Worst/weirdest miscasts in wuxia adaptations?
Certain castings in wuxia adaptations just make viewers go, "WTF?!" Sometimes an actor/actress, even a very talented one whose acting skills are not in question, simply doesn't fit the role that he/she is asked to play and the results are jarringly incongruous.
One infamous example is the casting of the then-late thirtysomething Lawrence Ng as the no-older-than-twenty-five Cheung Mo Gei in TVB's HSDS 2000. Ng's skills were adequate to carry the role, but his relatively advanced age left many viewers wondering why a younger actor wasn't cast as the obviously younger character.
As notorious as Ng's portrayal of Cheung Mo Gei was, I don't think it was even the most egregious miscast in adaptation history. In my own viewing experience, the worst miscast ever was the actress that TVB selected to play the role of Lee Chou Sui in DGSD '81. Lee Chou Sui was supposedly an exquisite beauty - one who greatly resembled her granddaughter Wong Yu Yin and whose beauty had not been diminished by age. So who did TVB select to portray Lee Chou Sui in DGSD '81? TVB chose one of its middle-aged actresses who, though a terrific actress who was fantastic at portraying a wide range of quirky characters, was also by NO STRETCH OF THE IMAGINATION anything close to being a "beauty."
Truly...I was shocked years later when readers of the novel told me that Lee Chou Sui had been a great beauty because from the actress' portrayal of the character in DGSD '81, "beautiful woman" was the FARTHEST thing from my mind. Even though the dialogue of DGSD '81 indicated that Lee Chou Sui had indeed been a beautiful woman, I think my mind paved over that dialogue because it wasn't matching what my eyes were showing me on the screen!