap Nuong through a series of tortures using the excuse that she should not have left home like that and disrespecting the Ly family. When she had managed to survive through the tortures she was accepted back into the family.

A few days later while Kim Tra and Moc Tra (Na Tra's older brothers), were patrolling the town, they saw a girl standing in the middle crying and two boys surrounding her. The girl that was crying was actually Lien Hoa and the two boys were Na Tra and Loi Chan Tu. The reason that they were here was because they wanted to help the kingdom fight against the 'giant' people (the people that Ly Tin lost to). Na Tra, who was already frustrated with Lien Hoa for crying, got even madder when Kim Tra and Moc Tra tried to interfere. They then fought each other. After beating his brothers, Na Tra and Loi Chan Tu went away because Lien Hoa said she was hungry and wanted to eat.

When Kim Tra and Moc Tra got home they were questioned about who beat them like that. After hearing the description that her two sons gave her Thap Nuong knew immediately who it was. She then set out to look for them but was unsuccessful. At this time, Ly Tin was working on three arrows that were meant to kill whoever was a threat to the kingdom. After hearing that his sons were beaten by two weird people he decided to go and shoot the arrows to see if they were any kind of a threat.

At first he shot one arrow that shot right through Na Tra, but fortunately caused no harm because he was wearing his special shirt. When the arrow came back to Ly Tin with a blood stain on the end of it, he then decided to shoot three arrows at the same time to be certain that the threat would be erased. Then the three arrows once again tried to kill Na Tra, just when all seemed lost, the Arrow of Justice saw that Na Tra would do something that is very righteous, so he fought back against the other two arrows, and decided to follow Na Tra. Na Tra, who was on the trail to see who had tried to kill him, met up with Thap Nuong. He finds out that the person that shot him was Ly Tin. Thap Nuong with no idea of what to do next and decided that it was time to tell the truth about his identity. He got mad at his father and lost what little respect that he had for Thap Nuong. He decided to go and fight the 'giant' people himself. With the help of his mother, the king agreed to let Na Tra lead his own army to fight.

When he got to the battle field, Thap Nuong said that she had a strange feeling about the place, but Na Tra decided to ignore her. It turned out that the enemy had already set a curse on to the field for it not to rain and be incredibly dry, so that Na Tra's army would lack on resources that are needed to maintain good health to fight. Unknown to Na Tra, the dragon prince has been visiting Lien Hoa during this time. She tells the prince that if he can make it rain then she would marry him. A few days later, Na Tra was able to defeat the 'giant' people, and that night he celebrated his victory. That night was also the night that Lien Hoa was due to marry the dragon prince, but with the help of Thap Nuong she was able to return to Na Tra. A few days later, Na Tra takes his army back to the kingdom and spends three days celebrating his victory in the palace with the king. After three days he sets out to go home where Lien Hoa is waiting, but before he gets home he meets Lieu Bi Ba, who insults him about Lien Hoa seeing the dragon prince behind his back, which he didn't know about. When he got home to see Lien Hoa he tried to question Lien Hoa but she wouldn't say anything which made Na Tra jump to conclusions about everything. He then went after the dragon prince, and unintentionally kills him.

All this time, Duong Tien had been at home with his father helping out with the family business, and after he 'supposedly' caused the death of his father, he is forced out of his home, where he meets Win Nhan, and went to work for her in her household. This is where he develops a good relationship Win Nhan. But soon Win Nhan, who has the ability to see the supernatural, keeps seeing a young man who is always dripping wet following Duong Tien around. When she informs Duong Tien about this he gets scared and they both try to capture the young man. After one incident where they followed the ghost-like figure that only Win Nhan can see, the figure starts writing words on the ground with a stick and water. Just as the figure started to write something onto the ground, a voice calls out to Duong Tien, which interrupts the whole process. When the voice actually comes closer he sees that it is Thap Nuong and Lien Hoa. He finds out that Na Tra is dead and how he died.

After Na Tra killed the dragon price, he was captured by the imperial troops, even after managing to escape from them, he destroyed his physical being to repay the debts that he owed his parents. Then Win Nhan tells him that the person that she keeps seeing could be Na Tra. Finally, after much interruptions and hesitations, Na Tra finally gets his message out. They are to build a temple so people can look up to and worship Na Tra for a period of three years.

During this time, the king keeps having visions of these two extremely beautiful girls, and orders Ly Tin to go and find these two girls. On their way to find these girls, they meet up with Thap Nuong who is working in Na Tra's temple. They go in and break his statue, which causes all the years of time and patience to go to waste. When the last hope comes, Lien Hoa goes up the mountain to see if the master that helped them before could help them once again in saving Na Tra. In order to save Na Tra, he has to become a 'lotus person' for a period of time before he can back to being a human again. During the time that he was as still a plant he keeps seeing a butterfly come and visit him. It turns out that the butterfly is Lien Hoa who agreed to become a butterfly for three years so that Na Tra could be resurrected.

