War of In Laws

Characters
Liza Wang as Suk Lan
Myolie Wu as Sup Yut
Bosco Wong as Muo Chun

Genre: Humor/Drama

Plot Briefly:
Muo Chun is the son of the Suk Lan Gak Gak, who is the cousin of the current Empress of the Ching Dynasty. Suk Lan is a very arrogant woman, who prances about the place as though she is the queen of the world. And unfortunately, she is nearly so! Even though she is the wife of the third son of the Ling family, she is blatantly in charge of everything. Even the judge of the province she lives in must do as she wants even if it involves a young girl being embarrassed because Suk Lan has found a better daughter-in-law for her son. What she doesn't expect is that accidentally Sup Yut, in her attempt to escape the guards, pretends to be the girl that the emperor himself was going to marry. Sup Yut is carried off and forced to marry the mummy's boy, Muo Chun. She is quite disappointed to say the least: her husband is weak, and does all his mum tells him. What sort of man is that?! But appearances are deceiving. Sup Yut at first plays along pretending to be the elegant girl that everyone thinks she is. But of course, a mountain bandit's daughter cannot write, read, play the piano or draw! The cover is blown, and Sup Yut lets her mother-in-law know, that despite her status, Suk Lan will not outwin her in anything. This enrages Suk Lan, and both of them plan to get each other. Suk Lan tries to get her son to divorce Sup Yut, but too late, Muo Chun has fallen for the sassy Sup Yut.

Characters & Actor's Performances:

Suk Lan by Liza Wang: This woman is obnoxious and very arrogant. The worse thing is everyone respects her, and listens to her. No one will oppose her! That is until Sup Yut turns up! She frustrated me heaps, with the way in which she tried to force Sup Yut to leave. Especially the bits with Ling San. Liza did a good job with Suk Lan except the bits where it got serious, and she was trying to be remorseful and sad. It just didn't move me!

Sup Yut by Myolie Wu: Sassy, a bit on the rough side being a mountain bandit's daughter and grown up with a bunch of guys. She has a kind heart, and a sense of righteousness. She is the best when having a yelling match with Suk Lan. Perfect, and I absolutely applauded her every time she won their little matches! The scenes when Mau Chun ignored her and was with Ling san, and Sup Yut was so hurt, so pissed off yet she had to bear through it: these were fantastic, and almost made me cry! The unfairness of the situation, I wanted to kill Mau Chun!! I can find no flaw at all with this actress. She did her role perfectly. Even though she was rough and manly, she was just wonderful in this role. Also, the character is a perfect match with Mau Chun. They're so cute together! I just wish there were more scenes of them together!

Mau Chun by Bosco Wong: He was the wimpy, mummy's boy. Not a man at all, as Sup Yut often criticised of him. Yet she even noticed that he had a good heart, and he truly cared for her with the little things he did for her. This was all before she discovered that he was But Lau Ming! This rebel dressed in black with a silver mask, was just hot!! He could fight, and with that little metallic whip of his? Sigh! He saved Sup Yut heaps of times, he was brave, righteous and fought against evil, AND gave money to the beggars. Sup Yut falls for the courageous But Lau Ming not realizing that it was her husband. When she does discover, what a surprise she has as he proves his identity with his martial skills. Afterwards their relationship is better, with Mau Chun acting more himself. That is more manly! And their relationship grows.

Ling San by Chan Ho Yee: this girl annoyed me from the very start. 1) Because I knew she liked Mau Chun she was so obvious but 2) Mostly because she just can't act. She was fine as the little girl, who was innocent, sweet and kind. But when she decided to be evil, manipulative and ruin Sup Yut and Mau Chun's plans, it just didn't work. She looked weird when they showed the close-ups of her evil face. The actress was just terrible. She either needs lessons, or needs to find another job. Harsh, but very true.

Other characters: They didn't really stick out in my mind, and I guess that was the purpose of the series really. There was a side story with Hao Hao (Christine Ng) and Fung Thuk (Shek Sau), and a love triangle that takes place between these two and Suk Lan.

General Comments:
I absolutely loved the first 15 episodes of this series. Funny and cute! I especially loved the little romance between Sup Yut and Muo Chun. But then Ling San came along, to be evil and steal Muo Chun from Sup Yut despite their plans to just trick Suk Lan. It just didn't fit (I guess this is due to incredibly bad acting!). She was innocent, sweet, naïve, and then suddenly all this malicious manipulative stuff came out. It may have been carried out if the actress wasn't so bad! I mean, look at "Heaven Sword Dragon Sabre"! Charmaine was innocent, sweet, kind etc, and her transition to evil was convincing! Another flaw of the story: to me, I didn't see how logical the huge fiasco with Ling San being dumped by Muo Chun, would cause her to become crazy.
Anyway, and then the drama that takes place in the latter part of the series, just didn't really fit with the rest of the series, that was cute and funny! It was as though they tried to make it more serious, more meaningful and memorable for the audience. But I think that was the mistake! Because this series surely would have been memorable for me if it continued to be funny. I mean, there's serious and then there's dramatic serious. I cannot suggest a different ending but surely such a serious turn of events in such a mostly light hearted, cute funny series is too big of a change! Perhaps if the scriptwriters had written the story better with not so much emphasis on light-hearted comedy, then the seriousness of the last few episodes would not have been such a strange transition.

Favourite Scenes:
- The argument that Mau Chun had between himself and But Lao Ming, when Sup Yut appeared to be in love with the brave and courageous But Lao Ming
- Sup Yut is learning some martial arts to help her win the best wife competition. And as she does she slips, and But Lau Ming catches her. (this reminds me vividly of a TOB scene with blossoms!)
- When Sup Yut competes to be the best wife, and she does this martial arts dance in front of the emperor. It was so good!!
- when But Lao Ming was trying to repulse Sup Yut by being a perverted Buk Lao Ching
- When But Lao Ming was preparing to go out to do some work for the beggars and Sup Yut nagged him. He was all manly and told her to sit down! And she did!
- When Muo Chun went against his mother and told her that there was no way he would divorce Sup Yut because he loved her!
- All the scenes when Sup Yut used her fake pregnancy to make her mother in law do stuff for her!

Overall Opinion:
I recommend this, despite the few flaws of the last few episodes. It's a cute, funny little comedy that will make you smile. I certainly looked forward to watching what would happen next in the first 15 episodes. And Myolie and Bosco look really good together!! My rating for this is 4 out of 5.