Yang's Saga

As much as I despise Wong Jing's tactic of bringing a hoardful of popular artists together in one series, I fell in love helplessly with this TVB series that used the similar technique. To be fair, this serial was produced as an anniversary series, thus very short in length and was basically the only fault that I could find with it.

The detailed summary with spoiler can be found at Felix Wong's web site: http://lavender.fortunecity.com/stroheim/638/saga.html

The series told a typical tragedy of the Yang family. The plot was nothing new to the fans of the lore of the Yang warriors, but the acting given out by the most famous stars at the time was superb. Given that each character lacked development due to limited length of episodes, everyone did a fine job portraying his/her role.

The fighting although coupled with laser light here and there had some good on-hand combats, which are rare in the recent ancient series.

On Artists
Chow Yun Fat came across as the mischievous deity that caused a lot of misery to the Yang well. Other veteran actresses such as Dodo Cheung, Angie Chiu, and Lisa Wang graced the serial with one scene appearance. Incidentally, Angie Chiu had her own series portraying a young princess who later became Goddess of Mercy, Guan Yim. Lisa Wang was also in the role of Hua Shan Goddess in the other series too.

Within the Yang family, the 80's serial fans would recognize their favorite actors and actresses such as Tse Ling, Kathy Chow, Carina Lau, Yeung Pan Pan, Au Yeung Pan Pan, etc. Of course, the legendary 5 Tigers -- Miu Kiu Wei, Felix Wong, Andy Lau, Tony Leung, and Kent Tong -- were included in the series. The first four portrayed the Yang brothers while Kent Tong was a Song prince.

I found the youngest son of the Yang the most lovable due to Tony Leung's charisma on screen. He was the most mischievous son of all seven and almost caused death to his family once. His love life was also strange, as he was made to marry a beautiful bandit (Margie Tsang). Actually, both were from heaven in their previous lives and had been sent to earth because of their love.

I couldn't help feeling sad for the fourth and fifth wives, especially the fourth one (Mimi Kung). She discovered that her husband (Miu Kiu Wei) was alive just to realize that he had become a husband to a Liao princess (Jamie Chic). The chemistry between Miu Kiu Wei and Jamie Chiek was great, as they are also the couple in real life.

Costumes
This category really deserved a merit of its own. As most 80's series, the clothing was so gorgeous. I love to see those silken material and the old style costumes like in the Chinese opera plays. Emperor and women's headdresses were beautiful; something to watch along with the artists' faces.

Recommendation
I am sinned with the infatuation here, as I am a big fan of the 80's artists. Therefore, it is my bias opinion to think it is worth while viewing. Overall, it was a very impressive series that I can never get tired of watching. I only wished it a bit longer so that some characters would have more screen appearances and show more development.