Ghost Writer 《蒲松齡》

[galvatron]

Ghost Writer
Casting: Steven Ma, Chan Kam Hung, Linda Chung, Fala Chen, Yueh Hua, Chan Sau Chu, Lau Tan, Chu Wai Man

Executive Producer: Leung Choi Yuen Scriptwriter: Ng Siu Tong Sit Ka Wah
PO CHUNG-LING (Steven Ma) was born in Jinan a family of New Year print. He is very bright, his father, PO POON (Yueh Hua), has therefore always hoped that he could one day carry on the family business. LING, mistakenly thinks that POON is working in collusion with some corrupt officials, refuses to listen to what his father says. His good friend, KO JIT (Chan Kam Hung), is a constable and he hates corrupt officials as much as LING does. Rumor has it that a fox spirit is creating troubles in Jinan. LING is almost killed when he is investigating into the matter with JIT. Fortunately, a mysterious girl named LING WU SIU-TSUI (Fala Chen) comes to his rescue in the nick of time. It turns out later that she is the fox spirit, and that she saves LING so as to return a past favor. As they spend more and more time together, TSUI starts to fall for LING.
The PO family has secured a large order of New Year print. To ensure the work can be finished in time they have to hire a large numbers of female workers. LAU SUM-YU (Linda Chung) applies for the job, but her real intention is to look for the man who was unfaithful to her sister, never knowing that she would later be caught in a love triangle with LING and JIT…
Link
http://b.tvb.com/tvbi/?p=3323&preview=true

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[smurf120]

High hopes in the beginning. Now its pretty meh...

[Ian Liew]

Fala looks a little like Athena Chu in those pics.. minus the X factor, of course, but pretty close. Her acting can (and does) only get better though, so hopefully this will be a breakthrough for her.

It's hard to see any show with Steven, Linda and Sunny completely bomb, though. It's not quite wuxia (come on TVB, I know you can do at least one a year) but it's at least a kungfu serial, which is a good start. Looking forward to it here!

[ByTmE]

I've been kind of anticipating this series since I've always loved the work of the actual Pu Songling...he's trippy haha. But I wonder [since it's TVB] if they will focus on the author's personal life more or if they are on his inspirations for his stories? Or maybe it will be how the former begets the latter? I'd like to catch him daydreaming about each story in his head as a result of his real life experiences or interpret the people around him to be his characters.

I really hope they don't make it totally a romance. Fala is surprisingly pretty here..I've never actually seen her in any costume drama before. Linda, IMHO, has always been a glorified "just average" good lookin' girl. But I still like her 'nuff to watch her stuff.

[smurf120]

The story plays more like a Pu Song Ling story than of a real life story (it has ghosts and spells and fox spirits).

click to show/hide spoilers

Pu Song Ling (Steve Ma) family business is selling festival and good luck paintings.

First couple of episodes feature rich family jealousy/infighting, kissing up to the government, murder, ghosts, and fox spirits. Then rinse.. repeat.. Something about love story. If you've ever seen a TVB ghost story, well, its probably more boring.

Some foreshadowing that Chan Kam Hong will turn into spiteful bad guy over loss of love to Steve.

So realistic historical drama this is not.

[bachtuyet]

who is the lead linda or fala

[QF]

I just finished watching this series. Not bad. Better than average.

[bubcas]

OMG! Does that mean Sunny will shave his head since this is during the Qing dynasty too? Hmm...Steven has been doing many Qing dynasty period dramas. I guess he's just taking more roles while he has his head shaved for the roles.

Hmm...Sunny has played evil roles before. Let's just hope TVB gives him a cleverly evil role that is sexy! Hahahaaha...! I would hate it if they give him a stereotypical evil villain role that doesn't really do much.

Hmm...Steven and Fala as a pair? Didn't they just play brother and sister in The Journey of Life? In which Fala was the biggest brat in the world? And in Catch Me Now she was okay but then she got annoying and mistrusting and misunderstanding her husband?

I like Fala in The Stew in Life.