Meanwhile, at the kingdom, the king's troops had found the two beautiful girls, who turned out to be daughters of one of the king's important councils. Their names were To Dac Ky and To Minh Huong. The king brings them into the kingdom against the wishes of his council.

The rest of the story goes on to tell you about how To Dac Ky came to power and how an army started to fight back against Dac Ky who had by that time taken over the throne of the king.

Benny Chan- Ly Na Tra
The first time I saw Benny Chan was in Demi Gods and Semi Devils 1997, where, in my opinion, he made an very fine Doan Yu. Then I saw him in a few different types of roles, to one of the recent movies "Whatever It Takes", where he plays a very kind young gentlemen. I have to admit that I didn't exactly like his attitude in this movie; especially with the way he treated his mother and Lien Hoa. But all of that was erased when he forgave his father near the end; I believe that that was one of the most emotional scenes in the movie (another one could be when his parents left him in the mountains and he thought it was just a game). Call me emotional but I was so moved by the fact that he could so easily forgive his father for all he had done to him. And for the near end of the movie I liked it how he worried about his mother so much. I also enjoyed watching the part where he got his fireballs for the first time and how he was flying around in them. I have to say that his performance in this movie was great. He played the part of the disrespectful son, the mean and hot tempered person very well. He looked nice in his costumes as well.

Irene Wan- To Dac Ky
This is the first time that I have ever seen this actress in any movie before, although she is pretty and played her character convincingly enough, her acting skills could still improve in my opinion. Whenever it came to her part in the series, I remember either falling asleep or fast-forwarding the tape. It might not be boring but it did seem to drag on forever. Although I didn't understand how she became so powerful and in charge of the fox-spirit. But her part got me thinking. If Tay Ba Ho did not predict her fate from the beginning of her life then would it be different? If she could have a proper education, and be able to see the outside world for herself would she still have those thoughts about injustice towards the gender issue? I also like the actress who played her sister, I'm not sure of her name though.

Yuen Wa- Ly Tin
To me, this character seemed to have no brain of his own. He was constantly under the control of his second wife, who was an absolute horror. It was so obvious that he was afraid of her. He seemed to be wise but never had the guts to show it. He could never make up his mind on what to do about his wives and was hopeless leaving the fate of his family in the hands of a woman.

Chin Ka Lok- Duong Tien
This character, was quite amusing to watch. He had a heart of gold, but didn't have the brain to go with it. But still he seemed to make me laugh or smile every time he said something cute or funny. Like the time when he met Rain Lau's character and she was trying to help escape but he kept saying no because of his fears. But still this character kind of destroyed the image of the Three Eyed God in my mind.

Yuen Kin Dan- Han Thap Nuong
This character got very annoying. Her constant chatter continuously annoyed me, and how she kept crawling back to the 'Ly' family after they had clearly stated that they didn't want her around any longer. I also found her very interfering whenever she was meddling with other people's business and the times that she took Na Tra's fireballs to go back and visit her husband.

Angela Tong- Lieu Bi Ba
This character was so annoying. Even though I saw the Viet version of this movie, they still managed to make Lieu Bi Ba's voice very dislikable. Every time she opened her mouth to say something it seemed like only bad things would come out. She was so jealous of Thap Nuong, and was very evil. But I can't believe that they all let her get away with all the bad things that she did. And Ly Tin's family, they were so useless. They listen to everything that she say--it was like they were all afraid that she might all explode or something, especially Ly Tin's sister who supported Bi Ba in everything that she did. And after all of the things that she did, she had such an easy death. I reckon they should have thrown her down the snake pit. A taste of her own medicine.

Michelle Yip- Duong Lien Hoa
At first when I first saw this character I really liked her, she was sweet kind considerate and gentle. But when the story got more depth to it, she started to get a bit annoying. All that she seemed to do most of the time was cry whenever something didn't go her way. I believe that it was partly her fault that Na Tra killed the Dragon prince, if only she had told Na Tra about the dragon prince's attempt to marry her then he would not have gone after the prince, but all she did was stood there and cried. Then I started to feel sorry for her, because while Na Tra starts treating everybody more nicely he still treated her the same mean way. I'm still disappointed that Na Tra never found out how much she did for him.

Kim Tra, Moc Tra-??
The actors who played these two roles were ok, but I reckon that the second brother was played by someone who looked even younger then Benny Chan. I still think that they should've of left home after the way their mother neglected them and their father ignored them, and always took the side of his horrific wife. I'm sure that with their righteous minds and experience in war they would have gone far without their father.

My Overall Opinion:
Overall, I thought that this movie was passable, not better then other movies and not worse either. The costumes in this movie were nice to look at, and the overall plot was OK. Although I would've of like it much better if they told more of the three gods and their training and battles rather then the palace and To Dac Ky all the time.

Any comments, disagreements message me and tell me what you think.