The Spirit of Love

Cantonese: Ching Ling Chow Tiem

Episodes: 20

Cast:
Nadia Chen Chung Ling - Tung Tung
Frankie Lam - Sing Goh (Brother)
Tsang Wai Kuen - Yang Chung Tai
Kenneth Chan - Cook's son
Choh Yuen - Lo Si Fu
Vivien Lai Su Yan - Chung Chung
Gordon Lam - extra (before he was famous)

Intro and Synopsis:

The Spirit of Love is another TVB drama that stars Nadia Chen. This drama came out in 1993 and had a colourful cast (as mentioned above - those are the names I actually remembered). This was a lighthearted series that casted Nadia as a cute and loving spirit that protected a hotel.

The story begins with the whole Nadia-being-the-Land-God-for-an-area thing. However in a fire accident, she, or rather he, was sent up to heaven. Nadia as a Land God was condemned to death, but viewers learn in this part, that the traditional Chinese heaven had been modified into a technological entity. The role of 'gods' had moved on to become spirit protectors [ching ling] of a place. Nadia as the Land God didn't realise this because 'he' had not returned to heaven in a very long time.

Yet as the "Land God" was being put to death, there was a malfunction in the oven and out popped Tung Tung, Nadia's role in this drama. Tung Tung doesn't remember anything at all and turned into this very cute girl. The god that was to carry out her death wondered what had gone wrong but didn't want any problems, so kicked Tung Tung out of heaven and sent her to replace the old 'ching ling' of a run-down hotel on earth.

In the hotel however, Tung Tung meets the old protector (Choh Yuen) who tricks her and in the end Tung Tung becomes his student; calling him Lo Si Fu as he tries to plot his way out of not being sent back up to heaven.

This is the hotel where most of the story takes place as Tung Tung meets and befriends many friends who would change her views on human nature. However, one of the rules to being a 'ching ling' means that they can't reveal themselves to humans, so what Tung Tung was doing was very much against the rules.

This drama was separated into four different main stories with 1-2 side stories interwoven with Tung Tung's quest to protect the place. Frankie Lam was in the first story playing a stunt man with an acting crew. Then came the second story with Tsang Wai Kuen, whose girlfriend tries to sue the hotel for a fraud accident. The third story deals with a female ghost that Lo Si Fu knows. Finally the last main story introduces the fact that the hotel has two owners; thereby bringing in the character of Chung Chung (Vivien) and her mother.

Tung Tung would also discover a romance of her own in the hotel. Her romance would come in the form of a pig ching ling that turns into a really handsome guy who calls himself Hero. I don't remember the name of this guy but he was in several old TVB dramas. The drama finally ends with Hero, Tung Tung and Lo Si Fu having died and then reincarnated and going back to the hotel.

Review:

Now this is a series I definitely recommend seeing for anyone who is a fan of Nadia or any of the other minor characters. This series remains a favourite of mine. However there are some points which I didn't like in the series. The ghost story had the most peculiar ending as I didn't like the way it ended with the small girl leaving with her parents.

Of course then towards the end when the hotel was in shambles because of a fire, nearly all the cast that was in the earlier stories came back. It was not really stressed about who came back and who didn't.

This drama, as I recalled, was made during the time when Nadia was beginning to appeal to children, so TVB used this drama to appeal to the younger audience. I liked the OP of this series as well as the comedic parts of the drama. Throughout the story there were sparks of humour like when Tung Tung discovered she hated durians or when Hero discovered that he loved Tung Tung and ended up with his hair looking like he was electrocuted.