[Exodus]

it was pretty sad ending i have to say. good series overall but certainly tvb could have been it so much better. seems like tvb is having problems producing good series nowadays.

[QF]

it was pretty sad ending i have to say. good series overall but certainly tvb could have been it so much better. seems like tvb is having problems producing good series nowadays.

Why is the ending sad?

click to show/hide spoilers

Pu Song Ling ended up with two chicks. Hardly sad.

[SunnySon]

I prefer fala anyday over kate tsui. can't stand looking at her or her acting.

[Ian Liew]

I want to slap Pu Songling every time he rolls his eyes and gives that arrogant self-righteous sneer at his father's attempts at diplomacy with officials. Hopefully one day he'll realise that not only corrupt businessmen need to have manners in front of authority.

[CBWarm]

Good series overall. Better than average.

[ByTmE]

The series was OK. It started to really drag towards the end though. Maybe it's just me, but Linda Chung just looked so big and bulky in her outfits? Fala Chen was really cute and had surprising screen presence. I love Steven Ma but I hated Po's attitude. Dude, what kind of world do you live in where everything is so fair and just? The magistrate's are corrupt, the government is corrupt, most people are corruptible...deal with it. He created so many problems for his family. While Pu Song Ling was naturally clever, he was not wise at all.

The actress who played Young Lady Ma though was really cute, pretty, and endearing.

[Suet Seung]

Really? I thought Fala Chen looked kinda thick under all those layers of clothing.

What's the point of Po Chung Ling? Is he suppose to become a writer? I think I'm somewhere at episode 15 or somewhere after his father was released from jail and Fala decide to stay to look for her 'brother'.

[Ian Liew]

Really? I thought Fala Chen looked kinda thick under all those layers of clothing.

What's the point of Po Chung Ling? Is he suppose to become a writer? I think I'm somewhere at episode 15 or somewhere after his father was released from jail and Fala decide to stay to look for her 'brother'.

Pu Songling is the author of Strange Tales of Liaozhai, a classic collection of ghost stories (which was dramatised partly by TVB about 15 years ago). This series shows how he ended up rejecting the human world and choosing spirits and demons as his companions for the rest of his life. He expresses his distaste for authority in the human world and normally portrays the spirits as good and the humans as bad in his stories.

It was a really nice series, but suffered towards the last 30% with the classic "I know the ending so lets do silly situations just to end up where we want to end up" so prevalent in annoying serials such as "Born Rich". The ending wasn't really happy, but it's difficult to have much sympathy for Pu Songling due to his arrogant and naive nature. Linda gave another good performance, although I've little sympathy for her too given how long she strung Sunny Chan along in order to advance the plot. Fala, too, turned out rather annoying towards the end (she really doesn't look like a vixen no matter what she wears or how she poses), and by the time the climax came I found I didn't really care about what happened to any of them, although it's a credit to Steve Ma and Linda Chung's acting that the ending was still quite watchable, and the last trial quite well done. The way Linda Chung raises her head when ordered to by Governor Ma was really cool, especially in the themesong. Like Born Rich, the serial had a really really nice themesong which lent a lot of feel to the proceedings, and lifted it above the average series it might have been.

[SunnySon]

Just finished this series, it was not very good. The beginning was good, then it got lame, lamer, lamer, and lamer. It was a cheap production as well.

[skylee]

No one in this series was very likable. Everyone was annoying or stupid in one way or another; all in all, I felt no sympathy for any of the characters, and not even any empathy for the victims. I won't get into all the plot holes since TVB is notorious for those, but the stories were overall ridiculous and grew more and more tedious to watch as the series "progressed".

I had rather high hopes for this serial since I loved Steven in "Safe Guards" and was expecting something of similar quality. Unfortunately, I was left with another subpar TVB production.

[IloveMimiLo]

I actually didn't mind this series much. I became to like Steven Ma and Linda chung as a couple lol. I even went and got A journey called life, the chemistry between them is very good! I hope to see them paired up more in the future!