Where the Legend Begins

"In war times, peach blossoms are pushed along by the waves of the river…"

This metaphor-filled phrase aptly described the life of the main character of "Where the Legend Begins" ("Legend"). Yen Fok was the perfect woman. Radiantly beautiful, intelligent, learned, sensitive and kind-hearted, she was the embodiment of both internal and external beauty. It was this legendary beauty that cast her into a life she had little control of.

The story took place in the last days of the once glorious Han dynasty and the beginning of a period in Chinese history known as the era of the Three Kingdoms. The story began with the sacking of the city of Nip by Cao Cao’s army. Yen Fok and her family were "captured" in the battle and were brought back to Cao’s household as special guests. She instantly became the focus of the Cao males. Her admirers included Cao Cao himself, his elder son, Cao Pei and his youngest son, Cao Ji. A love quadrangle ensued. She deftly sidestepped the senior Cao’s romantic advances by declaring that her feelings for him were admiration and not love. The rest of the story was about the power struggle between Cao Pei and Cao Ji, with both vying not only for the position of the crown prince but also for the hand of the beautiful Yen Fok. Deep down, Yen Fok had long fallen for the care-free, kindhearted and poetically talented Cao Ji and they were in fact deeply in love. The rout of Cao Cao’s million strong forces in the Battle of the Red Wall sealed the fate of Cao Ji and set the love tragedy into motion. With the failure at Red Wall, Cao Cao saw his final opportunity of personally overthrowing the Han dynasty evaporate. He reckoned correctly that even though his youngest son would make an excellent emperor, he would have been too loyal to the Han dynasty to overthrow it. Wanting desperately for the Cao family to establish a new dynasty, he pinned his final hopes on the ruthless but much more practical Cao Pei by naming him the heir. He also declared that the future emperor would win the hand of the immensely popular Yen Fok because she could help him build rapport with the ordinary people. With that one decree, Cao Ji lost everything: the empire, his true love and his comradeship with his brother. Soon after Cao Cao’s death, Cao Pei, with the help of Sima Yi, forced the abdication of the Han Emperor and declared himself the new Emperor of the Wei Dynasty. His dead father’s dream was finally realized. Still regarding his brother Cao Ji as a threat, Cao Pei placed him in virtual exile far from the capital. Even though Yen Fok was now his wife and she even bore him a son, the flame of jealousy continued to burn strongly in the heart of Cao Pei. When he heard the malicious but false rumour that his son was in fact that of his brother’s, he was momentarily blinded by a jealous rage and ordered the death of Yen Fok. With the death of Yen Fok, Cao Ji became a broken man. The story finally came to its tragic conclusion.

The discussion of the story line of "Legend" would not be complete without at least a brief mention of the legend aspect of the show. The legend was in fact a supernatural one. According to the story, Yen Fok was the mortal embodiment of the Goddess of the River Luo ("Lok Sun" in Cantonese) who was punished to descend to Earth for causing a clash between her husband and another God in the Heavens. The idea was for her to live through the same experience in the mortal world and "learn" from her suffering. This is the Zen concept of achieving higher karma by reliving and learning from past errors. At the end of the show, it was suggested that Yen Fok would reunite with Cao Ji after their deaths and finally able to realize their unfulfilled love in immortal eternity.

Cast and Performances:

Ada Choi as Yen Fok: Although I never thought of Ada Choi as a raving beauty, her "melon-seed" shaped face did add to her portrayal as a classic beauty. It is a difficult task to play a perfect woman and especially early in the serial, I think Ada tried a little bit too hard and could be accused of over-acting. However, she settled down and put in an excellent performance. She showed the ability to display a wide spectrum of emotions. I especially enjoyed the scene where she suddently turned vicious toward Kwok Huen, warning her that she would do everything in her power to protect the future of her young son. Ada’s acting skills certainly showed a great deal of maturity in this show.

