The Legend of Lady Yang

This series is mainly based on Lady Yang, a.k.a Yang Gui Fei. It shows how Yang Yuk Huan became a consort to the Emperor of the Tang dynasty who happened to be a grandson of Empress Wu (the only female emperor of China).

The series started with Yang Yuk Huan travelling from her village to the capital of China at that time to live with her uncle and his family. During her journey, she encountered the emperor's entourage and she was given a cup of soup to ease her thirst. She was grateful to the kind man whose identity was revealed by the eunuch. She fell in love with the emperor instantly.

Upon her arrival at her uncle's residence, she was not warmly welcomed by her aunt, who was a greedy and selfish woman. Her uncle had three daughters and Yuk Huan became close with the youngest girl. The youngest girl was to be engaged with a local corrupt official who tried to marry Yuk Huan as well. Of course, this would not happen.

Yuk Huan caught the atention of the emperor while she was in the market and also at the stage where she performed a dance for the emperor after replacing her cousin, who had sprained her ankle during practice.

So, she was summoned into the palace to become a concubine of a low rank. There, she met her nemesis, Tong Er, who eventually committed suicide after failing to kill Yuk Huan. At first, they were close but when Tong Er tried to cheat during the selection of a new concubine by putting some honey to her hairdress, Yuk Huan and her were punished by the empress. They were demoted to be palace maids where some of their chores were to remove dead bodies of the Emperor's previous and present forgotten concubines.

Yuk Huan was determined not to have this experience fall upon her. She begged the chief eunuch by giving him her only precious jade bangle, which was eventually returned to her once she won the emperor's favour. Everything seemed to be going to Yuk Huan's direction: she became pregnant, her family was brought to the capital so that she could be near to them and she was a favourite of the emperor.

Without tragedy, this series would not be entertaining. Yuk Huan discovered that one of the emperor's concubines, Concubine Li, had an affair with the imperial doctor who had saved her brother during the epidemic. After having a miscarriage, she thought that the concubine killed her baby. She told everything about the affair to another concubine, Concubine Wei, who was the real culprit, when she was drunk. So, the poor Concubine Li was executed together with her son and her lover. Yuk Huan was in despair over their deaths.

This series also covered the part where Yuk Huan adopted her son, An Lu Shan, who was a general of Turkish descent. In the end, Yuk Huan met her death by hanging herself after the An Lu Shan revolt broke out. The emperor had no choice but to execute the order in order to please his officials.

Overall, I found that this series did not follow the real life of Yuk Huan. For instance:

1. Although it did show that she was sent to a convent to become a nun, that incident was based on the prophecy that the great Tang dynasty would collapse if the emperor married a Yang female. This was not true at all according to the real event. She was sent to a convent after she caught the attention of the old emperor during a family meal. At that time, she was married to the emperor's son.

2. The emperor in this series was a young man, which was again a big mistake. The real emperor was an old man and he was the father-in-law of Yang Yuk Huan.

3. This series was mainly based on the film 'Raise the Red Lantern' by Zhang Yi Mou, with Gong Li as the main actress. The miscarriage, the execution of Concubine Li and the imperial doctor, and the evil Concubine Wei bore distinctive similarity to the film. I wondered why TVB would mix the story with the legend of Yang Gu Fei.

Performance:

The actors in this series were stiff and did not really perform their best skills, except the actress who played the good concubine. She was not bad at her acting. In fact, I liked to watch her part of the story. I just can't stand the scenes between Yang Yuk Huan and the emperor. They were nauseating.

TVB could not make this series as real as possible. What a shame. It seemed to me that they were desperate to produce a series just for the sake of producing. What a disappointment.