Steven Ma as Cao Ji: Steven Ma was a great choice for the role. He did a great job playing the cavalier Cao Ji early in the serial. His carefully-metered poem recital and his rhythmic swordplay brought to life a multi-talented and sensitive soul. The performance was very believable. However, I think what really set him apart in the serial was the natural melancholic character of his eyes. As Cao Ji’s fortunes with both his career and love started faltering, his sense of sadness and hopelessness was expressed beautifully with his eyes. He also did a great job in the scene of the "Seven Step Poem", where you could totally identify with his feeling of betrayal as his brother was trying to push him to his death. Cao Ji was an exercise in contrast between the cavalier and the disillusioned, and Steven Ma was able to capture both sides of the character.

Sonija Kwok as Kwok Huen: She could have been a wonderful villainess and to a certain degree, I guess she did make me hate her quite a bit, especially toward the end of the serial. However, her acting skills have not sufficiently matured to carry the character to its fullest potential. That probably would come with experience. Putting her next to the prettier and much more capable Ada Choi did not help matters either as the latter easily outshone her in every aspect.

Moses Chan as Cao Pei: He did a credible but a rather average job. Even though I think his demeanor did fit in well with his character, his performance was somewhat limited by the narrow range of expressions he managed to display. Out of all the emotions, he seemed to have played jealousy the best.

Lau Dan as Cao Cao: Lau Dan is an experienced actor and it showed. Cao Cao was portrayed to be a complex character in the script, possessing both a ruthless and evil side as well as an intelligent and sensitive side. Lau Dan was able to capture the ambivalent nature of the character well. His smile (grin) has always been one of his strengths. In a smile, he is able to convey happiness as well as evilness. He took great advantage of this skill in the serial. The first time I saw Lau Dan was in the classic, "The Bund". I was impressed then, but he certainly has improved even more over the years. Bravo!

Final Comments: Of History and Fiction
A few of my friends who have watched this serial complained about the lack of historical authenticity of the show. There is no doubt that the scriptwriter took a fair amount of liberty with historic facts in the serial. However, one should remember that good history does not necessarily make good drama. A case in point is the number of so-called historically accurate epics that were produced in the Mainland. I have generally found them to be tedious and boring. In contrast, despite a slow start, the "Legend" drama was highly entertaining and gathered great momentum toward the end of the show. The history within, though imperfect, created a consistent enough framework throughout to make the story believable. One of the greatest complaints about the serial was the overly gentle portrayal of Cao Cao. I learned from my early childhood that Cao Cao was the bad guy of that era. I have always loved Liu Bei and his sidekick Zhuge Liang. However, the judgement of Cao Cao by early historians was in fact more mixed. It was not until the 15th to 16th century that the notion of Cao Cao as a villain became popular. I think Cao Cao’s real character must have been a complex one. There is no doubt that he could be ruthless when his self-interests were being threatened. Even in the "Legend" show, he was ready to slaughter the whole clan of Hung Yung, a good minister whom he admired deeply before, when Hung dared to stand in his way. Yet, he was also shown to be a highly intelligent man, a decent father and even a man sensitive to the suffering of the people. I think the multi-faceted Cao was in fact a truer representation of the person. History is seldom a perfect record of the events of a particular era. History has always been manipulated for political or otherwise trivial purposes. Historians were usually appointed by the imperial courts in imperial China. Historians were therefore biased to begin with. Contemporary court-appointed historians were more likely to glorify the activities of the imperial court in power while historians of a later dynasty might revise historical records to villainize emperors that their masters had overthrown. Don’t think that this kind of impropriety was only confined to ancient times; try finding evidence of the Massacre of Nanking in Japanese history texts and you would understand what I mean. Lastly, I think many viewers (myself included) tend to wonder who Yen Fok really was. Was there such a historical figure? I think Lady Tsen was the closest. However, there were significant differences between Yen Fok in the show and Lady Tsen. Lady Tsen was the widow of Yuan, the commander of the forces that Cao Cao defeated. She was also considerably older than Yen in the show. In fact, Lady Tsen was a few years the senior of Cao Pei and almost twice the age of Cao Ji. Does one sense a bit of oedipal affection of Lady Tsen by the younger Cao? By choosing to make Yen Fok a younger and still un-married woman, the writer had in fact transformed her into a much more attractive and perfect heroine. In the end, is total historical authenticity all that important? Personally, I would rather read a text to learn history. I watch TV serials to be entertained and "Legend" filled the bill for me.